Preserving Audio Tapes

[Daniela Moneta]

We are a small non-profit organization and use AtoM for cataloging and sharing our records with our members. We have a thousand plus audio tapes that we had digitized by Memnon. Looking at the Format policies on Archivematica, I see that the preservation format for Audio tapes is WAVE (LPCM). My organization is sending LTOs of those recordings to our international archives in various parts of the world as backup. 

I understand that these LTOs need to be migrated every few years. To preserve these audio recordings for future generations, should we be putting WAVE (LPCM) in an application like Archivematica to be sure that it doesn't deteriorate?  Is upgrading the LTO a form of preservation? I am just exploring what would be our best option and how soon we need to get the WAVE (LPCM) into an application like Archivematica.

Sorry for this simple question but I am just starting to learn about digital preservation.  

Many thanks,

Daniela