Digital Libraries

For me this is a two-sided blessing. In general, I am not sceptical about digitization. My scepticism refers to how digitization is used today, what we want to achieve with it.

What makes you sceptical?

Digitization has enormous advantages for the daily use of archive material or library stocks. However, it is not suited for long-term storage. It is well-known that digital media change fast and are very unstable. Upon use, its immaterialness opens up totally fantastic possibilities. However, electronic media do not last for ever. In other words: if one wants to retain this media, considerable work is required. Thus, digital material is a very luxurious medium.

Can you describe the amount of work involved?

In the case of digital media the norm is: everything that is not regularly updated becomes at some point obsolete. All the money put into digitization is lost if we do not constantly invest in additional expenditure to uphold the level achieved. If you, for example, scan in a document today, you are using standards that will in 20 years be outdated. In order to still be able to view the document in 20 years you must have the right hard and software at your disposal. Continual up-grades are necessary. And, if you miss just once, damage will occur. For instance, this can be seen by looking at the technical problems the Birthler authorities are confronted with when they want to use old, electronic recordings from the “Stasi” (former East German Intelligence Service).

Are the current, long-term costs of digital technology generally underestimated?

On the one hand, one does not know what these costs will exactly be and, on the other, one tacitly presumes that this money will already be there. The Swedish archivist, Jonas Palm, tried to calculate the costs. In his article “The Digital Back Hole“, he looked into the known factors: How do technology prices develop? What does it cost to maintain a terabyte of data? How much support is necessary? The result: The costs are rising. In the meantime, although nobody has a solution for this problem, this technology is still being merrily used and a large part of our economy depends on it.

What in your opinion is to be done?

More thought must be given to the length of time. With each application I must take into account whether I still want to have it later. And, if yes, which solution is available that is stable on a long term basis? What backup system do I have if I wish to quit or am even forced to abandon the digital medium?

What do you precisely suggest?

For archive or cultural property it is advisable to pursue a two-fold strategy. We need both media: One should use the film as a storage medium and digitization for the daily usage of the material.

In any case, one should separate the two purposes – comfortable usage and long-term archiving. No procedure can optimally carry out both: Film is considered during use to be too brittle and digitization is not suitable for the long-term.

What are the advantages of microfilm?

The equipment you need in order to be able to read microfilms is very simple. Principally, just a magnifying glass and a light source will do. If necessary, this modest technology is quickly created. However, one can imagine numerous situations in which you can not manage with digitization. What do you do in a badly equipped country with a hard drive full of beautiful, coloured digital material?

So, is it back to the Microfilm then?

Yes, if it concerns storage. The microfilm was for many decades the only technology used in order to reproduce something. A long-established technology is, however, not bad because it has been used for such a long time. It is wrong to just simply replace it.

Rather than throwing film technology overboard it would be wiser to use it to complement digitization. I would suggest taking the medium microfilm into consideration during planning - and not just focussing exclusively on digitization.

Does this happen more often in other countries than by us?

No, actually not. We have this contrast between digital and analogue media world-wide. In the USA, for example, the euphoria over digitization is even greater.

But in different countries there is also a strong lobby for microfilming - for example, in Switzerland. Like us, the Swiss have a backup film concept with a central storage area for protected microfilms. We are cooperating with the Swiss in this sector.

Is for you the increase in digitization a reason for horror visions?

Oh, you know, I tackle this problem with healthy, professional cynicism: We archivists live constantly with the fact that cultural property gets lost. Due to the dimensions we can anyway only retain the remnants.

This is also true for digital media. It is for me a certainty that much of what we now have digitally will no longer be there in this form in15 to 20 years. Simply because the costs of conservation are too high, because interests and the political environment have changed and it can therefore no longer be maintained. And then these wonderful, colourful castles in the air are no longer there.

This is a normal process. One can look at it completely undramatically. But one must not fool oneself. To believe that the digitized material will be there for all eternities is a misconception.