At present, originators (i.e., authors and publishers) are responsible for preserving the electronic documents they publish. There is a danger that publishers will not be willing or able to archive documents without commercial value. Therefore, in the future institutions whose interest in archiving goes beyond immediate economic consideration should be responsible. Electronic archiving is more expensive than print archiving, and small libraries may not be able to do it. Large institutions and national or state libraries, which can keep up with changing technology, remain the possible candidates. Legal deposit regulations, which currently exist for print media, could be extended so that also electronic publications are required to be deposited in national libraries. Legal deposit regulations in the United States have already been changed accordingly, so that a copy of all electronic publications must be deposited in the Library of Congress.
According to the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information, institutions ``must meet or exceed the standards for archival certification'' (Garrett and Waters, 1996) if they want to become certified digital archives. Minimum requirements include the guarantee to provide access to electronic publications, even if the initial vendor has disappeared and the original system configuration is no longer available, as well as the provision of ``a critical fail-safe system [...] in order to actively and aggressively rescue electronic publications which are in acute danger''. Exact definitions to determine which institutions are eligible for becoming digital archives will vary in different countries. However, guidelines and criteria should be established in order to provide a general framework for international standards.