As the NDIIPP program name indicates, our mission is focused on digital preservation. That is, preserving material once it’s in digital form. And by our own definition, digital preservation is “the active management of digital content over time to ensure ongoing access.”
There is also a separate, but related, concept, addressed by the question, “How do items become digital to begin with?” The answer in short is, items are either “born digital” or they are converted through “digitization”.