The study of digital preservation in Malaysian cultural institution

Abstract

Our cultural and information heritage exists increasingly in digital forms especially in the cultural institutions since it keep all the heritages for future generation. The technologies use to create and enjoy the digital heritage have many advantages that explain their extraordinarily rapid take up in many parts of the world. But there are very serious challenges in keeping this already increasing digital heritage. The media use to carry and store it are unstable and the technology needed for access is quickly superseded by newer technologies. These challenges are not only technical in nature; they have organisational and societal dimensions as we struggle with the responsibility of keeping access lines open over extended periods of time, often with insufficient resources and uncertain strategies. A proposed assessment component model is identified. It consists: digital activity, institutional incentives, preservation policies and resource framework as attributes. Findings from previous case study on digitization projects in Malaysian cultural heritage institutions revealed two critical elements that are not being addressed by these institutions: digital preservation and digital risk management. In this project, a quantitative technique was chosen in evaluating the issues in digital preservation. Findings from the study show that the majority of cultural institutions in Malaysia are knowledgeable on the basic aspects of their digital resources but lack on the level of institutional awareness on digital preservation. Then, at the end of the report limitations and contributions of project, and the future work of the project were discusses.