Digital Preservation Is Cultural Literacy

[Commentary] On April 23 the Library of Congress kicked off its third annual Preservation Week (April 23 to 28), a joint venture designed to engage the public on issues related to the preservation of digital memories.

In addition to talks and demonstrations on organizing and saving family records, videos, and digital photographs, the library is also reaching out to kids with its events programming. While digital preservation might not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about K-12 curricula, in fact teaching kids about Web archiving, digitization, media storage, and collection building can foster long-term thinking and serve as a gateway to hands-on learning in science and technology. In the more than five years I've been involved as a researcher with video game preservation, I've witnessed firsthand the indispensable role younger generations play in developing new tools and resources -- such as emulators and crowd-sourced databases -- to ensure ongoing access to our cultural past. With various institutions increasingly recognizing the importance of data curation and management as part of a core set of K-12 literacies, Preservation Week offers an ideal opportunity to get students involved.