Are there ANSI standards for digitization? I cannot find any. What is the LVA to do in 2, 4, or 7 years when the equipment and/or software changes for digitization? Migrate the collections from the old standard to the other? Where is the staff going to come from to do that? Where is the money going to come from to do that?
There are, though, ANSI standards for microfilm, and the equipment and technology are relatively inexpensive and stable.
Digitization is fine for making collections accessible, but is currently incapable of ensuring the long-term preservation of the information. Until the latter is addressed, microfilming with remain the standard for preservation.
Information on this can be readily obtained from the professionals at the Society of American Archivists website at www.archivists.org.
Robert Vejnar
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history on behalf of Randy Cabell
Sent: Thu 4/3/2008 5:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Despondent
I think that is the right word about the commitment of the Library of Virginia to boldly march into the past and continue to embrace microfilm for historical records. Oh, I know the debates about longevity of media, and particularly problems of making and preserving DVDs that will last. But come on guys..... one beauty of digital media is that with a periodic test program, it can diagnose problems and trigger alerts to copy the deteriorating bits to a new home.
I am reminded of that classic line from "Finians Rainbow", uttered by Senator --- I forget his name. He draws his sword and lunges offstage with the cry "FORWARD!!!!!! FORWARD TO THE STATUS QUO."
I call you attention to alternatives like the "Dark Archive" being developed by a consotium of institutions -- Georgia Tech, Emory U, Virginia Tech come to mind -- which not only preserve records in digital form, but spread them around in a huge distributed duplicated network.
On a personal basis, my wife and I are going full-bore to preserve family records in digital form. Specifically Adobe PDF format plus some selected audio files. This includes:
- My father's military records from 1918 to his retirement in 1954
- "Songs We Grew Up With" - the songs our kids sang as we drove along (Shades of those Chevy Chase VACATION movies.:-))
- a 120-page (it started as about 10) "What I remember about growing up in WWII"
- The Cabells and Their Kin in The Civil War
- 50 years of newsletters of The Cabell Foundation
- etc.
Note that a tremendous advantage of the digitizing process itself if you shoot for PDF files is not only the ability to widely share (we have 5 children and 15 grandchildren), but that the data bases are searchable for words and phrases, without having to create indexes.
If anybody out in VA-HIST land is considering going digital, get in touch with me and I'll share my experiences -- the successes and the frustrations.
Randy
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