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Influence of Reading Modes on Library Preservation

Notes on diagram:

Note - Library services will follow readership and preservation services will follow that lead to assure continuity of the source materials and their desired surrogates. Trends include a shift toward a technologically supported, composite reading mode. Because a variety of reading modes are in play and because any mode can now technically be delivered to any other, source materials will warrant better identification and data tagging as copy masters. In addition, better security and constraint of their physical use is warranted. Problematic is conservation treatment that could complicate imaging, content mining or interpretation of artifactual evidence.

Note - out-sourced services include dubbing and conversion of analog magnetic media, alkalization of paper, microfilm recovery and reformatting. Another variety of services including digital archiving, pest control, collection security and risk management, and disaster response may be allocated to other university departments.

Note - realignment of the supposed mutual pair of "preservation and access". Access services are diversifying into distinctly different reading modes associated with distinctly different research methods and publications. The current preservation and conservation of source original collections is increasingly distanced from access services which are based on surrogate delivery rather than direct physical use of collections. At the same time, preservation services in support of new access modes are problematic since maintenance of digital resources has proven antithetical to their preservation; these resources just don't stand still! Another layer of discontinuity is presented by the maintenance of delivery technologies.

Note - the preservation and storage functions are positioned closer as the more apparent association. Not only does the storage function threshold all types of collections and media between live usage and fixed archival identity, but it also suggests other development paths for preservation services. Specifically, the physical preservation facility can be merged with the physical facility of purpose built collection storage. Such a merge leverages the services of preservation as an independent environmental monitor, a collection contingency response and processing facility, a medium neutral manager of integrated university collections and a mediator of capture and recapture handling for problematic and fragile source materials.

Note - The source original items of any medium have achieved a mastering status for their surrogate access. Such change of status for originals is already established with microfilming and with the use of photocopiers in libraries. The trend is now accelerated with the advent of digital imaging and digital posting.

Note - The shift to a mastering role is not necessarily an improvement in status for originals. The source original can also be identified as a disposable accessory of access services. Live, digital library services further dissolve the identity of source collections conveying a general transience of content and an irrelevance of its provenance. Culture context can also play a complicating role whenever preference for "clean" copy or a premise of one time reformatting and disposal is assumed. Such shift of status engenders preservation challenges. Conservators and preservation administrators must counter a dispensable status attached to source originals if they are to counter a disregard of their profession. (refer: Baker/Darton)

Note - Much of the churning over the role of preservation is due to a single reading mode fallacy (SRMF). This fallacy considers all modes of reading as equivalent, where, for example, on-line surrogates can simply replace print without any change of meaning. More likely traditional parent reading modes are now composite to an on-line reading mode, but the parent modes and the new on-line reading mode remain partitioned. Different reading modes provide complementary, but different meanings from the same content.

Note - As a result, preservation service viewed as providing the continuity of use of the various reading modes is itself partitioned or lobed. This is evident in the long standing partitioning of library and archives preservation (print and written reading modes) and in the long standing partitioning of sound recording preservation (oral/verbal reading mode). It is not remarkable that a new preservation service sector for the composite on-line reading mode, frequently styled the "digital library", will also be partitioned from other preservation sectors. In addition it would not be surprising if methodologies and principles are not shared.

References

Kellerman, Suzanne, "Out-of-Print Digital Scanning", Library Resources & Technical Services, 46/1, January, 2002.

Peters, Tom, "Preservation Conference Notes, 2002, 03", University of Michigan, March 7-8, 2002.

PrePrints, "Redefining Preservation, Shaping New Solutions, Forging New Partnerships", University of Michigan and the Association of Research Libraries, 2002.

Darton, Robert and others, "The Great Book Massacre: An Exchange", New York Review of Books, March, 14, 2002.

Gladwell, Malcolm, "The Social Life of Paper", New Yorker, March 25, 2002.

03.17.02/glf