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The Role of Preservation and Conservation in Digital Technology Programs

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Title: The Role of Preservation and Conservation in Digital Technology Programs


1
The Role of Preservation and Conservation in
Digital Technology Programs
  • Tom Teper
  • Head of Preservation, UIUC
  • University of Notre Dame Library
  • Professional Development Program
  • 17 November 2003

2
Overview
  • Recent Developments in Higher Education
  • Preservation
  • What, Why, and How?
  • The Development of Digital Preservation Programs
  • The Place of Preservation in These Developments

3
Inflation and Rising Costs
  • Exponential Increases in Materials Costs
  • According to the ARL, serials prices have
    increased 215 between 1986 and 2001 and
    expenditures have increase by 210
  • Although a less dramatic increase, monograph
    prices have increased by 68 and expenditures
    have increased by 66
  • The numbers of these items purchased have
    decreased by 9 and 5 respectively.


4
Declining Budgets
  • State Institutions are Hurting
  • At best, budgets appear to be in a no-growth
    situation
  • Evidenced by
  • The average increase of 14 for four-year
    state-institution tuition highest in three
    decades (Chronicle)
  • Land-grants considering cuts and fees for
    traditionally free extension services (Chronicle)

5
Grant Funds
  • Changing Priorities for Library-Oriented Programs
  • NEH losing money and buying power preservation
    projects
  • IMLS consistently gaining digitizing projects
  • Other Programs
  • Significant portions of the Save Americas
    Treasures program is congressionally earmarked,
    not competitive

6
Low-Growth Endowments
  • Private Institutions are Not Immune
  • Many private institutions are facing low or
    no-growth budgets as well.
  • Harvard, Yale, etc both seeing decline in
    endowment returns
  • Yale Down to 16 from 24
  • Smaller budgets required to maintain endowment
    funds

7
Print v. Electronic Access
  • E-journals
  • Not new, but the irony is that e-journals are
    still largely paper bound in their structure and
    composition (Clifford Lynch)
  • Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
  • Produced in-house and by ProQuest, ETDs represent
    a change in student research
  • Often driven by academic programs, not the
    libraries that are responsible for housing them.

8
Demand/Desire for Access
  • The New Information Environment
  • The real change has been the amount of
    information and the speed of delivery.
  • Always a need/expectation for reliable and
    reputable access
  • Whats changed?
  • Convenient Access
  • Scholarly credentials are less important than
    before
  • Expectation that even rare materials will be
    delivered digitally

9
Enduring Role of Print I
  • There were 300,000 more monographs printed in the
    US last year that ten years ago.
  • The amount of data stored on paper has grown by
    43 in the last three years - UC-Berkeley (BBC)
  • Even if electronic journals take over, what
    will we continue seeing?
  • Monographs
  • Foreign language materials
  • Reports, white papers, gray literature.

10
Enduring Role of Print II
  • Print as Artifact
  • The Antiques Roadshow/E-Bay Phenomenon
  • Local Storage and Repositories
  • Space is at a premium, and libraries are growing.
  • While smaller institutions will begin relying
    even more heavily on digital technologies and
    borrowing, the bigger libraries will grow even
    larger (Abby Smith at UIUC)

11
Preservation What is it?
  • Preservation An umbrella term that concerns
    itself with providing access to materials for as
    long as needed by whomever needs them.
  • Depends upon cooperation.
  • Asset Management the business of providing
    access and protecting the institutions
    investment. Preservation is the management of
    processes that preserve access.
  • Conservation A series of physical treatments
    that will change an object. Its goal is to arrest
    deterioration and provide for continued access in
    the original format. Reversibility is the
    over-riding principle.
  • Restoration Taking an item and restoring it to
    its original condition. Restoration is not
    reversible.

