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Digitization and Its Challenges. Ezra Shiloba Gbaje Department of Library and Information Science, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria
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Digitization and Its Challenges Ezra Shiloba Gbaje Department of Library and Information Science, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria Digital Records and Archival Management Workshop for Members Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Archives and History Bureau Committee and Liaison Officers. Arewa House, Kaduna June 3rd – 9th June 2007
Challenges of Traditional records and Archival Management • Disintegration of storage media particularly paper, films, magnetic tapes • Easy to misfile records • Requires large storage space • Locating and retrieving records time consuming and very difficult • Records cannot easily be shared by multiple user www.sharondelight.com
Challenges of Traditional records and Archival Management • Access to records are geographical and time restricted • Storage facilities and process very expensive www.sharondelight.com
Non Digital vs Digital Materials • Digital records are not localized, with ICT a digital record can be used from anywhere, without any geographical restrictions. • Several people can use the same electronic records at the same time. • Electronic records can be stored, arrange, index and retrieve easily. www.sharondelight.com
Non Digital vs Digital Materials • Electronic records are easily copied. • Records stored digitally are very flexible. They are easy to rearrange, reformat, and combine with other documents. • Collection of records stored in electronic form are less bulkier than paper versions. The trend is far even greater compactness. www.sharondelight.com
What is Digitization Process of converting non-digital born documents to digital format www.sharondelight.com
Process of Digitization This includes: • selection of collection/materials • Imaging or scanning material, • transcribing, • creating markup and index, • creating metadata, • processing images, • uploading to the web, • preserving and maintaining archival media www.sharondelight.com
Planning for Digitization. Developing Service Model • What is the purpose of digitization ? (enable more access, Intranet, Internet) • What kinds of content will be digitize ? (paper records, datasets, digital pictures, audio, visual and audio) • Who are the key stakeholders ? (Researchers/Scholars, Government agencies , and general public) www.sharondelight.com
Planning for Digitization • Methods of Storing digital records (online, offline or nearline) – refresh storage media! • Digital Preservation • What are the type of services you would want to offer ? www.sharondelight.com
Digital Preservation • Digital information is lost when it is left unattended while hardware, software and media continue to develop www.sharondelight.com
Digital Preservation • Digital preservation is to ensure digital materials are available and accessible in the long term. • Defined as the set of processes and activities that ensure continued access to information … in digital formats www.sharondelight.com
Challenges: Component faults Failure of server, network, software, 3rd party services, or entire data center Possible Solution • Separate digital asset storage from management system • Replicate collections at multiple, geographically distributed sites www.sharondelight.com
Challenges: Media faults Extensive (e.g. entire SAN) or limited (e.g. CD-ROM bit rot); visible or latent at the point of request Possible Solution • Audit data frequently (e.g. checksum checking) • Replicate collections at multiple sites (e.g. via SRB) • Automate repairs from replications www.sharondelight.com
Challenges: Software/file format Software to read digital files no longer runs (e.g. VisiCalc, AppleWorks, Wordstar, Ami Pro) Possible Solution • User education on best formats to archive • Format migration (on ingest, on-the-fly) • Format-specific preservation plans (XML) www.sharondelight.com
Preservation Strategies • Bitstream Copying or backing up data, where duplicate of digital records are made. • Durable, Persistent Media – where you preserve the physical media or CD, on which the object is stored • Migration: - where you copy data from one technology to another to avoid obsolescence of both the physical media and the data ormat • Standards:- relies on recognized, long-term standards over proprietary formats • Emulation: - process of reproducing software and hardware environments to translate code from one computing environment to run on another www.sharondelight.com