Public administration has a very strict obligation to preserve documents according to many laws and regulations. However, associations, private- and business sector does not belong under this obligation unless they are performing statutory mission. According to accounting obligation, every quarter that performs business or professional activity is accountable. Still in a worst case scenario, the only preserved document might be the mandatory one, which is stored on active hard disk. Archiving technology as well as information technology advances rapidly, but IT devices suitable for long term preservation do not belong to the off-the-shelves category. Lots of micro history (information, data, material and physical objects) disappear due to lack of people who possess enough know-how to understand the relevance and importance of preservation for the future. For example, 20 years of information from the Karelian evacuees disappeared from one local association after the “archivist” passed away and heirs get rid of all the “junk” that was found at the attic. The final obstacle to the preservation, in spite the technology, might be lack of a concrete plan and way of storing something. This again culminates in lack of a properly educated person who could establish an applicable preservation plan and obtain the required devices or services for required actions. From these starting points we at the Mikkeli University of Applied Science (MUAS) are aiming towards general preservation education that would greatly increase the preservation foundations of citizens. This paper and work behind it was conducted in an EU project funded by ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) programme for Eastern Finland
Anssi Jääskeläinen, Mirja Loponen, "Preservation is no Preservation without Proper Education" in Proc. IS&T Archiving 2013, 2013, pp 61 - 65, https://doi.org/10.2352/issn.2168-3204.2013.10.1.art00014