Start date: 1 August 2005
End date: 28 February 2006
Funding programme: Digital Preservation and Records Management Programme
Committees: JISC Integrated Information Environment committee
Digital Images Archiving Study
A growth in digital imaging technologies has meant that a vast number of digital images are produced every year. The scholarly community has made particular use of this new media, and is now strongly reliant on access to digital image resources. Digitisation of collections has allowed a radical shift in the manner in which libraries and cultural organisations can deliver their collections, enabling them to provide round the clock online access to multiple users from anywhere in the world.
While many images are “born-digital”, a vast majority of digital images have been digitised. Over the last ten years, costly digitisation projects have been carried out in many HE/FE institutions. While digitisation provides access to a digital surrogate, it does not necessarily mean that the file will be preserved in the long term. If the investment in digitisation is to pay off, long-term access to digital image files has to be guaranteed. Digitisation projects need to consider the fact that digital obsolescence will have a negative impact on their digitised collections, in the same way as physical collections, are subject to threats over time, and that the decisions made at the point of digitisation or capture is likely to affect furture accessibility of the digital files.
Over the past few years, the JISC has funded a series of feasibility studies which aim to assess the preservation risk and retention criteria for digital content, and to help inform and prioritise the development of future services and calls in digital preservation. The Digital Images Archiving study forms part of the feasibility study programme and has been funded to scope the preservation requirements of digital image files and to determine archiving methodologies and future research directions.
The study has been carried out by the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS). The study is now complete and a copy of the draft final report is available (please see attachment of this page).