pen inks to records their activities and thoughts. Nowadays, most documents are created using typewriter ribbon, non-impact printing and ballpoint pen inks. Archivists should be concerned with research into the stability and permanence of these inks so that they can recommend the right ink to record creators (I'homas 1990a).
There must be thousands of printing inks sold today, and ink manufacturers can be expected to change the formula whenever they believe this would improve the product. So it would be risky to generalize about the stability and permanence of inks now on the market, except to say that there have been no reports of really destructive printing inks lately. Experience has shown that printing ink is normally long lasting and that the major threat to documentary materials is the quality of the paper and not the quality of the ink. On the other hand, standards for inks for duplicators are not archival and the process does not appear to be capable of creating permanent records.
to be outdated. Newer versions of software and hardware usually render older versions obsolete. As a result information, which relies on obsolete technologies, becomes inaccessible.
Currently, it seems that the lifetime of digital storage media generally exceeds the life of the technology that supports it. Technological advances make it highly unlikely that today's digital storage media such as hard drives, CDs and DVDs would be easily accessible in a decade, let alone in 50 or 100 years (National Library of Australia n. d). We need to devise strategies for the preservation of digital records and archives. As Brindley (2000) pointed out, '"we can no longer rely on benign neglect" as a preservation option in this world of digital preservation.
Electronic records include digitised images generated by document scanners as well as
character~oded data or text produced by word processing software, electronic mail systems, or other computer programs. Preservation is often regarded as the most difficult area in the management of digital material. Digital preservation is an emerging discipline so unambiguous communication is difficult. People use the same terms differently across and between sectors. The term "digital materials" refers to information sources in digital form, including converted materials and electronic records. The definition encompasses materials originally in digital form (also called "born-digital" and "electronic records") as well as digital surrogates of analog materials created for access and preservation purposes through the use of imaging and recording technologies (Hedstrom & Montgomery 1998). Electronic records and digital records are used interchangeably in this section and refer to one and the same thing.
Electronic resources are becoming a significant part of our cultural and intellectual heritage.
The exploitation of digital technology to:
... produce documents, databases, and publications of all kinds has led to an impending crisis, resulting from the absence of available techniques for ensuring that digital information will remain accessible, readable, and usable in the future. Deposit libraries as well as other libraries, archives, government agencies, and organisations must find ways to ensure the longevity of digital artefacts or risk the loss of vast amounts of information and human heritage (Rothenberg 2000 cited in Brindley 2000).
Despite the fact that digital documents are becoming prevalent, many organisations have not addressed the issues of long-term preservation and use of digital information in a serious fashion (see Rubin 1998:429). A survey commissioned by the Research Libraries Group (RLG), a not-for-profit membership corporation of over 160 universities, national libraries, archives, historical societies, and other institutions with remarkable collections for research and learning, investigated the digital preservation needs of member institution revealed a glaring lack of:
... policies or even codified practices for preserving "born-digital" and converted-to- digital materials but virtually all those surveyed expect such preservation to be part of their operations by 2001 (Hedstrom & Montgomery 1998).
The United States seriously started to address digital preservation in 1999 (Hickerson 1999).
Back home, most countries in Sub Saharan Africa are not seriously addressing the issues related to the preservation of digital records (Harris 2000b:31; Katundu 2001: 180; Mazikana 1997:153; Ngulube 2001b). Even though the developing world has made significant strides in preserving digital materials, until recently, the emphasis has been on specific institution-based projects rather than on developing a digital preservation agenda at both the national and international level (Brindley 2000).
According to Brindley (2000) and Jones (2000), the impetus to preserve digital materials was given by the US Taskforce on Digital Archiving seminal report (Task Force 1996). As a result of the impact of the work of the US Taskforce, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the British Library in the UK sponsored the first workshop on digital preservation (Long-term preservation of electronic materials 1995). Thereafter, a series of research reports were commissioned by JISC and the National Preservation Office (NPO) which served to highlight various aspects of digital preservation (Jones 2000). On the other hand, the UK government led initiatives to fund digitisation programmes6 in order to facilitate more efficient and effective utilisation of digital technology (Jones 2000).
