As much as video games are now part of
our culture, somehow the words 'video games' and 'cultural heritage'
don't seem to go together. Apparently, now they do; at least that's
what the Library of Congress says. With the launch of “Preserving
Creative America”, the Library of Congress hopes to protect
American cultural heritage by preserving digital materials, video
games included.
Associate librarian for Strategic Initiatives and
Library's chief information officer Laura E. Campbell leads the
National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
(NDIIPP), the Library of Congress' national digital preservation
program. Campbell suggests that due to its
susceptibilty, digital materials should be created with thoughts on
how to preserve it as well. In her own words:
“We are faced with the potential
disappearance of our cultural heritage if we don’t act soon and act
together to preserve digital materials. We have learned from our
experience that long-term preservation of digital content is
dependent on influencing decisions of content providers from the
moment of creation.”
On April 7, the Library organized a
strategy session with producers of commercial digital content for
television, radio, music, film, photography, pictorial art, and video
games to pursue potential partnership projects for the preservation
of digital materials. To mobilize preservation projects in the
private sector, the Library also plans to issue a request for
expression of interest among the private industry.
“Preserving Creative America” aims
to give Congress a description of the types of commercial digital
content that are at risk of loss or degradation if not preserved
sooner. The ultimate goal of this project by NDIIP and some private
industry is to “inform the greater population of commercial content
owners and cultural heritage institutions in the establishment of
such parameters as content formats, metadata standards, system
architecture and other technical elements”. For the sake of the
video games we treasure today, let's hope their initiatives pay
off...
