Volume 33, Issue 4

I am pleased to devote this issue to the subject of digitization as a preservation reformatting method, and thank the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) for granting permission to reprint their important report, Recognizing Digitization as a Preservation Reformatting Method .

Recognizing Digitization as a Preservation Reformatting Method Cultural institutions serve the international community by building, protecting, preserving and ensuring continued access to diverse collections and resources. The challenges of preserving collections have been addressed in different ways over time. Libraries have used conservation to preserve the original artifact and reformatting strategies, such as microfilming and the creation of print facsimiles, to retain content, enhance access, and protect the original from excessive wear. Over the past several years, libraries have moved towards using digitization as an additional method for reformatting endangered and fragile paper-based materials to both preserve and provide access to library collections.

Members of the Society of American Archivists' Preservation Section read with interest the ARL Preservation of Research Library Materials Committee's Recognizing Digitization as a Preservation Reformatting Method . Many are actively involved in preservation reformatting and others participate in projects creating access to archival materials through digitization. While the ARL Preservation of Research Library Materials committee pushes for institutions to make both the financial and institutional commitment to digital preservation, the library and archival community at large is not at a point where large numbers of institutions can commit to such a level of stewardship for digitized objects. Actually, few libraries are able to make such a commitment, be they ARL libraries or otherwise. By encouraging institutions to think of digitization as both an access and a preservation method, the committee could unwittingly be leading smaller institutions down a path to their own digital doom. This “canonization” of digitization as a preservation method may well lead administrators to push for digitization even though their own institutions lack the expertise, infrastructure, and funding to maintain these digital objects over the long term.

After reading successive drafts and the final version of Recognizing Digitization as a Preservation Reformatting Method , I am troubled by a dissonance between the title and the actual messages of this document. Much more than “recognizing,” the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Preservation of Library Materials Committee “endorses digitization as an accepted preservation reformatting option for a range of materials.” Yet, the Committee does not adequately address concerns about preservation implications inherent to digital reformatting – concerns that have been a frequent topic of discussion within the profession over the past decade. This is not to say that digitization has no role in preservation but rather to say its role is too easily misunderstood. I believe ARL would better serve its membership and the field in general by exploring more systematically the conditions under which digitization is a plausible preservation strategy, describing the ongoing costs and risks in greater detail, and articulating more clearly the relationships between digitization for the purpose of preservation and digitization for other reasons.

This important report from the ARL Preservation of Research Library Materials Committee stimulated a thought provoking discussion “down under” when a group of five Australasian reformatting professionals recently held a teleconference to discuss its findings. The following is an overview of our collective discussions.

While the main body of the ARL Report contains largely high level statements, I would also expect such a Report to highlight more than the pros and cons of various information carriers or media, and to go beyond “recognizing digitization as a preservation reformatting method.”

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) in the USA has adopted digitization as a method for preservation. In a report published on the ARL web site Recognizing Digitization as a Preservation Reformatting Method (June 2004), and reprinted in this issue of Microform & Imaging Review , the ARL states its views on this transition. It is a thorough report, paying attention to a variety of aspects of preservation reformatting. Also, it presents a clear view on the possibilities of new reformatting methods. The ARL is a large and influential library organization. So this statement might lead to a major shift in mass preservation policies worldwide. But it also raises questions. The most important one: is this a wise step at this moment? What follows are our reactions.

Introduction This ARL Report provides a look at preservation in the digital environment. In this environment, preservation may be “reconceived” and the components do sound different. Refreshment, redundancy, migration and emulation appear strange in the context of traditional library and archives preservation.

A few years ago, one of my students told me about their first experience with the Internet. They saw an http address printed in a magazine advertisement, went to the computer lab and, after speaking to a consultant about what exactly they should do, visited the Web site. They surfed around from there and, having seen some of the much-touted wonders of this revolutionary Internet, thought that it was, in his own words, “about right.”

The authors of Recognizing Digitization as a Preservation Reformatting Method present a cogent case for the use of digitization as a preservation reformatting technology. As a preservation educator and former practitioner, I support the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) endorsement, and propose that the ARL library community consider limiting the use of microfilm technology for reformatting print source originals.

What does it mean to preserve the collections that are amassed in the world's libraries? Our long-standing response to that deceptively simple question is probably still valid: to preserve is to keep information resources safe from decay, destruction, and loss; to ensure that they are findable; and thus to promote their use. Preservation strategies for books and journals achieve these goals through the implementation of procedures that improve the condition of an object or produce one or more usable copies accurately described in a library union catalog.

Evans Digital Edition is part of Readex's on-going Archive of Americana. The other segments are Early American Imprints , S eries II . Shaw-Shoemaker (1801–1819) , Early American Newspapers (1690–1876) , and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817–1980) with American State Papers (1789–1838) . Items from both of the Early American Imprints series and from Early American Newspapers are being digitized from Readex's existing mammoth microform collections, and searchable ASCII text is being generated from OCR data for every image. Although the components of the Archive of Americana are on different completion schedules, Evans Digital Edition is nearly complete. It already includes all 49,197 titles from the fiche set, which some libraries own on microcard; and approximately 1,200 works that had never been filmed are being scanned, fully cataloged, and added. Detailed bibliographic records created by the American Antiquarian Society accompany each piece and can be loaded into local catalogs. When it is finished in January 2005, Evans Digital Edition will comprise over 36,000 titles and 2.4 million images.

TL-2 (Taxonomic Literature , 2 nd edition) Online , created by IDC Publishers with support from the International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT), is an impressive digitized resource and a welcome tool for plant taxonomists. The print resource Taxonomic Literature , 2 nd edition , is a standard reference list of plant taxonomic literature from 1753 to 1940, with special emphasis placed on the period from 1870 to 1914, a time of many achievements in the field. Frans A. Stafleu and Richard S. Cowan compiled the original seven-volume print set over the course of fifteen years (1973–1988); later Frans A. Stafleu and Erik Mennega added six supplements. The finished product resulted in approximately 10,000 pages, listing about 30,000 works. All authors who published at least three generic plant names during the covered time period were included. The compilers focused on books, pamphlets, and other bibliographically independent literature.