Capturing moments and objects and freezing them for a lifetime is something I am personally interested in and I have come to believe it has to do with my own personal fears of aging and eventually dyeing, somewhere in me I want to stay young and live forever. Additionally, as I reflect, there were some really happy childhood moments that I faintly recall and at times I would wish there was a digital camera and a dedicated photographer to snap my every moment and preserve them for a time like now- my adult life. Preservation is the ability to keep and present in a way that a human being can understand , it is not about fragments of information (McDonough, 2012). There are many benefits to Digital Preservation (DP) and like the inherent virtues there are the related vices. This entry looks at two of the challenges to digital preservation as posited by scholarly research in this field of library digitization.
Lack of Training
Rinehart et al discusses some of the challenges experienced by libraries when they consider DP and alludes to the fact that there is a lack of resources in many institutions and those resources- personnel and otherwise- are in high demand to fulfill the day to day activities and few have any training in DP, in fact, DP does not even appear on the job description of many (Rinehart, 2014). However, the argument is made that organisation wishing to implement DP should from the onset conduct a cost analysis and evaluate what the projected ROI could be, this will be a based on the overall direction of the organization (Heutelbeck, 2009)and part of that investment will address the training of staff.
Lack of Motivation
In a worldwide study by (Meddings, 2011)85% of respondents said that DP is important to their libraries and there is long term benefit, only 46.1 % percent were actively making efforts at DP. There is definitely a need for a new digital culture not only among trained staff but the entire organization must understand its importance and provide an enabling environment for its success. Realistically however, there is the considerations of change fatigue and budgeting constraints that cannot be ignored.
Meddings, C. (2011). Digital preservation: The library perspective. The Serials Librarian, 60(1-4), 55-60.
Rinehart, A. P.-A. (2014). Overwhelmed to action: digital preservation at the under-resourced institution. OCLC Systems and Services, Digital Preservation Special Edition, 30(1), 28-42.
Heutelbeck, D. B. (2009). Motivations and Challenges for Digital Preservation in Design and Engineering. In First International Workshop on Innovation in Digital Preservation.
McDonough, J. a. (2012). Materials and Methods in ELT.John Wiley & Sons.
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