IM BLOG: The Bit List 2025: Your Annual Wake-Up Call on Digital Endangerment

Released on World Digital Preservation Day (November 6, 2025), the Bit List is a powerful call to action from the global digital preservation community that highlights the digital content most at risk of being lost. Think of it as the digital equivalent of the endangered species list, except instead of tracking pandas and polar bears, we're tracking Adobe Flash animations, legacy interfaces, obsolete storage media and the countless digital materials that are slipping through our collective fingers.

Why This List Matters (and Why You Should Care Every Year)

The Bit List is a free-to-access and open resource for digital preservation advocacy that is revised every two years, with entries nominated by the community who are at the forefront of digital preservation efforts and reviewed by international organisations which represent global expertise. But this isn't just an academic exercise in cataloguing what's at risk. It's designed to equip you with independent evidence that digital materials are critically endangered and that action is required.

When you're sitting in a budget meeting trying to justify resources for migration projects or when you're explaining to leadership why that aging system needs urgent attention, the Bit List gives you authoritative, internationally reviewed evidence to support your case. It's not just you saying ‘this is a problem’ - it's the global digital preservation community backing you up.

The list organises endangered digital materials into risk classifications ranging from Concern through Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered to Practically Extinct. This taxonomy provides nuance that helps prioritise action and communicate urgency effectively.

What's Actually at Risk? (Spoiler: It's More Than You Think)

The current Bit List includes entries that should concern every practitioner:

Practically Extinct:

• Adobe Flash animations and interactive applets
• Legacy interfaces and services offered online by major companies
• Pre-WWW videotext data services and bulletin board services
• Non-current rare portable magnetic media

Critically Endangered:

• Consumer social media content (free at the point of use)
• Digital archives from public enquiries and commissions
• Games with online and offline play components
• Non-current hard disk, portable magnetic, optical and solid-state media
• Records of non-governmental agencies and quasi-NGOs
• Open source intelligence sources from current conflicts

Endangered:

• Corporate records on network drives, intranets and EDRMS
• Cloud-based services and communications platforms
• Born digital photographs and video shared via social media
• Electronic hospital and medical records
• Content published on the web that can't easily be captured through conventional web archiving

Let that sink in for a moment. Corporate records on network drives and EDRMS systems, the very tools many organisations rely on for managing their information, are classified as endangered. Cloud-based services that organisations have migrated to as their ‘modern solution’ are on this list. Social media content that documents our contemporary culture and communication is at risk.

The Practical Application: From Awareness to Action

The Bit List isn't meant to be depressing, it's meant to be motivating. Each entry includes detailed information about why the material is at risk and what practical steps are needed to secure it. This makes it an invaluable tool for:

Business cases and advocacy - use the Bit List when building cases for digital preservation resources, system migrations or format conversions. The internationally reviewed risk assessments provide third-party validation of your concerns.

Risk assessment - cross-reference your organisation's holdings against the Bit List to identify high-risk materials that need immediate attention. If you're managing content in formats or on media that appear on the list, you have evidence-based justification for prioritising them.

Strategic planning - the Bit List helps identify emerging threats before they become crises. The 2024 interim report, for example, noted new concerns around AI's impact on digital preservation, including users deleting content to prevent its use in training AI models and websites blocking scrapers that preservation efforts rely on.

Stakeholder education - when explaining digital preservation to non-specialists, the Bit List provides concrete examples of what's at stake. It moves the conversation from abstract concerns about ‘future access’ to specific, relatable examples of materials that could be lost.

Why the Annual Review Matters

The digital landscape evolves rapidly. Formats that were stable five years ago may now be endangered. Storage media that was current becomes obsolete. Cloud services shut down. Legal frameworks change. Corporate policies shift. The Bit List review cycle ensures the document reflects current realities rather than historic assumptions.

Checking the Bit List regularly should be part of your professional practice. It's not just about staying informed; it's about staying ahead of risks that could affect your organisation's information assets.

Making the Bit List Work for You

Here's how to integrate the Bit List into your information management practice:

Immediate Actions:

• Download the latest Bit List and review it thoroughly
• Cross-reference your organisation's holdings against listed materials
• Identify any matches and assess their business criticality
• Flag high-risk combinations (critically endangered + mission critical) for urgent action

Ongoing Practice:

• Set a reminder to review the Bit List when new editions are released
• Include Bit List references in risk registers and preservation plans
• Use the list as evidence in funding requests and project proposals
• Share relevant entries with colleagues managing affected content

Community Engagement:

• Nominate at-risk digital materials you've identified in your own work
• Participate in the feedback process to improve future editions
• Share how you've used the Bit List in your advocacy efforts

The Bottom Line: Evidence-Based Advocacy

The Bit List represents thousands of hours of work by digital preservation experts around the world. It's peer-reviewed, internationally recognised and freely available. For records and information management professionals, it's one of the most powerful tools available for evidence-based advocacy.

When someone questions whether that migration project is really necessary, you can point to the Bit List. When budget cuts threaten digital preservation activities, you can reference the Bit List. When you're trying to explain why ‘just keeping it in the cloud’ isn't a preservation strategy, the Bit List provides the evidence.

The 2025 edition is now available, and it reflects the current state of digital endangerment based on community expertise and international review. Don't let it gather digital dust. Read it, use it, share it and let it inform your preservation priorities for the year ahead.

Because if the materials you're responsible for appear on the Bit List and you do nothing, you're not just failing to preserve the past, you're actively watching it disappear. The Bit List gives you the evidence and the urgency. Now it's up to you to act on it.

DPC Global 'Bit List' of Digital Materials - Digital Preservation Coalition

Meet your blog author:

 

Peta Sweeney CXRIM FRIM (Life), Information and Content Specialist, RIMPA Global