I have been thinking a lot about the ephemeral nature of digital content, and I wonder
whether or not artifacts, materials, and objects can be preserved
through digitization. I have long worried about having the majority of
my photos, records of my children's growth and lives, stored in a
computer. I am not someone who is especially attached to material
things; however, the loss of these would certainly cause me great
sadness. Memories, like digital content, are quite elusive and
transient, and photographs provide us with a tangible access point to
them. The visible image carries our mind back to that moment in time
and allows us entry to particular memories associated with the image.
Often, there must be some sort of a trigger that helps us to locate
where a certain memory is stored in our brain, so, in effect, the loss
of those photos would possibly prevent my access to the memories
associated with them.
When my son was born, digital cameras where still a new and expensive phenomenon. Therefore, all the pictures I have of him are what I like to call "real" photographs that were developed professionally in a darkroom using nasty chemicals to transfer the image from film to paper. I have several very large photobooks containing the many (and, I do mean many) photos that were taken in the first two years of his life... and barring some tragedy like a fire or flood, I will always have these. They will never fade away, and I will pass them on to my son when he becomes an adult so that his children can have a glimpse into our lives at those moments. When my daughter was born, I had retired my "real" camera and plunged into the world of digital images. There are two troubling results of my conversion to a digital camera. First of all, I have very few printed images of my daughter. I have lots of digital images stored in my computer, but I actually printed very few of these out for display or general viewing. Of course, as is sadly always the case, there are just not as many pictures taken of a second child (and I really do feel for the third child, who is lucky to have a few photographs documenting their arrival into the world). However, even taking that into account, there are a paltry number of physical images of my daughter. Secondly, there are no "real" photographs of my daughter that will resist fading away to nothing and can be passed down to her and her children. There are no physical photographs of her that will last the test of time. I find this worrisome, given the unreliable nature of digital content.
Which brings me to the idea of digitization as preservation. Smith says that digitization is not for preservation. We agreed in my LIS 644 class that digital libraries are about providing access to objects, images, and sounds. A digital library is all about user access. We discussed ways that digitization might be viewed as a form of preservation... it can preserve an artifact that has deteriorated to an unusable degree, and it can also preserve an artifact that is in good physical condition by preventing it from being handled excessively. I guess one's perception of the term determines whether or not they view digitization as a valid form of preservation. The simplest definition of preservation is "to keep up, maintain", which can be interpreted many different ways. A simple definition of historic preservation is "an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve, and protect buildings, objects, landscapes, or other artifacts of historical significance". I tend to think of preservation in terms of a physical object or artifact; therefore, I can't say that I view digitization as preservation. I do understand that digitization can offer users access to an item that they would not otherwise have, and there is certainly value in that. However, it is not access to the actual item, and for me there is a difference. In the absence of the original, it is better than nothing, but it is not equal to the original. Digitization does nothing to preserve the original artifact, and actually diminishes it in some way. Some information contained in an artifact is lost in each successive manifestation of it; therefore when a physical item is digitized, an inherently inferior item is created. In my opinion, digitization does not equal preservation.
When my son was born, digital cameras where still a new and expensive phenomenon. Therefore, all the pictures I have of him are what I like to call "real" photographs that were developed professionally in a darkroom using nasty chemicals to transfer the image from film to paper. I have several very large photobooks containing the many (and, I do mean many) photos that were taken in the first two years of his life... and barring some tragedy like a fire or flood, I will always have these. They will never fade away, and I will pass them on to my son when he becomes an adult so that his children can have a glimpse into our lives at those moments. When my daughter was born, I had retired my "real" camera and plunged into the world of digital images. There are two troubling results of my conversion to a digital camera. First of all, I have very few printed images of my daughter. I have lots of digital images stored in my computer, but I actually printed very few of these out for display or general viewing. Of course, as is sadly always the case, there are just not as many pictures taken of a second child (and I really do feel for the third child, who is lucky to have a few photographs documenting their arrival into the world). However, even taking that into account, there are a paltry number of physical images of my daughter. Secondly, there are no "real" photographs of my daughter that will resist fading away to nothing and can be passed down to her and her children. There are no physical photographs of her that will last the test of time. I find this worrisome, given the unreliable nature of digital content.
Which brings me to the idea of digitization as preservation. Smith says that digitization is not for preservation. We agreed in my LIS 644 class that digital libraries are about providing access to objects, images, and sounds. A digital library is all about user access. We discussed ways that digitization might be viewed as a form of preservation... it can preserve an artifact that has deteriorated to an unusable degree, and it can also preserve an artifact that is in good physical condition by preventing it from being handled excessively. I guess one's perception of the term determines whether or not they view digitization as a valid form of preservation. The simplest definition of preservation is "to keep up, maintain", which can be interpreted many different ways. A simple definition of historic preservation is "an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve, and protect buildings, objects, landscapes, or other artifacts of historical significance". I tend to think of preservation in terms of a physical object or artifact; therefore, I can't say that I view digitization as preservation. I do understand that digitization can offer users access to an item that they would not otherwise have, and there is certainly value in that. However, it is not access to the actual item, and for me there is a difference. In the absence of the original, it is better than nothing, but it is not equal to the original. Digitization does nothing to preserve the original artifact, and actually diminishes it in some way. Some information contained in an artifact is lost in each successive manifestation of it; therefore when a physical item is digitized, an inherently inferior item is created. In my opinion, digitization does not equal preservation.
I am right there with you, Betsy, in regards to the inferiority of digital items versus physical ones. If I can't feel it, smell it, hear it, (taste it?), then the experience of that item is diminished. Your comments about pictures of your children really resonated with me. I still take pictures with a regular old camera, though, and it is great because Wal-Mart (where I get them developed) gives me a CD so I can put them on my computer as well. It is expensive now, because of supply and demand, and I pay almost $10 for every set of 24 pictures, even though it's Wal-Mart!
ReplyDeletePersonally, I also prefer to have physical pictures, books or art pieces that I have preserved and stored over time rather that their digital counterparts. With that said, I also am a musician and prefer to have a recording that I can store, listen to and distribute freely over the web. Some cases the digitalization of materials decreases their quality and this should be considered when libraries are choosing preservation format.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Ellen