6See New Opportunities Fund website at: http://www.nof-digitise.orglguide.htm.
2.6.2 Issues related to the preservation of digital records and archives
Paper may seem fragile and ephemeral as a means of preserving information, but its virtues are apparent when compared to data stored digitally. At a mundane level, despite all the potential advantages of digital technologies, "at the level of use analog technologies are better suited to the needs of human beings" (Lynn 1998:57). Analog documents have almost exclusively used ink on paper as the information storage medium, and require no special technology to access the recorded information.
Nowadays, vast amounts of information are created, stored and accessed electronically, bringing with it enormous advantages. But digitally stored information brings its own preservation problems. Some of the issues relating to the preservation of digital records and archives that have been identified are accessibility; technological obsolescence; research; and training and expertise (Hedstrom & Montgomery 1998). The subsequent sections explore these issues in more detail.
2.6.2.1 Preserving access to digital materials
Technological advancement means there is a real danger that digital material will become inaccessible because of software and hardware changes. According to the Society of American Archivists (n. d):
preservation of digital information is not so much about protecting physical objects as about specifying the creation and maintenance of intangible electronic files whose intellectual integrity is their primary characteristic .... Preservation goes beyond saving such media as optical disks or magnetic tape; the access system itself must be preserved.
Preserving access is key to facilitating the long-term utilization of digital objects. According to Battin (1993):
As we have explored the uses of digital technology to preserve the deteriorating printed documents of the past, we have discovered the paradigm of the future virtual libraries [and archives]: in the digital world, preservation is access, and access is preservation. The boundaries of analog world have dissolved (Battin 1993 :367).
Traditionally preseIVation has always focused on the longevity of the physical medium on which the record is stored. PreseIVing digital records and archives raises a different set of issues to preseIVing paper records. PreseIVing electronic records needs a different approach.
Paper records share a common characteristic, they are 'human-readable', and they can be stored in one physical place as on a paper page. Paper records have a fixed location, whereas electronic records are represented in the hardware and software as bit streams. As opposed to paper, the electronic records' storage media are very fragile. The useful life of magnetic tape is estimated at a year, magnetic disks at 5 to 10 years, and optical disks at 30 years (Balas 2000; McInnes 1998; Pace 2000). As yet, no digital medium offers the life expectancy of permanent paper (Crawford 1999).
Unlike paper records, electronic records on their own do not have a recognizable form.
Software and equipment are required for digital information to have a form. The major concern is the preseIVation of the access method and the record rather than the storage media per se. In that regard:
the archivist's strategy must be directed at maintaining the processibility of electronic records over time, rather than merely the preseIVation of the physical storage media (Kirkwood 1994: 12).
In addition to ''processibility'', archivists should consider the issue of technological obsolescence. Digital information has been produced in a wide variety of formats, each with its own type of risk for long-term preseIVation.
2.6.2.2 Technological obsolescence
It is generally accepted that the rapid changes taking place in the development of digital technologies should be the main focus of any preseIVation strategy (Beagrie & Greenstein 1998; Kirkwood 1994; Task Force 1996). Rapid technological changes threaten to render the life of information in the digital age as, to borro~ a phrase from Thomas Hobbes, "nasty, brutish and short" (Hobbes 1952: 85). In support of this view Marcum (1996) stated that:
rapid change in the means of recording information, in the formats for storage and in the software for use threaten to shorten the life of information in the digital age in a
63
few years. The threat is that much digital information will be, if not already, lost (Marcum 1996:452).
Technologies are changing very fast, for instance, punched card readers are now
"nonexistent". Five and quarter floppy disk drives are now obsolete and becoming difficult to locate or use in conjunction with the generation of personal computer hardware and software used in 2000. This means that, data stored on 5% floppy disks has become inaccessible on many modem personal computer systems. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) recently encountered this problem when it found that its £2.5m multimedia Domesday disk could no longer be opened,just 16 years after its creation (Beagrle 2002).
