Preserving History through Photographic Archives
Emily Perdue
Topic: What are the best practices, and limitations for the preservation of digital photo archives?
Annotated Bibliography
Ashenfelder, M. (2013). Personal Archiving in the Cloud. Perspectives on Personal Digital Archiving.
Retrieved from: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/documents/ebookpdf_march18.pdf
This article, titled Personal Archiving in the Cloud, is included in a booklet called Perspectives on Personal Digital Archiving. The articles within this booklet examine the different methods and important information regarding personal digitization projects. According to this article, author Mike Ashenfelder has been in the process of digitizing family photographs and videos. As with many others who have begun a personal digitization project in recent years, Ashenfelder has followed the typical rules of organizing and backing up personal collections. However, during this project a new challenge has presented itself: that of backing the newly digitized files up. Normally, many archivists will back up digital surrogates onto external hard drives. However, purchasing multiple external harddrives can become quite expensive and there is a fear of losing those hard drives, meaning all the digital surrogates would be lost. A new way of backing up files that has become popular in recent years is the use of online backup storage, or what is also known as the cloud. The cloud is similar to an external hard drive in which the user is able to back up a digital copy of a specific item, in this case digitized videos and photographs, however, rather than the digital file being on an external hard drive, the file is saved in an online program that is a part of a much larger “super computer”. This article examines the pros and cons of saving digital surrogates via an external hard drive or the cloud and whether it is more beneficial for archivists to use the cloud as a backup location for digital surrogates or if external hard drives are better.
Ashenfelder, M. The Library of Congress and Personal Digital Archiving. Personal Archiving. Retrieved
from: http://digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/
In today’s world, mostly every record or photograph is in a digital form, thus is subject for digital preservation and the issues surrounding it. Though digital files are prominent, most of the general public do not know about digital preservation or personal digital archiving and why these are extremely important. The most important concept as to why digital preservation is needed is the idea of potential loss. The general explanation of digital loss is rooted in the idea of “store and ignore” in which we often store physical items such as books, paper photos, and documents under optimal conditions for years and think that we will be able to access them at any time. This is not the case with digital photographs however, because once hardware or software is ignored for a significant period of time, it can often become obsolete and therefore cause the digital file to be extremely difficult to access. The life of digital media is cut short by three factors: lack of durability, obsolescence, usage and handling. The solution to this issue lies within the way that files are saved. If one were to organize and back up these files, the files could then be saved for much longer than the “store and ignore” method.
Asogwa, B. & Ezema, I. (Spring 2012). The Challenges of Preservation of Archives and Records in the
Electronic Age. PNLA Quarterly, 76(2). Retrieved from: http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/76600087/challenges-preservation-archives- records-electronic-age
“The Challenges of Preservation of Archives and Records in the Electronic Age,” discusses the relationships between archives and records, preservation and conservation, as well as the needs for short and long-term preservation plans that are adopted in many libraries, archives and records centers. The end goal of preservation in archives and records centers is to increase the longevity of active materials through particular storage and use. The task of preserving and conserving collections is extremely necessary because there is often a lack of funds and time to put towards giving collections individual attention to the treatment of documents. This article examines the different types of preservation and conservation that is often used in archives including, environmental preservation, structural techniques, technical preservation, etc. The most important is electronic preservation which is currently being adopted by many institutions. Electronic preservation is the process of taking a physical archival material or photographs, scanning the items and transferring the scan into a digital medium. With the creation of a digital file, digital preservation is necessary to manage the information and requires constant attention to ensure that there is continued access to this information.
Conway, P. (2015). Digital transformations and the archival nature of surrogates. Archival Science, 15(1),
51-69. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/10.1007/s10502-014-9219-z
“Digital transformations and the archival nature of surrogates,” examines the requirements of long-term access to digital collections, specifically of digital surrogates. According to Paul Conway, the most significant requirement for the access of digital surrogates is to treat digital surrogates as archival records that embody traces of their fluid lifecycles and therefore are worthy of preservation and management as traditional archives. Conway’s argument states that there are implications of the decision to capture and preserve the final products of large-scale digitization projects of books and photographs. The management of these large-scale digitization projects and their digital surrogates requires new forms of thinking in terms of archives. Overall, Conway states that archivists first should recognize the importance of their work of digitizing and delivering archival resources. Secondly, they must record the changes that occur and how that could affect how end users interpret or re-interpret what they see and understand within the digital surrogate. Finally, archivists should expose the metadata in understandable ways, as well as increasing communication and engaging in ongoing conversations regarding digital preservation.
Gracy, K. & Kahn, M. (July 2011). Preservation in the Digital Age: A Review of Preservation Literature,
2009-10. Library Resources and Technical. Retrieved from: https://journals.ala.org/index/lrts/article/viewFile/5495/6744
The article, “Preservation in the Digital Age: A Review of Preservation Literature,” examines the research and professional literature on preservation related topics in what is known as the digital age. The literature examined in this article revealed how the preservation field has changed tremendously with the addition of digital files. The literature reviewed looks at five areas of information in the digital preservation field: the tensions and challenges for preservation administrators as libraries embrace digital resources, mass digitization and its effects on collections, increased awareness of risk management and disaster preparedness, the need for digital preservation and curation, and finally the changing focus on preservation education, specifically related to digital preservation. The preservation field had previously not been reviewed for at least a decade, but this article examines the necessary changes that are needed to push the field into the digital age and what is needed to fully embrace digital preservation.
