INFO 671: Introduction to Digital Curation and Preservation

LIS/INFO 671 introduces the basic functions of: *digital curation, a term that refers to the full set of management processes needed to create, select, describe, preserve and facilitate access to all types of digital collections, and *digital preservation, a formal endeavor to ensure that digital information of continuing value remains accessible and usable. We will focus primarily on digital curation and preservation in archives, libraries and museums, but we will also explore and compare digital curation and preservation practices from other disciplines, such as e-commerce, government documents and various business document systems and collections, in order to understand both the differences and similarities in the organization, management and preservation of different digital collections. By concentrating on common principles of information organization and information life cycles, you will be able to translate your learning and skills to many kinds of digital collections across disciplines and institutional cultures. This course will also introduce the basic problems associated with digital preservation. It will give students a thorough orientation to the technological and organizational approaches, which have been developed to address long-term preservation concerns. Finally, the course will examine the current state of the art in digital preservation and assess what challenges remain in research and implementation efforts. This course is designed to help new information professionals identify roles to play in managing and preserving digital objects and collections, and at the same time to enhance their effectiveness in working across organizational and technical boundaries.