Preservation: Digitization

Heisnam Haridas Mangangcha *

Digitize Manipur - Meitei Mayek Artifacts in April, 2008 :: Pix - L. Somi Roy

The advent of Computer has made a lot of change in our day today society. Now information has become a daily commodity in our daily life. Man needs information in fast way whenever he or she wants to get it. The Advent of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enable to store all the information and retrieve the same whenever necessary and changed the way how information is stored, processed, retrieved and dissimanated in our lives. Digitized documents can be preserved very easily and safely.

To meet this need many major libraries and archives have started forma! preservation programmes for traditional materials which include regular allocations of resources for preservation, preventive measures to arrest deterioration of materials remedial measures to restore the usability of selected materials and incorporations of preservation needs and requirements into overall programme planning.

Preservation is an umbrella term being applied to a wide variety of collection management responsibilities intended to preserve collection of print and non-print materials for future generations. The preservation of rare documents involves two aspects. Firstly the preservation of the widely used materials from wear and tear and secondly the preservation of archival materials of the institutions which has become fragile due to aging. Both the issues are important since it is often very difficult to replace if once deteriorated.

Preservation ensures that peoples thought of the past and present will be made accessible to the future generation and preservation and conservations of documents in digital format will certainly extended the life of a particular artifact which contain useful thought of the past and present. The used of original can be restricted and have a high quality surrogate can be provided.

Digitization enhances access to the artifact as its image can be seen on the web by users all over the world. In addition to the fact it can be seen on the web by users all over the world. In addition to the fact it can be send for offline viewing using a higher resolution uncompressed master file. Digitization of information will he effective in resource sharing of information with other institutions.

The term "Digital Preservation" refers to both preservation of materials that are created originally in digital form and newer exist inprint or analogue materials for access and preservation purpose. Digital preservation is a long-term, error-free storage of digital information, with means for retrieval and interpretation, for the entire time span the information is required for.

According to Harrod's Librarian Glossary and Reference Book "Digital preservation is the method of keeping digital materials 'alive' so that they remain usable as technological advances render organizational hardware and software specification obsolete.

Digital preservation is the set of processes, activities and management of digital information over time to ensure its long term accessibility (Wikipedia,2012).

Why digital preservation?

o Digital preservation are now available at the affordable cost.

o Scanning technologies have been very much advanced allowing computers to convert manuscript or documents, pictures and color photos into digital files.

o Storage technologies have been improved in terms of price and physical space required.

o The rapid growth of internet, which provides ever widening access to the digitized information.

o The emergence of widely accepted standard protocols.

o The emergence of standard image formats and compression technologies making it possible to share image on computers.

o Improving access of information.

o Preventing damage caused by frequent handling.

o Examining possibility of preparing e-books.

o Resource sharing with other institutions.

o Preservation for future by having backup copies also available in safe storage mode.

o Protects the original forms

o Represents originals.

o Transcend originals.

Advantages

Some advantages of digital preservation are:

o Low cost

o High quality and accuracy of the library documents

o Privacy of the library documents

o Free sample for each and every digitized documents of library

o Perpetual preservation of historical documents

o De - duplication of data or document of library

o Time saving for the users

o Back up data for the library available

o Effective resource sharing with other institutions etc.

In recent years many institutions have initiated to preserve the rare documents either by preventive conservation or Digital preservation projects all over the country making a digital library consortium which has dedicated to the people of the country. Out of this initiated institutions we can name CDAC-Kolkata; which has initiated to make a digital library consortium for the people of Manipur.

CDAC has digitized many rare books from Manipur State Archives and Manipur University Library under the ''Digital Library of India" project since January 2013 onwards. Under the "Digital Library of India" project of CDAC, Kolkata, Manipur University library has digitized more than 2700 rare books available in the library.

With this initiatives Manipur University has launched a digital library "Digital Library of Manipur" on trial basis initiated by Manipur University Central Library with the help of CDAC-Kolkata from 2015 onwards which is permitted only in the University Campus. It is a turning point of Library in the history of Manipur.

We must be very thankful to the Prof. H.N.K Sharma, Vice Chancellor of Manipur University, Dr. TH. Khomdon Singh, former Librarian and current Consultant Librarian, Prof. Dr.Th. Madhuri Devi, Librarian I/c Manipur University Library, CDAC- Kolkata and other staff of this Digital library project for their support and significant contribution to our society.

Digital Preservation raises challenges of a fundamentally different nature, which are added to the problem of preserving traditional format materials. The digitization is the milestone and new opening in the history of any institution.

To keep digital collection live for long time, it requires* a proper plan and policy threats and inactive in the form of transforming technology. Considering both simultaneously, possibly of success in digital preservation remains favorable . Digital preservation has to face lot of new challenges in future.

Digital preservation is a cost-intensive activity of continuing nature. Library, archives or museum cannot make a decision to adopt digitization with long term preservation and storage of research collections without deep and continuing commitment to preservation by parent institutions. Lastly, digitization will save the time for the information user and also save the space of the institutions.