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This article is based on a speech delivered at the EDUCAUSE national conference in October of 1999. It has also appeared in the May/June 2000 issue of EDUCAUSE Review.
Introduction
I have long been an advocate of the use of information technologies to improve access to information, to achieve efficiencies in library processing, to facilitate communication, to improve reference services and document delivery, and to support independent learning. Over a decade ago, in 1988, in remarks to an advisory committee at the Library of Congress I noted, "The challenge is how to correlate traditional methodologies with new technologies so that we ensure a system of access to information and knowledge." Today, it is certainly an understatement to say that the Internet is revolutionizing information access. But amid the proliferation of information, are we creating sustainable systems of access? Are we building reliable databases and durable objects? In our enthusiasm for access, are we overlooking important issues of reliability, redundancy, the ability to replicate results-important elements of continuity for scholars? While we work to incorporate vast amounts of digital information into our libraries, schools, universities, and colleges, how much should we concern ourselves with 'virtual continuity'?
I am not referring to all information but I am concerned with the information used in research. Research depends on the ability to scrutinize earlier work and build upon it. Earlier publications are in many ways an audit trail for the verification of so much work-in science, business, industry, architecture, transportation, medicine.
In the past, research libraries have worked with diverse collections, spanning hundreds of years and representing different methods and different physical forms of recording knowledge. For much of this time, they have operated on the assumption that these collections were of lasting permanence. We know that there are faults with this assumption: acidic paper becomes embrittled, and collections of print, microfilm, videos, sound recordings, and other formats fail to hold up to wear and tear or suffer from neglect as well as intentionally destructive behaviors. This erosion in the content and reliability of research collections can often be detected quite readily. We can see the trail of crumbling, yellowed shards of paper found at the base of shelves or the pages that fall apart in our hands when a book is opened, or we notice the visibly missing pages, the mold, the water damage, the acidic ink on acidic paper, the unstable acetate tapes, the work of insects.
But when such problems are noted, there are often redundant sources to rely on for substitution. If the copy at Harvard is damaged, in many instances there are copies at other institutions, or a copy may exist in microfilm. There have been catastrophes-fires, floods, thefts, willful and malicious damage-yet overall, redundancy and reformatting, along with a system of safeguards protecting against fire, earthquakes, and other factors in physical facilities, have enabled scholars to work with certain assumptions about the continuity of the materials on which they depend.
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