From the time Jennifer Paustenbaugh was hired as the University Librarian at the Harold B. Lee Library, she was a strong proponent of digital preservation. With her sudden passing, it is worth remembering some of her insights on digital preservation. Jennifer will be greatly missed.
"We have to get this right." Jennifer Paustenbaugh. Digital Preservation. Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. June, 2016.
- “We have to get this right. If we don't, then not much else that we’re doing in research libraries matters. If we don’t fully develop a sustainable digital preservation program, we could negatively impact whole areas of research, because materials created right now could just disappear. I think about gaps that exist in records because of man-made events and natural disasters. This could be a disaster of our own making.”
- "I truly believe that of all the things we’re doing in the library, this is the thing that has the potential to make the biggest difference to scholars 20 or 50 years from now. Much of the digital content that we are preserving will be gone forever if we don’t do this right. It’s a role that at once is formidable and humbling. And for most people, it will probably never be important until something that is vital to their research is just missing (and forever unavailable) from the historical record."
