Does the Digital Change Anything?

Synopsis

Podcast. How do you preserve the digital record? What do you keep? What do you ignore? These issues have always been crucial for archivists attempting to judge what will be useful for future researchers. However, the digital poses specific problem. For born-digital records when are they considered complete? A website, for example, can change regularly but still be considered complete - how do you archive something like that? David Thomas from the UK’s National Archives notes the American National Archives attempt to preserve US digital material on a scale beyond anything achievable in Britain. However, does the scale necessarily matter? Thomas believes that the concern over digital materials becoming unusable due to format changes have, for the most part, proved unfounded. Most projects, for instance, can still be accessible. The issue is one more of survivability. Of Jisc and AHRC funded projects, Thomas believes around 10% have vanished entirely since the beginning of the dot.com boom. Valerie Johnson looks at the archive itself in more detail. What should be kept and in what way? How should archived digital materials be searchable? What is the way forward? There are hurdles still to overcome, and a recognition among archivists that digital materials will be vastly increasing over the next decade and that means to catalogue and organise those materials are still required if those preserved materials are to be of any use to future researchers. So does the digital change anything?

Series

Institute of Historical Research Podcasts

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Year of release

2011

Year of production

2011

Subjects

Technology

Keywords

archives; digital technology; digital preservation

Online availability

URI

http://www.history.ac.uk/podcasts/digital-history/does-digital-change-anything

Price

free

Delivery

Streamed/Download

Credits

Contributor

David Thomas (3); Valerie Johnson

Distribution Formats

Type

Audio

Format

Download

Duration/Size

48 mins

Distributor

Name

Institute of Historical Research

Web

http://www.history.ac.uk/ External site opens in new window

Address

University of London
Senate House
Malet Street
London
WC1E 7HU

Notes

The Institute of Historical Research is one of nine member Institutes of the School of Advanced Study, part of the University of London.