Digital Memory: Dilemmas for Libraries Janne Andresoo Mihkel Volt.

Digital Memory: Dilemmas for Libraries

Janne Andresoo

Mihkel Volt

2

“In developed modernity, which has arrived in order to abolish inbred boundaries and to enable people to achieve a place in the society through their own choices and achievements, a new, ascriptive kind of endangered status emerges which is unavoidable, no matter what means are taken to prevent it.”

(Ulrich Beck. Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine

andere Moderne. 1986)

www.nlib.ee

15.06.2010 Digital Memory: Dilemmas for Libraries

3

The endangered status

Can we speak about the endangered status in relation to digital preservation and providing access?

When thinking about preserving information, to which extent can we trust the technology which has developed and spread globally during the last 25 years?

www.nlib.ee


4

The endangered status

The endangered status can occur both at personal and society level.

There is danger that a single technological error may delete all information certifying this person’s existence.

Institutions preserving national memory are facing a similar danger.

www.nlib.ee


5

Umberto Eco: Three types of memory

”The first one is organic, which is the memory made of flesh and blood and administrated by our brain.

The second is mineral, and mankind has known two types of mineral memory: millennia ago, this memory was represented by clay tablets and obelisks on which people carved their texts.

www.nlib.ee


6

Umberto Eco: Three types of memory

... But this second type includes also the electronic memory of today's computers, based upon silicon.

We have also known another kind of memory, the vegetal one, the one represented by the first papyruses, and then by books, made of paper.”

www.nlib.ee


7

When transferring these thoughts of Umberto Eco into the context of national memory, we can say that in modern society national memory exists in a number of forms: oral, written, and audio/video records.

www.nlib.ee


8

The selective and the exhaustive principle

For collecting and preserving non-digital documents, archives and libraries have followed both:

• the selective principle and

• the exhaustive principle

www.nlib.ee


9

How should a national library organise the collecting and preserving of digital content in order to keep and justify the trust placed in it as an institution preserving national memory?

www.nlib.ee


10

The attitude of the society towards the

preservation

• oral tradition: tolerates certain loss of information.

• digital information: to ensure permanent preservation of all publications, including 100% of online publications.

www.nlib.ee


11

In Estonia, the Legal Deposit Copy Act requires the National Library of Estonia to collect Estonian online publications.

• does not specify the criteria

The present practice of the National Library has been built on the qualities of printed publications.

www.nlib.ee


12

Digital Archive DIGAR digar.nlib.ee

13

The following national publications are archived in that digital archive:

• online publications published on the Internet, including books, newspapers, journals and magazines, serials, maps and printed music documents;

• digital copies of electronic documents published on physical carriers (e.g. floppies, CD-ROMs, etc.);

• pre-print files of print publications;• digitised copies of analog carriers.

www.nlib.ee


14www.nlib.ee


digar.nlib.ee

15

Each title is archived as one digital copy in

the following preference:

• pre-print file;

• online publication;

• electronic publication on physical carrier;

• digitised copy of analogue carrier.

www.nlib.ee


16

The comprehensiveness of the preservation

of online publications?

The mission of Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive.

www.nlib.ee


17

The comprehensiveness of the preservation of online publications

Exhaustive and all-inclusive preservation –

the dream of each national library.

Two preservation principles side by side – one aims at comprehensive collection, and

the other one is selective.

www.nlib.ee


18

Thank you!

www.nlib.ee


Digital Memory: Dilemmas for Libraries Janne Andresoo Mihkel Volt.

Documents

Transcript of Digital Memory: Dilemmas for Libraries Janne Andresoo Mihkel Volt.