I really like how you brought up the notion of digital preservation as a discipline, and how you need to support the technology of preservation with a set of clear principles. I also brought up the point in my blog post about how digital preservation is something that will never be entirely resolved, and that we need clear guidelines and policies in order to ensure the existence of this material in the future. Additionally, I hope you’re right about the job potential for this work! It’s great that this project has led your organization to ponder the idea to develop a master policy document that incorporates this digital preservation policy along with policies pertaining to collection development and a mission statement. From my professional experience, it’s better to develop these types of documents as a unit so that they feed off each other, and aren’t siloed. Also, I opened up a few image files I didn’t care about in text edit to see how I could mess them up, so you’re not alone.
I appreciate how you harped on the physicality of data. I’ve always been marginally aware of the bit-by-bit data inscription on hard drives and servers, but I think as we information specialists become more and more entrenched in complex software interfaces, clouds, online hosts, etc., we forget that at the end of the day all of our digital work is written real physical bits. I also appreciated the Kirchenbaum articles – at times a bit technical, but very helpful! Just as we’re used to studying the history of the book, it is important to study the history and nature of digital objects, which of course are much more physical than we often think.
First of all, I love that gif! Can I steal it? 🙂 Thank you as well for a great class.
When coming up with my three biggest take-aways for last week’s class, the physicality of digital objects was the first thing that came into my mind. I hear so many people talking about the Cloud… as if it is literally a cloud and the file bits are just floating around in the atmosphere. I once heard someone explain that the Cloud was a bunch of servers on a plane that were just constantly flown around the world. Seriously… and they believed them! But in all seriousness, it is an extremely important thing to know and remember. When digital objects are stored in the cloud, they can still be effected by natural disasters, because they are still in servers, just in someone’s else’s house (/warehouse)!
Good luck with your organization, and I hope the creation of a master policy goes through and goes well!
Hi Nathan,
I really like how you brought up the notion of digital preservation as a discipline, and how you need to support the technology of preservation with a set of clear principles. I also brought up the point in my blog post about how digital preservation is something that will never be entirely resolved, and that we need clear guidelines and policies in order to ensure the existence of this material in the future. Additionally, I hope you’re right about the job potential for this work! It’s great that this project has led your organization to ponder the idea to develop a master policy document that incorporates this digital preservation policy along with policies pertaining to collection development and a mission statement. From my professional experience, it’s better to develop these types of documents as a unit so that they feed off each other, and aren’t siloed. Also, I opened up a few image files I didn’t care about in text edit to see how I could mess them up, so you’re not alone.
Sarah
Nathan,
I appreciate how you harped on the physicality of data. I’ve always been marginally aware of the bit-by-bit data inscription on hard drives and servers, but I think as we information specialists become more and more entrenched in complex software interfaces, clouds, online hosts, etc., we forget that at the end of the day all of our digital work is written real physical bits. I also appreciated the Kirchenbaum articles – at times a bit technical, but very helpful! Just as we’re used to studying the history of the book, it is important to study the history and nature of digital objects, which of course are much more physical than we often think.
Hi Nathan,
First of all, I love that gif! Can I steal it? 🙂 Thank you as well for a great class.
When coming up with my three biggest take-aways for last week’s class, the physicality of digital objects was the first thing that came into my mind. I hear so many people talking about the Cloud… as if it is literally a cloud and the file bits are just floating around in the atmosphere. I once heard someone explain that the Cloud was a bunch of servers on a plane that were just constantly flown around the world. Seriously… and they believed them! But in all seriousness, it is an extremely important thing to know and remember. When digital objects are stored in the cloud, they can still be effected by natural disasters, because they are still in servers, just in someone’s else’s house (/warehouse)!
Good luck with your organization, and I hope the creation of a master policy goes through and goes well!
Rosemary
Thanks for the kind words, and that tale about the plane is a bit horrifying.
Feel free to steal the gif! I used this site to add the text, btw. Simple and quick! http://ezgif.com/add-text