Film preservation is an active and ongoing process, a complicated activity to define. In the field of film archives, conservation, restoration, duplication, quality control, access and exhibition are constituent elements of the preservation activity.
In his book Silent Cinema, an Introduction, curator Paolo Cherchi Usai described film preservation as ” the overall complex of procedures, principles, techniques and practices necessary for maintening the integrity, restoring the content, and organising the intellectual experience of a moving image on a permanent basis.”
That sounds just right.