The case of the 1960 Census files in the United States of America, which were stored on an electronic media that could not be read by existing technology, also demonstrates how technological obsolescence can render records unusable (Task Force 1996). The National Archives of the United States selected some of the 1960 Census files in 1976 as records of enduring and evidential value. However, it was discovered that the files were on tapes that could only be read using a UNIVAC type II-A tape drive. By that time, there were only two machines in the world capable of reading those tapes: one in Japan and the other on museum display in the Smithsonian Institution (Task Force 1996).
In Zimbabwe the Salary Service Bureau, a government department that is responsible for processing civil servants' salaries and pensions, lost all the information created and stored on computer tapes between 1980 and 1994. The problem only surfaced when a newly introduced computer-based information system could not read most of the older computer tapes (Cain &
Thurston 1998:30).
Though technological obsolescence seems to pose the greatest single threat to the preservation of electronic records, many solutions to the problem have been suggested. The examples of potential solutions are:
• maintaining "computer museums" for obsolete technologies;
• emulating obsolete technologies in new computer products and systems (Rothenberg 1995; 1999:15);
• medium refreshing and conversion (Bearman 1989:21; Lesk 1990:5); and
• making sure data is migrated to new hardware and software technologies as old technologies become obsolete (Beagrie & Greenstein 1998; Hazen, Horrell & Merrill- Oldham 1998:14; Task Force 1996).
Prohibitive administrative and management costs make it inconceivable for archivists to create museums of hardware and software. The second main suggested approach to digital preservation is technology emulation. This strategy relies (as with technology preservation) on the preservation of the original data in its original format. Instead of preserving the host software and hardware, software engineers would build emulator programs that would mimic the behaviour of obsolete hardware platforms and emulate the relevant operating system (Rothenberg 1995). In practice, data is encapsulated together with the application software used to create it and a description of the required hardware and software environment, thus facilitating future use.
While, emulation is an important preservation strategy, Hendley (1998: 18) cautioned against relying solely on this approach because it is largely dependant "on the technical ability of the software engineers to emulate a specific environment and sustain it". In addition, data conversion can compromise the cleanliness and quality of data (phillips 1999:57).
Among the suggested technological answers to digital preservation, migration seems to be the preferred solution. Migration is the periodic transfer of digital materials from one hardware and/or software configuration to another, or from one generation of computer technology to a subsequent generation. According to the Research Libraries Group migration is a broader and richer concept than "refreshing" for identifYing the range of options for digital preservation (Task Force 1996). Unlike the other options migration guarantees the preservation of the integrity and usability of electronic records in the face of constantly changing technology.
Digital objects are transferred to new formats while, preserving the integrity of the information. Thus, a digital archive could convert incoming digital objects into 'standard' formats. For example, textual data could be stored in a relatively software independent format
like ASCII, in widely used proprietary formats like the Portable Document Format (PDF) or in formats based on applications ofSGML (Coleman & Willis 1997).
Although data migration seems the most popular preservation strategy, it can be expensive (McInnes 1998). To minimize the costs of migration, electronic records and archives should be re-appraised from time to time to justify the need to maintain them in a digital format.
Control over the creation of electronic records is difficult because of the intricacies involved in their creation. The long-term solution seems to lie on research into cheaper preservation solutions.
2.6.2.3 Research
The world of electronic information is still at an embryonic stage in terms of preserving digital information (Task Force 1996). The archival professionals are not yet fully conversant with the opportunities and challenges of preserving digital records. It was in this light that the International Council on Archives (lCA), the professional organization for the world archival community, dedicated to the preservation, development and use of the world's archival heritage, established the ICA's Committee on Electronic Records in 1993 to "undertake study and research, promote the exchange of experience and draft standards and directives concerning the creation and archival processing of electronic records" (International Council on Archives 2000a).
Although archives in the developing countries have problems of limited resources, they need to do extensive research on existing preservation strategies and policies. Open systems development should be further explored as well as independent format like ASCII and proprietary formats like the Portable Document Format (PDF) or SGML formats, as they are likely to offer answers to the problem of obsolescence. Research into requirements and standards for describing and managing digital information should be done as a priority because there are no established procedures and standards for preserving digital information (Balas 2000).
