Preservation in action: reprints of previously out-of-print books

BackinPrint.com is preservation in action!

Here's an excellent example of how technology can be used in preservation to improve access of preserved materials. This company worked with writers to establish not only an archive of preserved written works, but also to create a solution that allows these works to be accessed in their original formats - the printed word in book form.

By using on demand printing technology coupled with copyright grants from the originators of information, this organization has applied technology to great effect. By allowing consumers of information to purchase books that are preserved in electronic form, and then delivering that information in its original format, they have moved preservation of information to a new level.

In the News: Photographic Archives provide in-depth view of history

Preservation in action

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7457795.stm

Providing an interpretive dialog along with preserved photographic images, military historians are able to provide an in-depth view of the events of D-Day in World War II using military intelligence photographs taken from the air. By coupling the oral history of people who were involved in the event with photographic records, many of which would not otherwise be widely available to the public, the impact of this presentation is made to be more valuable than the sum of it's individual part...

Theft and Vandalism: A real threat to preservation

Not all consumers of information have the same level of respect for preserved information. Some people do not feel that information that conflicts with their personal beliefs should be preserved, while others feel that preserved material collections are a gold mine waiting to be exploited. In the year 2000, more than %80 of libraries queried (including the Library of Congress) reported thefts of collection materials, and %50 reported mutilation or other malicious damage to collection materials (Revelli, 2000). Let's examine a couple of examples to gain a little more insight into this aspect of the preservation of information.



E. Forbes Smiley III

Over the course of eight years, E. Forbes Smiley III, an antique map dealer and collector visited a large number of libraries and archives that held map collections and books containing valuable maps. During these visits he clandestinely stole more than 100 maps valued at over $3 million dollars. Not all of the stolen maps were recovered even with the help of Mr. Smiley (maps, 2006).


Gilbert Bland:

Gilbert Bland was arrested as a suspect in the theft of $220,000 worth of rare maps and documents from East coast libraries and archives in 1996. It is unknown exactly what documents were stolen (Mazmanian, 1996).


Library of Congress:

After a number of books, periodicals, and other holdings in the Library of Congress were discovered to have been maliciously damaged during a period between January and May of 1993, investigations revealed that a library worked had been damaging books and other holdings intentionally. Further investigations revealed that a number of separate incidents of similar nature had likely occurred at various times in the past which had been intentionally covered up (Flaff, 1995).


Poetry book slashing

An unknown persons cut out the contents of over 40 poetry books, many of which are no longer in print, totaling over $3000 is replacement costs in multiple California libraries (McCormick, 1995).


Comedie des Champs-Elysees

1986 - Six masterpiece paintings, worth an estimated $3 million, are stolen directly from their frames on the walls, fortunately to be located and returned unharmed (Conrad, 1987).


This problem is not new though. Here are a few selected historical examples:

1824 - Lord Byron's memoirs and it's only copy, is burned in a fireplace due to it's explicit descriptions of his exploits (Conrad, 1987).

1890 - After his death, the widow of Sir Richard Burton burns his memoirs, titled 'The Scented Garden', which he considered to be his highest accomplishment in life because she felt that the contents were scandalous (Conrad, 1987).

1914 - London National Gallery. An angry suffragette storms into the museum and attacks the sculpture 'Mirror of Venus' with a hatchet. The sculpture is, fortunately unharmed (Conrad, 1987).


How can preservers of information combat this trend?

As with most things, there is no simple, direct solution that fits all needs - depending on the size of the preservation institution, this can be a simple or quite complex problem to solve (Arterburn, 1996). For example one library chose to promote awareness by turning their mutilated books into works of art (Meyer, 2005), while a number of others have instituted security cameras (G.F., 1995) and restricted access to more remote collection holding areas to key personnel (Griffith, 1978). In general, it has been suggested that limiting bags, purses, and other large containers that could be used to hold stolen collection items, or conceal tools used for vandalism or theft is the best policy, along with constant vigilance (Arterburn, 1996).

Regardless of the choices made or methods used, thorough awareness of potential problems, especially when collections include valuable or controversial materials, is essential to the preservation of information.


