Information Preservation in Review

Looking back over what has been covered so far, a number of things have been discussed. We have covered what it mean to preserve information, who preserves it, and why. We have discussed some of the problems inherent with the preservation of information, such as the challenges presented by the vast quantity of information needing to be preserved, the costs involved in preservation, and the technological hurdles that must be overcome. We have even examined a case where preservation failed, and discussed the fate of information in these sorts of incidents.

There is, it would seem, no simple method that can be used to preserve information. Every situation contains a different combination of challenges that must be dealt with in order to efficiently and successfully preserve information. In some cases the originals have qualities that cannot be completely preserved using means other than direct preservation of that original. In other cases we have seen how one piece of information spawned multiple copies of itself, and each copy needed to be preserved in order to fully preserve the core piece of information.

While there are certainly many challenges, there are also rewards. We have seen how efforts to preserve ephemeral information generated in the technologically rich world of today have resulted in a tool that we can use to find web pages that, by their very nature, are short lived and in a constant state of flux. We have also seen how the digital revolution has allowed us to preserve information in a way such that more people can access it at once, although that too comes with it's own new challenges.

The preservation of information will be something that provides us with both rewards and challenges as we strive to keep pace with the changing information environment now, and as long as there is information to be preserved. And we as information professionals must be ready for those challenges.

In the News: Digital preservation dispute

Good and Evil in the Garden of Digitization


Google's digitization of books lead to legal investigation that may have enormous long term influence on the future of digital preservation. The concept of copyright has been discussed here before, but the Google Fair Use court case is likely to establish much more specific law regarding the digitization of books and other information, and could create real problems for those working in the information preservation field.

Case Study: Modern photographs in a disaster situation

To continue a thought from the last post, I would like to restate that the act of preserving implies that we are stewards of the information that we preserve, and as such we should be fluent in the techniques required to care for our charges. That said, I would like to take a moment to speak briefly about digital photographic prints. These types of prints are rapidly becoming the primary form of photographic print (Scoblete, 2004), yet they require radically different care than traditional photographs (Portell, 2003).

Because of the technology used to create these prints, special considerations must be made in the event of water damage. Floods, hurricanes, sprinkler malfunctions, drinks, fingers, humidity - all of these may be a source of water damage for a digitally generate photographic print. With proper care and storage, preservation of these materials is not overly different than many other graphic information items, but in the event of water damage, special steps must be taken in orde to salvage the print as much as possible (IPI, 2007).


What happens when they get wet?

Digital printers use either a dye or a pigment to create an image on paper. These materials are deposited using a liquid that immediately evaporates once the materials have been put down on the paper (Fritsch, 2006). Depending on the type of paper used, different things may happen. Two common types of papers used for digital printing are uncoated (normal copy paper), coated, which comes in two varieties, swellable and porous.

With swellable paper, the ink sits on the surface, which is highly glossy, and will run with the slightest application of moisture. Microporous papers allow the dye to sink into the paper, which prevents running, or blurring, when wet, but does result in flaking off of the ink if touched by anything when still wet (IPI, 2007).


Is there any way to repair them?

Unfortunately, no, once an inkjet print has suffered water damage there is no way to repair that damage. Dirt can be removed, but some color transfer may occur or in some cases the color can flake off the surface of the paper (IPI, 2007). In the case of digital prints, prevention of damage is the key to preservation...


works cited:

Fritsch, E. (2006). Professional Photography. Retrieved July 1, 2008 from http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/graphicarts/archive/2006/10/26/HPPost1808.aspx?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Image Permanence Institute. (2007). A consumer guide for the recovery of water damaged traditional and digital prints.

Portell, J. D. (2003). Prior repairs: when should they be preserved?. Journal of the American Institute of Conservation, 42(10), 363-80.

Scoblete, G. (2004). Online Printing Grows As Retail Solution. Twice, 19(8), 30-30.

Disaster Preparedness

Part of being the steward of information is being able to plan ahead to prevent the loss of preserved materials in the event of a disaster. While some potential disasters may be detected in time to prepare, not all will be, and that mean having a plan for what to do when the unexpected happens.

Case in point

In March of 1985, during the removal of asbestos from the library, a fire started in the National Library of Australia. The fire department has no knowledge of the special needs of the library, they could not get in touch with most of the staff, and the situation warranted immediate action. The end result was that most of the materials received both smoke and water damage and required extensive cost and effort to repair and replace (Preiss, 1999). How could this damage have been avoided? By having a plan of action prepared in advance.

Requirements of a Disaster Preparedness plan

According to the Society for American Archivists (Pearce-Moses, 2007) in order to be effective, any disaster preparedness plan must have at least these elements, and perhaps a few more depending on any special needs the preservation institution may need for special holdings.

• Have a disaster drill to ensure people know what to do in case of an emergency and to keep that information fresh in their minds.
  


• Update and expand your contact lists for staff, volunteers, and other key organizational contacts (facilities personnel and institutional officials) as well as external services (fire, police, ambulance).


• Review your emergency procedures to check for information that has become outdated and to refresh staff's knowledge of what to do. Make sure that staff have copies – at the office, at home, in their cars, and anywhere else they may need them. The Society of American Archivists has a template for emergency procedures online, available at: www.archivists.org/mayday/MayDayEmergencyProcedures.rtf Or look at Heritage Preservation's (2006) Field Guide to Emergency Response.


• If you have a disaster plan, review it. Flag things to update, and set a deadline to complete that task. This exercise will help keep the plan fresh in your mind, so you won't have to spend time reading the plan when disaster strikes.


• Plan to plan. While it's impossible to develop a complete disaster plan in one day, you can establish benchmarks and deadlines to do this work in a reasonable period of time. The Northeast Document Conservation Center and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) have created dPlan, a free online program to help write a comprehensive disaster plan (www.nedcc.org/welcome/disaster.htm).

Further Reading

Emergency Preparedness from the Library of Congress

Disaster Preparedness and Recovery from the American Library Association

Disaster Preparedness and Response from OCLC



works cited:

Pearce-Moses, R. (2007). The "MayDay" project: promoting disaster preparedness. OCLC systems & services, 23(1), 16-20.

Preiss, L. (1999). Learning from disasters: a decade of experience at the National Library of Australia. International preservation news, (20), 19-.