This article proposes a way of describing the selection of digital preservation actions from an organisational imperative. The intent of this article is to offer terminology that allows an organisation to inform the selection of its digital preservation action approach. The discussion starts by describing some of the decision-making and speculation that the National Library of New Zealand’s (NLNZ) digital preservation programme undertook in the early 2000s, what digital preservation actions might look like as a day-to-day part of the operations of a National Library. It reports on the current domain conversations that pivot around viable digital preservation treatments, specifically emulation and migration actions. The article raises the argument that as practitioners of digital preservation, we require some higher level constructs and direction to inform our treatment selection. The primary proposition of the article is that the organisational approach to preservation should be the starting point for treatment choice, rather than treatment choice informing the generalised organisational approach. The organisational approach is described as two distinct modes: artefactual, the preservation of the artefact; and, informational, the preservation of information. The conjecture of an informational approach verses an artefactual approach is offered to supersede the migration verses emulation debates. This conjecture is developed further and a theorised life cycle of a digital object is offered that describes a blended existence, containing elements of both emulation and migration as valued tools used to promulgate the digital object through time. The article finally offers a number of exemplary use cases from the NLNZ’s digital collections where a new way of thinking about digital preservation treatments is needed to allow meaningful and viable preservation to occur. These use cases describe collection items that are a poor fit to the current organisational model and a future state for these items that might offer a higher chance of successful preservation over time.
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