PRESERVATION
OF DIGITAL PROJECTS
Issues
of Importance
The goals of digitization and preservation must co-inside with the goals
of the organization. The cost of digitization is too high to consider
outside of the context of value and need. Organizations will have to set
priorities for digitization and preservation that match its mission, access
goals. Costs for creating digital copies of existing collections must
be balanced with long-term benefits to the organization.
Washington libraries
and cultural institutions have collections that will benefit all residents
of the state if they are preserved and offered digitally. Some collections
will not be worth the effort to create digital copies. Particularly those
materials such as Northwest history books that are available in several
Washington library collections. Other collections may not be suited to
digitization. An example would be Washington newspapers. They already
exist in microfilmed versions and are widely accessible. The technology
to create useable digital copies of newspapers is only beginning to be
understood. Port Townsend Library has undertaken a pilot project to test
methods to digitize the microfilm copy of one year of the Morning Leader
newspaper from 1901. (Port Townsend
report)
Preservation of digital
objects is little understood and no one has yet perfected the methods
that will assure that a digital version of any material will survive over
time. The National Archives recommends that public records and permanent
copies of documents be preserved in an "eye readable" format.
Eye readable for the most part is still paper copies or microforms that
can be viewed on readers.
This series of quotes from Paul Conway, Yale University, were presented
at the School for Scanning, Seattle, September 2000. They provide a useful
perspective on the issues of preservation as it relates to digital collections.
- Preservation is: prevention of loss (deterioration); renewal of usability
(treatment) and extension of usefulness of information content (reformatting).
- "Preservation
is: resource management, collection management and risk management."
- "Preservation
is the creation of digital products worth maintaining over time."
- "Quality is
the value we add to digital products."
- "Quality and
use combine to make a product worth preserving."
- "Digital imaging
is more than another way to copy a book, map or photograph. Imaging
transforms the original in creating a new artifact with its own value
apart from the original."
- "Few digital
collections will warrant the cost of a comprehensive migration strategy
without considering value and use."
- "Preservation
in the digital world is knowing how to adapt traditional preservation
concepts to manage risk."
The Library of Congress
has presented a report defining the issues in preservation of objects
that are born digital. Perpetual care of digital objects is more challenging
than perpetual care of paper. Preservation of "born digital"
objects is urgent. (link to LC21 document http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/techdocs/conserv83199a.pdf
)
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Options
to consider:
- Digitization is not preservation. If the goal is to preserve existing
collections, then use of traditional preservation methods will mostly
be of greater cost benefit. Preservation through acid-free photocopies
or preservation-quality microfilm will prove to be more cost effective.
- For truly unique,
damaged and fragile materials a procedure to conserve and re-house the
originals, make digital versions for access and create a database and
delivery product can be an effective preservation strategy. A carefully
thought out project with quality control procedures can provide long-term
benefits for cultural organizations and be cost effective.
- Consider if the
materials have sufficient value to users to justify digitization and
preservation. Can digitization achieve the goals of the organization?
Is the cost appropriate and can the staff resources be devoted to the
project? If the answer is no for any of these questions then the digitization
project is not viable.
- Long-term preservation
of the digital collection will require an investment in infrastructure
and digital content management. Does the organization have the resources
to create the infrastructure and management strategy? Where will the
funding come from to create such an infrastructure?
- Scanning from the
originals is always best, unless they are too fragile or damaged to
survive handling.
- Scanners have been
developed for commercial use and are not yet designed for the library
and archive market, careful evaluation of the scanner purchase must
be considered.
- There is no single
off-the-shelf solution for either hardware or software appropriate for
libraries and historical organizations' preservation and digitization
needs.
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Project
checklist:
- Is the organization ready to make the commitment to digital collection
building?
- Digitization requires
handling the originals, do you have procedures in place to minimize
damage to the originals?
- Will the project
include activities to protect and preserve the original documents?
- Following scanning,
will formerly circulating items be assigned a non-circulating status?
- How will the digital
masters be protected and preserved?
- How will the digital
masters be stored?
- Has the administrative
metadata about the documents and equipment been
collected and stored in a permanent medium?
- Have you provided
for long-term enduring access to the digital files and the metadata?
- Project a lifespan
for the digital reproductions.
- Use digitization
to its greatest advantage.
- Use traditional
techniques and digital conversion together to preserve materials.
- Choose carefully
to maximize the strength of traditional and digital technology.
- Will the digitized
material represent the original as an accurate copy or transcend the
original by creating the possibility of uses impossible to achieve with
the original?
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