Volume 49, Issue 3

Recent work discussing the digitization and preservation of magnetic tape materials has maintained that it should be left to expert practitioners and that the resulting digital materials should be stored in digital repositories. This article suggests that librarians and archivists lacking extensive technical skills or access to expertise can digitize these materials themselves. It provides a detailed account, including challenges faced, of how a team of practitioners without prior training or experience digitized historical audio recordings on cassette and open reel tape at Northern Illinois University Libraries. The discussion reviews the assembly of equipment and software that the team used for digitization work, discussing each element’s significance and how they came together as a functioning workflow. The authors also emphasize the fact that while the digitization of fragile and/or degraded magnetic tape materials may contribute to the preservation of their contents, this action also creates a new set of materials with their own preservation needs. Realizing that many practitioners serving medium-sized and smaller institutions lacking large financial resources may not have access to a full-fledged digital repository, they suggest the use of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance’s Levels of Digital Preservation rubric as a means by which practitioners may incrementally increase the probability that digital materials made from magnetic tapes will remain accessible.

The purpose of the paper is to bring to light the state of education in Digital Libraries (DLs) in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, and the readiness of library schools to produce future digital librarians in Nigeria. The study covered 31 universities offering Library and Information Science (LIS) approved by the National Universities Commission (NUC) of Nigeria. The main data collection method for the study was analysis of departmental documents containing the LIS curriculum. Second, six Library and Information Science educators in universities that are yet to integrate digital libraries course in their LIS curricula were interviewed. The study revealed that majority of the library schools offer a course in digital libraries or related areas as a core course in their curricula. However, only a few library schools have computer laboratories for students to enhance their digital library skills. Some LIS educators identified challenges such as lack of qualified ICT staff to handle the course and a lack of computer laboratories equipped with modern computers and stable Internet facilities in the LIS departments. Findings from the study will inform library educators on the need to redesign curricula to integrate digital libraries course, in order to produce future digital librarians in this digital era and thus overcome the frequently mentioned challenge of lack of ICT staff to manage digital libraries in Nigeria. The project will enable library schools in Nigeria to provide a world class library education that is in line with the standard recommended by international and national LIS professional bodies.

Academic libraries are one of the vital institutions that collect and manage the intellectual and cultural output of human beings, both in print and digital forms. Along with the growth of digital collections, the threats to or vulnerability of those collections are also increasing. This paper aims to describe the digital disaster preparedness measures implemented by respondent academic libraries in Indonesia that participated in the study. The study was conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia. The finding shows that even though libraries have taken steps to protect their digital data and collections, most of the libraries that participated in this study do not have a written digital disaster preparedness policy and had never conducted a risk analysis of the potential for digital disasters in their institutions. This research recommends that the libraries need to do a risk assessment first to prevent and manage any potential disaster.