As a result of the rapid evolution of hardware and software technology, outdated or obsolete data formats, software version upgrades, technology failure, security issues, and other issues associated with technology improvements, ensuring the long-term survival of digital information is one of the greatest challenges in digital library research. Digital preservation not only involves the ability to preserve the binary digits (stream of bits) representing digital records, but the authenticity and meaning of the information must also be preserved.

Lister Hill Center research addresses all aspects of digital preservation including studying "migration" and "emulation," the proposed methods for supporting long-term survival of digital information; building an experimental migration framework for converting, analyzing and testing migration to and from various open standard file formats; identification of the critical elements of digital files that must be preserved for successful migration; investigation of emerging preservation metadata standards; experimentation of various types of storage media and file formats; and selecting standards and technologies that are deemed useful for preserving digital resources at the National Library of Medicine (NLM).