Caring for your digital collections

Below is an infographic which summarises the key steps you can take in your own digital preservation journey. You can also refer to the more detailed guide under the infographic.

Index

1. Why do we preserve?

2. Identify what you want to preserve

3. Decide which items matter most

4. Organise your digital content

5. Create backups and/or transfer to new storage media

6. Ensure sustainability

7. NLB and digital preservation

8. Contact us

9. Annex- Digitisation specifications

10. Additional resources

1. Why do we preserve?

What will you do if, you are no longer able to view the photographs you have taken with your very first digital camera? Imagine how disappointing you will be if your university dissertation is “stuck” in an outdated word processing format and you aren’t able to retrieve it? Examples of these and many more of our personal documents not only chronicle meaningful milestones in our lives, they can also hold important information.

Similarly, there may be serious consequences should the same happen in your professional life. For example, if you are an author or creative professional who, like so many people nowadays, had worked on their magnum opus on the computer, it would be upsetting if you are unable to access the drafts that had captured your creative process.

As technology advances, some of these things may become irretrievable. To keep our memories for future generations, it is paramount that we actively preserve our digital content.

This guide offers useful tips on how you can ensure that your digital materials can be accessed in the future.

2. Identify what you want to preserve

Think of and look through all the different places where your digital materials could be stored. These could include:

• Your laptops or desktop computers;

• Your camera;

• Your handphone;

• CDs;

• Diskettes / floppy disks;

• Cloud-based storage platforms (e.g. Google Drive, Google Photos).

Gather all the materials and examine the items in them.

3. Decide which items matter most

You can prioritise the items that are of the highest value to you or your family. These could be rare items or hold a lot of sentimental value. If you have more than one of the same items, prioritise saving the one that has the highest quality.

4. Organise your digital content

Sometimes, you may encounter a huge array of files and not know how to find a photo from a certain occasion. Organising your digital content goes a long way for effective preservation. Below are some useful tips for organising your collection:

• Create a main folder for each collection, e.g. “My 16th Birthday” or “Wedding Anniversary.” Then, you can also create sub-folders labelled with simple titles like “documents,” “videos” and “photos”.[^1]

• Alternatively, you can create folders with items that are organised chronologically e.g. “April 2018” and “May 2018”.[^2]

• When labelling content, make the file name descriptive and include the date. Avoid spaces or special characters besides the underscore (_), as certain software may be unable to read files with such names.

• You can indicate file versions with suffixes like “v1,” “v2” and “vfinal”.[^3]

It would also be useful to record key information about your digital materials. The following are details you can consider recording:

• Number of items in each collection;

• Title;

• Creator/author/contributor;

• Publisher/organiser;

• Type of content (e.g. still image, audio, video, text etc.);

• Short descriptions/captions/synopsis of content;

• Creation date of content (in YYYY/MM/DD format);

• Creation venue (if any);

• Country;

• Number of pages/sheets/duration of the audio-visual material;

• Photo/video/audio/publication credit or rights (if any) (in YYYY);

• Remarks/condition of items.

[^1]: “Digital preservation at the Library of Congress,” Library of Congress, accessed 1 September 2021, {:target="_blank"} [^2]: “Personal digital archive toolbox,” National and State Libraries of Australia, last reviewed 1 December 2017, {:target="_blank"} [^3]: “Digital preservation handbook – Content specific preservation,” Digital Preservation Coalition, accessed 1 March 2021, {:target="_blank"}

5. Create backups and/or transfer to new storage media

You may only have one document that holds the initial sketches to your final artwork, or your journal notes for your published book. To ensure these materials remain accessible in the future, do save copies in different locations, in addition to your main storage folder.

These backups can be stored in a storage media or system like a flash drive, hard disk or cloud storage. If some of your materials are already in cloud storage, you can migrate to another cloud storage platform should the current one be in danger of obsolescence. An external hard drive is recommended as it is portable and can hold large amounts of content. You can also make a copy of your hard drive.[^4]

You should keep such storage media in an environment with constant temperature and relative humidity to protect them from fluctuations in heat, humidity and dust levels. However, there is still the risk of corruption, decay and obsolescence. It will be helpful to check on your files and transfer them to new storage media on a regular basis.[^5]

You can also print copies of important pictures or documents so that they are still available in an alternative format.[^6]

[^4]: “Personal digital archive toolkit,” National and State Libraries of Australia, last reviewed 1 December 2017, {:target="_blank"} [^5]: InterPARES Project. “Preserver guidelines: Preserving digital records: Guidelines for organizations,” InterPARES Project, accessed 1 September 2021, {:target="_blank"} [^6]: “Personal digital archive toolkit,” National and State Libraries Australia, last reviewed 1 December 2017, {:target="_blank"}

6. Ensure sustainability

Check your saved materials at least once each year to ensure they are still accessible. However, you should not allow unauthorised access to your files. Here are some tips to prevent unauthorised access:

• Check if your software or device has customisable settings that will let you control who can access the files stored within.

• Encrypt or protect your documents with a password.

• Use storage formats that limit access and modification by others. For example, ensure a document is “Read-Only” or save it as a PDF, which is less easily modified than a word document.

Both hardware and software become obsolete over time. To avoid losing access to your digital content and materials, actions such as proactively checking for updates or decommissioning, and switching to a different storage medium, must be taken in advance.[^7]

To protect your treasure trove of valuable information from malware and virus threats, you are also encouraged to conduct regular scans and keep your anti-virus software up to date.

[^7]: “InterPARES 2 Porject – Creator guidelines,” InterPARES Project, last reviewed in 2007, {:target="_blank"}

7. NLB and digital preservation

The National Library Board, Singapore (NLB) is the official custodian of Singapore's published and documentary heritage, archival materials of national and historical significance, government records and broadcast archives. As part of NLB’s LAB25{:target="_blank"} (Libraries and Archives Blueprint 2025), we are committed to an ongoing programme to collect, preserve and make accessible digital content on Singapore. We aspire to become a Trusted Digital Repository and an authority on digital preservation for the nation.

To learn about the specifications for digitising print and audio-visual recording materials in appropriate formats, please refer to the Annex. If you have materials that capture life in Singapore and would like to donate them to us, please visit this link{:target="_blank"}.

If you are aware of the existence of Asian films of any genre in various formats, please email us at: info@asianfilmarchive.org so that we can help assess the content and condition of the materials. Alternatively, you can fill in the "Asian Film Archive Film Submissions Form"{:target="_blank"} and we will be in touch.

8. Contact us

For NLB digital preservation enquiries, please email ref@nlb.gov.sg.

9. Annex- Digitisation specifications

10. Additional resources

Find additional resources like books, ebooks, websites and videos on caring for your digital collections here{:target="_blank"}.