Bergamin - Pirolo
The conservation of born digital works: the Italian experience and perspectives
As Italian National Central Library we are facing (together with National Central Library of Rome) the preservation problems of “digital born manuscripts” within the Digital dissertations project.
In fact Digital dissertations (PhD thesis) could be considered at the same time as: a) digital born manuscripts: PhD thesis are not primarily intended for publication; b) digital born documents: PhD thesis are also records since they serve as indispensable instruments of accountability for legal purposes; c) digital born publications: when PhD thesis are submitted in a Institutional repository they could be regarded as publications (for ISBD(ER) purposes “all remote electronic resources [i. e. network resources] are considered to be published”).
This paper outlines the digital preservation problems of this kind of “digital objects” within the framework of the Italian legal deposit of digital publications. Starting from a functional definition of digital preservation, some key aspects of the current infrastructure will be presented.
