Library Preservation

                                        Main article: Digital preservation

                   

            Digital preservation in its most basic form is a series of activities maintaining access to digital materials over time. Digitization in this sense is a means of creating digital surrogates of analog materials such as books, newspapers, microfilm and videotapes. Digitization can provide a means of preserving the content of the materials by creating an accessible facsimile of the object in order to put less strain on already fragile originals. For sounds, digitization of legacy analogue recordings is essential insurance against technological obsolescence.

             The prevalent Brittle Books issue facing libraries across the world is being addressed with a digital solution for long term book preservation. Since the mid-1800s, books were printed on wood-pulp paper, which turns acidic as it decays. Deterioration may advance to a point where a book is completely unusable. In theory, if these widely circulated titles are not treated with de-acidification processes, the materials upon those acid pages will be lost. As digital technology evolves, it is increasingly preferred as a method of preserving these materials, mainly because it can provide easier access points and significantly reduce the need for physical storage space.

        Cambridge University Library is working on the Cambridge Digital Library, which will initially contain digitised versions of many of its most important works relating to science and religion. These include examples such as Isaac Newton's personally annotated first edition of his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica as well as college notebooks and other papers,^[ and some Islamic manuscripts such as a Quran from Tipoo Sahib's library.

         Google, Inc. has taken steps towards attempting to digitize every title with   "Google Book Search". While some academic libraries have been contracted by the service, issues of copyright law violations threaten to derail the project. However, it does provide - at the very least - an online consortium for libraries to exchange information and for researchers to search for titles as well as review the materials