From: Jack Kessler 
Subject:      Preservation in the Digital Age -- request for "bibliography"

The following is sent out with all good intentions and some humility:
preservation does appear to be in the process of becoming the unwanted
problem-child of the information revolution--first an entire century's
records held on crumbling acidic paper, then gummy videotapes, and now
even digitized texts which don't want to "migrate" properly--and I'd like
to see people pay more attention to preservation than they are; but I'd
also be grateful personally to receive comments and suggested additions to
what appears below. 

Jack Kessler

kessler@well.sf.ca.us

===========================================================================
Annotated "Bibliography":  Preservation in the Digital Age

A handout for "Preservation in the Digital Age: Whether To, What To, How
To", A Session of the Third Annual Conference of CARL, California Academic
and Research Libraries, San Francisco, October 20-21, 1995

by Jack Kessler, kessler@well.sf.ca.us

What follows is a personal selection of references and readings, recom-
mended to anyone having an interest in preservation. It is designed to
broaden rather than to narrow debate.  Technology seems to dominate most
current preservation discussions, as it dominates so many discussions
about so many things now.  Long ago, though, Lewis Mumford made the point
that the pyramids didn't create the Egyptians but the Egyptians the pyra-
mids:  general society, with its history, its politics, its pressures, and
its choices to be made, will solve or fail to solve the problems which we
face in preservation, whatever the current technics are. 

So this is an "annotated 'bibliography'", containing references to more
than just books, of interest hopefully to anyone interested in the pre-
servation of library and digitized materials.  It lists, incompletely--
these are personal preferences only--interesting discussions of the
history, political context, current technique and looming choices to be
made in preservation.  I would be grateful to receive observations on
these resources and suggestions of others, via email. 

        "We are confronted by a fundamental choice of civilization
	. . . methods of conservation. . . it will cost a fortune 
	. . .  But who what authority will decide which books to 
	retain?  Plato and Dante have known their periods of dis-
	grace . . . "

                                -- Umberto Eco

1.00 Antecedents

Preservation is an old problem.  The choices being faced with so many
fears today have been faced before.  What to save from floods and fires
and revolutions--whether to store books in Paris or en province--to whom
to entrust the task of selection, what to preserve, and how to preserve
it. 

Reynolds, L. D. (Leighton Durham).  Scribes and scholars:  a guide to the
transmission of Greek and Latin literature (Oxford:  Clarendon Press; New
York:  Oxford University Press, 1991) 3rd ed. 

See also generally LCSH "Transmission of texts"--330 entries in RLIN--all
of these deal with many of the most difficult problems now faced by print,
digital, and other media, problems which arose long before the "bit" was
invented. 


2.00 Not Just the Censors

One much-maligned but perhaps over-emphasized threat in the past has been
censorship.  Even then, this might not have been the real threat it once
was deemed:  ironically censorship may have been the greatest thing which
ever happened to some texts--think of today's movie-rating system.  Today,
though, clearly it's physical deterioration and market forces, threats far
more powerful than any modern censor: 

McKenzie, D. F. (Donald Francis):  anyone in need of inspiration on the
subject of bibliographic history and the preservation of texts ought to
read this man's books and, particularly, attend one of his informative and
animated lectures--

McKenzie, D. F.  Bibliography and the sociology of texts (London:  British
Library, c1986) Series title:  The Panizzi lectures; 1985. 

McKenzie, D. F.  The London book trade in the later seventeenth century
(Cambridge:  D. F. McKenzie, 1977) Series title:  Sandars lectures; 1976. 


3.00 What to Preserve--the problem

Threatened collections--information stored in different media, all of it
deteriorating, disappearing, changing: 

Child, Margaret S.  Directory of information sources on scientific re-
search related to the preservation of sound recordings, still and moving
images, and magnetic tape (Washington, DC:  Commission on Preservation and
Access, c1993)

Miller, J. Hillis (Joseph Hillis).  Preserving the literary heritage:  the
final report of the Scholarly Advisory Committee on Modern Language and
Literature of the Commission on Preservation and Access (Washington, D.C.: 
Commission non Preservation and Access, [1991])

