A number of issues have recently begun to make the preservation of digital resources a matter of general concern. This concern has been pushed to the forefront in the light of a number of issues; the most pressing being the realisation that a rapidly digitising world cannot be recorded or preserved using methods which, in some cases, are centuries old and primarily focused on paper archival resources. Those creating new historical digital resources should be aware of the importance of long-term usability and preservation, both for themselves and for potential secondary users.

Data archiving is not particularly new to specialist social scientists. The Data Archive at the University of Essex has been established for over twenty years, with a collection dominated by social science material. Yet for historians the provision of archiving services and facilities is relatively new, beginning formally with the establishment of a history-specific service in 1992. This chapter intends to highlight some broad guidelines to good practice, in order that resource creators may take measures to ensure the long-term usefulness of their data which will ultimately be held by a national data archive. Of necessity, this chapter will take a more technical focus as the key issues involve a relatively detailed discussion of data cleanliness, software problems and data formats. The ability to preserve and share data is at the very centre of the development of a healthy and dynamic computer-using scholarly community. It is the responsibility of data creators to embrace these principles as best that they can.