The digital age in a long-term image archive: opportunities and risks

Abstract

Compared to other documents kept in archives (e.g., books, paintings, etc.), photographic materials show relatively poor stability. The resulting dilemma of many institutions is that, on one hand, access to the collections should be improved and, on the other hand, the collections need to be preserved. Once the complete image information stored on a photograph is transferred to the digital domain, the original can be replaced in many cases by the "digital facsimile." A digital data file can be copied without information loss and therefore has an unlimited lifetime. Digitization of whole image collections is a long-term investment.