Challenges of Digital Preservation.

Challenges of Digital Preservation.

Curation

Andrea Goethals, manager of digital preservation and repository services at the Harvard Library, delivered this presentation on 22 April 2011 to an audience of undergraduate students at Harvard University. Goethals aims at encouraging students to acknowledge and care about the preservation of digital heritage, taking into account especially the challenges that libraries and heritage institutions face presently and in the future. Goethals argues that among the “tsunami” of data on the web, there may be countless items worth preserving. Yet archiving mere digital bits is insufficient; software needs to be able to read the formats in order to ensure content remains meaningful. But this dependence on technology is problematic: Goethals emphasizes that technologies are fleeting, to the point that older content may become unreadable and thus meaningless. The challenge for digital archivists, according to Goethal, is thus twofold: on the one hand, the bits need to be kept safe through the highest quality of preservation possible. On the other hand, information must be kept usable in spite of transient, fleeting technologies.

Goethals, Andrea

04-22-2011

Laura Moeller

Power Point Presentation

http://library.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Challenges_of_Digital_Preservation.pptx

Goethals, Andrea. “Challenges of Digital Preservation.” Presentation for Boston University MA/ CS 109 class, Boston, MA, April 22, 2011.