Abstract
The definition of the "digital archives" is ambiguous; various types of organizations, such as web archives, digital museum, data archives and so on, which collect original material in digital form has been called digital archives. This study gives some concrete examples of digital archives and discusses their good effect and problems.
Although the good effect given by digitalizing materials is acknowledged widely, the evaluation of digital archives is not easy; for instance, the cost effectiveness is difficult to estimate. One of the roles of the digital archives is to preserve cultural assets; most of them have been founded and operated by government or public organizations. The future of the digital archives might depend on whether the value of them would be given social consensus of their cost effectiveness.
