Impact at a glance
Deposit totals as of April 2026; associate member deposits rolled up to sustaining member. All figures reflect the 12 institutions that permitted world-aggregate sharing.
Preserved content — growth & scale
Cumulative content preserved over time
Community crossed 500 TB in 2025. The past two years alone account for more than half of all content ever deposited.
New content deposited each year
2025 saw +169.5 TB added — more than any prior year. 2026* is through April only and already on a strong pace.
Storage tier distribution
Content is distributed across Deep Archive and High Assurance tiers.
Expected new deposits (calendar year)
Deposit projections are broadly stable year-over-year, with most institutions expecting 1–50 TB of new deposits in both 2026 and 2027.
What's being preserved
Content types deposited to APTrust — frequency across 12 institutions
The community
Years of continuous membership
Average tenure is 9.6 years among these 12 institutions. Two-thirds have been members for over a decade.
Tenure at a glance
- 5
- Founding-era members, 13–14 years
- 3
- Long-term members, 10–12 years
- 1
- Mid-tenure member, 4 years
- 3
- Recent members, 1–3 years
Strong retention across founding, established, and newly onboarded members reflects lasting value in the shared infrastructure model.
Staffing & operational scale
DP FTEs across 12 institutions
Most DP programs operate with a single dedicated FTE — underscoring why shared community infrastructure is especially valuable.
Local storage volume (all 12)
Tools used across the community
Reported by 12 institutions. Format identification and transfer tools appear most frequently, reflecting the workflow reality of lean programs that must characterize, move, and verify content reliably.
3 institutions also rely on custom-built in-house systems not listed here.
Institutional challenges (past 12 months)
Challenge types reported
6 of 12 institutions in this group reported at least one challenge.
Greatest resource needs
Counts reflect institutions citing each category; one institution may cite multiple needs.
Workflows & deposit automation
Current deposit workflow
Desired deposit workflow
Current initiatives
Digital preservation strengths
Pillars of DP program strength
Themes identified from open-text responses across 12 institutions.
Administrative support is the dominant theme — cited by two-thirds of respondents — underscoring how community infrastructure like APTrust enables programs to sustain and grow even when internal resources are limited.
Broader preservation ecosystem
Repository & preservation platforms in use
Systems reported (commercial, non-commercial, and repository software). Institutions often run multiple platforms for different collection types.
View platform data as table
| Platform | Institutions (of 12) |
|---|---|
| DSpace | 4 |
| Hyrax / Fedora | 3 |
| Archivematica | 2 |
| Preservica | 2 |
| Archive-It | 2 |
| ArchivesSpace | 2 |
| Figshare or Esploro | 2 |
| CONTENTdm | 1 |
Infrastructure hosting model
How institutions host their preservation and repository systems. Institutions may appear in more than one category.
- 10
- Locally hosted
- of 12 institutions
- 5
- SaaS
- vendor-managed cloud
- 2
- Cloud IaaS
- self-managed in cloud
Most institutions run significant local infrastructure alongside APTrust — underscoring why shared cloud preservation reduces duplicated investment.
Other preservation organizations members belong to
Interest in sponsoring associate members
9 Sustaining Members have established — or are actively establishing — Associate Members.
Barriers cited: lack of viable candidates, unclear infrastructure requirements.