Cloud-supported preservation of digital papers: A solution for special collections?

Abstract

Computers and other digital communication media have replaced paper and pencil from the writer's desk. This development has confronted special collections with a problem, as digital papers are difficult to process using established digital preservation strategies, because of their individual and unique nature. According to the proposal suggested in this paper, the creators should instead be involved in the preservation process, and special collections should integrate pre-custodial forms of curation within their range of tasks. The article outlines the use of a cloud architecture as a suitable instrument for accomplishing this task. The benefits and the prospects for such a collection cloud are exposed and discussed.

Self Analytics and Personal Digital Archives in University Collections

“…These differing definitions of "personal archives" became apparent in the Paradigm project as some politicians donated collections that included everything from journals to correspondence to literary manuscripts, while others restricted their donations to professional documentation. Ultimately, in addition to post-custodial archiving practices, the Paradigm project recommended the following pre-custodial practices (Weisbrod 2016):…”

“…A tangible example can be found in the Thomas Strittmatter archive at the Deutsche Literaturarchiv in Marbach, which included an Atari computer and 43 floppy disks. By the time the collection was received by the archive, 10 years after its last use, the Atari computer data was unretrievable (Weisbrod 2016). A potential solution may be found in a pilot project by the Danish National Library in "self-archiving by email" which allowed scientists at the National Library to forward work to the Library, who then used their existing email service as a self-archiving environment called "My Archive" (Weisbrod 2016).…”

“…By the time the collection was received by the archive, 10 years after its last use, the Atari computer data was unretrievable (Weisbrod 2016). A potential solution may be found in a pilot project by the Danish National Library in "self-archiving by email" which allowed scientists at the National Library to forward work to the Library, who then used their existing email service as a self-archiving environment called "My Archive" (Weisbrod 2016). These practices, however, are in contrast to the archives' "traditional" approach of favoring unique materials, as in these methods the "original" digital files remain on the creator's device and surrogates are uploaded or emailed.…”