Re-Tooling Academic Libraries for the Digital Age:
Missions, Collections, Staffing
California Academic & Research Libraries
Third Annual Conference
SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSION
Session H: Preservation in the Digital Age: Whether To, What To, How To
Moderator: Jack Kessler, Consultant, AKCO Inc.
Panel:
- Patricia McCIung, Managing Director, Digital Collaboration Associates;
Manager, Digital Image Access Project, RLG
"An inventory of preservation projects"
- Barclay Ogden, Head, Conservation Department;
Director, Digital Libraries Research & Development, UC Berkeley
"Thoughts on the implementation of preservation & digital access in a research library"
- Helene Whitson, Head, Archives/Special Collections, San Francisco State University
"Practical realities: why we are already failing to preserve non-print formats."
- Geoffrey Nunberg, XeroxPARC and Stanford
"Mal d'archive: Information on the Web"
The session addressed four themes concerning the preservation issue,
heeding Umberto Eco's general warning: "...what authority will
decide?... Plato and Dante have known their periods of disgrace...."
Patricia McClung described the variety of ongoing projects,
acknowledging that there is a paradigm shift underway, but observing
that we seem to be, "stuck in an endless purgatory between our analog
past and digital future". The immediate problem, she said, is the
inadequacy of changing hardware and software. Her concern is that, as
this problem is addressed, some understanding of the importance of
preservation issues not be lost in the discussion: there must be
recognition of the need for balancing preservation and access. She
challenged the other speakers, contending that, "long - term
preservation of information in digital form is not yet possible".
Barclay Ogden countered by observing that we already do digital
preservation: "look at any online catalog", he said. The question is
whether we are doing it well. He said that digital technology is just
another medium, for which there are analogs in previous media and their
preservation efforts. There are two ways to think about digital
preservation, he believes:
- preservation via conversion to digital media, and,
- the preservation of natively - digital information
objects.
Problems in the latter derive from three characteristics
discussed in the recent Garrett - Waters report: a) accumulation, b)
linkages, and, c) interactivity -- all three hard to analyze and
accommodate using traditional techniques, but analogs for all three may
be found, he contended. He suggested old houses which change over time,
Native American spiritual objects, and dance, all as examples of
difficult multimedia which have preceded digital. The UC Berkeley
Library projects concern four emphases: 1) navigation, 2) information capture, 3) workflow and production systems, and, 4) content and use studies -- there is a danger, he said, in "fast - paper projects",
which "merely re - create traditional document types and services in
digital form", but first steps must be taken somewhere.
Helene Whitson described the problems of preserving modern media. Her
video archives are "equipment - dependent", she said: not only do media
deteriorate, but so do the machines for viewing them, and the computer
programs for organizing them, and there is little money available for
preservation. Society has not yet realized the importance of non -
print media as an archival record, she feels, and there is grave danger
of losing that record now.
Geoffrey Nunberg summarized by observing that libraries still are the
testbed for the Digital Library. Eco's question is timely, he said:
"where does the archive begin?" is a question of great importance --
what to preserve and how to preserve it. "Intelligence must be
distinguished from information", he observed: tools must be developed
to assist in this. Both preservation and access are issues which must
be better - defined for the digital age.
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