Further Reading:

The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey (ISBN: 978-0767908269)

Works Cited:

Arterburn, T R. (1996). Librarians: caretakers or crimefighters?. American libraries, 27, 32-34.

Conrad, B. (1987). A woeful gallery of the world. Smithsonian, 18, 239-240.

Flaff, G. (1995). LC security flaws prompt federal probes. American libraries, 868-.

Griffith, J W. (1978). Library thefts: a problem that won. American libraries, 9(4).

G F. (1995). Mutilated books prompt LC security crackdown. American libraries, 26(8), 749-.

maps. (2006). Map Dealer Now Admits Library Theft. American libraries, 37(8), 18-.

Mazmanian, A. (1996). Suspected thief of rare maps caught. Library journal, 121, 14-15.

McCormick, E. (1995). Book "slicer" hits over 20 California poetry collections. American libraries, 26, 391-.

Meyer, R. (2005). Slasher Story. Art journal, 64(1), 32-41.

Revelli, C. (2000). Furti, vandalismi e cose affini. Theft, vandalism, and similar acts. Biblioteche oggi, 18(1), 58-.

Versions: new preservation challenges in the electronic information age

With the advent of electronic publishing of information come a scenario that was somewhat less of a problem when all information was in print form - that of the version. Print formats traditionally have controlled the process of versioning published information, but with the rapid increase in the numbers of self published books (Barbato, 1988) it is becoming increasingly difficult to preserve these materials due to the ability of the publisher to create unlimited versions of the same information, with no regulation on the specification or identification attached to any given edition (Carpenter, 2006).

As with any new technology there is a lag from the time of implementation to the time when standards and procedures are worked out, and some work to date has been done to establish standards for the versioning of purely electronic information such as the UK Joint Information Systems Committee VERSIONS system (Allsop, 2006) and the NISO/ALPSP Working Group (Carpenter, 200-6), but to date only a few tools for non-academic information publication have been created, such as Manila 9.5 blogging tool, from Userland Software Inc, which features version information embedding (Bernstein,2005), but this lack of tools poses a problem for those working to preserve information that does not contain version information.

Which version is more important?

When discussing versions it is important to note that not all versions carry the same attribution of value to all consumers. For example, some librarians feel that the authors version of a document is more valuable than the publishers version of the same document (Harris, 2007), so which version should be preserved, or should both be preserved? and why?

Knowing about the version of any given piece of information is important because it allows the researcher to know things like how the information has changed over time, who changed it, and therefore how it has been changed or updated from the original version. It also allows the consumer to better determine things like the influence of bias or the introduction of false information (Austim, 2005).

Part of the value of electronic formats for information is that they are readily accessible and they can be easily edited or created, but this also works against them when editing is done for malicious purposes. Adding bias to electronic forms of information or purposefully adding incorrect information or replacing correct information with incorrect information is easier to do with electronic forms of information (Waters, 2006) so keeping older versions and being able to identify previous versions is becoming increasingly important to preservers of information.

In the next entry I will take a closer look at the challenges to preservation of information presented by those who wish to alter information for their own purposes.


works cited:

Allsop, L. (2006). Versions of Eprint: user requirements study and investigation of the need for standards. ALISS Quarterly, 1(4), 30-.

Austin, M. (2005). The Wikipedia phenomenon. Information world review, (219), 38-.

Barbato, J. (1988). Small publishers are growing up. The publishers weekly, 234, 16-21.

Bernstein, J. (2005). Manila 9.5. EContent, 28(11), 18-20.

Carpenter, T. (2006). Standards column - toward a terminology of journal article versions: an update of the work of the joint NISO/ALPSP journal article version Working Group. Against the grain, 18(6), 79-.

Harris, S. (2007). Final versions carry little weight with librarians. Research information, (28), 13-.

Waters, R. (2006). Wikipedia stand-off in the search for online truth Written and edited by the people for the people, the ever- expanding online encyclopedia is loved around the globe. But does such egalitarian sharing of knowledge lead us towards truth or chaos? Richard Waters talks to the website. FT.com, , 24-.

Case study: Preservation of context

Photographs are real, are they not?

Many people seem to feel that a photograph, at least one made before digital cameras, is a literal record of that split second in time, but this is often not the case. As I have discussed here before, when preserving information it is important to retain as much of the context of that information as possible in order to retain the value of that information. Here's a great case in point.

