teminology

This is a post about a post I read that was referring to another post (ahhh, the infectious nature of the internet!) The post was by Chris Rusbridge, Director of the Digital Curation Centre about the terms we use in trying to "sell" digital preservation. His contention is that we have tainted the term "digital preservation" because it describes a process and not an outcome. We have also sold the idea that it is very complicated and very expensive. Both are true, but there are degrees to everything.

I think the point is well taken and perhaps we should consider what Chris suggests in talking about "long-term accessibility" and "usability over time" to describe what we really want. That actually is the goal, right?

I am reminded of the Seinfeld episode when Jerry was standing at the rental car counter bemoaning the fact that the company did in fact "take" his reservation, but "keeping" his reservation was a problem.

This analogy applies to all of our digital stuff. We don't want to simply "take" it (with all of the expectations that implies) but we want to "keep" it and make it usable.