Özhan Saglik is a Lecturer at Bursa Uludag University Library.
I graduated from a bachelor degree in 2012 and master degree in 2015 from Istanbul University Information Science Department. I have been working in the library and archives since 2013. Now, working at Bursa Uludag University and PhD student at Istanbul University Information Science Department with the topic of trustworthiness of e-signed records.
"The things we loved change with us, so they are part of our richness"
Turkish famous writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar wrote this quote in his great book called Five Cities which was writing his memories in Ankara, Erzurum, Konya, Bursa and Istanbul. He lived in these cities and many things changed with him.
We used floppy disks 20 years ago now we don't.
We used CDs 10 years ago now we don't too much.
We may use X tomorrow, the next day we won't.
In many institutions, officials ask me to suggest a tool/system/ for digital preservation to make us feel comfortable! I said it is impossible. Why?
Digital preservation begins with the establishment of the organization. There should be a policy, funds, qualified staff and budget. The policy corresponds to organisational goals. If the goals change, the policy must change too. Technology grows day by day, the funds organisation allocated may not be sufficient so it will be increased according to change. Let me give some examples:
We can explore collections better with Jupyter Notebook so if the collections are not so rich to use as collections as data, some efforts should be made. Tomorrow new tool may arise and some efforts should be made again even do not require much.
In the coming years, it seems we will use more digital forensics techniques than today, so a new change may knock the door. If we assess digital preservation as a process we do not have to worry.
Ten years later, we may use blockchain technology. The tools we used may go out of date and all the way of doing transactions will change but they still will be part of our richness. 20 years later, we may store our memory on DNA so the process management concept will bring up.
Keep calm and say digital preservation is not a tool, it is a process.
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