I call this paper, “Digitization for Access and Preservation.” The thought that the two could be linked is important to me because we at the Library of Congress have so many resources to preserve. We must provide stewardship for more than 132 million items. These include more than 58 million manuscripts, 30 million books, 13 million prints, five million maps, five million pieces of music, three million sound recordings, and one million films and videos. Moreover, our collections grow by approximately 13 thousand items every day.
Now we have the opportunity to make much of this material accessible far beyond our buildings’ walls in Washington, D.C....
By the year 2000, we exceeded our goal of putting five million items on the [open access American Memory collection]. Today it contains nine million items in more than 100 thematic collections. Included are digital copies of books, manuscripts, pamphlets, prints, photographs, maps, sheet music, sound recordings, and films. Each collection appears with explanatory features. And all collections can be searched electronically....
But at the same time, most of us realized that we did not know how long we could preserve the resources we were creating....We did not digitize with the intent of replacing original materials. But we wanted to preserve also the digital copies in which we made such substantial investments...Thus our gains in access brought new challenges in preservation. The challenges increased when we started accepting materials created digitally....
But we want also to ensure that digital copies will be accessible for a long time....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/10/2007 10:18:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
