Requirements and characteristics of a preservation quality information management system

摘要

The proliferation of digital materials has changed not only how information is presented but also how people expect information to be available. People want access to all forms of information, from simple text to complex multimedia. Whether or not the items in question were created digitally, they can be made to behave digitally through scanning and conversion. This improves access, but makes preservation more difficult because of the rapid rate of obsolescence of formats, hardware and software systems. In the early days of the digital age, the gap between librarians and the people working in information technology was vast. The past 20 years, however, have seen thousands of digitization projects that include scanning paper analog resources and making them available in digital format. Such work has coupled the worlds of tech and libraries. This cross pollination has resulted in rich, robust online resources worthy of preservation. Libraries have a role in preservation of such resources, much as they have had a role in preservation of the hard-copy word. The Carnegie Mellon University Libraries (CMULs) have been at the forefront where digitization of rare and primary sources is concerned. Our pioneering efforts in digitization have also involved a creation of preservation strategies for digital content.