The importance of digital preservation for churches, historical societies, libraries, organizations, and other entities

What happens when a flood, wind storm, blizzard, fire, or other disaster hits a place with one of a kind records. Think about your own records at home. None of these can be replaced. No one way exists to protect records. The infamous “cloud” can fail you. The place you choose for a backup of records could burn down. We all need to save one of a kind documents in multiple ways. I cringe when I hear of a broken pipe in a library, a fire at a church, or the failure of a backup hard drive. U.S. National Public Radio Station WCBU in Illinois recently shared an article that highlighted the issue and how social media can fail us, too. It may not be a human that determines to delete your records, data, indexes, publications, etc. The full article is online. Susan Kaufman, a good friend and local history genealogy librarian in Peoria, Illinois, is featured in the article. It’s worth a read for everyone.