Libraries all over the world have to deal with fast growing numbers of digital materials that need to be safeguarded. Publications in digital form, online or on CD, digitised images, and born-digital objects need to be preserved and kept accessible. Safeguarding digital heritage is a major issue, especially for national libraries, because of their legal task of preserving the national heritage of a country. This volume describes the state of the art of digital repositories, preservation strategies and current projects in the national libraries of Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA.

In today’s information landscape, there are fewer topics that more urgently demand expansive discourse than digital preservation, which touches on everything from technology to copyright. The Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) steps up to the challenge with this comprehensive overview. Global in scope, it features case studies and contributions that discuss such key issues as the history of digital preservation; digital preservation and information ethics; strategies for getting started, sustaining digitization programs, and performing evaluation; fine-tuning digital preservation workflows, with a look at Digital Streams Matrix for analyzing pathways and tasks; preserving e-books, mobile device data, and other specific types of materials; collaborative efforts in digital preservation, including jargon-free techniques for engaging non-technical colleagues in digital legacy tools and processes; and the copyright, legal, and administrative issues connected with digital preservation. Academic librarians, technical services staff, technologists, and administrators will all benefit from this incisive collection.

This volume is devoted to the broad topic of distributed digital preservation, a still-emerging field of practice for the cultural memory arena. Replication and distribution hold out the promise of indefinite preservation of materials without degradation, but establishing effective organizational and technical processes to enable this form of digital preservation is daunting. Institutions need practical examples of how this task can be accomplished in manageable, low-cost ways. This guide is written with a broad audience in mind that includes librarians, archivists, scholars, curators, technologists, lawyers, and administrators. Readers may use this guide to gain both a philosophical and practical understanding of the emerging field of distributed digital preservation, including how to establish or join a network.

"Digital Preservation for Heritages: Technologies and Applications" provides a comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of digital technologies in the area of cultural heritage preservation, including digitalization, research aiding, conservation aiding, digital exhibition, and digital utilization. Processes, technical frameworks, key technologies, as well as typical systems and applications are discussed in the book. It is intended for researchers and students in the fields of computer science and technology, museology, and archaeology. Dr. Dongming Lu is a professor at College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, China. His research area includes digital preservation for cultural heritages and digital media networks. Prof. Yunhe Pan is a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering, and also a professor at College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, China. His research area includes digital preservation for cultural heritages, digital library, and intelligent human animation.

This new edition of Digital Preservation in Libraries, Archives, and Museums is the most current, complete guide to digital preservation available today. For administrators and practitioners alike, the information in this book is presented readably, focusing on management issues and best practices. Although this book addresses technology, it is not solely focused on technology. After all, technology changes and digital preservation is aimed for the long term. This is not a how-to book giving step-by-step processes for certain materials in a given kind of system. Instead, it addresses a broad group of resources that could be housed in any number of digital preservation systems. Finally, this book is about “things (not technology; not how-to; not theory) I wish I knew before I got started.” Digital preservation is concerned with the life cycle of the digital object in a robust and all-inclusive way. Many Europeans and some North Americans may refer to digital curation to mean the same thing, taking digital preservation to be the very limited steps and processes needed to insure access over the long term. The authors take digital preservation in the broadest sense of the term: looking at all aspects of curating and preserving digital content for long term access. The book is divided into four part: 1.Situating Digital Preservation, 2.Management Aspects, 3.Technology Aspects, and 4.Content-Related Aspects. Digital Preservation will answer questions that you might not have even known you had, leading to more successful digital preservation initiatives.

A practical guide to the development and operation of digital preservations services for organizations of any size Practical Digital Preservation offers a comprehensive overview of best practice and is aimed at the non-specialist, assuming only a basic understanding of IT. The book provides guidance as to how to implement strategies with minimal time and resources. Digital preservation has become a critical issue for institutions of all sizes but until recently has mostly been the preserve of national archives and libraries with the resources, time and specialist knowledge available to experiment. As the discipline matures and practical tools and information are increasingly available the barriers to entry are falling for smaller organizations which can realistically start to take active steps towards a preservation strategy. However, the sheer volume of technical information now available on the subject is becoming a significant obstacle and a straightforward guide is required to offer clear and practical solutions. Each chapter in Practical Digital Preservation covers the essential building blocks of digital preservation strategy and implementation, leading the reader through the process. International case studies from organizations such as the Wellcome Library, Central Connecticut State University Library in the USA and Gloucestershire Archives in the UK illustrate how real organizations have approached the challenges of digital preservation. Key topics include: • Making the case for digital preservation • Understanding your requirements • Models for implementing a digital preservation service • Selecting and acquiring digital objects • Accessioning and ingesting digital objects • Describing digital objects • Preserving digital objects • Providing access to users • Future trends. Readership: Anyone involved in digital preservation and those wanting to get a better understanding of the process, students studying library and information science (LIS), archives and records management courses and academics getting to grips with practical issues.