Home > Publish with IDC >

The Digital or Analog dilemma

Whereas analog media excel in preservation characteristics, digital media excel in access possibilities. This poses an important dilemma. The content owner is often interested especially in preservation, whereas the user of primary sources is mainly interested in access.

As long as providing access to primary sources is realized by offering images of the pages of the sources, there is in fact no difference between a digital or analog copy. Both offer the possibility to page through the original source. The main difference is that for paging through an analogue copy, dedicated hardware is necessary, whereas paging through a digital copy can take place on (almost) any workstation.

IDC's answer to this digital or analogue dilemma is threefold:
1. Recording at location will be done more and more using digital capturing systems. Reasons for this choice are, firstly, the fact that we mostly work on location, secondly, the fact the there are less requirements for digital recording (no dark room, no chemical waste). Furthermore, the operator can instantly obtain information about the quality of the work.
2. Using Computer Output to Microform we can always create a high-quality analog master that meets preservation standards.
3. Access to the recorded images can be given by distributing copies of the analogue master orby providing access to the digital images on an IDC server.

It will be clear that the digital world creates other opportunities for enrichment of the source itself, such as the possibilities to add annotations, and to apply Optical Character Recognition, which can enable, for instance, full text searching Where feasible, IDC will add specific "digital" functionality, thus creating a new source for scholarly research.