Overview

1. Preserving the Past, Present and Curating the Future in Nigerian Academic LibrariesByEgunjobi, RotimiAdesinaPh.DCollege Librarian,Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo

2. Overview 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Concept of Preservation and Curation of Information 2.0 From Parchment to Digital -the Past and Present Storage and preservation of information 3.0 Common Information Formatsand their Life Expectancy 4.0 Information Preservation and Curation in Academic Libraries in Nigeria:Giving life to information 4.1. Preservation of materials through elongate the lifespan of the format 4.2. Preservation through recreation/ giving new life to information 5.0. New and Current Practices of Preserving and Curating Information in Academic Libraries 5.1. Digital preservation 5.2. Cloud storage 6.0. Conclusion

3. As a rule, he -or she- who has the most information will have the greatest success in life. -Benjamin Disraeli • The worth of any generated information is shown in its availability at any given time it is needed. • it is an established fact that all library collections experience damage from use and decay from the aging process. • such information may continue to be relevant and useful over a long period of time. • This then necessitates ensuring preservation of such materials.

4. Wisdom is perishable. Unlike information or knowledge, it cannot be stored in a computer or recorded in a book. It expires with each passing generation.Anonymous • Preservation is simply concerned with maintaining or restoring access to artifacts, documents and records through the study, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of decay and damage. • This is also different from conservation, which limits to the treatment and repairs of individual items to slow decay or restore them to a usable state • Preservation of information is not a new subject. It has been a very important subject and of great concern to different societies in the world throughout history. • In many ancient societies, various steps have been taken to preserve their records of information.

5. Preservation • Some societies made appeals to heavenly protectors to preserve books, scrolls and manuscripts from insects, fire and decay. • Arabic and other eastern societies, use metaphysical appeal to "Kabi:Kaj," the "King of the Cockroaches to protect books and scrolls with the belief that by appealing to the king to protect a manuscript, cockroaches of less nobility (or lesser insects) would refrain from intruding on documents which could be eaten by the king only. • some Christian monasteries placed book curses like "For him that stealeth a book from this library, may it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him” at the end of books to prevent theft, or to damn the thieves

6. Curation • Curationis the preservation and maintenance of digital and media assets. • The term ‘curation’ used to be known with organizing and maintaining a collection of artworks or artifacts. • With Information Technology, the term has come to be known in the field of information management. Hence, terms like database curation (manual updating of information in a database), content curation, digital curation and media curation

7. Digital curation-the selection, preservation, maintenance, collection and archiving of digital assets in order to add value to repositories of digital data for present and future use. • Media curationis an emerging trend of integrating media content from multiple sources using both machine and human resources. The practice includes aggregation (gathering) and curation (sorting, categorizing, art directing, and presenting) such that material from multiple sources creates a unique editorial experience for readers/visitors

8. It is obvious from the discussion above that : • while preservation as a concept looks at storing information for future use in the traditional formats, • curation sees information more from the digital and electronic format. • However, the main objective of these two processes is storing information for future retrieval and use. • Thus preservation and curation are interrelated and interwoven

9. Storage Media: From Parchment to Digital The Gutenberg Bible A reel-to-reel tape recorder Photographic film

10. A 3.5" PATA hard drive Computer related data storage medium A floppy disk

11. storage and preservation of information is directly related to the media of storage. • information storage formats dates back to clay tablets and parchments through books to audio and video cassettes, compact discs, flash, and latest digitization and internet storage. • with the Gutenberg technology invention, focus shifted on books. • This was followed by other media like the cassettes, CDs, flash and of course the internet. • However, the most popular and enduring format of information storage has remained the medium of book.

