Innovation, Disruption and the Democratization of Digital Preservation

Innovation, Disruption and the Democratization of Digital Preservation. Bill LeFurgy. Agogified. October 10, 2011.

Interesting article about innovation and society.  It asks the question about digital preservation: Is innovation the key to dealing with all that valuable digital data? "When considered from the popular perspective of innovation, digital preservation looks like a straightforward challenge for libraries, archives, museums and other entities that long have kept information on behalf of society." But it isn't that easy, since technology changes much faster than society's conventions and institutions. "Innovation is not a safe, orderly or controllable process.  It sends out big ripples of disruption with an unpredictable impact." Libraries are being bounced around because of such disruption and the traditional methods are not suited to address the changes.  "All this means that the ability of traditional institutions to fully meet the need for digital preservation is in doubt."

But with these changes comes a change in the people playing a role in preserving digital materials. Some see a greater role for individuals in digital preservation.  There is a great need for designing preservation functionality into tools used to create and distribute digital content to enable content creators to be involved in the digital stewardship. "Ultimately, we have to hope that innovation pushes along the trend toward the democratization of digital preservation.  The more people who care about saving digital content, and the easier it is for them to save it, the more likely it is that bits will be preserved and kept available."