In the past few decades, digital technology has found a place in the acquisition, arrangement, description, preservation, and dissemination of information. However, heritage institutions are perturbed by the challenges of digital preservation strategies particularly for education. Despite continuous investment in digital preservation, there are limited skilled professionals to equip learners with the knowledge, skills and competencies required to drive digital preservation in Botswana. Therefore, this paper investigated the knowledge, skills and competencies related to digital preservation in the teaching curricula of the Department of Library and Information Studies (DLIS) at the University of Botswana. Data collection was done through intensive structured interviews with specific educators who teach courses on digital preservation in the archives and records management stream. The study revealed that despite the fact that the educators in preservation courses are aware of current trends in digital preservation, most of them have not obtained formal degree certification specific to digital preservation. The findings further revealed that minimal digital preservation competencies are observed in the teaching curricula. A significant number of challenges observed illustrated mainly a lack of resources and limited skills in terms of practical demonstrations by educators. The curricula mostly lacked clarity on long-term and short-term digital preservation. The study recommends that DLIS and other institutions should conduct surveys or curriculum auditing on digital preservation in order to improve the teaching content. A significant number of shortcomings regarding digital preservation that could motivate further studies are also discussed under the conclusion and recommendations section of this study.
Research pursuit in Open Access (OA) has become a center of interest in academic institutions. Academic institutions and publishers have been energetically working hard towards achieving strategic and sustained partnerships in providing OA to information resources. While the work of strengthening these endeavours is ongoing, very little have been done on the logistics for digital preservation of OA resources in Institutional Repositories. This chapter explores digital preservation processes in OA using the University of Botswana Research, Innovation, and Scholarship Archive (UBRISA) as a case study. The chapter establishes the implementation activities, the outcomes, and challenges experienced by UBRISA. The findings reveal that the UBRISA commits to strategically capturing and preserving the intellectual output, raw data, and historic values of the institution for posterity. The UBRISA is challenged by limited budgets, logistical challenges, and limited expertise. This chapter recommends that partnerships and advocacy for legislative structures that support OA are critical.
Heritage institutions, especially in developing countries throughout the world, have difficulties in achieving ideal environmental conditions in the preservation of paper materials. Concerns exist about improving environmental conditions in heritage institutions considering the limited storage facilities and resources in most developing countries in Africa. This chapter redefines suitable strategies for various environmental factors impacting preservation in heritage institutions in the East and Southern African Region. The chapter discusses effective activities, environmental factors, and explores knowledge and skills required for achieving ideal storage conditions. Furthermore, it discusses the key challenges of maintaining ideal and constant environmental conditions for paper-based materials particularly in developing countries where resources are limited. The chapter concludes by providing a recommendation of an environmental conditions management framework that can be used to effectively manage environmental conditions in heritage institutions.
The discourse of understanding how things work, why they work the way they are, and what has to be done in order to improve how things are is centered on theories. Theories are a set of propositions that specify reasonable relationships between characteristics of a phenomenon that can be measured and defined. Theories are crucial in development of cultural heritage and its allied functions such as preservation. Despite a significant improvement in execution of preservation functions, the more incumbent challenge observed in literature is the lack of understanding of the meaning, principles, and application of theories in preservation in the ESARBICA. This chapter unpacks the theories of preservation through establishing the definitions of preservation, determining principles and uncertainties experienced, and identifying interrelated concepts of relationships and disciplines that contribute to preservation. The chapter concludes by offering a perspective for redefining a framework for preservation in libraries and archives in ESARBICA.
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