Brittle Digital

I’ve been thinking about the parallels and differences between the brittle books crisis that came to light in the 1980s and the still emerging problems with digital information storage.  There are a lot of similarities, and some significant differences.  I’ve made a chart comparing the two:

Brittle Books	Digital Objects and Media
All the endangered items were basically the same - printed paper, whether in the form of books, newspapers, maps or other printed material.	Digital information is stored in dozens of different carriers, each with their own preservation issues.  Furthermore, digital objects are dependent on multiple layers of technology: file formats, software, hardware, drivers for the hardware, playback equipment, packaging, etc.  A failure at any point can render in information inaccessible.
Even as the carrier is crumbling, the information is still at least partially retrievable, even if only temporarily, since it can still be seen and read (until the pages completely disintegrate).	The information contained in files is often completely irretrievable (all or nothing).
The production of acid paper was partly in response to growth in writing and publishing that outpaced the older forms of paper manufacture - there was a need for faster, bigger, cheaper production.	Development of new technologies is partially in response to the growth in information creation, there is a need for greater storage capacity and more flexible, easier to use forms of data creation and storage.
Creation of the “inherent vice” in acid paper was unintentional.  While commercially driven, no one was trying to force users to abandon one format in favor of another.	The inherent vice and weaknesses in digital storage are at least partially due to the practice of planned obsolescence in software and hardware design and manufacturing.
The damage is visible - as soon as you pick up the books you can see the level of damage (though in books sitting unused in the stacks, the interior damage may not be evident).	Damage or obsolescence is invisible until you try to retrieve the file.

A silver lining, if you will, of the brittle book crisis was that the need to address the problem motivated substantial growth in library cooperation.  In her article “The Future of the Past” Abby Smith quoted Patricia Battin, first president of the Commission on Preservation and Access,  “we had to move from the cottage industries in our individual library back rooms to a coordinated nationwide mass-production effort." (1)  While library cooperation was nothing new, this crisis spurred the development of several organizations, commissions, and other group efforts to research and combat the problem.  This interagency cooperation has continued to address the issues surrounding digital information storage, retrieval, and security.

1. Smith, A. (1999, April). The Future of the Past: Preservation in American Research Libraries. Retrieved from the Council on Library and Information Resources website: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub82/pub82text.html