Our mission is not just to share knowledge today, but to protect it for tomorrow. The Digital Preservation initiative exists to safeguard rare and significant texts, research, and cultural materials by making them accessible in durable digital formats. Too many valuable works risk disappearing due to physical decay, technological obsolescence, or limited circulation. We aim to prevent that.
Why Digital Preservation Matters
Historical documents, out-of-print books, investigative reports, and cultural archives often exist only in fragile or scattered physical copies. Without careful digitization and long-term planning, they can be lost to future readers. Digital preservation ensures:
- Enduring access to materials of historical, cultural, or scholarly value.
- Reduced risk of loss due to physical deterioration or disasters.
- A bridge between traditional archives and modern readers using phones, tablets, and computers.
What We Preserve
We focus on materials that align with our educational and historical mission, including:
- Public-domain books and manuscripts in need of modern formats.
- Rare or out-of-print investigative and historical works.
- Primary sources such as letters, treaties, legal documents, and early journalism.
- Digital-first works and e-reports at risk of disappearing due to inactive hosting.
Where possible, we also collaborate with authors and rights holders to preserve copyrighted materials under mutually agreed terms.
How We Approach It
Digital preservation is more than scanning a page. Our process includes:
- Careful digitization at high resolution, including OCR (optical character recognition) for searchable text.
- File conversion into widely supported formats like PDF, ePub, and HTML.
- Metadata tagging and contextual information to help readers understand each work.
- Storage with redundancy and backups to protect against data loss.
- Commitment to accessibility so preserved works can be enjoyed by all users.
Contributing to the Archive
Do you have rare texts or historical materials that should be preserved? We accept suggestions and submissions from libraries, researchers, and private collectors. If you own or control rights to historically valuable material, we can help ensure it remains available to readers for decades to come.
Looking Ahead
Digital preservation is an ongoing commitment. Technology evolves, and we monitor best practices to ensure our archive keeps pace. Future plans include broader collaborations with universities and archives, multilingual preservation efforts, and increased focus on interactive and multimedia historical resources.
Get Involved
To suggest materials for preservation or partner with us on archival projects, contact [email protected]. Together, we can protect the words and ideas that define our shared history.