This volume is devoted to the broad topic of distributed digital preservation, a still-emerging field of practice for the cultural memory arena. Replication and distribution hold out the promise of indefinite preservation of materials without degradation, but establishing effective organizational and technical processes to enable this form of digital preservation is daunting. Institutions need practical examples of how this task can be accomplished in manageable, low-cost ways. This guide is written with a broad audience in mind that includes librarians, archivists, scholars, curators, technologists, lawyers, and administrators. Readers may use this guide to gain both a philosophical and practical understanding of the emerging field of distributed digital preservation, including how to establish or join a network.

A practical guide to the development and operation of digital preservations services for organizations of any size Practical Digital Preservation offers a comprehensive overview of best practice and is aimed at the non-specialist, assuming only a basic understanding of IT. The book provides guidance as to how to implement strategies with minimal time and resources. Digital preservation has become a critical issue for institutions of all sizes but until recently has mostly been the preserve of national archives and libraries with the resources, time and specialist knowledge available to experiment. As the discipline matures and practical tools and information are increasingly available the barriers to entry are falling for smaller organizations which can realistically start to take active steps towards a preservation strategy. However, the sheer volume of technical information now available on the subject is becoming a significant obstacle and a straightforward guide is required to offer clear and practical solutions. Each chapter in Practical Digital Preservation covers the essential building blocks of digital preservation strategy and implementation, leading the reader through the process. International case studies from organizations such as the Wellcome Library, Central Connecticut State University Library in the USA and Gloucestershire Archives in the UK illustrate how real organizations have approached the challenges of digital preservation. Key topics include: • Making the case for digital preservation • Understanding your requirements • Models for implementing a digital preservation service • Selecting and acquiring digital objects • Accessioning and ingesting digital objects • Describing digital objects • Preserving digital objects • Providing access to users • Future trends. Readership: Anyone involved in digital preservation and those wanting to get a better understanding of the process, students studying library and information science (LIS), archives and records management courses and academics getting to grips with practical issues.

Digital preservation is an issue of huge importance to the library and information profession right now. With the widescale adoption of the internet and the rise of the WWW, the world has been overwhelmed by digital information. Digital data is being produced on a massive scale by individuals and institutions: some of it is born, lives and dies only in digital form, and it is the potential death of this data that is the concern of this volume. So how can information professionals try to remedy this situation? Digital preservation is a complex issue, with many different aspects and views, so in this book each chapter is written by an international expert on the topic. Many case studies and examples are used to ground the ideas and theories in real concerns and practice. This volume will arm the information professional with the knowledge they need about this important and pressing issue and give examples of best practice to help find a way to a solution for this problem. Chapters cover: formats of digital data authenticity of digital data preservation strategies international trends in digital preservation web archiving metadata institutional policies the cost of digital preservation and cost of data loss. Written by leading international experts in digital library development, each book in the Digital Futures series examines in detail some of the key strategic and practical issues facing libraries and other cultural institutions in the rapidly expanding world of digital information. Readership: This is an indispensable guide for all information managers, librarians and archivists. Others in the information and culture world, such as museum curators, media professionals and web content providers will also find it essential reading, as will students of digital culture on library and information studies and other courses.

This new edition of Digital Preservation in Libraries, Archives, and Museums is the most current, complete guide to digital preservation available today. For administrators and practitioners alike, the information in this book is presented readably, focusing on management issues and best practices. Although this book addresses technology, it is not solely focused on technology. After all, technology changes and digital preservation is aimed for the long term. This is not a how-to book giving step-by-step processes for certain materials in a given kind of system. Instead, it addresses a broad group of resources that could be housed in any number of digital preservation systems. Finally, this book is about “things (not technology; not how-to; not theory) I wish I knew before I got started.” Digital preservation is concerned with the life cycle of the digital object in a robust and all-inclusive way. Many Europeans and some North Americans may refer to digital curation to mean the same thing, taking digital preservation to be the very limited steps and processes needed to insure access over the long term. The authors take digital preservation in the broadest sense of the term: looking at all aspects of curating and preserving digital content for long term access. The book is divided into four part: 1.Situating Digital Preservation, 2.Management Aspects, 3.Technology Aspects, and 4.Content-Related Aspects. Digital Preservation will answer questions that you might not have even known you had, leading to more successful digital preservation initiatives.

The Digital Archives Handbook provides archivists a roadmap to create and care for digital archives. Written by archival experts and practitioners, Purcell brings together theoretical and practical approaches to creating, managing, and preserving digital archives. The first section is focused on processes and practices, including chapters on acquisitions, appraisal, arrangement, description, delivery, preservation, forensics, curation, and intellectual property. The second section is focused on digital collections and specific environments where archivists are managing digital collections. These chapters review digital collections in categories including performing arts, oral history, architectural and design records, congressional collections, and email. The book discuss the core components of digital archives—the technological infrastructure that provides storage, access, and long-term preservation; the people or organizations that create or donate digital material to archives programs, as well as the researchers use them; and the digital collections themselves, full of significant research content in a variety of formats with a multitude of research possibilities. The chapters emphasize that the people and the collections that make up digital archives are just as important as the technology. Also highlighted are the importance of donors and creators of digital archives. Building digital archives parallels the cycle of donor work—planning, cultivation, and stewardship. During each stage, archivists work with donors to ensure that the digital collections will be arranged, described, preserved, and made accessible for years to come. Archivists must take proactive and informed actions to build valuable digital collections. Knowing where digital materials come from, how those materials were created, what materials are important, what formats or topical areas are included, and how to serve those collections to researchers in the long term is central to archival work. This handbook is designed to generate new discussions about how archivists of the twenty-first century can overcome current challenges and chart paths that anticipate, rather than merely react to, future donations of digital archives.

In today’s information landscape, there are fewer topics that more urgently demand expansive discourse than digital preservation, which touches on everything from technology to copyright. The Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) steps up to the challenge with this comprehensive overview. Global in scope, it features case studies and contributions that discuss such key issues as the history of digital preservation; digital preservation and information ethics; strategies for getting started, sustaining digitization programs, and performing evaluation; fine-tuning digital preservation workflows, with a look at Digital Streams Matrix for analyzing pathways and tasks; preserving e-books, mobile device data, and other specific types of materials; collaborative efforts in digital preservation, including jargon-free techniques for engaging non-technical colleagues in digital legacy tools and processes; and the copyright, legal, and administrative issues connected with digital preservation. Academic librarians, technical services staff, technologists, and administrators will all benefit from this incisive collection.

Scholars and scrapbookers alike need your help with saving their most important digital content. But how do you translate your professional knowledge as a librarian or archivist into practical skills that novices can apply to their own projects? The Complete Guide to Personal Archiving will show you the way, helping you break down archival concepts and best practices into teachable solutions for your patrons’ projects. Whether it’s a researcher needing to cull their most important email correspondence, or an empty-nester transferring home movies and photographs to more easily shared and mixed digital formats, this book will show you how to offer assistance, providing explanations of common terms in plain language;quick, non-technical solutions to frequent patron requests;a look at the 3-2-1 approach to backing up files;guidance on how to archive Facebook posts and other social media;methods for capturing analog video from obsolete physical carriers like MiniDV;proven workflows for public facing transfer stations, as used at the Washington, D.C. Memory Lab and the Queens Library mobile scanning unit;talking points to help seniors make proactive decisions about their digital estates;perspectives on balancing core library values with the business goals of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and other dominant platforms; andadditional resources for digging deep into personal digital archiving. Featuring expert contributors working in a variety of contexts, this resource will help you help your patrons take charge of their personal materials.