This is a photograph of Soviet soldiers 'capturing' the Reichstag in Germany during World War II - it is an iconic image that many consider to be factual, but in reality was heavily manipulated to influence it's impact. In various versions elements such as the smoke in the left side of the picture were added, while in other versions tanks that were not in the original negative were added in, as well as fighter planes in the sky in another version.

Through the ability to examine different versions of this photograph, and by accessing the information that surrounds it, we are able to form a much more detailed, more accurate, and perhaps more useful understanding of this image than we would otherwise have been able to form if we were lacking these related pieces of information. By altering the negative the photographer put more emphasis on the event that the original version contained. He altered the context of the photograph by changing how it was viewed by presenting it as if it were taken at the moment the building was taken, a very important moment in Soviet, and German, history. Because we know this, we are able to gain insight into more than the event recorded: we can now better understand the sentiment intended by the photographer, we can gain some insight into the importance or the event, we have a more accurate description of the event because we know that this indeed is not exactly what the event looked like, and we can see that not all of what is presented as fact is indeed what it appears to be...


Further Reading:

Iconic WWII photo honored at Berlin exhibit



Works referenced:

Goldman, A. J. (2008). Iconic WWII photo honored at Berlin exhibit. Retrieved June 18, 2008 from http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gmASS1cuyWONZmJI3b8aXgjzBuMwD91AKB500.

How much is too much?

When considering preservation of information it is important to note the quantity of information that already exists, and how much new information is being created each day. It seems logical to expect that the larger the amount of information we have to deal with the more time it will take to index it, the more storage space it will consume, and the more cost it will incur, does it not? So, that said, consider a real world example of a preservation challenge created by a massive amount of information gathered by a single person - Paul Otlet.

To keep this in context here is a very brief introduction to who this man is (or was as it were). He if the founder of the the Universal Decimal Classification system that is still used today, an example of faceted classification (Rayward, 1994). He also used, literally, tons of index cards to develop his system, but it revolutionized the Dewey system by allowing for unlimited extensions off the existing Dewey group (Collins, 2008). He also predicted a very Internet-like future despite living at a time when computers had never been heard of. In 1913 he won the Nobel Peace prize for his work on information organization and dissemination and his ideas regarding these efforts on an international scale.

This is kind of a long video, but it shows an excellent example of what I am referring to in this post - how much information can accumulate, and what that entails when it comes to preservation efforts. While watching the video, keep in mind that this man's accomplishments...



Imagine if you will how much information that this one man accumulated, and understanding that although we all do not collect quite this much information directly, how much information must have been generated that has to be sorted, indexed, and considered for preservation up to the present date. Unimaginable quantities of information surely. Now, consider how much information is being generated each day, in this age of rapid information generation and dissemination; the number of small publishers are growing rapidly resulting in massive growth in the amount of published materials (Barbato, 1988), more and more information is being published in electronic formats so the number of versions of the same information is rapidly growing (Richardson, 2005), the number of websites grew from 17 million in the middle of 2000 to 65 million in the middle of 2005 (Zakon, 2006). Given these staggering numbers, and the scenario examined above, how can we possibly keep up with all of this information?



works cited:

Barbato, J. (1988). Small publishers are growing up. The publishers weekly, 234, 16-21.

Collins, P. (2008). When the Internet was made of paper. New Scientist, 197(2648), 46-.

Rayward, W B. (1994). Visions of Xanadu: Paul Otlet (1868-1944) and Hypertext. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 45(4), 235-.

Richardson, M. (2005). Post-print archives: parasite or symbiont?. Learned Publishing, 18(3), 221-.

Zakon, R. H. (2006). Hobbes' Internet Timeline v8.2. Retrieved June 16, 2008 from http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline.

Case study: When preservation fails

The Oliver Wendell Holmes Stereoscopic Research Library (defunct)

In the life span of any given preservation organization there exists the possibility that there will come a time when preservation of the collection is no longer sustainable. When an organization for preservation ceases to function, what happens to the collection? How is this event handled, and why? Obviously every situation will be different, but to get an idea of what can happen, let's take a look at a research facility that was shut down, and what happened to it's collection.


