Association of Research Libraries (ARL®)

The September 15, 2009 Webcast, "Preservation: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities of Research Libraries," included substantial time for live question and answers which are available as part of the webcast archive. What appears below are some of the questions that could not be accommodated on-air, along with brief responses from the three participants in the webcast: Lars Meyer, ARL Visiting Program Officer, James Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia University Libraries, offered his perspectives on community level preservation challenges; and Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs, Duke University Libraries.

Digitization and Preservation:

Q: Most libraries digitize ad hoc as you described in your opening remarks. However, most libraries also consider "digitization" the end to preservation. How do we educate and implement programs of digital migration to further preserve digital surrogates, and also insist on the physical preservation of original rare antiquity in libraries?

Jim Neal: Digitization is not preservation. There is a complex set of provisions and investments for infrastructure and migration that need to be enabled to guarantee the long term availability of the digital copy. And although, the availability of a digital surrogate may relieve some pressure on the use of the original, it does not set aside the continuing responsibility for the conservation of originals of rare and special materials.

Lars Meyer: Digitization, or digital conversion, can be an effective reformatting strategy. Digital surrogates and the metadata that describe and provide context for those surrogates requires an institution to have in place polices and infrastructure to manage these as digital assets. Ideally, concern for digital assets, irrespective of whether they are created or acquired by the library, should be incorporated into collection development policies that might pose questions unique to this class of information resource. For example, we might ask: Why do we create or acquire these materials? What does it cost to manage them? Who is responsible for managing them? What kind of access do we provide to these resources?

In terms of whether to keep the original items or not is requires preservation staff and collection development staff to discuss not only the possibilities and limitations of digitization and digital surrogates, but also expectations, options, and costs for managing digital assets.

Q: What ongoing interaction can be projected between print source and screen rendition of the same (monograph) title? Should we preserve both for the long run?

Jim Neal: I believe the library community needs to develop a more systematic and standards-based national strategy for last copies print repositories. The Cloud Library project among NYU, HathiTrust, and ReCAP with the support of OCLC/RLG and CLIR will begin to test some of these models.

Lars Meyer: Most libraries have been determining the costs and benefits of keeping print copies with regard to their own user (however defined) requirements and expectations. Community level strategies are certainly needed and there is evidence that work has begun; see for example the work being done by OCLC (http://www.oclc.org/programs/ourwork/collectivecoll/default.htm).

Q: With more and more historical material being digitized, how do you respond to individuals who feel the original object no longer needs to be preserved with the same care?

Deborah Jakubs: I remind them of the broader scope of our responsibility, and the importance of the continued availability of the original for uses to which the digital version cannot be put. I also emphasize that digitization often results in more (not less) interest in seeing/examining the original.

Preservation Practice:

Q: Duplication of effort, particularly in microfilming, was viewed as a negative. Now, with the fragility of digital resources, I wonder if having more than one "copy" of a digital resource might be a good idea. What do you think?

Jim Neal: The duplication of microfilming effort was to a large extent influenced by library unwillingness or inability to contribute to a nationally or internationally maintained database of microfilming activities and intentions. I agree with the overall principle that more than one copy of a digitized resource is desirable, but I still see value in having a national register of completed or planned work available.

Deborah Jakubs: I think it is a good idea in many cases, and could fall under collaborative, interinstitutional (or consortial) relationships, much as cooperative collection development agreements have. We need to keep in mind the need to direct our financial and human resources as broadly as possible while ensuring the ongoing accessibility of the digital materials.

Lars Meyer: The digital preservation community is certainly interested in the validating the efficacy of distributed preservation strategies. Specifically, NDIIPP has supported MetaArchive, a program using LOCKSS technology to distribute copies of digital content among member institutions.

Q: Are your institutions under increasing pressure to decrease or eliminate binding as a means of preservation? If so, how are you dealing with this?

Jim Neal: It is my understanding, as evidenced I think by ARL statistics, that research libraries are significantly reducing their binding budgets. This is driven obviously by the financial pressures, but also by the expanding e-only strategy for journals and books, and the practice to put paperback volumes on the shelf.

Deborah Jakubs: Several years ago we discontinued automatic binding of many new materials, instituting a "bind upon first circ" policy. We saved/redirected considerable resources, and since then have relaxed the policy and have been monitoring the condition of unbound items in the stacks. Another reason our binding expenditures have decreased is, of course, that we have been increasing relying on e-journals and canceling the print.

Lars Meyer: Anecdotally, it appears that many libraries have moved to a bind-as-needed strategy. Cancellation of print journals has of course also contributed to a decrease in library binding.

Q: What role does current use and/or historic use of analog and/or digital content have in policy making about content persustence?

