The Library of Congress maintains a Sustainability of Digital Formats web site that educates institutions on various aspects of preservation: most notably, on approximately 200 digital format types and which are most likely to last into the future. Groups such as the Digital Preservation Network strive to ensure that "the complete scholarly record is preserved for future generations". Programs teaching graduate students about digital librarianship are especially important. Educational programs are tailoring themselves to fit preservation needs and help new students understand preservation practices. However, many of these problems are being solved through educational initiatives. Other problems include scan quality, redundancy of digitized books among different libraries, and copyright law. Fragile items are often more difficult or more expensive to scan, which creates a selection problem for preservationists where they must decide if digital access in the future is worth potentially damaging the item during the scanning process. Higher-quality images take a longer time to scan, but are often more valuable for future use. The main problems are that digital space costs money, media and file formats may become obsolete, and backwards compatibility is not guaranteed. The goal of this library partnership project is to "make it easier for people to find relevant books – specifically, books they wouldn't find any other way such as those that are out of print – while carefully respecting authors' and publishers' copyrights." Īlthough digitization seems to be a promising area for future preservation, there are also problems. For example, the Google Book Search program has partnered with over forty libraries around the world to digitize books. "Digitizing refers to the process of converting analog materials into digital form." įor manuscripts, digitization is achieved through scanning an item and saving it to a digital format. Reformatting processes include microfilming and digitization.Ī relatively new concept, digitization, has been hailed as a way to preserve historical items for future use. Reformatting is the practice of creating copies of an object in another type of data-storage device.This should not be confused with digitization, which is a process of creating digital information which must then itself be preserved digitally. Some means of digital preservation include refreshing, migration, replication and emulation. Digital preservation is the maintenance of digitally stored information.Disaster preparedness (RT: Disaster Plan / Business Continuation / Disaster Recovery / Disaster Mitigation Plan) is the practice of arranging for the necessary resources and planning the best course of action to prevent or minimize damage to a collection in the event of a disaster of any level of magnitude, whether natural or man-made.Preservation can include general collections maintenance activities such as security, environmental monitoring, preservation surveys, and more specialized activities such as mass deacidification.Risk management in collections is the preventive care of a collection as a whole.
See also: Digital preservation § Fundamentals Standard functions of preservation programs
Preventive conservation is occasionally used interchangeably with preservation, particularly outside the professional literature. Preservation should be distinguished from interventive conservation and restoration, which refers to the treatment and repair of individual items to slow the process of decay, or restore them to a usable state.
Preservation, in this definition, is practiced in a library or an archive by a librarian, archivist, or other professional when they perceive a record is in need of maintenance. Preservation activities vary widely and may include monitoring the condition of items, maintaining the temperature and humidity in collection storage areas, writing a plan in case of emergencies, digitizing items, writing relevant metadata, and increasing accessibility. In library and archival science, preservation is a set of preventive conservation activities aimed at prolonging the life of a record, book, or object while making as few changes as possible.