What does it really mean to preserve information?

According to my handy 1997 Merriam-Webster desktop edition dictionary, the word 'preserve' is defined as follows:

Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): pre·served; pre·ser·ving
1 : to keep or save from injury, loss, or ruin : PROTECT
2 : MAINTAIN 1, continue

So, to preserve information would mean to save it, to prevent it from becoming inaccessible, or from being damaged or altered by maintaining at least its' original content, if not its' original form. But, how would this be accomplished, given information's multitudinous forms and formats?

In order to examine this question, perhaps it would be a good idea to look a little closer at the various formats in which information may be found these days. Information may be found in print format (books, periodicals, etc.), on film (or even glass plates!), and even in various completely electronic formats such as this blog (assuming that you did not print this out) to name but a few. Each of these formats comes with it's own set of special considerations when it comes to preservation, given our working definition above, and as such, each must be handled somewhat differently if we are to achieve our goal.

Lets take a cursory look at some of the pros and cons of each of these different formats, just to get an idea of what sorts of problems each of them might present to those who wish to preserve them.


Physical printed information:

Pros:

1. It requires no special equipment to access.
2. It's format never becomes inaccessible due to changes in technology.
   

Cons:

1. Printed information, being physical, takes up physical space.
2. It can generally only be accessed by one person at a time.
3. It often requires special storage considerations, which can add to the cost of it's preservation.
4. Physical deterioration will eventually cause it's destruction.
   

Physical visual information:

Pros:

1. It may or may not require special equipment to access.
2. Some forms will not become inaccessible due to changes in technology.

Cons:

1. Takes up physical space.
2. It can often only be accessed by one person at a time.
3. It often requires special storage considerations, which can add to the cost of it's preservation.
4. Some forms will become inaccessible due to changes in technology.
5. Physical deterioration will eventually cause it's destruction.

Electronic information:

Pros:

1. May be access by multiple people at once.
2. May be accessed from multiple remote locations.

Cons:

1. It requires special equipment to access.
2. All formats will become obsolete over time.
3. Storage costs include the maintenance of expensive equipment that requires specially train technical staff.
4. Failures of storage media may result in total loss of data, requiring duplication of storage (and thus storage costs).

Suggested Further Reading:

Library of Congress Preservation

The Image Permanence Institutes's The Archival Advisor


Works Referenced:

Chapman, S. Counting the Costs of Digital Preservation:
Is Repository Storage Affordable?. Retrieved May 14, 2008 from http://jodi.tamu.edu/Articles/v04/i02/Chapman/chapman-final.pdf.

Hanna, J. & Burge, D. Saving Digital Storage Media. Retrieved May 14, 2008 from http://www.archivaladvisor.org/shtml/art_savdigmedia.shtml.

Kingma, B. (1999). The Economics of Digital Access:
The Early Canadiana Online Project. Retrieved May 14, 2008 from http://www.si.umich.edu/PEAK-2000/kingma.pdf.