Page 31 - Virtual Research Lab flip book

but typically the reader or library has to pay for them. Here libraries have found a role in the lending of digital books or in distributing digital books to students in academic or educational settings.
There is also the side issue of digital preservation. Until reliable interna- tional standards and protocols are established for the long-term preserva- tion of digital files, if that is even a possibility, it remains safer and some- times more economical, when compared to the cost of managed archiving of digital information, to store information on paper. In June 2011 the founder of the Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle, stated that “Physical archiving is still an important function in the digital era,” especially as some libraries are de-accessing physical books after they have been digitized; he announced that the Internet Archive is building a Physical Archive of physical books that it has scanned. The Physical Archive of the Internet Archive is intended to serve as a back-up for the digital texts, perhaps also a tacit acknowledge- ment of the uncertainty of long-term digital archiving.
As more and more source material is digitized, many brick and mortar academic libraries are placing increasing emphasis on their unique or very scarce items, while continuing to acquire quality or just popular physical and eBooks and other media, along with physical and electronic subscrip- tions to journals they deem necessary and affordable. Researchers more of- ten need to consult the physical object when doing research on material that has not been digitized, or when investigating aspects of book history or material culture that cannot be satisfied by working with a digital facsim- ile. For those interested in the history of books and manuscripts for their full cultural value, viewing and studying the original artifact will never be completely replaced by a facsimile, any more than viewing a facsimile of a painting can totally replace viewing the original work. The originals held in academic libraries include cuneiform tablets, papyri, medieval codices and charters, printed books from the fifteenth century onward, etc., and represent the accumulation of records that, are depending on the scholarly abilities of the user, more or less accessible. For an expert on cuneiform, clay tablets may remain nearly as accessible today as they were when originally
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