Digitization continued...

The fact that the Dead Sea Scrolls have been preserved for as long as they have been is miraculous. No less miraculous is that anyone can view them now thanks to digitization. Projects like this bring to the forefront many of the aspects of the value of digitization. The exposure to the elements can have detrimental effects that the average user may never consider when seeking information sources. An article states that the “conservation, preservation and documentation of the Dead Sea Scrolls have concerned both scholars and conservators ever since their discovery.” While most archives won’t be dealing with anything of value comparable to the Dead Sea Scrolls, it should not lessen the dedication and concern shown the local artifacts they are storing. The second section of the Cornell Tutorial, provides a valuable set of question that should be used as a checklist for considering items for digitization. Archivist cannot let artifacts sit in the back rooms until they are too brittle to digitize. Making a surrogate copy protects the original. Here are some of the questions from the Cornell Tutorial that should be asked:
 Does the material lend itself to digitization?
 Can the informational content be adequately captured in digital form?
 Do the physical formats and condition of the material represent major
impediments?
 Would the material be put at risk in the digitization process?
 Would digital surrogates reduce use of the originals, thereby offering them
protection from handling?
 Is the digital reproduction seen as a means to replace the originals?
By starting with a few considerations a collection can be better preserved for generations.

Digitization

Sometimes the smallest thing can inspire a flood of ideas. For me this was one line in the Digital Document Quarterly newsletter linked in the Digitizationblog for October 13. 2007. The author of the newsletter asks the question, what might be done to achieve the long-standing medical dream called “the longitudinal patient record”? In his footnote he details that a longitudinal patient record is a lifetime collection of the medical records of a human being, held to be readily available. This may seem a tangential topic, but for a medical librarian it could help in the organization of records. Companies add and drop insurance providers, people bounce from doctor to doctor, vital records get lost in the shuffle. It would be interesting to see a digital medical library develop that would allow doctors and patients to upload their information to a secure location where it can be managed and accessed as needed. This could include basic records, X-rays, MRI data, and lab tests. By have a single collective location for a patient’s records the history of a patient’s health would be complete allowing physicians to better diagnose illnesses that might be chronic. Researchers could also get a better understanding of hereditary illnesses, as a family’s records would be more complete and traceable. Or an adopted child could be provided with a familial medical history without having to track down biological parents if they given the child limited access to the records (no names or addresses, just pertinent medical information) as a part of the adoption process.

A library such as this would require some careful consideration in regards to data management and systems. The Cornell Tutorial addresses this by listing some points to consider.

Follow some basic file system recommendations:
 Use a file naming scheme that is compatible with whatever operating systems and storage media you plan to use
 Use standard file extensions for different file types
 Don't overload directories with too many files
 Rely on storage management software to manage large collections across multiple physical disk drives
 Allow for generous amounts of collection growth

It seems that a beneficial resource that could be developed, but it needs to be available to different doctors or patients who may have different operating systems (no pun intended) or the information won't be accessible.