12. The major stock in trade of libraries over the years has been books. So acidification of paper has been a major concern for librarianship • Due change in technology, there are now numerous modern day storage media. • Modern day storage media include optical media, magnetic media and solid state media • At present, librarians are exploring preservation of materials using new methods of digitization and reformatting

13. Modern day media • Paper card storage -Punched card (mechanical) • Cams and tracers (pipe organ combination-action memory memorizing stop selections) • Tape storage: long, thin, flexible, linearly moving bands -Paper tape, Magnetic tape • Disk Storage: flat, round, rotating object-Gramophone records, Floppy disk, ZIP disk, Holographic, Optical disc(such as CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc), Minidisc, Hard disk drive • Magnetic bubble memory • Flash memory/memory card: solid state semiconductor memory- xD-Picture Card, MultiMedia Card, USB flash drive, (also known as a "thumb drive" or "keydrive"), SmartMedia, CompactFlash I and II, Secure Digital, Sony Memory Stick (Std/Duo/PRO/MagicGate versions), Solid-state drive

14. challenges of all these media • Temperature and humidity: relative humidity should be between 30-50% Very high humidity/ Low humidity is dangerous for media • Pests • Gaseous pollutants: such as soot, ozone, sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen • Light: light visible to humans /ultraviolet light and infrared radiation. Should be 50 lux per day • Frequent use: worn out • Theft

15. these challenges live with human beings and may not be totally avoided • even though, they could be controlled. • Within the context of these challenges, the lifespan of these media are automatically determined.

16. Average lifespan of different family of media

17. Computer family

18. Audio family

19. Video family

20. Photo media family

21. Information Preservation and Curation in Academic Libraries in Nigeria • Academic libraries are simply libraries that are attached to higher institutions of learning. • In Nigeria, these include libraries in Universities, Colleges of Education and Polytechnics. • The mission of these institutions as academic centres include - teaching, research and community service.

22. Their libraries are therefore established basically to support the academic or teaching and learning activities of the institutions. • Traditional roles of academic libraries include selecting, acquiring, organizing, preserving, and providing access to information to support academic activities. • The stock in trade of academic libraries is purely information. • Provision done based on identified needs of the staff and students, as well as the academic programs of the institution.

23. These information may however be stored and presented in different formats. Although, prior to advent of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), these materials were predominantly in printed formats • The traditional storage formats range from parchments to books to audio and video cassettes, compact discs, flash, and latest digitization and internet storage. • Of course the book medium remains the major format of information preservation in Nigerian academic libraries even as at date. • Evidences abound that the collection of most University and College libraries in Nigeria today still remain largely of books

24. Giving life to information • libraries remain the major institution that gives life to information. • This is because any given information is only alive to the existent that it could be retrieved for use. • Essentially, from creation to death, information may remain dormant, except at the stage of use. • Thus the life cycle of information could be represented as follows

25. the life cycle of information(by the author)

26. The main role of libraries as far as the life cycle of information stored in traditional media is concerned could be view from two angles: • i. Preservation of materials by helping to elongate the lifespan of the format; and • ii. Preservation through recreation/giving new life to information. • These two processes shall be examined in details

27. Preservation through elongation of the format’s lifespan • Ensuring that information live long in their original formats otherwise referred to as collection care. • This can include security, environmental monitoring, preservation surveys and more specialized activities such as mass de-acidification. • When the collections of academic libraries were majorly print, the concern was how to prevent theft of materials and prolong the life of the book • keeping books dusted • storing books in right temperature and relative humidity • control of pests, pollutants, and light exposure • training of users on proper handling of books.

28. Preservation through elongation of the format’s lifespan • With the advent of electronic technologies which brought changes in information packaging especially in reel audio tape, cassette tape and VHS tape, attention was more on protection against humidity, dust, pest and light • The advent of computer however has brought a new dimension to information storage with all the ephemerals that could be used with the computer like USB flash Drive, 3.5” floppy disc, 5” floppy disc, compact disc as well as the Hard Drive • Here, the concern is more on • keeping the media under optimal environmental conditions • ensuring less frequent use • regular refreshment (for flash drives and floppy discs) • guiding against electro-magnetic radiation (for the hard disc) which could be caused by active wireless devices, such as mobile phones.

