Fri, 20 Feb 1998 12:09:21 -0800, Dr. Luciana Duranti wrote:
"The answers to the question of permanent preservation of digital
material are not going to be in the realm of technology, other then very
partially (e.g., technology standards can be defined and the industry
can
be convinced to adopt them so that, for example, migration will not
imply a
high percentage of loss). Rather, the answers are in the realm of policy
and procedure and will involve political and administrative choices that
can be very unpopular, like a strong movement towards centralization of
recordkeeping."
Dr. Luciana has defined the characteristics of the source original in
the context of digital records and finds the means of evaluation in
established disciplines. My question is whether the new reading mode has
changed the characteristics of the delivered copy.
Three suggestions here are (1.) digital communications, in terms of
human research,
merely offers yet another reading mode for the investigation of the
documented patrimony, and (2.) the nature of the copy...not the source
original...is most changed in this new mode. (the duplication of the
source is distributed beyond any central control, beyond constraints of
the manufacture of physical media and beyond human readership and into
the domain of machine readership), and (3.) particular cultural
dispositions will come into play with distinctions of original and copy.
Gary Frost
Library Conservator