Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Blog #6

There is one part of this article that stuck in my mind the most:
I can't tell you how many people have suggested to us, 'Oh, you just need to digitize all that stuff down in the basement and you'll be all right,' Ms. Wainwright said. 'They have no idea how much effort that requires.'
It often does feel that people outside of the library/information/digitization fields simply cannot wrap their minds around what a giant initiative digitization has become. They see it as an end answer as oppose to what it really is: the beginning of a whole new set of questions and problems. Even large institutions such as the National Archives are having a hard time digitizing their collections. This is disheartening to those tiny institutions with collections that are quickly being lost. The article mentioned how large companies like IBM and Google are helping to fund digitization initiatives but I feel as if this can be a slippery slope. Materials may appear to be becoming more accessible with little to no cost to an institution but we all know that nothing is free these days. The cost often comes from the company holding copyright over the digital versions of your copies or having their own bottom line at heart such as how IBM only takes on projects that will directly help IBM showcase their newest technologies.

I have chosen to look into the digitization strategies of Yale University and the British Library.

The British Library:

GOAL - All of the British Library’s digital collections will reside in a secure digital repository by the year 2016

MAIN STRATEGIES - normalization, migration on request, emulation, and desiccation.
Apply best practice from the print world where it is applicable for the preservation of digital materials. Multiple copies (3) in different physical locations and utilizing backups and integrity checking to ensure that no data is lost due to media decay, or catastrophe.
PREVENTATIVE MEASURES - work with the developers of application software to improve the longevity of proprietary file formats

LONG TERM STRATEGIES - Recording metadata about each digital object and allocating unique, persistent identifiers.

Many of the suggestions were very broad as in "Perform preservation activities with appropriate timeliness" and "use existing tools where they are fit for purpose". Yet at the same time it is important to officially state that you are indeed planning to follow obvious best practices. It serves as reminder to yourself of the basics that might be taken for granted or forgotten. It was interesting to me that plan on applying the best practices from the print world to the preservation of digital objects. It makes me wonder exactly what they mean by this statement.

Yale University:

GOAL - The digital resources are subject to the same criteria for selection and preservation as other resources in the Yale Libraries. Decisions are made by curators and experts on the content of the materials in addition to those dealing in preservation and information technology.
MAIN STRATEGIES - To recognize that preservation strategies and actions for materials vary depending on the content types, formats, and resources and to act accordingly. To thoroughly understand the digital life cycle of each object.
STORAGE: Purchase large quantities of digital storage and provide personnel to manage the space.

I liked that the content of the materials is also taken into account. Also, they stated that they understood that the storage management would take a considerable amount of time, energy, and money to maintain but they are willing to do this work. Metadata was discussed as being an integral part of the collection management as well.

Both institutions covered the main best practices of digital preservation but neither really put forth any new and innovative ideas on the subject. The British Library made some statements that led me to believe that they were thinking towards the future but did not expand on the matter. However, they were both realistic in understanding how much effort and money it would actually take to realize their efforts.

2 comments:

  1. All policies are broad, general, they are policies and this means they are also politically correct. They are broad because they have to accommodate both what is known today as best practices and what may come in the future, while at the same time they have to be conservative so that they don't promise what they might not be able to comply with.

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  2. I was hoping you would find some info about digital preservation strategies in museums in regard to their digital art.

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