The Other Side of Digitization

The Other Side of Digitization

by Angelique Slater

In the field of archives, the idea of digitization, putting collections online, is believed to be the best way to keep archives relevant today and in the future. Though there are still people out there who believe that if archives digitize their collections, they will lose access to those collections over time as the media it is saved in/to deteriorates[i]. These people believe that since technology is always changing that putting collections into digitized formats will only cause problems because technology costs money and to re-digitize a collection is just a waste of money.

The cost is a huge factor for archives, especially now with the massive budget cuts and the loss of staff. This loss of staff is challenging for archives because it often takes more than one person to digitize a collection, depending on the size of the collection. The issue of deterioration is another big issue for archives not only for cost reasons, but for format reasons. If the wrong format is chosen or becomes obsolete, the money that the archives put into that technology is wasted and the data that was saved could also be lost because of obsolescence.

A perfect example of data being lost to deterioration is in the field of audiovisual media. Film as we know can last for hundreds of years as long as it is in dry storage, but information that is on magnetic media can only last for a few decades even in the most ideal conditions[ii]. Many archives have to preserve these collections with digitization methods, but can only afford to make an access copy of the media by cd/dvd or on a hard drive. This in turn leads to another problem; the copy that is made can then become obsolete or no longer be able to be accessed.

It is a constant circle that many in the archival field go though, to digitalize the collections so it can be used by many, or play it safe and keep with the old format with only a few items being digitized? It is a hard call to make and with the economy the way it is and cuts always looming what way would you go?

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[i] Wood, Lamont, August 2010, page 1 http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9181658/Fending_off_the_digital_dark_ages_The_archival_storage_issue?taxonomyId=19&pageNumber=1

[ii] Van Bogar, John W.C. Dr., 1995, http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub54/