12
Preservation Why do it?
  • Maintain Access
  • Routine Maintenance Changing the oil
  • Maximize Institutional Investment
  • Asset Management Tool
  • Collections are capital investments
  • Good Stewardship
  • Libraries have always preserved material culture

13
Preservation How?
  • Primary Focus on Print Collections
  • By tradition and design
  • Organic Materials
  • Subject to decay
  • Physical forces Thieves, vandals, displacers
    Fire Water Pests Contaminants Radiation
    Incorrect temperature Incorrect relative
    humidity Custodial neglect

14
What Does Preservation Mean to Libraries?
  • Stewardship As a steward of state, federal, or
    private dollars, the Library is a public good,
    and there is a trust that preservation programs
    support a trust that is becoming increasingly
    important.
  • Recognition - Preservation programs bring
    recognition to an institution. Like rare book
    collections and digital imaging, preservation is
    something that is both valued and valuable.
  • Institutional Maturity - Supporting a
    preservation program is a sign of institutional
    maturity. It demonstrates recognition of the
    institutions stewardship role.

15
What is digital preservation?
  • An Umbrella Term developed to describe a series
    of overlapping activities.
  • Digitizing for Access
  • Preserving Born-Digital and Digitized Information
  • Preservation Through Digital Technology

16
Preserving Born-Digital
  • First associated with records managers
  • Great interest initially. Reality of managing
    digital information has reduced desire to create
    digital records.
  • Most closely associated with preservations asset
    management model in that the records are closely
    tied to finance, business transactions, and legal
    documents.
  • They are assets that need to be preserved

17
Digital Imaging for Access
  • Most Digital Projects
  • Primarily Serves as an Access Tool
  • Makes Items with Problematic Access Issues
    Accessible
  • Rare books, manuscript and photograph
    collections, exceedingly fragile items.
  • Best Practices
  • Govern the Creation of Digital Files
  • Help to Ensure Long-term Access

18
Digitizing to Preserve Materials I
  • Digital Reformatting
  • Print Materials
  • Non-print Media
  • Problems
  • Proprietary Hardware/Software
  • Best Practices Developed/Developing, but No
    Standards.
  • Media Longevity
  • Creates a Tremendous RM Problem

19
Digitizing to Preserve Materials II
  • Digital Surrogacy
  • Similar to digitizing materials to increase
    access, but policies are required to restrict
    access to the original
  • Initial hope that digital imaging would decrease
    use and handling of originals, but evidence
    points to the opposite.
  • Digitizing items actually increases demand for
    the originals.

20
Digitizations Successes
  • Successes
  • Collection-centric
  • Natural fit for collection-centric projects.
  • Tremendous access advantages
  • Collocate disparate collections
  • Provide access to problematic materials
  • No standards
  • Ability to provide context

21
Digitizations Problems
  • Problems
  • Collection-centric
  • Difficulty moving beyond collection-centric
    projects.
  • Rapidity of Change
  • Hardware/Software Obsolescence
  • Lack of standardized production complicates
    inter-operability between systems
  • No standards makes long-term data preservation
    difficult
  • Significant persistence issues
  • Access Problems
  • Digital Divide is a reality information haves
    and have-nots
  • Exceedingly Costly
  • Imaging is less than 30 of typical project cost
  • Storage is exceedingly costly (Stephen Chapman)

22
What Does Digitization Mean to Libraries?
  • Recognition - Digitization programs are an
    opportunity for institutions to gain recognition,
    both among their peers and their public. Like
    rare book collections and preservation, digital
    imaging is something that is both valued and
    valuable.
  • An Educational Commitment Properly completed,
    digitization projects can provide contextual
    information otherwise lacking from collections of
    material. They demonstrates recognition of the
    institutions educational role.
  • Stewardship As a steward of state, federal, or
    private dollars, the Library is a public good,
    the involvement of preservation and conservation
    personnel with digital projects demonstrates good
    stewardship of both collections and resources.

23
Preservation and Conservations Place in Digital
Imaging
  • Persistence and access are important for more
    than just the electronic content. Maintenance of
    digital and print are equally important for
    imaging projects, and the problems with ensuring
    persistence to digital media require that the
    source documents be maintained as much as
    possible.
  • Deanna Marcum (at UIUC)
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