Avoiding Technological Quicksand: Finding a Viable Technical Foundation for Digital Preservation: A Report to the Council on Library and Information Resources.

Avoiding Technological Quicksand: Finding a Viable Technical Foundation for Digital Preservation: A Report to the Council on Library and Information Resources.

Curation

Jeff Rothenber’s Avoiding Technological Quicksand addresses the fragility of digital documents and information, and suggests that “emulation” is the most reliable way to prolong the life of data, while also discussing the limitations of several previous attempts and arguments about creating persistent digital artifacts. He discusses the idea of obsolescence at length, noting that the loss of systems, hardware, and software required to access digital documents is a primary concern for libraries and archives that wish to preserve the longevity of digital documents in their collections. He offers a theoretical framework for considering the design and implementation of systems that would extend the life of digital artifacts by making them transferable into other formats. He suggest that emulation, or the ability to mimic the functionality of software and hardware through new interfaces should be the focus of digital archival research aimed to prolong the quality of, and access to the digital information archivists are trying to maintain.

Rothenberg, Jeff

1999

Foley, Christopher

E-Book

ISBN 1-887334-63-7

Rothenberg, Jeff. Avoiding Technological Quicksand: Finding a Viable Technical Foundation for Digital Preservation: A Report to the Council on Library and Information Resources. Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources, 1999.