Lars Meyer: In the same way that curators and conservators have had conversations about the best treatment for rare or special book and paper objects, curators need to have the same conversations with digitization experts in their libraries. Past, current, and future use must taken into account for any kind of treatment, digital conversion, and discard decision. Of course, you can’t have a conversation about every object and therefore collection development plans that address persistence for classes or kinds of materials are necessary.

Q: Since, so often, libraries are licensing rather than owning digital collections, how can we sure that publishers and vendors accept a preservation ethic, or how can we encourage them to?

Jim Neal: This mandate for preservation is something that publishers understand, but may not always be able or willing to commit, given the financial pressures and business dislocations they are facing. I think we should include in our license agreements with publishers a requirement that they deposit their content in repositories like Portica or Hathi, and others as they are developed and implemented.

Prioritizing:

Q: How do you see these new challenges changing the methods of setting priorities for preservation, with regard to cross-department collaboration?

Deborah Jakubs: If we view preservation and the preservation mandate as of a larger scope than before, it is incumbent on us to bring in collaboration from outside the traditional preservation department. This is a good thing, and leads to broader discussions of priorities. in conversations that include more voices and perspectives. It will also inform those outside the department of the priorities as viewed from inside.

Lars Meyer: If we accept the fact that the scope of preservation is getting broader, we also need to accept that staff from throughout a given library will contribute to a preservation effort, including participating in discussions about priorities. We also need to look to partners outside of our own libraries and parent institutions to help us set priorities, this is particularly important for libraries who are actively working with content creators and aggregators from elsewhere in the university.

Staffing-related questions:

Q: Lars mentioned that with increase in scope of preservation, we are seeing more people (outside preservation dept) involved in preservation. Can you give examples of new approaches to staffing, organizing preservation activity to mainstream it within our libraries?

Deborah Jakubs: One example which may not be all that new is to involve subject specialist librarians in decisions about what to reformat, what to digitize -- and involve digital collections and technology/digital production people in developing the "business plan" for costing out a give strategy.

Lars Meyer: Preservation, particularly for digital content or carrier-dependent technologies (e.g. VHS tapes, CDs, motion picture film, etc.), should not be an afterthought. Libraries should develop documented strategies or business plans that address what to preserve, when to preserve, and what technologies to use. The staff involved in this work will differ from library to library and from collection to collection. Preservation staff should contribute to the effort by providing knowledge about the costs, benefits, and risks of alternatives, based on their knowledge of the technology (be it deacidification, digitization, conservation, etc.) and the vendors who we might use.

Furthermore, preservation staff can ensure that the right resources (people and tools) are in place in appropriate stages of the work, regardless of whether the work occurs in the preservation department or elsewhere in the library or on campus. Preservation staff may need to rely on others in the library to provide needed expertise. For example, if there’s expertise in digitizing sound recordings in a music library, it’s probably best to continue to use that staff, but align their efforts with a greater preservation initiative. The challenge for each library will be to determine when preservation is playing a leading role or a supporting role.

Q: What is the education, professional development, and career trajectory of the modern/future preservation professional look like? What will libraries need as we staff the future of preservation?

Jim Neal: The challenge, of course, in research libraries is that we carry a very significant legacy responsibility for conserving and protecting the rare and special materials in our collections in their original formats, even as we expand investment in digital preservation, and as we begin to collect and archive web content. We need to maintain and develop new expertise across these arenas, led by preservation directors who can see, advocate for, and work across them. Institution-based preservation programs may need to be set aside in favor of expanded outsourcing and new combinations of libraries to get the work done collectively.

Deborah Jakubs: The expansion of the definition/scope of preservation means that it will involve a wide variety of skill sets. I'd suggest that we be active in inviting interns and students to work in our preservation operations, and that we consider teaching on-the-job skills to some promising individuals who are interested. The preservation professional will need (already needs!) to understand and manage a much wider array of domains than before.

Lars Meyer: We will see continued need for expertise in the areas of sound recording and moving image preservation as well as still image digitization. For libraries with significant book and paper special collections, trained and experienced conservators are essential. Needed expertise will differ from library to library. Does a library expect to hire someone to oversee the work in-house or to manage work that is outsourced? When we expect to complete complex, technical work in-house, we will need high-level, appropriately compensated, technical positions that likely cannot be filled by library science degree holders or typical library paraprofessional staff. Today’s preservation librarian or administrator should be integrated with collection development staff to better understand and contribute to decisions that affect users of information resources, be they historical or legacy collections or new, born digital content. We need to close that gap that’s grown between collection development and preservation.

Q: Very few preservation programs have ever achieved the staffing levels suggested in program model reports of the early 90s. What should library leadership's response be to this fact as demands for services, expertise, and work has expanded rather than shrunk in the digital era?

Lars Meyer: We can perhaps begin to tackle this by expanding our view of what the term preservation encompasses and who in a library is actually involved in preservation work. How much preservation work is going on that’s not explicitly labeled or counted as such? We also need to improve how we prioritize preservation work. What criteria do we use to decide when to preserve something? How much of our work is reactive (intervene when something is broken) and how much of our work anticipates user needs and expectations? What’s the right ratio?

