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Age of Large-Scale Digitization

Comments on “Preservation in the Age of Large-Scale Digitization”, Oya Y. Reiger, Council on Library and Information Resources, 2008.

The suggestion for libraries conveyed by the CLIR paper on “Preservation in the Age of Large-Scale Digitization” is that the books are moving out and digital resources are “moving” in. This is considered an obvious momentum. No one would guess that the libraries could actually follow the books. No one can imagine that digital preservation services can be built on a premise of print mastering. No one can imagine that a scenario of back-up reliance on screen surrogates is much more hypothetical and unsustainable than a scenario of back-up reliance on paper.

Another premise is not yet fully emerged. “Garbage in, garbage out” is a dictum from the old days of early computing. “Quality in, garbage out” could emerge in the new days of screen delivery of print. On the positive side inherent compatibilities and syncopations between commercial and institutional digitization of print could result in a momentous, unbiased advance in access to printed works. On the dark side, the only un-conflicted attribute of large-scale commercial digitization of print appears to be its exceptional scale. Institutions, accomplished in their standards for reformatting, have abandoned both standards and scholarly obligations, and now appear transfixed by size alone.

But let’s adventure further into the report. There are many excellent commentaries and insights, but these can accentuate possible omissions. “The goal of this white paper is to consider the potential links between large-scale digitization and long-term preservation of print and digital content, with an emphasis on research library collections.”

On p.2; a lack of long-term commercial planning for maintaining access is considered. Here a negative indicator is the already apparent characteristic of these collections to mysteriously expand and mysteriously contract. This is a very un-library like behavior. If preservation is the time vector of access, reliable re-access is the vector associated with research libraries.

On p. 5; “Because such undertakings are costly and demanding, most libraries recognize that a logical step is to accelerate comprehensive retrospective conversion through partnerships with commercial entities.” Is this really logical if there is not continuity or compatibility of output with research library minimum requirement for reformatting? Is it really logical if the “excluded materials that do not qualify” (for capture) are those especially at risk and have been those especially selected for institutional reformatting?

On p.11; The search for preservation functionality inherent in screen surrogates of print verges on desperation. The back-up scenario is implausible, and the actions of surrogation are not synonymous with preservation actions. This is apparent in the mismatch of scale between activities of production capture and activities of preservation certification of copies.

On p.22; We should be wary of print preservation templates applied to digital preservation conventions. That said, the actions of quality control discussed omit rather universal considerations such as assurance of completeness, legibility and copy deficiency confirmation against source original deficiencies. The expression; “The [initial] QC efforts of the library…” should actually read the “on-going”. Internally these standards have not been atrophied.

On p.23; The concern with inadequacies of OCR can be extended to include many search impairments that follow from default “reading” of meta-text such as page headers and advertisements bound into books. Print digitization must consider that print, especially illustrated text, was designed for discrete reading.

On p.25; “Currently there is neither a metric nor a methodology for estimating resources required for storage.” You mean to say that Google has no idea of the cost and operation of a server farm built on the Columbia River? What we do know is that the rate of increase must also be projected over time. In the comparison of 1 year and 10 year life cycle cost for access to a monograph the cost increment across time was 1/3. It is also implausible that highly production measured activities such as book scanning can not be unit costed.

On p.29; “…literature is not [yet] available in digital format.” This should read; “yet, nor will be,” Other categories beyond textual works that will never be conveyed to screen are those that will never be conveyed to print and digital works awaiting print publication and print works awaiting digitization. In deed a category that especially validates the leaf master concept in terms of back-up function are those print works not digitized.

On p.30; (increase in interlibrary loan) ILL is the pre-cursive model for print mastering for digital delivery. It has long mediated paper to screen delivery. This 100% paper to digital reformatting practice is also suggestive for on-demand delivery from print masters including recurring requests.

On p.34; perhaps the best arbitrator of minimal standards for digital capture of print for a research library collection is to apply minimal standards for copying to paper as reflected in PoD production.

On p. 35; “Such data can also be used to document how digital surrogates differ from original print materials; in this context, they can be considered a component of provenance information.” This is an excellent statement for actions going forward. Exclusive and persistent attributes of screen and of print need definitions. And the “provenance of the original” of the source for screen surrogates will begin to build the links between the separate roles of tangible and screen rendered collections.

On p. 38; “The sentence; “…will be under pressure to justify investments in maintaining their legacy [print] collections,…” can also make sense with “legacy digital collections”.

On p. 42; An important consideration in de-selection for digital preservation is the significance of format as well as content. In deed the most at risk materials are not print but those in electronic or magnetic format regardless of their content. As for “Judging the scholarly value of library materials…” this not only “will be stimulating…”, but has been stimulating for centuries.

03.07.08/glf