According to the definition of the ALCTS Preservation and Reformatting Section, Working Group on Defining Digital Preservation:
"Digital preservation combines policies, strategies and actions to ensure access to reformatted and born digital content regardless of the challenges of media failure and technological change. The goal of digital preservation is the accurate rendering of authenticated content over time."
Thus, digital preservation may involve the preservation of, for example, images of physical documents such as letters, or electronic files, such as text documents and email messages.