Preservation of Library, Archival and Digital Documents : Problems and
Perspectives: Festschrift in Honour of Dr (Mrs) Dorothy Issac and Prof. S.S.
Janardana Rao/L.S. Ramaiah and G. Sujatha. New Delhi, Ess Ess Pub., 2008, xxxiv, 500 p.,
ISBN 81-7000-538-8.
Contents: Preface. Introduction. Acknowledgements. Festschrift Committee. Prof. (Mrs.) Dorothy Isaac--a profile. Prof. S.S. Janardana Rao--a profile. I. Documentary heritage: 1. The state of conservation and preservation of documents in public libraries/A.A.N. Raju. 2. Conservation of documentary cultural heritage/H.D. Singh. 3. Keeping history alive/Purva Graver. 4. Vision of India through our archival heritage/T.V. Harinatha Babu. 5. Antiquity of Doordarshan archives/V. Shoba. II. Library and archival documents: What are they?: 6. Library documents: origin, development and prevention/ABSV Prasada Rao. 7. Records and Archives: what are they?/L.S. Ramaiah. III. Print Media: problems of conservation and preservation: 8. The conservation of documents/Carolyn Clark Marrow and Carole Dyal. 9. National Mission for manuscripts--Its role in conservation and preservation of paper manuscripts/Fazluddin Ahmed and S. Yadagiri. 10. A management perspective on preserving a collection/Alan Home. 11. India: in search of cheaper and new technologies for conservation of archives, manuscripts and library documents/T.V. Harinatha Babu. 12. Libraries and relevance of preservation and conservation/C. Sasikala and M. Govinda Raju. 13. Preservation and conservation of library materials: IT Tools and techniques/Aparajita Suman. 14. Need for preservation of library materials/M. Anjaiah. 15. Conservation and preservation of manuscripts-- a study of Osmania University Library/R.K. Pavan Kumar and A.S. Chakravarthy. 16. Manuscripts--preservation and conservation/Palupu Subba Rao. 17. Preservation of manuscripts and books in the public library/Ahmed Ali. IV. Digital documents: problems of preservation: 18. Fundamentals of digital preservation and repository--an overview/Subarna Kumar Das and Biswajit Das. 19. Technical issues and concerns for long term presentation and access to digital documents/K. Nageswara Rao and V.G. Talwar. 20. Long-term accessibility of digital documentary/Bee Bee Scow and Chennupati Ramaiah. 21. Digital preservation--an overview/R. Ashok. 22. Preservation of digital information--Initiatives, problems and prospects/Biswajit Saha. 23. Preservation of E-Resources/Nishtha Anil Kumar. 24. Preservation and conservation of audio-visual material in public libraries in digital environment/V. Chandrasekhar Rao. 25. Digitisation of information sources and networking in the public libraries/I. Chandraiah, A. Bhaskara Reddy and P. Madhusudan. 26. Conservation of music heritage in the Cyber Age/Sisir Kumar Mukherjee. 27. Digitization of documents--a solution for preservation and access to data/S.S. Lome and B.N. Kshirasagar. 28. Challenges in the preservation of electronic information in public libraries/A. Kishore and A. Kiran Kumar. 29. Strategies for digital preservation/N. Varatha Rajan and Chandrasekhar. 30. Archiving of documents (Digitizing, scanning and digital preservation etc.)/G. Dhansegaran. 31. Need of electronic preservation of archival records and manuscripts--an Indian scenario/H.S. Chopra. 32. Preserving digitally: some issues and concerns/N.K. Sreeja. 33. Preservation and archival storage of print forms--digital way/V.V.V. Satyanarayana. 34. How to save cassettes on hard disk: some questions and answers/G. Menon and Ashish Jain. V. Central Govt. Support for preservation: 35. Scheme of financial assistance for preservation of manuscripts/rare books/National Archives of India. Index.
"Human past is splendid and full of wonders. The past is known by records, archives, books, and other library materials which constitute the Documentary sources. There are also other things like the monuments, buildings, art objects, and other artifacts. All these constitute the human heritage. They need conservation and preservation. Librarians, archivists, curators, chemists, and archaeologist World over are concerned with the problems of conservation and preservation.
The documentary sources which are in the form of manuscripts, books, records, archives, films, CDs etc are fragile and prone to decay and deterioration. These are damaged because of weather, fire, insects, rodents, floods, virus, and many other factors. Sometimes the documentary sources are also destroyed because of wars, holocaust, disasters and religious animosity, and intolerance. The examples are of the burning of the great libraries at Alexandria and Nalanda in Egypt and India respectively and the recent destruction of Bumiyan Buddha in Afghanistan.
Preservation is a part of the conservation. Preservation is concerned with problems like the repair, dusting, fumigation, deacidification, air-conditioning, lamination, binding, storage, etc of manuscripts, books, films, disks, and optical materials. The principles of preservation of documentary materials in libraries, archives and digital databases in the light of rapid technological advances are to be reexamined and reevaluated.
The present title consists of 33 papers written by scholars, experts and practising librarians. They examined different problems faced or experienced by them in their work environments and suggested solutions. The book is useful to all types of librarians." (jacket)