Kastellec, M. (June 2012). Practical Limits to the Scope of Digital Preservation. Information Technology
and Libraries. Retrieved from: http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&u=lom_waynesu&id=GALE%7CA300651472&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon&authCount=1&selfRedirect=true
“Practical Limits to the Scope of Digital Preservation” examines the factors that put limitations on institutions to properly digitally preserve collections from the modern era. While digital preservation is extremely important for institutions today, there are quite a few factors that limit the efforts of institutions to be able to properly digitize collections and preserve those digital surrogates for the future. The most obvious factor is technology, in that data loss and technological obsolescence can completely hinder the process of digital preservation. Data loss is a major issue that can be caused by physical deterioration as well as technical issues. While many may think of physical deterioration as only being associated with the physical medium of a digital surrogate, digital files can also be subject to degradation. Along with technology issues, access proves to be a factor that can limit digital preservation. Access, or lack thereof, is often centered around copyright issues and authorization of users to be able to access holdings. This issue is centered around the problem of rights management in that who can access a digital collection. Similarly, the law plays a factor in the issue of digital preservation in that copyright restrictions will constantly plague the efforts of digital preservation. Finally, the limitations of digital preservation also hinge upon the act of intellectual appraisal and funding. The problem of intellectual appraisal and funding is essentially the problem of not having enough money or time to digitize everything, so decisions must be made as to what is currently most important to digitize.
Lazorchak, B. What Do Teenagers Know About Digital Preservation? Actually, more than You Think…
Personal Archiving in the Cloud. Perspectives on Personal Digital Archiving. Retrieved from: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/documents/ebookpdf_march18.pdf
As with many older generations, the idea that teenagers do not understand the intricate processes of digital preservations are still seen today. According to the article, “What do teenagers know about digital preservation? Actually, more than you think…” author Butch Lazorchak, examines the event of hosting teenagers from a middle school visiting the Library of Congress from Florida and exactly how they proceeded to educate these students on preserving digital information. This article details the importance of outreach in terms of teaching the processes and importance of digital preservation and shows how teenagers actually know more about digital preservation that previously thought. After asking the students about their current knowledge of digital preservation, Lazorchak and his colleagues found that the students had a higher degree of knowledge regarding this subject than previously understood. Many students recognized that their digital photos were “at-risk” in some way, for example, ensuring that photos could be backed up for fear of losing the digital surrogate, as well as knowing reasonable ways to back up and replicate digital surrogates.
Raventós, P. & Roca, E. (September 2016). The digital archive: an example of long-term preservation.
The state of the Universities of Spain. Italian Journal of Library and Information Science, 7(3). Retrieved from: Universities of Spain https://www.jlis.it/article/view/11468
“The digital archive: an example of long-term preservation. The state of the Universities of Spain,” examines the findings from the Conference of Archivists of Spanish Universities. The objective of the conference is to collaborate with and improve the management of the documentary heritage of higher education centers in Spain. The CAU has worked since 2010 on the requirements for and analysis of existing tools to work with digital repositories. The end goal would be to focus on the reform of metadata schema with a new system based on elements of the EemgdE due to the scope, flexibility, interoperability and extendibility, and the systems relationship with the Technical Interoperability Standard Management Policy Document, the Electronic Document Guide and National Interoperability Framework and metadata management of documents. These are necessary for preservation and long-term access, and have a special emphasis on the specific metadata, access and security, which are all important in the processes of university records management. Their findings focus on metadata in digital archiving and they have found that in multiple cases that some universities have established their own metadata schema that fit their collections, but that also does not prevent the integration of other types of metadata schema. These examples are the reason behind the CAU’s promotion of their work to complete a common metadata schema.
Westervelt, T. (May 2015). Acquisition and Management of Digital Content at the Library of Congress.
The Serials Librarian: From the Printed Page to the Digital Age, 68. Retrieved from: http://www.tandfonline.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/doi/citedby/10.1080/0361526X.2015.1026299?scroll=top&needAccess=true
“Acquisition and Management of Digital Content at the Library of Congress,” addresses the efforts of the Library of Congress in building their digital content collections. The Library of Congress, or LoC, acquire digital content from a variety of channels, many of which they have continued to use to acquire things such as analogy content. The way that the LoC obtains digital content is through purchase agreements, as well as bequests and gifts donated from various donors, and partners. The goal of the LoC, as with all institutions, is to make the content accessible to patrons, thus it is extremely important to preserve the digital content to last through the years. LoC relies on a series of tools to preserve their digital collections so that they will be available to patrons. These tools include an integrated library system and electronic copyright office that have been critical in acquiring and managing their digital content. In order to preserve and manage these digital collections further, the LoC uses a tool called Digiboard, Content Transfer Services, as well as Delivery Management Services to be able to process incoming serials and ensure the appropriate metadata is created.
Zastrow, J. (May 2014). Taking the Long View: Surveying Collections for Preservation and Digitization
Priorities. The Digital Archivist. Retrieved from: http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/96075312/digital-archivist-taking-long-view- surveying-collections-preservation-digitization-priorities
The article, “Taking the Long View: Surveying Collections for Preservation and Digitization,” examines the reasons as to why surveying collections is the most important first step to building a digital archive. The process of surveying collections is to see exactly what kinds of already digitized files are hiding within curated collections. By determining what collections are already computer-readable, this will make the process of digital preservation much easier. The process of surveying also make the steps of preservation, planning, and determining funding much easier. By surveying collections first, archivists can determine what is important for digitization and preservation presently to best allocate time and funding, as well as sufficiently backing up files for future use.
