This article presents a comprehensive reflection on digital preservation policies for archival documents, with emphasis on maintaining the reliability and guaranteed access in long-term. Thus, the following aspects are covered: the development of information technologies; the advent of digital document; the use of open standards; the use of metadata; related costs; the security; and planning of preservation in long-term. The methodology consists of search bibliographic and documentary, composed of previously published material, including: books, theses, dissertations, texts on Internet sites and articles in scientific journals indexed in Google Scholar. It is a literature review, which mainly addresses contemporary works published in the last fifteen years, period when discussions on digital preservation have widened. Thus, the collected data is processed by qualitative analysis and subsequently structured in thematic sections that link the main theoretical barriers.
Digital archival documents; Digital preservation; Digital preservation policies; Reliability; Digital documents