Preserving Digital Materials

Citation

Manzuch, Z. (2006), "Preserving Digital Materials", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 62 No. 6, pp. 765-768. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410610714976

With the growing volumes of materials produced in the digital environment and analogue documents being rapidly migrated into digital format, librarians and recordkeepers face an issue of changing preservation practices. Digital preservation is known for denying widely adopted principles and undermining traditional thinking of preservation professionals. Nowadays the multiple challenges of digital preservation are actively discussed in scholarly and professional journals. Discussions and the lack of verified and reliable practices in the most domains of digital preservation have brought the paradox of information overload and a growing demand for guidance and reliable solutions.

The book, Preserving Digital Materials is written by Ross Harvey, a professor of library and information management at Charles Sturt University (Australia), who is actively involved not only in digital preservation research, but also in teaching activities. The author addresses current fragmentation, increasing volume of literature and aims to provide an overview of the current state‐of‐the‐art in digital preservation knowledge and strategies. The book is targeted at library and information professionals, recordkeepers and students of digital preservation. Ross Harvey warns the reader that: “Preserving Digital Materials is not a how‐to‐do‐it manual, so it is of little assistance for those who want to learn how to carry out technical procedures” (p. xiii). Digital preservation issues are discussed at the conceptual level, evaluating critically current approaches and trying to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

The structure of the book is organized around four critical questions that are formulated by the author. They are:

1. 1.

   Why do we preserve digital materials?

2. 2.

   What digital materials do we preserve?

3. 3.

   How do we preserve digital materials?

4. 4.

   How do we manage digital preservation? (p. xiii).

These questions are explored in ten chapters that are complemented by six case studies describing digital preservation strategies and practices in Australian institutions. The choice of Australian case studies (including widely known initiatives as PANDORA, PADI and others) is motivated by significant advances in digital preservation in memory institutions of this country.

Before discussing digital preservation approaches author emphasizes the relationship between principles, strategies and practices. Long‐term plans aimed to achieve preservation goals (strategies) are usually based on the “general ways of thinking” (principles). Principles and strategies influence day‐to‐day operation of an institution (practices). This approach may be applied to the structure of book itself. First five chapters provide a conceptual background for further discussion of preservation strategies and practices in chapters 6‐10.

Chapter 1, “What is preservation in the digital age? Changing preservation paradigms”, aims to define what digital preservation is, describing the shift from traditional preservation practices. Rapid development and change of information and communication technologies driven by commercial interests and competition between manufacturers made long‐term access and readability of the digital content the main priority of digital preservation. Differently from the analogue world, digital preservation is remarkable for active intervention of the curator and preservation of knowledge, rather than the medium. This approach challenges the whole system of traditional preservation concepts and practices and puts a demand for a new “preservation paradigm”.

The introduction into changing preservation approaches is followed by the discussion of the scope of digital preservation and the main stakeholders in Chapter 2, “Why do we preserve? Who should do it?” Notably, the author tries to explore the extent of digital preservation problem (e.g. what the rates of loss of digital materials are), which often is a subject of either underestimation or exaggeration. It is concluded that due to increased number of stakeholders (e.g. creators, providers of information, owners of the content, and memory institutions) there is a demand for new collaboration forms. The author highlights the need to increase visibility of digital preservation issues to these new players.

Digital preservation is impossible without understanding the nature of digital document. Complex structure of digital document is in the heart of any preservation strategy. As it is pointed out in the Chapter 3, “Why there's a problem: digital artifacts and digital objects”, digital document has many “modes of digital death”. Long‐term access to digital documents depends not on the stability of the physical carrier but rather on the availability of hardware and software, that makes it readable and understandable to the user. Therefore, solely preservation of the carrier of digital information or copying the bit‐stream from one medium to another are insufficient solutions.

Due to the rapid obsolescence of hardware and software, digital preservation takes place immediately after the creation of digital content. This fact challenges traditional practices of determining value of digital content and complicates selection decisions. Issues related to selection practices for digital preservation are discussed in the Chapter 4, “Selection for preservation – the critical decision”. It is concluded that a successful selection strategy depends on a wide number of factors, including intellectual property rights, user community, stakeholders, as well as practice of establishment a preservation time scale.

In case of digital preservation it is necessary to decide not only what documents to select but also what features of them should be preserved. Digital preservation inevitably involves an alteration of the document to make it accessible and readable despite changing hardware and software. Additionally, in the digital environment it is much easier to manipulate the document. What then is an authentic and trustworthy digital document? In Chapter 5, “What attributes of digital materials do we preserve?”, the necessity to determine significant properties of the document to be preserved is emphasized. Information specialists are envisioned as safeguarders of trustworthy digital documents. They must ensure that there are no illegal alterations of the document. Current models, techniques and international efforts to create trusted repositories of digital documents are introduced.

Basing on the main digital preservation concepts, the author turns to relevant strategies and practices for preserving digital content in chapters 6‐11. The discussion of the digital preservation strategies and methods occupies a significant part of the book. An increased attention and thorough examination of these issues may be explained by the novelty and ambiguity of the topic and the lack of solutions validated in practice. As it is noted in Chapter 6, “Overview of digital preservation strategies”, there is no common view on what digital preservation strategy is. The author observes that diverse typologies of digital preservation strategies are offered, though in some cases strategies are confused with methods. Relying on the international guidelines and results of the interview of the Australian preservation specialists, the author formulates the main principles, strategies and practices, influencing the success of digital preservation initiative.

Chapters 7 and 8 are dedicated to examining digital preservation methods. Approaches are divided into two broad groups – those oriented at preservation of technologies and those aimed at preservation of digital objects. Chapter 7, “‘Preserve technology’ approaches: tried and tested methods”, contributes to distinguishing preservation methods from practices, which are not preservation solutions. Following the categorization suggested by Jeff Rothenberg, Ross Harvey defines them as non‐solutions. Non‐solutions discussed in the chapter range from unrealistic “do nothing” to physical medium handling, storage practices, which provide more time for finding the most suitable digital preservation method, and analogue backups or digital archaeology that may be addressed in critical situations. Among the preservation methods discussed in the chapter are technology preservation, technology watch, emulation, and the universal virtual computer. Chapter 8, “‘Preserve objects’ approaches: new frontiers?”, focuses at those methods that consider preservation of digital content irrespectively of hardware and software it will be stored and reproduced on. Four groups of object preservation approaches are examined: methods, based on bit‐stream copying; data format oriented methods, migration, and encapsulation. Chapters 7 and 8 are valuable for a critical evaluation of all approaches and representing equally both the views of advocates and opponents of certain methods.

In addition to an extensive theoretical overview, Chapter 9, “Digital preservation initiatives and collaborations”, explores current practices and initiatives. Chapter 9 is particularly useful for a comprehensive list of international, regional and national digital preservation projects and organizations, sectoral and cross‐sectoral alliances. Discussion of the future challenges of digital preservation initiatives presents concluding thoughts on the topic in the last chapter, “Challenges for the future of digital preservation”.

The main value of the book is the broad spectrum of topics analyzed, giving the reader an opportunity to observe the landscape of digital preservation themes and issues. Library and information professional who are not familiar with archival theory will find an introduction to archival appraisal and authenticity issues that are crucial to create an effective digital preservation strategy. The book is particularly useful because of the links to multiple sources on digital preservation. Due to this advantage and clear logical presentation of the material, it could become a good starting point for those professionals and students who are novices in this topic.