Preserving knowledge:  the case for alkaline paper / Association of Re-
search Libraries; in collaboration with American Library Association,
Commission on Preservation and Access, National Humanities Alliance
(Washington, D.C.:  Association of Research Libraries, [1990])

Rtimann[sic[, Hans. Computerization project of the Archivo
General de Indias, Seville, Spain:  a report to the Commission on
Preservation and Access, 1992 (Washington, D.C.:  The Commission on
Preservation and Access, 1992)

Rtimann[sic], Hans. The International Project 1992 update: 
including "microfilming projects abroad" (Washington, D.C.:  Commission on
Preservation and Access, c1993)

Scholarly resources in art history:  issues in preservation:  report of
the seminar, Spring Hill, Wayzata, Minnesota, September 29-October 1, 1988
(Washington, D.C.:  Commission on Preservation and Access, 1989)

The Commission on Preservation and Access and the Council on Library Re-
sources combined forces in 1995. The former's papers are being stored on
the CoOL Webpage (please see below). The CPA Web page--http://www.cpa.org
--appears not to be active, but there is a CLR Webpage as well--http://
www-clr.stanford.edu . For that matter there is an excellent Webpage
offered by the National Archives--http://www.nara.gov . 

Preserve/Net Webpage offers 1) Preserve/Net Law Service and 2) Preserve/
Net Information Service, the former a work-in-progress but the latter a
work-accomplished.  P/NIS self-advertises as "the site you've come to rely
on for all things preservation", and offers very nice graphics, a "Preser-
vation Education Directory" listing US and Canadian programs, conference
announcements, and employment offerings in the field.
http://www.crp.cornell.edu

Jean-Paul Oddos, in Bulletin des Bibliothques de France (t.36, no.4,
1991), summarizes the problem faced by the Bibliothque Nationale de France
as part of their grand project to transfer 10+ million books across Paris
to their new building in 1996:  1.6 million volumes "in need of deacidifi-
cation and reinforcement", 1 million "in need of rebinding", and 1 million
(and 260 million journal pages) "in need of immediate reproduction".  (As
reported in PACS-L on January 16, 1992: telnet a.cni.org , login brsuser ,
PACS archive, search on ODDOS .)


4.00 How to Preserve

The malleability of media--technique:

Cloonan, Michele Valerie.  Global perspectives on preservation education
(New Providence:  K. G. Saur, 1994) Series title:  IFLA publications 69. 

Collection conservation treatment:  a resource manual for program develop-
ment and conservation technician training:  including Report on training
the trainers, a conference on training in collection . . . (Berkeley:
Conservation Department, The Library, University of California, 1993)

Fox, Lisa L.  A core collection in preservation (Chicago:  Association for
Library Collections & Technical Services; Atlanta:  Southeastern Library
Network, 1993) 2nd ed. / by Don K. Thompson and Joan ten Hoor. 

Oakley, Robert L.  Copyright and preservation:  a serious problem in need
of a thoughtful solution (Washington, D.C.:  Commission on Preservation
and Access, 1990)

Kenney, Anne R.  A Testbed for advancing the role of digital technologies
for library preservation and access:  a final report by Cornell University
to the Commission on Preservation and Access, October, 1993 ([Washington:
The Commission], c1993)

Kenney, Anne R., and Stephen Chapman.  Tutorial: digital-resolution re-
quirements for replacing text-based materials:  methods for benchmarking
image quality (Washington DC:  Commission on Preservation and Access,
1995)--a fascinating functional approach to the too-often-academic debate
over just how good is good in digital reproduction. 

COOL, Conservation Online: Resources for Conservation Professionals--
"CoOL, a project of the Preservation Department of Stanford University
Libraries, is a full text database of conservation information . . . "
Walter Henry's remarkable treasury of online information, newsletters,
reports, conference proceedings, econference archives, and much else.
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu


5.00 Whether to Preserve--the decision

Collection development--the selection decision--how to anticipate the
horse's leaving the barn: 

Line, Joyce, Archival collections of non-book materials:  a preliminary
list indicating policies for preservation and access / Joyce Line. 
London:  British Library, 1977. 

