Preservation of Digital Material - Responses from 15 out of 16 directors canvassed, question 2i

National Library of Australia

"There are several conditions that would have to be met before digital surrogates could be considered reliable and suitable for preservation purposes. These include . having robust strategies and technical systems in place to manage and deliver the digital content; well documented policies and procedures; access to relevant expertise and skills; and an adequate level of staff resource to not only manage digital repositories on a day-to-day basis, but also to carry out planning and implementation of strategies to ensure on-going access to the resources.

An important consideration is that so far national libraries have no real experience in testing the sustainability of large digital repositories facing software and/or hardware obsolescence. However, at this point in time we know that sustainability is likely to be a major and ongoing expense for collecting institutions".

Oxford University Library Services

"Digital formats are not yet sufficiently stable to serve as long-term archival surrogates for print."

Cambridge University Library

"All the evidence still points to print as being more stable and cheaper to preserve on a long-term basis than electronic."

National Library of Scotland

"Good in theory. However, the technology is considered too volatile to be relied on as a preservation tool at present".

Deutsche Bibliothek

"Strategies and technical methods for the long-term preservation of digital resources are still experimental and far from being a functional application for mass usage. Only when trustworthy and persistent organisational and technical procedures will be established, deposit libraries may rely on digital surrogates.

Therefore, if content is available in parallel formats, we archive both but rely on the print format as being the safer format for archiving, as long as the methods for long-term preservation of digital resources are in this early stage. "

National Library of Canada

"As this point, the digital version of materials available in multiple formats is not viewed as the long-term preservation surrogate for print or other tangible formats of publishing. Because we are attempting to ensure long-term access, the print and/or preservation microfilm versions would be viewed as critical and it is therefore necessary to ensure they are kept in collection facilities with appropriate environments. We are still in the business of preserving the publication as artefact to ensure that its look and feel is preserved as much as possible over time. In our view collection facilities would be purpose-built as conversion of existing facilities is not likely to lead to achievement of required norms."

Harvard University Library

"At this point we would rely on paper if the 2 versions were equivalent. However, digital versions are beginning to be different and richer, so we expect that soon we may want to archive the digital rather than the paper."

Library of Congress

"Digital copies of original historical documents, such as those in our National Digital Library American Memory collection, provide increased public access to the intellectual content of originals. Their suitability as surrogates for originals has increased as we have applied higher levels of resolution in scanning. 'Born digital' publications for which parallel versions exists in print (e.g., electronic journals, e-books, etc.) provide broadened access to scholarly resources. When appropriate life cycle management actions are taken, it is possible to assure long-term preservation for both types of digital content."

KB - Royal Library of the Netherlands

"KB adheres to a very simple and strict policy. In case of parallel formats we collect and archive the digital version only. We already started cancelling the paper versions of scholarly journals. We are strongly committed to safeguarding permanent accessibility of digital information, particularly electronic scholarly journals. We introduced this policy, in order to demonstrate our commitment, to force ourselves to take this commitment very seriously and to raise cost effectiveness.

However this does not mean we no longer need traditional stackrooms. Actually we just started building new stackrooms as an annexe to our premises. The reason is that the flow of single format, printed material for the national deposit collection is not diminishing, at least not yet."

Yale University Library

"Digital is not yet a suitable long-term preservation archival surrogate for print.

For example, first, we concluded from a two-year study undertaken jointly with Elsevier and financed by Mellon, that the difficulties are at least as much in the financial and administrative sphere as they are technical. Digital preservation calls for regular updating and refreshing of the archive, taking account of the rapid obsolescence of electronic hardware and software. As yet, no sector (publishers, software manufacturers, libraries, or library utility companies) accepts more than partial responsibility for the high, continuing costs involved in digital preservation.

Following the project with Elsevier, from which both sides learned a great deal, the separate university libraries in the US stepped back, with Mellon funding a project through JSTOR.. From Yale's perspective, we have declared our willingness to act as an archive of last resort for the print copies of some JSTOR journals. We have also signed a contract with the Center for Research Libraries to act as a print archive for certain scientific serials, where we already hold complete or virtually complete runs.

Meanwhile, we are now ceasing to subscribe to the print version of some journals where electronic and print versions are available, especially in Medicine. Our faculty do not necessarily share the library's view of our stewardship responsibilities, but we do feel a strong sense of obligation to the scholarly community not to allow archival sets to cease (and that means print) where there is no other guaranteed repository. It is worth observing that the savings to be made from ceasing to subscribe to the print version of most scientific journals are in the region of 10% of the total subscription. In other words, there is relatively little financial incentive at present to drop print."

Bibliothèque Nationale de France

"For the time being, it does not seem possible to take the decision to keep exclusively the digitised form of a document and to get rid of its printed form. For two reasons : on the one hand, the present legislation does not allow us to do so, and on the other hand long term preservation of and access to digitised documents is still being examined."

Royal Library of Denmark

"In general . the Royal Library has not taken any decision yet about letting digital copies totally substitute any category of our printed material. We have seriously considered the question, but due to financial restrictions in the years to come and an unclear political situation with respect to further appropriations for the digital part of the hybrid library, we have not yet taken any decision that would require resources for weeding out material, but see below.

We think that you have today the technology to preserve digital copies, but it is still not secure or secured that we will have the resources to keep up with the demands of migration or emulation, and we have not yet entered into any agreement with publishes that will secure that the files are transferred to us and thus preserved. We have so far not taken any decision as to let a long-term preservation archival surrogate substitute a print edition. We have taken the position wait and see a least a few more years and within the digital field to concentrate upon the material which is born digital, and for which there is only one preservation option."

National Library of Norway

"When the original analogue material has a good prognosis regarding long time preservation (in good and stable climate), we will define the original format as the preservation original. In that case the digital surrogate will be regarded as an access copy. If the life span of the original is believed to be short (as the case is with magnetic tapes) we digitise the material, and create a copy that is defined as the preservation copy. In that case we believe that it is important to treat the digital file as a digital preservation file, which has a lot of implication regarding metadata, formats, quality, future migration and so on.

Parallel with this, we actually keep the analogue originals in our climate controlled preservation vaults, although we know that the materials eventually will deteriorate. We do this as some sort of "insurance": especially in the first decades of digital preservation we are bound to do some mistakes, and if we keep the originals we will be able to do a re-digitisation - if we want. We also believe that the authenticity of the material is important, and in principle you should try to keep the original formats as long as possible. A reason this hybrid strategy is feasible is the fact that our responsibility is the Norwegian material, and Norway is a small country. At least until now the vaults have been big enough to secure all the material, and we are now starting to plan a new preservation vault (2008-2010). So my answer to your question probably is that we do not believe that digital copies for print material is a good enough long time archival surrogate - at least not yet. For other types of material the surrogate digital copies eventually will be the only copy, and should be treated as the original."

Royal Library of Sweden

"We do not consider digital as a suitable surrogate for print even if the content is "identical". To some extent the publication in different formats in itself means a change in contents and is certainly of interest for future research and studies. In some research the form of the publication is part of the subject of investigation. As a national library it is our task to safeguard the authenticity of the publications and their contents both for research and legal reasons. This is hardly possible if only one of the parallel formats is kept. This view is in line with older practices, such as the microfilming of newspapers, where we keep a paper original as well as microfilms of different generations."

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