Preservation And Access:
Achieving the Best of Both Worlds
Eimee Rhea C. Lagrama
1
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.
Preservation
• To keep for some period of time; to
set aside for future use.
• To take action to prevent
deterioration or loss.
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.
Preservation/Access
•
•
•
•
Preservation OR (vs) Access
Preservation AND Access
Preservation IS Access
Preservation OF Access
Preservation OR Access
• Libraries/Archives as collecting
agencies
• Preservation is separate from Access
• Use exposes material to risks and
eventually loss.
Preservation AND Access
• Mutually reinforcing ideas
• Preservation action is taken on item
to gain/increase access
Preservation IS Access
• Electronic Records
• Act of preserving makes access
possible
Preservation OF Access
•
•
•
•
Electronic records
Preservation = action; access = thing
The act of preserving access
Preservation of accessibility
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?
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.
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.
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.
Remedial Preservation
• Focus is to correct/remedy physical
or chemical deterioration
• Costly, labor intensive
• Requires training
Remedial Preservation
• Conservation treatment
– Must be carried out by a
professional
– Requires conservation laboratory
– Can be contracted/outsourced
– Cost-prohibitive
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.
Reformatting
• Photocopying
• Microforms
• Digitization
Photocopying
• Duplication of a printed material
using a photocopying machine
• Relatively inexpensive
• Can reach a broader audience
Photocopying Issues
• Cannot be used for preservation
• Copyright issues
• Inaccurate image capturing (even for
colored machines)
• Color photocopying is expensive
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
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
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
Original image
Microfilmed
image
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
Digitization Workflow
Pre-Scanning/
Scanning
Document Preparation
Metadata
Quality Control
Quality
Upload to website /
Control
Preservation
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?
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,
Document Types
Printed Text
Manuscripts
Halftone
Images
Document Types
Continuous Tone
Mixed images
Capturing images
• Do not scrimp on equipment.
• Determine appropriate image standards
for various documents
• High resolution does not always equate to
a better image.
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
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.
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)
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
Workflow
Open Archival Information System
Functional Model
Digital Materials
• Term used for all materials in digital
format, whether digital surrogates
(converted from analog) or borndigital materials.
Born-digital Materials
• Materials with no equivalent analog
format, either as an originating
source or as a product.
Issues in Digital Preservation
• Dearth of standards and policies
• Lack of institutional support for longterm preservation
• Obsolescence
• Migration issues
• Evolving copyright issues
• Maintaining security/integrity
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
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
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.
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/FP060strodl.pdf
• Cornell University Library (2007). Moving theory into
practice: Digital imaging tutorial.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/c
ontents.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.p
df
Thank you for your attention.