Digital devices and channels have changed the way Internet users access and consume content. Many people these days find it more convenient to read eBooks than printed books. Similarly, many people gather information by watching videos and listening to audio. In the digital age, many readers access digital libraries instead of visiting physical libraries.
Several studies suggest a sharp decline in library visits per year. However, public and community libraries are still home to many rare printed books, manuscripts, vinyl records, and cassette tapes. Digital preservation creates opportunities for physical libraries to store and share these valuable resources in the long run.
According to Wikipedia,
“Digital preservation is a formal process to ensure that digital information of continuing value remains accessible and usable in the long term. It involves planning, resource allocation, and application of preservation methods and technologies, and combines policies, strategies and actions to ensure access to reformatted and ‘born-digital’ content, regardless of the challenges of media failure and technological change. The goal of digital preservation is the accurate rendering of authenticated content over time.”
Community libraries prioritize digital preservation to make valuable physical resources by overcoming risks like physical deterioration and access limitations. Also, preservation initiatives help them make the valuable resources available to future generations accurately and authentically. While strategizing digital preservation in libraries, strategists focus on a variety of factors – methods, technologies, policies, and actions. Also, they streamline the formal process by adopting several best practices.
Technologies and Tactics Driving Digital Preservation in Libraries
While planning digital preservation, strategists focus on converting physical resources into a variety of digital content – text, images, videos, and audio. Hence, they digitalize physical resources using robust tech tools and solutions. At the same time, they keep the digitalized resources accessible and usable in the long run by overcoming technical issues like machine dependency, format diversity, and technological obsolesce. Strategists expand the lifespan of digitalized resources by focusing on several critical factors.
Assessment, Selection, and Prioritization
Often community libraries lack the resources and budgets to digitalize physical resources fully. Strategists overcome cost constraints by identifying the materials to be digitalized. While selecting materials, they consider crucial information like format, condition, copyright restriction, licensing requirements, and importance.
At the same time, strategists prioritize the digitalization of rare and critical library materials. They use parameters like rarity, demand, and research value to determine the physical materials that must be digitalized early. The assessment, selection, and prioritization help them plan and streamline the digital preservation process.
Data Integrity
Digital preservation in libraries emphasizes rendering information accurately and authentically in the future. While planning digital preservation, strategists ensure that the information’s authenticity and integrity are not compromised. They choose tech tools that reproduce the original content without tampering or corruption.
Refreshing
Strategists ensure that the format of digital content does not change during the preservation process. For instance, they ensure that the audio file format does not change when music is transferred from CDs to DVDs or the cloud. The tactic ensures that next-generation users can access the content in its original format.
Migration
Some file formats are more effective in protecting and securing information than others. For instance, PDF protects and secures sensitive information more effectively than Word. Strategists safeguard information and maintain data integrity by supporting migration. Migration allows preservers to safeguard content by converting information into a superior format.
Replication
While planning digital preservation projects, strategists mitigate the risk of data loss by supporting replication. Replication makes preservers store multiple copies of the same file in multiple systems. For instance, preservers replicate library resources by storing the same file on a hard drive and in the cloud.
Emulation
Leading providers update desktop and mobile operating systems frequently. Strategists ensure that users can access the digitalized library resources seamlessly in the future by supporting emulation. Preservers keep digitalized material accessible by creating the original operating environment. For instance, they emulate the operating system to check if a document is accessible on older and new versions of an operating system.
Encapsulation
Like emulation, encapsulation focuses on information accessibility across various versions of an operating system. However, the tactic requires preservers to ensure smooth information decipherment by combining digitalized content and operating systems.
Metadata
Metadata is often described as data about data. Users can refer to the metadata to know when, why, and where the digital data was produced. While digitalizing library resources, strategists emphasize metadata creation and preservation. Preservers share crucial information about the digitalized material by creating metadata. In addition, they ensure data integrity and authenticity by prioritizing metadata preservation.
Storage and Backup
No community library can preserve physical materials successfully without investing in secure storage infrastructure. Most libraries these days opt for cloud computing to reduce upfront and ongoing infrastructural costs. In addition to enhancing data security, cloud-based tools enable users to access the digitalized content seamlessly. However, strategists enhance data security by storing digital materials by storing multiple copies in different data centers.
Quality Control
Strategists assess the accuracy, accessibility, and completeness of digitalized library assets by implementing quality control measures. In addition to assessing the quality of digitalized materials, they check if the content can be accessed seamlessly by readers across devices and platforms. In addition, they assess and validate various files regularly by conducting periodic quality audits.
Conclusion
Digital preservation helps conventional libraries make rare materials and resources available and accessible over a longer period of time. However, digital preservation projects focus on digitalizing resources that are not born-digital. In addition to digitalizing physical resources, community libraries these days attract members by implementing digital library software. The software enables them to deliver born-digital content to members in various formats and languages.
Also, users can access the born-digital content anytime and anywhere by accessing the cloud-based digital library on computers and mobile devices. Hence, digital library platforms help community libraries reduce both digital preservation time and costs. At the same time, they create opportunities for community libraries to regain popularity by delivering digitalized resources to members seamlessly across digital devices and channels.
