Title:
Digital Defense. By: Caplan, Priscilla, American Libraries, 00029769, May2008, Vol. 39, Issue 5
Database:
Academic Search Premier
Retrieved June 6, 2008 from http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.usf.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=9&sid=d962711c-f3c4-4dee-8fc3-
This article describes what digital preservation is and what measures are taken to ensure that our “digital cultural heritage” is preserved. Caplan describes Digital preservation as, “a set of activities aimed at ensuring access to digital materials over time.” She goes on to say that “materials to be preserved must be assessed, selected, and brought under the control of the custodial institution. Digital files must be protected against unauthorized changes, and physical storage media must be monitored to avoid deterioration and obsolescence. Finally, actions must be taken to ensure that digital materials remain usable (displayable, playable) as today's file formats become obsolete over time.”
The article really articulates how exciting and new Digital preservation is. The author describes the field of Digital Preservation as, “heavily dependent on research and experimentation. It is a fast-moving area that advances rapidly but as yet has few exemplars. It may be one of the most interesting areas ever to emerge in the domain of information science.”
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Digital Defense. By: Caplan, Priscilla, American Libraries, 00029769, May2008, Vol. 39, Issue 5
Database:
Academic Search Premier
Retrieved June 6, 2008 from http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.usf.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=9&sid=d962711c-f3c4-4dee-8fc3-
This article describes what digital preservation is and what measures are taken to ensure that our “digital cultural heritage” is preserved. Caplan describes Digital preservation as, “a set of activities aimed at ensuring access to digital materials over time.” She goes on to say that “materials to be preserved must be assessed, selected, and brought under the control of the custodial institution. Digital files must be protected against unauthorized changes, and physical storage media must be monitored to avoid deterioration and obsolescence. Finally, actions must be taken to ensure that digital materials remain usable (displayable, playable) as today's file formats become obsolete over time.”
The article really articulates how exciting and new Digital preservation is. The author describes the field of Digital Preservation as, “heavily dependent on research and experimentation. It is a fast-moving area that advances rapidly but as yet has few exemplars. It may be one of the most interesting areas ever to emerge in the domain of information science.”
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4 comments:
I have wondered about this as well. Along with many others, I have files whose formats are obsolete, which represents lost information. Lost information on a large scale could cost a company millions, not to mention cultural capital. In my History of Libraries class, we have been talking about how much information was lost in antiquity and the middle ages due to neglect, abuse, and war. If modern groups are not able to convert the data they have to new formats, the same kinds of loss will occur.
I also took History of Libraries. I was working as an intern at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and my boss stressed the importance of microfilm because we know that it is a stable preservation technique. Now everyone wants everything digital, but will we be able to access this information in 5, 10, 20 years or more? There are already several computer programs that are outdated and unreadable. My supervisor at ALPL is an advocate for keeping a hard copy on microfilm of anything that needs to be preserved.
This is a very young field, and there are a lot of issues that were never considered before people began to really look deeply into what is involved in digital preservation. It seems like a panacea at first, but like everything in the world, there are positives and negatives and finding the balance is the key to being successful in this new field of study.
Digital preservation is very important. Since I have lost valuable information due to corrupt disks or no longer having the technology to read the disks this is a very interesting discussion. I am always trying to figure out how to back up information and not lose it. Do, I save it on a CD, flash drive and back-up hard drive? Will I still be able to access this information in 10 years? When archiving information digitally it is very important to consider rapidly changing technology and accessibility. Especially when the digital archiving is of critical information
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