Background:

Established in 1979, The Oliver Wendell Holmes Stereoscopic Research Library was operated by The National Stereoscopic Association and was a collection of stereoscopic materials including cameras, prints, stereographs, View-Master reels, and other related materials. The organization that operated the library is a non-profit organization and the library was funded exclusively by the organization. It contained over 20,000 items and was open to the public as a non-lending library (Sell, 1999).

Closure:

According the the organization the library was suffering from low attendance and therefore was more of a drain on the funding of the organization than it's leadership felt was warranted (Rulien, 2006). It closed in March, 2006 and the fate of it's holdings were a matter of great debate. Many people were concerned that the holdings would be auctioned off to the highest bidder and that they would therefore fall into private hands and no longer be available for public reference.


Solutions:

After much discussion and sending of many letters and emails to museums around the country, including the Smithsonian Institute, no one was interested in taking the collection (Rulien, 2006). In the end, a similar organization was found where much of the collection could be housed so that it indeed remained accessible to the public in the form of the 3D Center of Art and Photography in Portland, Oregon.

However, there was some issue with duplicated items either in the Library's existing collection, or that of the receiving institution. The leaders of the organization decided that these duplicated items should be sold at auction in order to raise funds needed by the parent organization, and that because they were duplicated they held little value, and so were actioned off under the name 'OWHSL' on eBay (Rulien, 2006).


Considerations:

In this particular instance, a collection that was built by enthusiasts rather than museum or library professionals was created and maintained by a non-profit organization. It existed for a time and then was disbanded, with the expected level of concern by those within the organization who disagreed with those making the decision. The collection's unique items were transferred to another institution, which duplicated items were auctioned off.

There are many, many facets to preservation, and there are few clear cut answers. Each institution must have a plan in place to deal with the contingency of closure, for what ever reason. To preserve information without such a plan in place is to take on the responsibility of custodian of these items without consideration for the information itself. Deaccession is part of being a preserver of information - decisions on what to preserve, what is more important, and what might be deaccessioned in order to get something more in keeping with the intent of the organization is common (Vogel, 1986), but it must be done with care and thought, especially when it is the entire collection that is being deaccessioned.

Consider what might have happened if the 3D Center did not exist, or if it decided that it did not have the space or funding to take on this new collection of preserved photographic items? Might the entire collection have been sold at auction? Might some of the items have been discarded if they were not able to be sold? What of the items that were donated to the collection for preservation?


Further Reading:

The original web site preserved on the Internet Wayback Machine.

Center News article on the Library and it's collection.




Works cited:

Rulien, D. E. (2006). Center Receives Bittersweet Gift from Ashes of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library. Center News 3 (2), 1.

Sell, M. (1999). Collecting 3-D Images Workshop. Retrieved June 10, 2008 from http://www.cinti.net/~vmmasell/ebayworkshop.html.

Vogel, C. (1986, August 29). Auctions: Museum's art on the block. The New York Times. pp. C25.

One size fits all! (but how well?)

How many times have you seen this in an advertisement? It seems to be a popular marketing strategy, but how can one size really fit all as well as something that was designed to be a good fit based on need? Lets take a closer look at this concept in the context of preservation...


Digitization: a one size fits all panacea (?)

Digitization for preservation has many positive aspects, as we have discussed previously, and will likely continue to do so in future posts, but there are drawbacks that need to considered as well if we are to have a sustainable and usable solution. Consider these four different types of information in the context of preservation; an 8mm movie of the New York World's fair, a digital photograph, an historic photograph, and a film negative.


World's Fair 1934:



In New York in 1965 a promotional film was made to show what a day at the World's Fair would be like using then current technology (Kodachrome 35mm movie film). Fast forward to today. This film has now been digitized and preserved for future generations and provides a detailed look at a past event that we would otherwise not have. In this instance the solution for preservation has allowed for a seemingly total preservation of the information, and done so in a way that allows for more people to view the information remotely without the destruction of storage media. The only drawback that I can see is that the technology used to scan the original (part of the Prelinger archives) is now outdated and newer technology could have preserved more detail from the original, or provided a larger image for viewing. All things considered, I would still say that in this case we have a good example of the proper matching of the method of preservation and information to be preserved.

