The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation

"Among the public, there is a persistent belief that if something is on the Internet, it will be around forever. At the same time, warnings of an impending "digital dark age," where records of the recent past become completely lost or inaccessible, appear in the popular press. In The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation, Trevor Owens offers a path to go beyond the hyperbole and the anxiety of the digital and establish a baseline for practice in this field. The first section of the book synthesizes work on the history of preservation in a range of areas (archives, manuscripts, recorded sound, etc.) and sets that history in dialogue with work in new media studies, platform studies, and media archeology. The later chapters build from this theoretical framework as a basis for an iterative process for the practice of doing digital preservation. While the book has a practical bent, it is not a how-to book that would quickly become outdated. It establishes and offers stages and processes for doing digital preservation, but it is not tied to particular tools, methods, or techniques. Instead, it is anchored in an understanding of the traditions of preservation and the nature of digital objects and media"--