Preserving Your Digital Memories
Preserving a digital object is not the same as preserving, say, a book or photograph. You can put a book on a shelf or a photo in a box and (if kept dry and safe) look at it 50 years later. The same is not true with a digital object. This is why, in many cases, digital materials are considered more fragile than physical ones.
At Risk: E-mail
Letters often document both the public and personal side of history. They offer a unique perspective and can reveal as much about human nature as the facts and figures they contain. Today, much correspondence is conducted through e-mail. The everyday activities, work, major current events and personal observations documented in e-mail are a direct record of our lives. If e-mail is not preserved, a part of our history will be lost.
Tip: Preserving E-mail
E-mail should be saved and managed just like any other important digital file. Save important personal e-mail on a hard drive or storage disk as simple text files, making sure to capture the header information. Ask if your employer has a policy about saving work-related e-mail. You may also print out important e-mails.
At Risk: Finding digital material
We all encounter or create large quantities of digital material everyday. How will you remember where to find the health Web site you looked at last month or the digital photograph your sister sent last Christmas? If there is no system of organization or search mechanism available for your digital files, you may not be able to.
Tip: Tagging
Labels make it easier to find and organize objects. Often, the more information you record about something you're trying to save, the greater your chances will be of finding it later. The same principle applies to digital objects. Descriptive keywords will help you retrieve and organize digital materials -- be they digital photographs, videos or music. The popular term for adding keywords to digital content is tagging. When you add tags that you find meaningful to a digital item, you have added metadata that can be useful to others as well as yourself.
At Risk: Computer Files
According to a recent survey cited in USA Today, only 57 percent of people back up their data. Are your personal records, memories, music, photos and documents at risk of being lost forever?
Tip: Computer Files
Establish a backup system so your computer files, including personal photographs and other media, are copied on a regular basis to CDs, DVDs or, better yet, to an external hard drive. Make more than one copy of your digital files and store the copies in different physical locations.
At Risk: Storage Disks
Storage media such as compact disks and DVDs that were thought to last don't — they often fail within a few years. The backup disks you make today may become damaged or obsolete in the future.
Tip: Storage Disks
Never use rewritable discs for long-term storage. Do not use stickers to label discs, and always store them covered in a dark dry place, safe from damage. It is also important to convert old disks to new formats as they become available.
At Risk: Digital Photos
Family memories and special events that future generations would value are increasingly documented as digital photographs. But 10 years from now current memory sticks and cameras will most likely be obsolete, trapping the images in unusable or unsupported storage media.
Tip: Digital Photos
Because digital photographs require specific hardware and software to view, it is important to migrate files to the latest storage media using freely available formats. Make several copies of digital photographs and keep them in different places. Saving copies of your photos on Web sites and printing copies with archive-quality ink and high-quality paper are also options for preservation.
Digital preservation cannot be addressed by a single institution or nation. Libraries, archives and other memory institutions share this challenge with each other and with individual collectors and creators.
Find out more about the Library of Congress's digital preservation programs by exploring this Web site.
