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Welcome to a public service announcement for the residents of the City of Pittsburgh,
on the importance of a digital preservation strategy.
Some problems in Pittsburgh that affect us today
have actually been around for a while.
Let’s take a look at a timeline for one example.
Let’s say you get up in the morning to go to one of your favorite cafes for a cup of coffee.
And on your way there, you have to go by the infamous intersection of Washington and Allegheny River Boulevards.
And that’s when you run into a lot of traffic!
And as you wait at the light,
you wonder to yourself for the millionth time,
“Shouldn’t this intersection be designed better?”
Well it might be the case that,
back in the 1920s,
this intersection had always been a problem.
In fact, if we look at a City record from 1930,
we can see that someone had proposed designing a round-about at this exact location.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if present-day City Council
were able to find these past proposals from the convenience of a computer?
That way, we wouldn’t always have to start from scratch when looking for a solution.
And that's why digital preservation can help you.
We should digitize municipal records and store them well for the long run.
That way, ordinary residents and decision- makers
can easily find previous solutions, and build upon that work.
Here’s a cycle graph illustrating the process and challenges of digital preservation.
Right now, many of the city’s records are in paper,
and completely disorganized in basement storage.
They’re hard to find,
and for paper copies,
only one person can read a physical copy at a time.
So we scan these records into digital files and organize them well,
We should put them online, so many people can access this information simultaneously.
It also saves a trip to this dank basement!
There are also other types of records, like the City of Pittsburgh’s official website.
This doesn’t have a paper equivalent, but still has a lot of great content.
Digital preservation includes storing and organizing “born-digital” content.
The problem with storing files for scanned documents and websites, is that technology is continually evolving.
For example,
hardware has gone from five and a quarter floppies,
to three and a half inch diskettes,
to finally all-in-one computers which cannot read these types of media.
And the same goes for software.
How many of us still remember Office 97?
This program isn’t able to read the new file formats created by newer software versions . . .
. . . like those created by Office 2007,
nor those created by Office 2013.
In fact,
due to the constantly changing nature of technology,
different hardware pieces and software files simply cannot be read by each other.
And that’s why we need
a digital preservation strategy.
We need to talk about how to digitize and store city records in a comprehensive way,
so that future Pittsburghers may access them at their fingertips.
We need librarians, who organize and find documents for a living,
to help us plan how to do this right.
And of course, we need funding to accomplish this big endeavor.
You might even ask, "Is it even worth preserving all this stuff?"
Here’s a little diagram to show that the benefits do outweigh the costs.
The costs to digitally preserve city records are significant.
You're going to take time,
and money,
to have highly trained archivists digitize physical documents and store born-digital objects like websites and email.
However,
some of the benefits include
saving time!
When we find prior solutions to help us solve present problems,
we avoid spending time re-inventing the wheel.
We also can make decisions which are well- informed.
Like Isaac Newton said, we can stand on the shoulder of giants!
By building on the insight or mistakes of those who have gone before,
so that we can innovate more productively.
Digital preservation will also help us capture those pivotal moments in Pittsburgh's history,
and make them available at your fingertips.
These moments include the building of the Carnegie Library,
the Batmobile driving down towards City Hall,
or when the Steelers won the Super Bowl.
Digital preservation will help us remember who we are as we innovate for the future.
Clearly the benefits outweigh the costs!
Let's stand on the shoulders of giants together!
Contact your City Councilperson today.
Tell them the City of Pittsburgh needs a digital preservation strategy!