| dc.description.abstract |
Digital preservation is not a new concept for libraries. The libraries have been migrating
and refreshing their OPAC records as well as their databases developed in-house ever
since automation in libraries started in mid 1980s. With availability of products and
services in digital forms, libraries are committing larger portions of their budgetary
allocation for either procuring or accessing digital contents. Preservation and archiving
of digital contents has become a serious concern of libraries for collection either acquired
through subscription, purchased in digital media or converted in-house. The
article deliberates upon need, relevance and major challenges of digital preservation. It
enumerates on dimensions and manifestation of digital preservation and describes traditional
preservation tenets as applicable to the digital preservation. The article describes
various digital preservation strategies with a caution that appropriate strategies
may be adopted depending upon data types, situations, or institutions. The article touches
upon digital preservation metadata as a subset of metadata that describes attributes of
digital resources essential for its long-term accessibility and describes OAIS Reference
Model as well as other major preservation metadata initiatives taken up by the OCLC
and ARL. Considering the fact that short life of storage media, is one of the major
crucial threat to digital preservation, the article briefly describes storage management
as applicable to digital preservation repositories. Lastly, the article touches upon microfilming
and digitization as hybrid solution for reliable preservation. |
en_US |