Some key issues in digital preservation

Abstract

The digital birth of cultural content and conversion of analogue originals into bits and bytes has opened newvistas and extended horizons in every direction, providing access and opportunities for new audiences, enlightenment, entertainment and education in ways unimaginable a mere 15 years ago. Digital libraries have a major function to enhance our appreciation or engagement with culture and often lead theway in this newdigital domain we find ourselves immersed within. The underlying information and communication technologies are still generally referred to as "new"or "high" technologies-they remain highly visible,and have not yet,despite their pervasiveness,become part of the natural infrastructure of society. The need to deliver cultural resources, especially frommajor cultural organizations such as museums or national libraries, has become an imperative closely associated with the core mission of these organizations to educate and elucidate, to promote and disseminate and to preserve culture. These attempts to reach out to new audiences and to refresh current audiences are major driving factors behind many digitization programmes and the shift towards digital repositories. The justifications for delivering cultural resources digitally can rarely made on purely financial grounds as the fiscal returns on investment are relatively small, but the returns for culture, education and prestige are high (Tanner, 2004). © 2008 Springer-Verlag London Limited.