Multimedia Preservation: Why Bother?

Abstract

Multimedia content and especially personal multimedia content is created in abundance today. Short- to mid-term storage of this content is typically no problem due to decreased storage prices and the availability of storage services. However, for the long-term perspective, i.e., preservation, adequate technologies and best practices for keeping the content accessible and meaningful are still missing. Instead, the breakdown of devices and changes in technologies lead to some form of random survival and random forgetting for digital content. In this chapter, we motivate a more intelligent and selective approach to personal multimedia preservation. This approach introduces and combines three key building blocks: (a) “managed forgetting” for focusing on important and useful content inspired by human forgetting and remembering; (b) “contextualized remembering” for dealing with evolution and keeping content meaningful over time; and (c) “synergetic preservation” for bridging the gap between active information use and long-term information management.