A film negative:




Here is an example of an older type of film with a nitrate base that presents a different problem for preservation than the other examples. The video shows how easily, and quickly, the base of the film burns, making this medium difficult to both preserve and access the information it contains. By selecting a preservation method that removes the danger of fire - another good example of making a good decision based on the information to be preserved and the method of it's preservation.


A.P. News digital photograph of the 9/11 events:

On September the 11th of 2001, both towers of the World Trade Center were struck by aircraft and destroyed. An Associated Press photographer created digital captures of these events using a digital camera and stored them in digital format on a computer (or more likely many computers). These images, having been created in digital format originally, require only the occasional update of their storage format in order to remain accessible for the foreseeable future. Again, this appears to be a very good match of preservation format to the type of information to be preserved.


A historic photographic print:

In the early 1900's a photographic movement called Pictorialism was very popular. In this style photographers manipulated their prints, used heavily textured papers, and worked to represent as wide of a tonal range as possible (meaning that they attempted to have as many subtle shades of grey between the white of the paper and solid black). Again, fast forward to today. Here we begin to detect a mismatch between the method of preservation and the information to be preserved. In today's technology there is no way to represent the feel, or look, of textured paper that presents the same experience as the original (Relph-Knight, 2006).


The experience of information

Information is not always completely self contained - as I have mentioned before, it may have contextual or tactile properties that are part of what the information is without actually being part of the information itself. Sound confusing? Well, let's take a quick look at this idea in a little more depth using the last example above, since I determined that it was not necessarily a good choice for digitization.

In this particular example, the photographer was working in a time when the paper choice was as important to the resultant art as many other factors (Peterson, 1997), the texture of the paper used becomes part of the information itself. By removing this aspect of the information via translation into a format the does not allow for tactile interaction we are editing what is preserved, and therefore the information is no longer preserved in it's entirety, but only in edited form. The action of editing has removed one of the senses used to experience the information, and therefore has altered the original experience (Perricone, 2007).

In the digital format we also run the risk of losing valuable visual information, because even if extraordinary care is taken in the scanning of this print to form the preserved form, the process of viewing will alter it's representation. Every person viewing the resulting image will not see exactly the tonal range of the original because every computer monitor is adjusted differently, and only with the most modern calibration equipment can the settings of one monitor be made to closely represent the results of another (Widman, 1999). Therefore, information that existed in the original print is not completely preserved in the format selected for preservation, even if that format is capable of retaining those subtleties.

Lastly, the format of the original information - a specific size print in this case - presented in a specific way - in a specific size and color mat - is not retained in the act of preservation, a further act of editing resulting in further change. This is especially important for large prints which exceed the size of a computer monitor. Size influences the way a photograph is viewed (Shore, 2007), and by altering the size presented information in relation to the original size we change the way this information is used - in this case interpreted.


works cited:

Peterson, C. (1997). After the photo-secession: American pictorial photography (1910-1955). W. W. Norton & Company : New York.

Perricone, C. (2007). The Place of Touch in the Arts. The Journal of aesthetic education, 41(1), 90-.

Relph-Knight, T. (2006). Colour perfect.(colour management of computers). Personal computer world

Shore, D. (2007). The nature of photographs. Phaidon : New York.

Widman, J. (1999). Digital photography and the workflow: output. Graphic arts monthly, 71(6), 26-.

In the News: Vinyl makes a comeback

Vinyl goes from Throwback to Comeback

Not everyone has the same preferences, and preferences change over time, so it is important when considering preservation to also consider that what is popular now may not be what is popular in the future. A good example of this is the recent upsurge in interest of vinyl records, which have experienced a %20/year growth rate over the last five years, due in part by the tactile and audio differences presented by vinyl records compared to other audio formats. According to one interviewee in the article, "no one cares about CDs anymore, but people will buy an album because it's huge artwork and it's limited pressing" (Perry, 2008).

Because of these sorts of characteristics, making decisions about what it to be preserved, and in what format, must be made carefully. Not all preservation methods retain every aspect of the original piece of information, and choosing the wrong format for the type of information to be preserved could negatively impact the value of the preserved information.


works cited:

Perry, J. (2008, June 2). Vinyl goes from throwback to comeback. The Boston Globe.

