Digital Preservation Essentials

Featuring expert contributors working in a variety of contexts, this resource will help you help your patrons take charge of their personal materials.

Academic librarians, technical services staff, technologists, and administrators will all benefit from this incisive collection.

This book is presented with a motive of developing a complete solution for librarians and information professionals for converting print documents in digital form. When we analyze the recent trend of information professions, we find a country-wide need for digital versions of manuscripts, rare books, thesis, and dissertations in various libraries and information centers. Most of the professionals involving themselves in these new tasks do not have the proper knowledge or expertise, and are initiating the process either by themselves or by outsourcing the whole process. Due to this development, now is the appropriate time to provide a complete solution of digital preservation so that library professionals can perform the process of digitization on their own while ensuring total quality over the technical aspects of digital preservation. In this book, the author has focused on all possible and relevant theory and practical issues of digital preservation in libraries. [Subject: Library & Information Science]

Since its original publication Hunter's manual has been "not only a rich and ready reference tool but also a practical resource for solving problems" (Catholic Library World), and no text has served as a better overview of the field of archives. Newly revised and updated to more thoroughly address our increasingly digital world, including integration of digital records and audiovisual records into each chapter, it remains the clearest and most comprehensive guide to the discipline. Former editor of American Archivist, the journal of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), Hunter covers such keystone topics as a history of archives, including the roles of historical societies and local history collections in libraries; new sections on community archives, diversity, and inclusion; conducting a survey and starting an archival program; selection, appraisal, acquisition, accessioning, and deaccessioning; important points of copyright, privacy, and ethics; arrangement of archival collections, with a discussion of new theories; description, including DACS, EAD, and tools such as ArchivesSpace; access, reference, and outreach, with a look at how recent innovations in finding aids can help researchers; preservation, including guidance on how to handle rare books, maps, architectural records, and artifacts; digital records, addressing new and popular methods of storage and preservation of email, social media, image files, webpages, Word documents, spreadsheets, databases, and media files; disaster planning, security, and theft prevention; metrics, assessment, establishing employee procedures and policies, working with interns and volunteers, and other managerial duties; public relations and marketing, from social media and the Web to advocacy; and professional guidelines and codes, such as the newly developed SAA Statement of Core Values of Archivists. Providing in-depth coverage of both theory and practice, this manual is essential for archivists at all levels of experience and of all backgrounds.

Digital Preservation for Libraries, Archives, & Museums is designed for all types of information professionals who are interested in digital preservation. This is not a how-to book giving step-by-step processes for certain materials in a given kind of system. Instead, it addresses a broad group of resources that could be housed in any number of digital preservation systems. Finally, this book is about "Things (not technology; not how-to; not theory) I wish I had known before I got started." It is divided into four parts based on the Digital Preservation Triad: 1.Situating Digital Preservation, 2.II. Management Aspects, 3.III. Technology Aspects, and 4.IV. Content-Related Aspects. The book includes a foreword by Michael Lesk, eminent scholar and forerunner in digital librarianship and preservation. The book features an appendix providing additional information and resources for digital preservationists. Finally, there is a glossary to support a clear understanding of the terms presented in the book. Readers will find answers to questions that you might not have even known you had, leading to more successful digital preservation initiatives.

Who could be partners to archivists working in digital preservation? This book features chapters from international contributors from diverse backgrounds and professions discussing their challenges with and victories over digital problems that share common issues with those facing digital preservationists.