1. Preservation Ruminations
Digital preservation and the unfamiliar future
Priscilla Caplan
Florida Center for Library Automation

2. Outline The need for digital preservation Some preservation basics
Some preservation problems
A handful of implications
roles
rights
community values

3. THE NEED FOR DIGITAL PRESERVATION:
Number of academic/scholarly journals published online: 15,757
Number of serials published only electronically: 4600
Percent of U.S. federal government publications produced exclusively online in 2003: 65 percent
Estimated percent of U.S. federal government publications available exclusively online by 2008: 90 percent
Mostly from: California Digital Library

4. Some Preservation Basics

5. Media issues: life expectancy, obsolescence, degradation

6. Format issues: obsolescence, obsolescence,

7. Duration in years of PDF versions (as of 3/03)

9. Some Preservation Problems

10. THE PROBLEM OF ABUNDANCE

11. Proportion of websites in 1998 gone in 1999: 44%
THE PROBLEM OF EPHEMERALITY:
Percent of web-based references in scientific articles from 3 major journals inaccessible within 2 years of publication: 21%
Proportion of websites in gone in 1999: 44%
Life of an average website: 44 days

12. THE PROBLEM OF AUTHENTICITY

13. Some Implications
Roles
Rights
Community values

14. Changing roles

15. CHANGING RIGHTS Access v. ownership No help from DMCA
Contracts must grant the right to preserve
But what is the right to preserve anyway?

16. UNCHANGING VALUES Democracy Stewardship Service Intellectual freedom
Privacy
Literacy and learning