From Selection to Harvesting

which everything else rests.”³⁶² As Rothenberg explains, until a viable technical solution for long-term maintenance of digital documents has been identified, it is premature to invest too much effort in designing administrative and organizational frameworks.³⁶³ Nevertheless, while there is no agreement as to what exactly should be done, it is widely acknowledged that technical aspects of preservation must be supplemented with non-technical ones. From this perspective, the efforts for the long-term maintenance of digital documents are better characterised by the notion of sustainable access rather than preservation, given that it draws attention towards non-technical aspects of preservation.³⁶⁴ Finally, it must also be stated that despite common agreement that valuable digital documents must be kept forever, there is no agreement as to how long forever is, because digital technology does not only change concepts of preservation but also concepts of permanence. As explained by Harvey, based on interviews with professionals from libraries and archives, for most people forever means one hundred years in the case of digital documents; yet for others forever truly means just four or five years, a time span in which technological change is likely to occur. The interviewee grounded this statement by saying that knowledge is currently failing to think about digital documents in longer terms.³⁶⁵ Regardless of how long forever is, considerations of preservation are usually preceded by selection of documents and for this reason the remaining part of this subchapter is dedicated to discussing how digital technology has also changed such practices.

Committee on Intrinsic Value, established by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration to specifically define this concept and explain the qualities conveying intrinsic value to documents, the authors explain: “intrinsic value is the archival term that is applied to permanently valuable records that have qualities and characteristics that make the records in their original physical form the only archivally acceptable form for preservation.”³⁶⁸ They identify no fewer than nine qualities or characteristics that help define intrinsic value, namely:

physical form, which may be the subject for study if the records provide meaningful documentation or significant examples of the form; aesthetic or artistic quality; unique or curious physical features; age, which provides a quality of uniqueness; value for use in exhibits; questionable authenticity, date, author or other characteristic that is significant and ascertainable by physical examination; general and substantial public interest, owing to direct association with famous or historically significant people, places, things, issues or events;

significance as documentation of the establishment or continuing legal basis of an agency or institution; and significance as documentation of the formulation of policy at the highest executive levels when the policy has significance and broad effect throughout or beyond the agency or institution.³⁶⁹ Despite some of these characteristics applying to digital carriers, the analysis in this dissertation has shown - and aims to critically question - the tendency to see digital documents as information carriers not as artefacts with intrinsic value.

However, some people do see digital documents as potentially having intrinsic value. In this regard, it is worth mentioning one report published by the Council on Library and Information Resources, Washington, whose purpose is to explain the value of the artefact in library collections. The authors of the report discuss documents as artefacts based on traditional evaluation criteria applied with traditional documents including age, rarity, associational value and evidentiary value.³⁷⁰ However, this report also provides a brief discussion on digital documents, with the main argument being that digital documents can also be seen as artefacts;

in other words, “things that have intrinsic value as objects, independent of their information content”³⁷¹. The report proceeds by listing a few examples. Digital documents are “of very

368 U.S. National Archives and Record Administration, Intrinsic Value in Archival Material, Staff Information Paper Number 21 (Washington D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Record Administration, original 1982, this web version 1999), http://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/archives-resources/archival-material-intrinsic-value.html#top (accessed 15 April 2013).

369 U.S. National Archives and Record Administration, Intrinsic Value.

370 Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), The Evidence in hand: Report of the Task Force on the Artifact on Library Collections (Washington, D.C: CLIR, 2001); For a discussion on artefactual value see also Feather, “Introduction: Principles and Policies,” 4-5.

371 CLIR, The Evidence in hand.

great import for scholars interested in the artefact, for it challenges notions of originality and uniqueness, and even of authenticity, fixity, and stability.”³⁷² The report also notes that the physical form can be significant if displaying an outstanding example of form, or if it provides meaningful documentation; or can also have aesthetic or artistic qualities, especially in digital art and literature.³⁷³ We could add that they may represent significant examples of a certain type of recording; a certain type of storage, a certain type of collaborative production;

it may have associational values with those who created it, with those who used it, or with those who changed it. Indeed, the list could be as long as that for non-digital documents.

While it is perhaps not appropriate to generalise that all digital documents have artefactual value, it is similarly inappropriate to generalise that all digital documents are simply information carriers. In this regard, the report rightly states that “when considering artifacts that are born digital, the first and possibly the most difficult question is ‘What is the artifact?’

