Article Summary #4:Preservation Challenges in the Digital Age, a LS566 Post

Bernadetter Houghton, in Preservation Challenges in the Digital Age states right off the bat that "the digital preservation field is evolving rapidly." With such a quickly changing field there are many challenges, especially due to the nature of the digital object. Houghton lists different areas where the most common of challenges tend to show up: multiplicities, hardware and storage, software, legalities, metadata, and privacy to name a few. There are different aspects of digital preservation that do not come up when dealing with a physical object. Not only to archivists have to keep an eye on the things of the past but also keep an eye on the things to come. Change happens, it happens a lot and the best way to deal with it is to make the best educated guess on what will come and on what is best to preserve.

Houghton give an excellent overview on many things that come into play with digital preservation. As she pointed out there are many different challenges that come with each method that is used. The biggest problem is when things become obsolete or crash. I am one of many people who has suffered the blue screen of death and lost all my data. Twice. A blue screen of death is the absolute last thing anyone would want to happen to a large digital collection. I understand how important it is to make sure that there are steps and processes in place to avoid any loss of data, because once it's gone, it's gone.