Preserving the originals

I though it would be a good idea to cover, in a little more detail, a concept that I presented in the post titled "Why preserve information (Does it go bad)?" - the value of preserving the original source of information. Once we have a digital copy of something, why do we really need to keep the original? I've heard this argument before, especially from those who do not work as some form of preservation either professional or personal and I think that it is important to discuss the value of an original in the context of preservation.

The 'original':

Going once again back to my handy dandy desk dictionary, the definition for the work original is as follows:

NOUN:

1archaic : the source or cause from which something arises; specifically : originator

2 a: that from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made b: a work composed firsthand

(original, 2008)

What does this have to do with preservation? Well, in his article "The importance of preserving paper-based artifacts in a digital age", Robert Bee presents an interesting point of view - that the process of digitizing information, and choosing how to present it, we are making editorial decisions that fundamentally alter the information itself. He also stated that by abstracting the information itself from the form, we are removing a valuable part of that information, part of it's original context is lost, as is the assurance that no alterations have been made (Bee, 2008).


The Devil is in the Details:

As evidence of this loss, Bee presents the case of microfilm as support for his position, with the specific example of newspapers on microfilm. He pointed out that colors were lost, issues were missing in part or in total, and that these problems were only discovered after the originals were lost (Bee, 2008), therefore preventing any future access to those lost bits of information. Earlier in this blog I discussed how information does not exist in a vacuum - how it has contextually related information that enhances it's value by establishing relationships with other information. When information is preserved, should this information not also be preserved in order to fully preserve it's value? Is not preserving information in the most usable format the goal of preservation?

Changing Standards:

As technological advancements are made in the field of preservation, so too change the standards. Microfilm was the standard media for storage of printed materials such as newspapers and other periodicals in the past, but now the standard is digitization by way of scanning. Scanning expands our ability to preserve information greatly, and because of that the standards for preservation have changed to reflect the new abilities of this new format. For example, it is now part of the standard to be able to reproduce a copy from the electronic version that will faithfully reproduce the original visual quality (Wentzel, 2007), something that was no possible with previous preservation formats.

The Future:

As storage formats continue to change as new technology is created, new issues will likely be discovered as well, although not necessarily immediately as noted in the above example. Moore's law states that the number of transistors on a computer chip will double approximately every two years (Moore, 1965)*. This translates to a very rapid rate of technological development, implying that there is not much time to research every aspect of any given technology before a new technology replaces it.

* Interestingly enough, the only known original copy of this article was found recently in a personal archive of magazines - the collector felt that while most institutions were throwing out computer magazines at the time, these would one day be valuable! (BBC, 2005).

In the context of preservation, this means that as we make choices for preserving information we need to keep in mind that newer, and perhaps better, technology will arrive constantly, and with it new opportunities for preserving more of the context of information. Just as microfilm could not preserve colors while modern digital format can, it seems completely believable that a some point in the near future a new technology will come around that will further expand our ability to better preserve every aspect of any given piece of information, not just what we deem worthy of saving. And, given that, is it not prudent to try preserve the originals when we can for just such an occasion?

Suggested Further Reading:

Preserving the Illustrated Text

Findings and Recommendations of the Council on Library and Information Resources

Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials

works cited:

BBC. (2005). Moore's Law original issue found. Retrieved June 2, 2008 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4472000/4472549.stm.

Bee, R. (2008). The importance of preserving paper-based artifacts in a digital age. The library quarterly, 78(2), 179-.

Moore, G. (1965). Cramming more components onto integrated circuits. Electronics, (38)8.

original. (2008). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved June 2, 2008, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/original.

Wentzel, L. (2007). Scanning for digitization projects. Computers in libraries, 27(3), 6-.

Preservation and Copyright

Copyright: A Brief Overview:

When someone creates original information they are entitled to protect that information from unauthorized access via a body of intellectual property laws commonly referred to as 'copyright law'. These laws cover a number of different related functions, all of which have some impact on our ability to preserve information by governing who may access what information in what way, and how information may be used, based on the copyright owners wishes (U.S. Copyright Office, 2006).