The International Standards Organization (ISO) appreciates the need for research into these areas. Its Technical Committee 20 and its subcommittee SC-13 are actively "investigating the
feasibility of developing standards for long term data archiving" (International Standards Organization 2000). However, it should be emphasized that the exercise should not be done in isolation. It should take cognisance of existing record keeping and information management regimes. The development of standards could, in a way, preserve the integrity and accessibility of electronic records indefinitely.
2.6.2.4 Training
Lack of trained staff in the preservation of electronic records is bound to erode the strides that have been made so far in preserving the archival heritage. The need for expertise in managing digital resources was identified in a study for the Research Libraries Group (RLG) as a major factor in the successful management of digital materials (Hedstrom & Montgomery 1998).
Expertise in the management of digital objects hinges upon training. Training in the area of digital preservation and electronic records is a very critical issue in Africa because there are very few experts in this field. Furthermore technological development, and the unsettling effect it produces, calls for continuous reassessment of records and archives management training. Kemoni and Wamukoya (2000:134) identified lack of information (IT) skills due to inadequate training as one of the impediments to the management of electronic records at Moi University in Kenya. Training and education as they relate to preservation are dealt with in greater detail in sections 2.12 below and 3.2 in Chapter Three.
2.6.3 Audiovisual records and archives
The use of audiovisual (AV) media is becoming very prevalent in our society (Forgas 1997:43; Wilkie 1999:1). However, the archival community has largely ignored audiovisual formats (paton 1990:274). Even the Society of American Archivists' classic manual on preservation by Ritzenthaler (1993) does not do justice to the subject. In filct, very little relevant literature on the subject is found in standard archival sources. For instance, a cursory perusal of The American Archivist in the period 1960 to 2001 only yielded three articles on the subject. The same cannot be said of the ESARBICA Journal or the S. A. Archives Journal where there is virtually nothing on the subject. In addition, the knowledge of what is available in audiovisual formats, who has produced them and where they can be obtained is very haphazard (Kofler 1991 :23).
The definition of audiovisual formats is fraught with problems as new technological developments result in even more formats (Feather & Sturges 1997:22). Audiovisual materials include audio and video recordings, films, microfilm, computer software, photographs and slides (Cornish 1992:25; Pinion 1992:198). The size of the audiovisual production is far greater than that relating to printed materials (pinion 1992:198). Film-bases such as cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate, and polyester have been used as a support for negatives, positive transparencies, motion pictures, microfilms, and other photographic products. On the other hand magnetic tape has been used in audio and video recordings, and computer software in conjunction with film. Most of these carriers are very fragile.
Audiovisual materials are made up of polymers such as cellulose, polyester and PVC. All polymers deteriorate and they have an uncertain life expectancy (Harrison 1992:217). Many institutions are faced with a crisis in the preservation of the audiovisual materials due to the rapid development of digital data and the phasing out of analog and video magnetic tape.
Although, traditional techniques of managing text-based information are not fully applicable to audiovisual media, audiovisual materials present many of the same preservation challenges as resources on paper (Wilkie 1999: 1). Perhaps, the major difference between paper-based records and most audiovisual materials is that the latter are machine-readable. In most cases the master original is only used for copying. Viewing and listening is done from copies (Harrison 1992:217).
Audiovisual materials that have deteriorated are difficult to restore. Emphasis should therefore be put on preventative measures. They include correct handling, filing and proper storage (Harrison 1992:213; Murphy 1997). Like paper records and archives, audiovisual materials are affected by temperature, humidity, light and dust. The level of light, temperature and humidity should be controlled and monitored. Storage areas must be kept clean. In addition, precautions should be taken against physical damage, especially, in handling of materials.
The other facets of the preservation of audiovisual materials include providing for its proper restoration and periodic transfer to modem formats before the original or next generation copy is no longer technologically supportable, and continuing protective maintenance of at least a