Harvey, D. R. (Douglas Ross), Preservation in libraries:  principles,
strategies, and practices for librarians (London; New York:  Bowker-Saur,
c1993)

Ogden, Sherelyn. Preservation of library & archival materials:  a manual
(Andover, Mass.:  Northeast Document Conservation Center, 1994) Rev. and
expanded. 

Hamilton, Marsha J.  Guide to preservation in acquisition processing
(Chicago:  American Library Association, 1993) Series title:  Acquisitions
guidelines; no. 8. 

Computer files and the research library / by Margaret Johnson . . . [et
al.]; edited by Constance C. Gould.  (Mountain View, Calif.:  Research
Libraries Group, 1990)

Strauch, Katina and Bruce Strauch, eds.  Legal and ethical issues in
acquisitions (New York: Haworth Press, c1990)

Penchansky, Mimi B.  Collection development survival tactics in an age of
less:  an annotated selective bibliography on the theme of the 1991 LACUNY
institute ([New York, N.Y.]:  The Library Association of the City
University of New York, 1991)

Spiller, David.  Book selection:  principles and practice / David Spiller;
with an introduction by Brian Baumfield.  5th ed.  London: Library Asso-
ciation Pub., 1991 (1992 printing). 

Spohrer, James H.  Guide to collection development and management at the
University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley:  General Library, 1986)

The Getty Art History Information Program is doing a great deal, in
imaging and in promoting general discussion of digital preservation.
http://www.ahip.getty.edu


6.00 Who Will/Might Pay

From the San Francisco Chronicle (New York Times service) Oct 11, pB3: 

"Gates Buys Bettmann Archive: Huge photo collection chronicles 20th
century. 

"William Gates, the software billionaire and champion of 21st century
technology, has purchased the Bettmann Archive, whose millions of
historical photographs are a visual chronicle of the 20th century. 

"For the last few years, Gates has been acquiring the electronic rights to
thousands of images--mainly works of art--through Corbis Corp., a small
company in Bellevue, Wash., that he owns.  But the purchase of Bettmann
from the Kraus Organization in New York, announced yesterday, is by far
his biggest step toward building a huge library of digitally stored images
that can someday be sampled and sold on computer disks or over computer
networks, not only to professionals but to the public as well. 

"The terms of the Bettmann acquisition were not disclosed, though people
involved in the deal said that it was a 'multimillion-dollar transac-
tion' . . . "


There's also Adobe, and Elsevier, and CBS and Kodansha and even Walt
Disney . . .


7.00 The Digital Promise

This final list--one of resources in specifically-digital aspects of
preservation, in fact the preservation of information itself digital--is
reprinted, with permission, from the leading and latest document on the
subject: 

Preserving Digital Information, Draft Report Of The Task Force On
Archiving Digital Information, John Garrett & Donald Waters co-chairs,
Commissioned By The Commission On Preservation And Access And The Research
Libraries Group, Version 1.0 August 23, 1995, http://www-rlg.stanford.edu

The Draft Report presents the best and latest take on the promise--prob-
lems/possibilities--of digital information's being preserved itself, the
thought now occuring to many preservationists being that there is no point
in digitizing for preservation if the digital product itself can't be
preserved.  The excellent list of references contained in the Draft Report
is reproduced here in full, with the permission of the Task Force co-
chairs: 

Ackerman, M. S., and R. T. Fielding 1995.  "Collection Maintenance 
in the Digital Library". 

Barlow, John Perry 1994.  "The economy of ideas."  Wired, March, pp.
84-90, 126-129.

Bearman, David 1989.  Archival Methods.  Technical Report, vol. 3, no. 1
(Pittsburgh:  Archives and Museum Informatics).

Bearman, David, and Margaret Hedstrom 1993.  "Reinventing Archives for
Electronic Records:  Alternative Service Delivery Options."  In Margaret
Hedstrom, ed.  Electronic Records Management Program Strategies,
Archives and Museum Informatics Technical Report, No. 18, pp. 82-98.

Conway, Paul 1994.  "Digitizing Preservation."  Library Journal (February
1, 1994): 42-45; and 1995 "Selecting Microfilm for Digital Preservation:  A
Case Study from Project Open Book."  Paper presented at the American
Library Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, June 26, 1995.

Creque, Stuart A. 1995.  "Why Johnny Can't Read His Data."  Wall Street
Journal, June 5: p. A14.

