Preservation And Access:Preservation And Access:Achieving the Best of Both Achieving the Best of Both

WorldsWorlds

Eimee Rhea C. Lagrama

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Preservation

• The professional discipline of protecting materials by minimizing chemical and physical deterioration and damage to minimize the loss of information and to extend the life of cultural property.

• The act of keeping from harm, injury, decay, or destruction, especially through noninvasive treatment.

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Preservation

• To keep for some period of time; to set aside for future use.

• To take action to prevent deterioration or loss.

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Access

• The ability to locate relevant information through the use of catalogs, indexes, finding aids, or other tools.

• The permission to locate and retrieve information for use (consultation or reference) within legally established restrictions of privacy, confidentiality, and security clearance.

• The physical processes of retrieving information from storage media.

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Preservation/Access

• Preservation OR (vs) Access• Preservation AND Access• Preservation IS Access• Preservation OF Access

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Preservation OR Access

• Libraries/Archives as collecting agencies

• Preservation is separate from Access• Use exposes material to risks and

eventually loss.

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Preservation AND Access

• Mutually reinforcing ideas• Preservation action is taken on item

to gain/increase access

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Preservation IS Access

• Electronic Records• Act of preserving makes access

possible

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Preservation OF Access

• Electronic records• Preservation = action; access = thing• The act of preserving access• Preservation of accessibility

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Preservation / Access

• How do you straddle the line between use and abuse vs. lock up and store?

• Is there a way to achieve both without compromising the integrity of the collection and the rights of the user?

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Preservation Management

• In archives and records management, it is a tool used to manage the physical condition of holdings, ensuring present and future access. It is based on the principle of preventive conservation and integrates preservation in all other archival functions.

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Preventive Preservation

• Focus is to defer or avoid altogether the deterioration of the collections as a whole

• “Prevention is better than cure”• Should be viewed as an integral

component of day to day operations in the library.

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Preventive Preservation

• Housing and storage• Collection surveys to identify collection

condition and needs• Staff training and education in library

preservation and disaster awareness• Environmental monitoring and

management• Disaster preparedness, response and

recovery• Integrated pest management.

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Remedial Preservation

• Focus is to correct/remedy physical or chemical deterioration

• Costly, labor intensive• Requires training

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Remedial Preservation

• Conservation treatment– Must be carried out by a

professional– Requires conservation laboratory– Can be contracted/outsourced– Cost-prohibitive

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Remedial Preservation

• Reformatting– Creating a copy with a format or

structure different from the original, especially for preservation or access.

– Migrating information from one carrier to another.

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Reformatting

• Photocopying• Microforms• Digitization

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Photocopying

• Duplication of a printed material using a photocopying machine

• Relatively inexpensive• Can reach a broader audience

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Photocopying Issues

• Cannot be used for preservation• Copyright issues• Inaccurate image capturing (even for

colored machines)• Color photocopying is expensive

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Microforms

• Images are reduced to about 25x the size of originals and stored in microfilms, microfiche or aperture cards

• Images are stored in the positive or negative

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Microforms: Advantages

• Assured longevity under optimal conditions (±500 years)

• Analog, does not require a PC to decode the images

• Easily produced, stored, distributed and reproduced

• Cannot be mutilated or defaced• Acceptable in the court of law

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Microforms : Disadvantages

• Requires a special reader to see the images

• Images are captured poorly• Colored microforms are expensive

and degrade much faster• Texts are not searchable• Can cause headaches after

prolonged use

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Original image Microfilmed image

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Digitization

• Conversion of analog source material (printed matter, microforms, audio/video) to digital format

• Resulting digital format is called a digital object or digital surrogate and is subject to the same archiving procedure as a born-digital material

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Digitization WorkflowPre-Scanning/

Document Preparation

Scanning

Quality ControlMetadata

Upload to website /

Preservation

Quality

Control

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Pre-Scanning / Document Preparation• Is material copyrighted?• Are there legal/donor restrictions?• Can it be digitized? • Can it handle the digitization

process?• Will the material be a digital

surrogate?

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Scanning (Image Capturing)

• Different document types require different techniques.

• Different scanners also give varying results.

• Most images are saved as TIFF file which can later be converted to other files, depending on type of material e.g. PDF, JPG, PNG,

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Document Types

Printed Text Manuscripts Halftone Images

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Document Types

Continuous Tone Mixed images

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Capturing images• Do not scrimp on equipment. • Determine appropriate image standards

for various documents• High resolution does not always equate to

a better image.

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Quality Control

• Determine the scope of your QC. Will you compare from the original?

• Define a baseline/standard in inspecting images. Determine what is acceptable or not.

• Have the proper equipment and environment when reviewing images

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Metadata

• Data about data; used for information resources

• Different kinds of metadata describe various categories of the information resource; e.g. descriptive, administrative, preservation, structural.

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Metadata

• Depending on category of metadata, various languages/standards for each are used, e.g. MARC, Dublin Core, Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Open Archives Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH)

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Digital Preservation

• Refers to all actions required to maintain long-term access to all digital materials, including the reliability of hardware and software infrastructure to store and allow access to collection

• Ensure collection security

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Workflow

Open Archival Information System

Functional Model

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Digital Materials

• Term used for all materials in digital format, whether digital surrogates (converted from analog) or born-digital materials.

Born-digital Materials• Materials with no equivalent analog

format, either as an originating source or as a product.

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Issues in Digital Preservation

• Dearth of standards and policies• Lack of institutional support for long-

term preservation• Obsolescence• Migration issues• Evolving copyright issues• Maintaining security/integrity

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Digital Preservation Strategies• Bit stream copying

– Simple duplication• Emulation

– One system imitates or reproduces another system

– E.g. Display of Rushdie’s works by Emory University

• Encapsulation– Grouping together a digital object with

its related files to maintain access to it

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Digital Preservation Strategies• Refreshing

– Copying a digital file from one media to another

• Analog backups– Creating analog copies of digital files– Limited application

• Migration– Converting digital files from a

software/hardware to another or from one generation/version of a software/hardware to another

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Digital Preservation Strategies• Digital archaeology

– Method of rescuing obsolete or damaged software or hardware and rendering them usable.

• Technology preservation– Preserving obsolete hardware and

software to maintain access to old digital materials.

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Suggested readings• Strodl, S. (2007). How to Choose a Digital Preservation

Strategy: Evaluating a Preservation Planning Procedure. http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/~strodl/paper/FP060-strodl.pdf

• Cornell University Library (2007). Moving theory into practice: Digital imaging tutorial. http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/contents.html

• Preserving Access to Digital Information. http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/index.html

• Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). (2002). http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0b1.pdf

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Thank you for your attention.