The Importance Of Preservation Of Physical And Digital Materials

Preservation of Physical and Digital Materials
Preservation must be given proper consideration when planning increases in access, especially when working with items from the 1920s and 1930s. When it comes to digitizing to preserve and the challenges of preserving both files and documents, there is disagreement among archivist about best practices. While some archivists see as much value in a digital file as they do in a document, others dismiss digitization completely. Access to digital files will limit handling and reduce chances of theft, but digitization is not an alternative to physical documents. There are various arguments in the archival community about what to do with original documents after digitization. Some archivists argue that originals should be scanned and access should then be limited, others argue that originals should be scanned and then destroyed, while others argue that documents should not be scanned because digital materials do not have the same value as originals. A final option for loaned collections is the scanning of document that would then be returned to the owner. This …show more content…
UMKC does not have a digital preservation system in place, there is only a backup system as opposed to an active management system. UMKC is currently in development stage 1 of 5 of a Digital Preservation policy. The policy will be complete within 5 years. This policy would include automate tools to read embedded metadata to tell what’s lost on corrupt files. The issue is that UMKC doesn’t currently have enough technical support, staff, or resources to have a digital preservation program in place right now. Current issues are digital preservation costs and personnel resources that can be dedicated to managing a system. There are a lot of possible complications, so UMKC will need personnel technical expertise to manage the