Q: And to follow up, what are the implications of the generalist approach (which will be the future of the preservation program at UT) when we have highly specialized tasks/projects/jobs before us?

Deborah Jakubs: On the job, mentorships could help.

Lars Meyer: For technical expertise, many libraries have already begun to rely on individuals trained and educated from outside traditional library science programs. For example, it might make more sense to hire a trained sound engineer or graduate of a moving image preservation program than to hire a library science graduate. In the case where someone is coming to the library from another industry, mentorship and training in academic and library culture might be required; extant staff must be willing and able to fulfill that role.

Q: If you had to go out now to recruit a new Head of Preservation, what would be your requirements for skills & experience to walk in the door?

Deborah Jakubs: Aside from experience in numerous aspects of preservation work, good project management skills would be essential.

Lars Meyer: I would expect him or her to have sufficient knowledge about metadata and information technology to have informed conversations with colleagues and to create specifications for work. I would also look for evidence that he or she has experience in project management, cost/benefit analysis, and to recommend and make decisions supported by data.

Technology:

Where do you see future technologies and capacities helping us deal with 120 years of fragile publishing?

Lars Meyer: Digital conversion is happening now. Because so much of that is driven by commercial entities (e.g. Google), benchmarks for completeness and accuracy do not meet a lot of library or scholar expectations. So, it’s perhaps not the technology that’s the issue but rather who’s deciding how today’s and tomorrow’s technology will be used? In terms of paper preservation and conservation of artifacts, the library community could have more influence on identifying areas of investigation for conservation science. Similarly, we could also identify needs for computer science research that bears upon preservation of digital content.

Collaborative approaches:

Q: Do you consciously & overtly work as a team with other institutions to document an area more comprehensively?

Deborah Jakubs: Yes.

Q: Are we beginning to see more collaboration or convergence between libraries and archives in addressing preservation challenges?

Deborah Jakubs: I think so and there will be even more as time goes on and this conversation grows more broad.

Lars Meyer: Yes, I think conversation are emerging on campuses about how to capture, provide access to, and preserve digital content that’s created on campuses by academic departments, administrative units, and student groups, as well as scholars and researchers. Due to issues of format and technology obsolescence as well as staff and student turnover, it makes sense to build concern for these into a records management and university archives programs.

North American Leadership/Policy:

Q: I am particularly interested in the issue of leadership as we move conservation/preservation into a more interdisciplinary and inter-institutional operation. Do you think that the need for policies and unified vision may be addressed by creating centers of excellence in these modular aspects pf the preservation/conservation dialectic?

Jim Neal: I see centers of excellence, with the depth of technical and science expertise needed across the preservation challenges, as inevitable if we are going to get the work done. This may take the form of institutional focus, or new for profit or not for profit organizations, public/private partnerships, or regional centers supported by our universities.

Q: Historically strategic leadership and national policy efforts have helped propel the preservation effort forward, although that has eroded in recent years. What opportunities do the panelists see to turn this around? What can the preservation community do to support it?

Jim Neal: I am not optimistic about our ability to turn around the leadership gap for preservation, in the policy, advocacy, or funding arenas. We have lost RLG and DLF, at least as separate organizations, and their is no obvious candidate to pick up the mantle of the former Commission on Preservation and Access.

Q: Jim, you mentioned the lack of national policy and direction in terms of preservation of North America's collections. What is the most important thing we could do to change and/or make some headway on this problem?

Jim Neal: We need a national program which sets clear collective priorities, including research and education. We need policies in the form of new exceptions in copyright or standards to drive practice. We need funding from appropriate federal agencies, who see the economic benefits of the investment.

Q: James Neal mentioned that other countries have been much more successful in comprehensive preservation activities than the US and Canada - can you discuss how they have succeeded in this endeavor where we have failed?

Jim Neal: My answer to the previous question outlines what other countries/regions have been able to accomplish. I actually see the federal and provincial investments in Canada permitting libraries there to perhaps make stronger progress than in the US.

Lars Meyer: It seems that there’s more top-down funding available in some European countries to enable national libraries to address preservation. In the US, we expect a lot of answers to come from academic projects funded by federal agencies and foundations.

Q: Jim, why do we not have a central mandate for preservation and conservation? Who is responsible? Isn't it ARL?

Jim Neal: ARL in my view, as part of its current strategic plan, largely set aside a programmatic priority for preservation. There are initiatives that have explored areas of interest, like in e-science and the current report that Lars prepared. And when preservation touches information policy and scholarly communication, ARL has been very active. A new strategic focus on Transforming the Research Library may allow for more of a programmatic focus on preservation, but ARL has generally avoided operational roles.