The library profession, in the analogue world of the printed book, has made enormous contributions over the past hundred years toward the standardization of bibliographic formats, paper and binding standards, environmental conditions, microfilming processes, and most importantly, what constitutes longevity or archival quality. These standards have enabled us to share the preservation burden by developing national and international collaborative programs with the confidence that our colleagues, upon whom we place our reluctant dependence, are indeed adhering to our own high standards. As a participant in many cooperative ventures in the past, I can tell you that a major obstacle to successful cooperation is a pervasive mistrust of other people's standards. Standards are a double-edged sword for those of us concerned with the preservation of the human record. I should make clear at this point that my definition of preservation is the provision of access to recorded knowledge in a multitude of media as far into the future as possible.
Standards are essential to facilitate interconnectivity and access.
But, as Cliff Lynch pointed out yesterday, if set too soon, they can hinder creativity, expansion of capability, and broadening of access. Standards are now a complex issue involving the medium, the hardware, the software, and the technical capacity for reproductive fidelity and clarity. There are two possible alternatives when faced with such a prognosis. Our old paper-based ways cannot possibly manage the intellectual products of a digital society. The application of digital technologies to the reformatting of materials originally published on a deteriorating analogue medium, such as acid paper, videotape, and the like.