8/3/2019 Elusive Digital Preservation
1/2
1
Editor's Desk
Elusive Digital Preservation
Somewhere in the mid-20th
century, libraries have moved from their reactive conservation
of print
resources to proactive preservation model similar to that of
archivists. Slow, but definite decay of paper-
based information sources is mainly due to dust, humidity and
residual acidity in the wood-pulp-based
paper. Like disaster management, proactive preservation could be
preventive as well as post-facto
damage control or salvation effort. Over centuries, paper
technology has remained remarkably stable and
the preservation efforts have successfully restored contents in
paper medium and slowed down their
decay. Most of the contents on decaying paper products are
recoverable.
On the other hand, the proactive digital preservation to prevent
digital decay is yet most spiritedly debated
issue. Apart from physical deterioration, obsolescence of
hardware, software and storage medium and
failure to save crucial format information may cause digital
decay and loss of entire content of a digital
document. Generally digital data are much less self-archiving
than print documents, and often they
require more human efforts to describe and to provide context
for interpretation.
The tapes of 1975 Viking launch mission to Mars, the laser disc
and the player used in 1986 BBC
Doomsday project and Space shuttles obsolete software and
storage media are some of the examples
where digital preservation was found to be fragile. Digital data
preservation is largely experimental and
replete with the risks associated and untested methods. Numerous
digitization projects are on, but we,
yet do not have confidence to discard or destroy the originals
after digitization. There is much desireddigital preservation
policies, strategies and actions to ensure that digital objects and
systems remain
authentic and accessible to users over a long period of time
regardless of the challenges posed by
changes taking place over time.
Many factors need to be addressed in digital preservation -
type, size and amount of data, the goals of
reusing data, reliability, authenticity, integrity, technical
scalability, and supporting heterogeneity. One of
the challenges for digital preservation is the need to resolve
the conflict arising out of the contradictory
objectives of the context of creation and the context of use of
digital data.
Dynamically changing content, emerging new formats or styles,
storage media, the interoperability
between archiving and digital library, metrics of metadata for
archiving and preservation, standards for
digital preservation are all important. ISO has encouraged the
development of standards and approved
Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS),
CCSDS 650.0-B-1, Blue Book,
January 2002.
Volume 3 Issue 10 October 2011
