The Big Picture: Preservation Strategies in Context
On Relevance, Success, and Their Relationship to Survival
Jan Merrill-Oldham
Harvard University

The burgeoning of information resources in electronic form, distributed worldwide by governments, industries, institutions, associations, and individual contributors, has had a profound financial, technological, methodological, and cultural impact on libraries everywhere. Many thousands of journal titles are now available on-line, sometimes complemented by paper copy and sometimes not; sometimes replicating the paper copy, sometimes including more information, and sometimes less. The availability of on-line books, illustrations, sound recordings, moving images -- some for free and some for licensing or sale -- increases by the hour. Networked distribution of information resources raises fundamental questions for libraries. What do we buy, what do we borrow, what do we preserve, and what can we preserve?

Beyond the acquisitions dilemma, digitizing capabilities have muddled established decision-making strategies for reproducing library materials for various purposes. Are we at risk in providing digital copies of copyrighted materials to individual researchers for study purposes, where there is no stated intention to redistribute the protected works? Is digitizing an effective replacement for microfilming, as the method of choice for preserving information printed on decaying paper? And again, can we preserve the digital resources that we create, however carefully crafted?

To build and sustain a preservation program in today's volatile information arena presents daunting challenges. As libraries seek relevance within the various communities that they serve, so too must preservation programs seek relevance within libraries. Issues, obstacles, and avenues to success will be explored, with the goal of identifying models that exploit an increasingly rich and complex technical environment.