29. Preservation through recreation/ giving new life to information • This method may involve creation of a surrogate or copying an item's contents in any other way or creating copies of an object in another type of data storage device. It is otherwise known as reformatting. • It includes processes like microfilming and digitization. In many cases, a library is allowed to make a limited number of copies of an item for preservation purposes. • This is done in order to elongate the lifespan of the contained information. • However, regardless of the method to be adopted for preservation, decisions have to be based on some basic considerations. These include:

30. Preservation through recreation-some basic considerations. • identifying the general and specific needs of the collection • existing condition, rarity, and evidentiary and market values. • With non-paper formats, the availability of equipment to access the information will be a factor (for example, playback equipment for audio-visual materials, or microform readers). • An institution should determine how many, if any, other repositories hold the material • evidence of significance: • uniqueness, • irreplaceability, • high level of impact – over time or place, • high level of influence, • representation of a type, and • comparative value (rarity, completeness, integrity relative to others of its kind).

31. New and Current Practices of Preserving and Curating Information in Academic Libraries • The application of information and communication technology to information management has changed the mode of storage of storage and preservation of information. • This is more pronounced with the technology of the Internet and the avalanche of digital content available on the Web. • More and more libraries are already migrating from print to electronic information and so attention is now shifting to digital preservation of information, content curation and cloud storage

32. Digital preservation • Digital preservation here involve materials that were originally produced in digital form and those converted from traditional to digital formats. • The process also includes refreshing, migration, replication and emulation. • In the case of Nigerian academic libraries where our collections still hold more prints • the first step in this direction may be the digitization of our holdings.

33. Digital preservation -Challenges • Papyrus manuscripts nearly 2000 years old, can still be read • high-quality acid neutral paper can last a century • archival quality microfilm is projected to last 300 years or more • but documents composed on a word processor just 30 years ago are gone forever.

34. digital preservation remains largely experimental and replete with the risks associated with untested methods • recording media for digital materials are vulnerable to deterioration and catastrophic loss • even under ideal conditions they are short lived relative to traditional format materials. • Related to this is the problem of technological obsolescence- with new products and methods introduced on a regular three- to five-year cycle

35. Digital preservation -Way out • Ironically, the first solution being used in libraries is to transfer digital and electronic information paper form -by printing page images on paper or microfilm for safe, secure long-term storage • This may be due to the fact that paper and microfilm have the additional advantage of requiring no special hardware or software for retrieval or viewing • A second method of digital preservation is copying also referred to as "refreshing" or "migration". • This copying is not just simply transferring a stream of bits from old to new media or from one generation of systems to the next but a more complex and expensive system that makes the material an authentic representation of the original version.

36. Cloud storage • Information handlers are beginning to explore the technology of cloud storage of information • As the name implies this is storing information in the cloud otherwise known as virtual storage. • cloud storage as a model of networked enterprise storage where data is stored in virtualized pools of storage which are generally hosted by third parties. • Hosting companies operate large data centers, and people who require their data to be hosted buy or lease storage capacity from them.

37. Cloud storage -advantages • the cloud with its extensive network of server farms helps to ensure that in the event of hardware failure, the data lives on, stored safely in another part of the cloud. • the cloud has been ascertained to be fast, reliable, accessible anywhere and stores information forever. • Cloud storage has the same characteristics as cloud computing in terms of agility, scalability, elasticity and multi-tenancy, • It is available both off-premises and on-premises (Crashplan.org, 2012; ViON, 2013). • It however has its operational costs to contend with and other variables that must be taken into consideration.

38. Conclusion • It is obvious that there are different approaches that could be employed by academic libraries in Nigeria to preserve and curate information for the future. • Nigerian libraries operate within different situations and contexts • Choice of approach will be based on the capability of the library to afford the technologies involved • the approach to be employed may vary from one library to another • It must be stressed that preservation of information is at a cost (if libraries must preserve information for the future, they must be ready to spend)- library budgeting implications

39. Thank youfor your attention