Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
researcher hindered. Take as one example a spectrum appearing in a
journal article. Researchers still routinely print and enlarge graphs and
then measure - with a ruler - the peaks on the spectrum, whereas if the
graph were linked to the underlying dataset the researcher could get
precise information at the click of a mouse.
Preservation and curation
In the print-on-paper world publishers did not have to worry much
about the archiving and preservation of the material that they
produced. Although
archiving
was one of the functions of formal
publication mentioned by Roosendaal and Geurts (1997) and journals
record the 'minutes of science', to use the phrase famously coined by Jan
Velterop (1995), the physical archiving and responsibility for preserving
the print-on-paper product was done by those who had bought the
physical copy. It was bliss for the publishers, but the libraries had to
invest in ever-larger amounts of shelf and archive space, and in climate-
controlled, fire- and waterproof storage facilities for rare material.
Preservation and curation of digital material is going to be expensive,
especially if your brief is to preserve something in perpetuity; for ever is
a long time. In the print-on-paper world, preservation and archiving
costs were mostly borne by the customer and duplicated many times
over, and for good reason; local copies are needed for access by the
locals. The cost of each instance of preservation is also readily justified,
and the benefit is rendered obvious by a visit to the library shelves. The
fact that duplication provides back-up, should a catastrophe strike and
one copy be lost, is a bonus.
The digital world is different. For usage, in theory only one
networked copy of a resource is needed, which everyone with an
internet connection can access. More than one copy is needed for
preservation - we need to keep at least as many copies as are required
to guarantee that they cannot all be lost simultaneously in some
catastrophic event. The 1s and 0s that make up digital information are
much more ephemeral than trusty paper and ink; storage media
degrade over time, and so effort must be expended to ensure the
integrity of the digital file and correct any errors that arise. But the
archiving of digital material must go beyond preserving the bits and
bytes of the digital file. Digital curation, defined as 'the actions needed
