Preservation may mean:

• The common meaning is: keeping and maintaining to make sure that the object is protected against decay and will be (nearly) the same in future.

Special meanings are:

• Art conservation and restoration, the retention of antiquities for museums or exhibition, also called "Art preservation"
• Case preservation, in computer storage
• Environmental preservation, the active maintenance and advocacy of the protection of the natural environment
• Digital preservation, the management of digital information over time
• Film preservation, rescuing aging film stock and preserving recorded images
  • National Film Preservation Board
• Food preservation
• Historic preservation, the theory and practice of creatively maintaining the historic built environment

• Self preservation, part of an animal's fundamental instinct which demands that the organism survive