When it comes to preserving information, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether copyright restrictions are in effect, or if they apply to any given institution. When a work is created it is automatically protected under these laws for a period of 70 years after the death of it's originator, or 95 years from the data of publication, or 120 years from date of creation, whichever is shorter. Recent changes in these laws has now caused the inclusion of materials created before January 1, 1978 to be protected for a period of 70 after the authors death, with the inclusion of the 95/120 year stipulation as above. and in no case would the protection expire prior to December 31, 2002 (U.S. Copyright, 2004).

Further complicating the situation of copyright is the fact that protection may be extended, sometimes automatically for the 95 year limit (U.S. Copyright Office, 2004), and the 1989 Berne Convention Implementation Act, which made the use of obvious copyright restrictions notification by use of some symbols or statement unnecessary for protection, which further complicated the process of verifying copyright status (U.S. Copyright Office, 2008).

Finding copyright related information may at first seem simple, but given that may
works are abandon when the author dies without passing on relevant information to their survivors, or in the case of private enterprise, when the company dissolves the records may be difficult or impossible to access, making verification of copyright status very difficult (U.S. Copyright Office, 2006). Without proper documentation, how are information preservers to determine if it is safe to preserve information?


Orphaned Works:

When a work becomes orphaned - it becomes difficult or impossible to location the copyright holder due to death, loss of verifiable records, dissolution of an organization, or similar circumstances, a piece of information becomes 'orphaned' in regards to it's copyright status (U.S. Copyright Office, 2006). One of the problems with this situation is that Currently, there is new legislation working it's way through the Senate that would allow for a greater level of access to orphaned works which are now more tightly governed and can be problematic to those attempting to preserve them (Lehey-Hatch, 2008). This effort is supported by organizations that work to preserve information that is often orphaned, such as the Internet Archive, who feel that libraries and museums should be able to preserve information "without fear of libility subject to a 'Request for Removal' procedure that would respect the rights of copyright owners who come forward." (Internet Archive, 2008).


What does this really mean in the context of preservation?

When we preserve the original, copyright is basically a non-issue - we have what was originally created and therefore we're in good standing as far as copyright goes. But when we want to copy that original, say for digitization or to have a back up copy in the event of loss or damage to the original, we move into the area of copyright violation. There have been clear trends toward the digitization of information recently, and this has caused some problems in regard to copyright standing because we are now creating a copy of the original, the very act that copyright legislation deals with.

While this issue may seem simple, there are some hidden complications that need to be examined. For example, data storage of electronic information. As previously discussed, data formats change over time and in order to retain the ability to access this information in the future we must continually update the format in which information is stored, resulting in copyright questions. The same issue applies to the preservation of non-electronic information. If we wish to digitize information for preservation or disemination we must copy it, and to do so is to stray once again into the realm of copyright legislation.

When the decision is made to preserve information, consideration must be made as to all of the factors that will be involved in the process, and doing the research needed to verify copyright status and obtain, if possible, permission to preserve information is part of that process. A part that cannot be overlooked if we are to be able to legally preserve information for the long term.


Suggested Further Reading:

Understanding Copyright


Works Cited:

Internet Archive. (2008). Orphaned works reply comments of the Internet Archive. Retrieved June 2, 2008 from http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/reply/OWR0129-InternetArchive.pdf.

Leahy-Hatch, P. (2008). Judiciary Committee Reports
Leahy-Hatch Orphan Works Bill. Retrieved June 2, 2008 from http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200805/051508d.html.

U.S. Copyright Office. (2004). Duration of copyright: provisions of the law dealing with the length of copyright protection. Retrieved June 2, 2008 from http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.html.

U.S. Copyright Office. (2004). Extension of copyright terms. Retrieved June 2, 2008 from http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15t.html.

U.S. Copyright Office. (2006). Report on orphan works. Retrieved June 2, 2008 from http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report-full.pdf.

U.S. Copyright Office. (2006). Copyright office basics. Retrieved June 2, 2008 from http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html.

U.S. Copyright Office. (2006). Renewal of copyright. Retrieved June 2, 2008 from http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15.pdf

U.S. Copyright Office. (2008). Copyright notice. Retrieved June 2, 2008 from http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf.