I recently taught a class of library school students about digital preservation. On the plus side, they were a bright lot, many already knew something about the subject and I could inflict some advance reading on them. The flip side is that this was a single class lasting only two and half hours, which is a short time to cover a broad subject.
I’ll go over what I tried to cover in the class in a later post (quite a lot, actually). For now let me share what I sent out as a reading list with the intent to prepare students for our face-to-face encounter.
Preparing the list was a challenge. I wanted sources that covered issues of current importance, were succinct and that were reasonably friendly to the non-expert. I did find plenty of good information, but was surprised how few sources fit this particular need. In fact, one could argue that no source currently meets the need. Many focus on a particular program, approach or issue. Many drill down into very granular details that can overwhelm the novice. Others are a bit long or a bit old. After much hunting and culling, the best I could find turned out to consist of 15 items, as noted below.
- An Introduction to Digital Preservation; JISC Digital Media
- Curation Reference Manual; Digital Curation Centre
- Digital preservation: an introduction; Michael Day/UKOLN
- Digital Preservation Handbook; Digital Preservation Coalition
- Digital Preservation Management Tutorial; Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan
- Harnessing the Power of Digital Data for Science and Society; Report of the Interagency Working Group on Digital Data to the Committee on Science of the National Science and Technology Council
- International Study on the Impact of Copyright Law on Digital Preservation; Library of Congress, JISC, OAK Law, SURFfoundation
- LIFE3: A Predictive Costing Tool For Digital Collections; Life Cycle Information for E-Literature, University College London Library Services and the British Library
- National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program; Library of Congress
- Sustainability of Digital Formats: Planning for Library of Congress Collections; Library of Congress
- Sustainable Economics for a Digital Planet: Ensuring Long-Term Access to Digital Information; Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access
- The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues In Archiving And Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials; Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences
- The Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program; Library Trends, Winter 2009
- The Open Archival Information System Reference Model: Introductory Guide; Digital Preservation Coalition
- What is Digital Preservation?; Digital Preservation Europe
I’d like to hear about other sources that I might have missed.
Update: I clarified that the selected sources were the best I found, not that they all met the three criteria listed.
Let me add my usual full disclosure notice: I work with the NDIIPP team at the Library of Congress.
Update: I clarified that the selected sources were the best I found, not that they all met the three criteria listed.
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