Curiously, most of us in the digital memory business are hesitant to visually document our own work. Possibly this has to do with the perceived nature of the enterprise, which involves tasks that may seem routine. But pictures tell an important story, and I set about finding a few that depicted some of the digital preservation focal points for the past year.
I did a Flickr search for the words “digital” and “preservation” and limited the results to photos taken in 2013. I also limited the results to “only search within Creative Commons-licensed content” and “find content to modify, adapt, or build upon.” There were 2 to 3 dozen results. While most fell into a couple of common categories, I was pleased to find 11 that struck me as especially engaging, unusual or otherwise interesting.
And while digitization is only a first step in digital preservation, I included a couple of shots that depict digital reformatting activities.
Caritat room, Biblioteca de Catalunya. Unitat de Digitalització. From the ANADP 2013 meeting in Barcelona, by Ciro Llueca, on Flickr
Long-Term Preservation of Digital Art, by transmediate, on Flickr
Main Room, Biblioteca de Catalunya. Unitat de Digitalització, from ANADP 2013, by Ciro Llueca, on Flickr
At Personal Digital Archiving 2013, by Leslie Johnston, on Flickr
With George “The Fat Man” Sanger at Personal Digital Archiving 2013, by Wlef70, on Flickr
Introducing the Archivematica Digital Preservation System, by Metropolitan New York Library Council, on Flickr
Preservation of Tibetan books, Digital Dharma, by Wonderlane, on Flickr
Posters, Biblioteca de Catalunya. Unitat de Digitalització, from ANADP 2013, by Ciro Llueca, on Flickr
PlaceWorld is the result of collaboration between artists, social and computer scientists undertaken as part of the eSCAPE Project, by Daniel Rehn, on Flickr
Visualisation Persist: Sustainability of the Information Society, by Elco van Staveren, on Flickr
Digitization Project at Radio Mogadishu, Somalia, by United Nations Photo, on Flickr