digital preservation Institute on 21 st Century Librarianship Aug 10, 2000

digital preservation digital reformatting Using digital technology to preserve the information content (explicit signal) of print and non-print materials. The product is a digital surrogate for the original. preserving digital objects born digital business records, archives electronic publications digital ephemera

traditional reformatting microfilming photocopying photography other facsimile technologies

digitization compared with traditional reformatting access material can be used in new ways value added can capture complex objects

digital reformatting page images masters presentation versions reference versions simple readable text markup combination of above

Once digitized, it’s just another object

what makes digital preservation different? no benign neglect loss will happen without an action requires perpetual maintenance

falsification & authentication before.jpg 937a0f56f c4c2f81a96d48942 after.jpg d278b0a9741e164dd01467a4f6c36273

maintenance backup housekeeping retensioning tapes refreshing monitoring & verification

trivially: reduce need to handle originals may actually increase demand for originals (A Good Thing™) electronic browsing reduces casual handling use of electronic masters for publishing can digitization be preservation ?

the prevailing wisdom says no media undependable institutional commitment to life- cycle management not in place standards lacking when compared to film, digital objects seem inherently ephemeral

can digitization be preservation ? Challenges ongoing maintenance/lifecycle management standards no “roadmap” to follow best practices active involvement of technical staff and facilities

can digitization be preservation ? Understandable counter- reaction to the attitude that “We digitized it; it’s preserved ”

digitization must be preservation We have no choice We have a fallback Hide your valuables where the money is

digital preservation policy tied to mission of institution makes explicit what aspects of a collection are being preserved and why indicates scope of institution’s commitment declares institution’s preservation strategies declares which standards/guidelines are being followed

digital archiving born electronic reborn electronic preserving what we produce

storage physical electronic Masters (offline, nearline) Access (nearline, online)

strategic challenges ever increasing demand for services continuous technological change evolving standards and best practices

strategic challenges making digitization a trusted preservation tool fostering long- term outlook digital archiving

sorry we ran overtime records/electronic-storage-media/

digital reformatting

lossless copying Potentially lossless multi- generational copying Except Depends on proper copying and verification May be complicated by compression Device evolution may make bit-for-bit copying impossible (i.e. may involve some format changes

digitization Detail: “presentation version” Detail: “reference version”