Innovation is one of those words that is as loaded as it is
inescapable. It appears constantly on billboards, TV commercials
and political speeches. I’ll wager every big organization in the
world lays claim to the concept through a mission statement or
some other purported self-description. Our hopes for improved
institutional outcomes–from schools, from hospitals, from
governments–are all stoked by a devotion to the glimmering
promise of doing things better in a new way. What about digital
preservation? Is innovation the key to dealing with all that
valuable digital data? This is, of course, an very unsatisfying
answer. Innovation should be the answer to everything, most
especially to all things digital. “Never before in history has
innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a
time,” is a quote attributed Bill Gates, and at first glance it
seems to ring with a self-evident truth. When considered from
the popular perspective of innovation, digital preservation
looks like a straightforward ch