AUTHOR: Marilyn Deegan and Simon Tanner, eds.
STARTED: April 4, 2017
FINISHED: July 6, 2017
PAGES: 260
GENRE: Library Science
FIRST SENTENCE: [From the introduction] This third volume in the Digital Futures series has been some time in gestation, and is intended as a contribution to the urgent debate about issues around the preservation of culture in digital form.
SUMMARY: [From ALA Editions] The rise of the Internet and the rapid expansion of electronic information present new challenges for librarians who must acquire, store, organize, preserve, and disseminate this information to their users. How can you locate the electronic resources most relevant to the needs of your users, integrate those resources into the infrastructure of your institutions, manage the necessary technology, and anticipate future trends? Deegan and Tanner suggest both the “why” and the “how” in this meticulous and completely practical examination of the strategic issues we face in a digital future. Chapters like: “Digital Futures in Current Contexts”; “Why Digitize?”; “Developing Collections in the Digital World”; “Economic Implications of Digital Collections”; “Resource Recovery”; “Structures and Services: Mechanisms for End-User Access”; “Digital Preservation”; “The Changing Profession of Librarianship”; and “Digital Futures” encapsulate the themes, concepts, and critical issues facing every librarian.
THOUGHTS: I grabbed this book because I am now on our consortium's digital preservation task force. While the book offered a nice summary of the issues and possibilities around digital preservation, it was published in 2006. Many of the examples are out of date and major strides have been made in the area since then. Even with that, it's still a good summary of the concepts and needs of the subject.
RATING: 6/10 [Good]
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