What information or value inheres in the carrier medium? Is the equipment originally used for display part of the digital artifact? Does the software that presents and actualizes the data qualify as a constituent element of the artifact?”³⁷⁴ The digital carrier may have value just like any other carrier, but it must be stated that the arguments described above rely on the idea that documents are carefully selected from a larger number of documents. However, this idea fades away with digital technology, and especially in light of its rapid obsolescence.

Phillips explains that the increase in number of online publication has led to two main approaches for collecting and preserving them: the whole domain or comprehensive approach, and the selective approach.³⁷⁵ Based upon applications from national libraries, she argues that selective approaches to the collection of static web resources similar to print resources that do not contain dynamic elements or change over time have been applied in Denmark and Canada. Furthermore, Australia also applies this approach, whilst additionally selecting dynamic publications and web sites.³⁷⁶ In addition to this selective approach, which is similar to traditional methods of selection, there is the so-called “whole domain harvesting” by which national libraries automatically collect the entire web domain of their respective countries, without applying selection. Phillips mentions Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Austria

372 CLIR, The Evidence in hand, 48.

373 CLIR, The Evidence in hand, 51.

374 CLIR, The Evidence in hand, 51.

375 Margaret E. Phillips, “What Should We Preserve? The Question for Libraries in a Digital World,” Library Trends 54, no. 1 (2005): 58.

376 Phillips, “What Should We Preserve,”59.; This aspect has been discussed in subchapter 6.2 in this dissertation

among the countries that take the whole domain harvesting approach.³⁷⁷ According to Phillips, each of these methods has advantages and disadvantages; for example, when selection is applied, collections tend to reflect the subjectivity of the collecting institutions. In the case of harvesting, owing to the huge amount of data to be managed, quality controls can only be applied on a small sample, and thus the quality and functionality of what is selected cannot be ensured. De Lusenet makes a similar distinction, yet speaks about collection building versus deposit, two methods traditionally applied by libraries. Collection building involves selection based upon user requirements, whereas deposit refers to the comprehensive coverage of a class of materials.³⁷⁸ As can be inferred from de Lusenet’s arguments, the whole domain harvesting is not a new method but rather an extension to the digital environment of the deposit approach. However, de Lusenet does not fail to mention a conference on the topic of digital preservation, where heritage institutions were criticised for attempting to extend their traditional approaches to a domain, which does not fit the traditional one.³⁷⁹ Indeed, the authors referred to by de Lusenet argue that the interactive and collaborative nature of digital objects is part of the object, and also has to be preserved.³⁸⁰ This will not be achieved through traditional methods, but rather by devising new methods specific to digital objects; otherwise everything would turn into the documentation of human interaction on the web.³⁸¹ Following these arguments, de Lusenet introduces the UNESCO Convention of the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in explaining that the preservation of digital heritage is much closer to the preservation of intangible heritage:

“culture as process instead of product, performance, and enactment rather than artifacts, the role of communities or groups as bearers of culture; these aspects of the intangible debate all have a bearing on digital culture.”³⁸² Indeed, these arguments are very relevant, because there is a need for new ways of understanding digital documents, as shown by the fact that existing methods are fallacious and cannot appropriately capture the main aspects of digital documents but in the context of MoW, preserving the interactive and dynamic aspects of digital documentary heritage is not likely to be achieved easily, given that it only deals with static and finite objects.³⁸³ However, if today’s digital documents are characterised by interactivity

377 Phillips, “What Should We Preserve,” 59.

378 de Lusenet, “Tending the garden,” 167.

379 The reference is to a conference whose results have been published. See Yola de Lusenet and Vincent Wintermans, eds., Preserving the Digital Heritage: Principles and Policies (Amsterdam: Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO, 2007).

380 See Uricchio, “Moving Beyond the Artifact,” and Owen, “Preserving the Digital Heritage”.

381 See Uricchio, “Moving Beyond the Artifact,”and Owen, “Preserving the Digital Heritage”

382 de Lusenet, “Tending the garden,” 175.

383 This has been closely discussed in chapter 8 in this dissertation.

and dynamism, how else can digital documents become part of MoW if not by also embracing these aspects of digital documents!?