The Role of Preservation and Conservation in Digital Technology Programs

1
The Role of Preservation and Conservation in
Digital Technology Programs

• Tom Teper
• Head of Preservation, UIUC
• University of Notre Dame Library
• Professional Development Program
• 17 November 2003

2
Overview

• Recent Developments in Higher Education
• Preservation
• What, Why, and How?
• The Development of Digital Preservation Programs
• The Place of Preservation in These Developments

3
Inflation and Rising Costs

• Exponential Increases in Materials Costs
• According to the ARL, serials prices have
  increased 215 between 1986 and 2001 and
  expenditures have increase by 210
• Although a less dramatic increase, monograph
  prices have increased by 68 and expenditures
  have increased by 66
• The numbers of these items purchased have
  decreased by 9 and 5 respectively.

4
Declining Budgets

• State Institutions are Hurting
• At best, budgets appear to be in a no-growth
  situation
• Evidenced by
• The average increase of 14 for four-year
  state-institution tuition highest in three
  decades (Chronicle)
• Land-grants considering cuts and fees for
  traditionally free extension services (Chronicle)

5
Grant Funds

• Changing Priorities for Library-Oriented Programs
• NEH losing money and buying power preservation
  projects
• IMLS consistently gaining digitizing projects
• Other Programs
• Significant portions of the Save Americas
  Treasures program is congressionally earmarked,
  not competitive

6
Low-Growth Endowments

• Private Institutions are Not Immune
• Many private institutions are facing low or
  no-growth budgets as well.
• Harvard, Yale, etc both seeing decline in
  endowment returns
• Yale Down to 16 from 24
• Smaller budgets required to maintain endowment
  funds

7
Print v. Electronic Access

• E-journals
• Not new, but the irony is that e-journals are
  still largely paper bound in their structure and
  composition (Clifford Lynch)

• Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
• Produced in-house and by ProQuest, ETDs represent
  a change in student research
• Often driven by academic programs, not the
  libraries that are responsible for housing them.

8
Demand/Desire for Access

• The New Information Environment
• The real change has been the amount of
  information and the speed of delivery.
• Always a need/expectation for reliable and
  reputable access
• Whats changed?

• Convenient Access
• Scholarly credentials are less important than
  before
• Expectation that even rare materials will be
  delivered digitally

9
Enduring Role of Print I

• There were 300,000 more monographs printed in the
  US last year that ten years ago.

• The amount of data stored on paper has grown by
  43 in the last three years - UC-Berkeley (BBC)

• Even if electronic journals take over, what
  will we continue seeing?
• Monographs
• Foreign language materials
• Reports, white papers, gray literature.

10
Enduring Role of Print II

• Print as Artifact
• The Antiques Roadshow/E-Bay Phenomenon

• Local Storage and Repositories
• Space is at a premium, and libraries are growing.
• While smaller institutions will begin relying
  even more heavily on digital technologies and
  borrowing, the bigger libraries will grow even
  larger (Abby Smith at UIUC)

11
Preservation What is it?

• Preservation An umbrella term that concerns
  itself with providing access to materials for as
  long as needed by whomever needs them.
• Depends upon cooperation.
• Asset Management the business of providing
  access and protecting the institutions
  investment. Preservation is the management of
  processes that preserve access.
• Conservation A series of physical treatments
  that will change an object. Its goal is to arrest
  deterioration and provide for continued access in
  the original format. Reversibility is the
  over-riding principle.
• Restoration Taking an item and restoring it to
  its original condition. Restoration is not
  reversible.

12
Preservation Why do it?

• Maintain Access
• Routine Maintenance Changing the oil

• Maximize Institutional Investment
• Asset Management Tool
• Collections are capital investments

• Good Stewardship
• Libraries have always preserved material culture

13
Preservation How?

• Primary Focus on Print Collections
• By tradition and design

• Organic Materials
• Subject to decay
• Physical forces Thieves, vandals, displacers
  Fire Water Pests Contaminants Radiation
  Incorrect temperature Incorrect relative
  humidity Custodial neglect

14
What Does Preservation Mean to Libraries?

• Stewardship As a steward of state, federal, or
  private dollars, the Library is a public good,
  and there is a trust that preservation programs
  support a trust that is becoming increasingly
  important.

• Recognition - Preservation programs bring
  recognition to an institution. Like rare book
  collections and digital imaging, preservation is
  something that is both valued and valuable.

• Institutional Maturity - Supporting a
  preservation program is a sign of institutional
  maturity. It demonstrates recognition of the
  institutions stewardship role.

15
What is digital preservation?

• An Umbrella Term developed to describe a series
  of overlapping activities.

• Digitizing for Access

• Preserving Born-Digital and Digitized Information

• Preservation Through Digital Technology

16
Preserving Born-Digital

• First associated with records managers
• Great interest initially. Reality of managing
  digital information has reduced desire to create
  digital records.

• Most closely associated with preservations asset
  management model in that the records are closely
  tied to finance, business transactions, and legal
  documents.
• They are assets that need to be preserved

17
Digital Imaging for Access

• Most Digital Projects
• Primarily Serves as an Access Tool
• Makes Items with Problematic Access Issues
  Accessible
• Rare books, manuscript and photograph
  collections, exceedingly fragile items.
• Best Practices
• Govern the Creation of Digital Files
• Help to Ensure Long-term Access

18
Digitizing to Preserve Materials I

• Digital Reformatting
• Print Materials
• Non-print Media

• Problems
• Proprietary Hardware/Software
• Best Practices Developed/Developing, but No
  Standards.
• Media Longevity

• Creates a Tremendous RM Problem

19
Digitizing to Preserve Materials II

• Digital Surrogacy
• Similar to digitizing materials to increase
  access, but policies are required to restrict
  access to the original

• Initial hope that digital imaging would decrease
  use and handling of originals, but evidence
  points to the opposite.

• Digitizing items actually increases demand for
  the originals.

20
Digitizations Successes

• Successes
• Collection-centric
• Natural fit for collection-centric projects.
• Tremendous access advantages
• Collocate disparate collections
• Provide access to problematic materials
• No standards
• Ability to provide context

21
Digitizations Problems

• Problems
• Collection-centric
• Difficulty moving beyond collection-centric
  projects.
• Rapidity of Change
• Hardware/Software Obsolescence
• Lack of standardized production complicates
  inter-operability between systems
• No standards makes long-term data preservation
  difficult
• Significant persistence issues
• Access Problems
• Digital Divide is a reality information haves
  and have-nots
• Exceedingly Costly
• Imaging is less than 30 of typical project cost
• Storage is exceedingly costly (Stephen Chapman)

22
What Does Digitization Mean to Libraries?

• Recognition - Digitization programs are an
  opportunity for institutions to gain recognition,
  both among their peers and their public. Like
  rare book collections and preservation, digital
  imaging is something that is both valued and
  valuable.

• An Educational Commitment Properly completed,
  digitization projects can provide contextual
  information otherwise lacking from collections of
  material. They demonstrates recognition of the
  institutions educational role.

• Stewardship As a steward of state, federal, or
  private dollars, the Library is a public good,
  the involvement of preservation and conservation
  personnel with digital projects demonstrates good
  stewardship of both collections and resources.

23
Preservation and Conservations Place in Digital
Imaging

• Persistence and access are important for more
  than just the electronic content. Maintenance of
  digital and print are equally important for
  imaging projects, and the problems with ensuring
  persistence to digital media require that the
  source documents be maintained as much as
  possible.
• Deanna Marcum (at UIUC)