The new issue of Campus Technology looks into the state of digital libraries:
Keeping a history of peace studies. Cataloging audio and video broadcasts important to the Northwest. Digitizing images and other documents older than the state of California. All of these efforts are important steps toward preserving the history of our nation’s development. And all of them are going on right now, thanks to various digital library efforts. Digital library initiatives are nothing new; the effort to digitize data for posterity has been alive and well now for the better part of two decades. (Opening a Digital Library Campus Technology, Sept. 2005.) Still, the world of digital libraries changes furiously every month, and it seems there’s always something new to explore. Here are details on some of the newest stories, and predictions about the digital library movement in the months to come …
On Digital Preservation
Of course, it will take more than digitization and storage to be able to truly preserve digital materials. Libraries will need to make an institutional commitment to sustainable programs of digital preservation, possibly building upon the efforts of traditional preservation programs.
This is, of course, easier said than done since the field of digital preservation is still in its infancy — which is not to suggest that there are no available technologies and processes, rather that there are no best practices or clear emerging standards at this point.
An additional point of resistance is the seemingly widespread opinion that digital preservation is an unrealizable pipe dream or, at worst, a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron. I would argue that digital preservation is necessary in fact, and will become more so as born-digital items emerge as a valuable part of library collections worth preserving. Additionally, the benefits of digitizing and preserving brittle books and information on aging magnetic tape are manifest.
Digital libraries are a wonderful idea, but they are incomplete without a supporting preservation program.