Garrett, John R., et. al. 1993.  "Toward an Electronic Copyright Man-
agement System."  Journal of the American Society for Information Science
44(8): 468-473. 

Getz, Malcolm 1992.  "Information Storage."  Unpublished manuscript,
Vanderbilt University, February 27.

Graham, Peter S. 1994.  Intellectual Preservation:  Electronic Preser-
vation of the Third Kind.  Washington, D.C.:  Commission on Preservation
and Access; and 1995 "Requirements for the Digital Research Library." 
College and Research Libraries, July, 56(4): 331-339. 

Hedstrom, Margaret 1991.  "Understanding Electronic Incunabula:  A
Framework for Research on Electronic Records."  American Archivist 54 (3):
334-354. 

Lesk, Michael 1990.  Image Formats for Preservation and Access:  A Report
of the Technology Assessment Advisory Committee to the Commission on
Preservation and Access.  Washington, D.C.:  Commission on Preservation
and Access; and 1992.  Preservation of New Technology: A Report of the
Technology Assessment Advisory Committee to the Commission on Preservation
and Access.  Washington, D.C.:  Commission on Preservation and Access. 

Levy, David M. and Catherine C. Marshall 1995.  "Going Digital: A Look at
Assumptions Underlying Digital Libraries."  Communications of the ACM
38(4): 77-83.

Lynch, Clifford 1993.  Accessibility and Integrity of Networked
Information Collections.  Office of Technology Assessment, Congress of
the United States, July 5, 1993.; and 1994 "The Integrity of Digital
Information:  Mechanics and Definitional Issues."  Journal of the
American Society for Information Science 45(10): 737-744.

Moen, Bill 1995.  "Metadata for Network Information Discovery and
Retrieval."  Information Standards Quarterly 7(2): 1-4.

Mohlhenrich, Janice, ed. 1993.  Preservation of Electronic Formats:
Electronic Formats for Preservation.  Fort Atkinson, Wis.: Highsmith.

National Academy of Public Administration 1989.  The Effects of Elec-
tronic Recordkeeping on the Historical Record of the U.S. Government:  A
report for the National Archives and Records Administration.  Washington,
D.C.:  National Academy of Public Administration. 

National Institute of Standards and Technology 1995.  "Intent to Develop a
Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) for a Data Standard for
Record Description Records--Request for Comments." Federal Register, 60
(39), February 28, 1995: 10832-10835. 

Neavill, Gordon B. 1984.  "Electronic Publishing, Libraries, and the
Survival of Information."  Library Resources & Technical Services, 28
(January): 76-89. 

O'Toole, J. M. 1989.  "On the Idea of Permanence."  American Archivist
52(1): 10-25.

Rothenberg, Jeff 1995.  "Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents."
Scientific American, (January):  42-47.

The University of the State of New York, et al. 1988.  A Strategic Plan
for Managing and Preserving Electronic Records in New York State
Government:  Final Report of the Special Media Records Project.  Albany: 
New York State Education Department. 

Waters, Donald J. 1994.  "Transforming Libraries Through Digital Pre-
servation." In Nancy E. Elkington, ed.  Digital Imaging Technology for
Preservation:  Proceedings from an RLG Symposium held March 17 & 18, 1994.
Mountain View, CA: Research Libraries Group.

Wiederhold, Gio 1995.  "Digital Libraries, Value and Productivity."
Communications of the ACM 38(4): 85- 96


The day has arrived, thanks to the Internet, when everyone's laptop may
become a branch of everyone else's local library:  text and video clips and
sound bytes stored on a San Francisco server can be reached with increas-
ing ease by users in Beijing and Bangladesh.  The "data transmission pro-
tocols" which enable information bits to flow back and forth online are a
common language, a minimal set of rules for communication. 

But more rules are needed.  Format rules, presentation rules, preservation
rules--tcp / ip, SGML, HTML, Unicode, USMARC, UNIMARC, JPEG, Z39.50--rules
of lanuguage enabling people to express, to communicate--one hopes that
the process which establishes these rules will be cooperative and con-
sensual. Participation in the standards process would be one of the most
effective means of ensuring not only preservation but open access to and
use of information for future generations.