Digital content has special traits when it comes to storage, classification, publications, access, and reproduction.
Storage: Digital content-unlike, say, printed content- is stored in bits and bytes (those zeros and ones that we all keep hearing about). Today’s technology allows for storing trillions of these bits and bytes in a very small space, which keeps on getting smaller. A 100GB hard disk can fit in the palm of a person’s hand and yet can contain tens of millions of pages of digital content. This allows digital content to be stored in massive quantities, and perhaps be replicated for safety.
Classification (Indexing): Regular content is not classified- or at best partially so. If I walk in the morning by a newspaper stand, I physically have to look all over the stand with my naked eye to find the publication I am looking for. However, if I were looking for any publication with an article say on TidWiT in the same newspaper stand, the best I can do is ask the bewildered person behind the counter, or look through every single publication myself- a time consuming task to say the least, and one likely to get me in trouble with the newsstand. Digital content, however, can be classified in a variety of ways, the most common of which are metadata or the content itself. Metadata is a fancy name for simply the data that describes the content. For example, a digital photo’s metadata could be its size, resolution, photographer, and perhaps some keywords. Therefore, if I wanted to find a photo on Mount Kilimanjaro taken by Jane Doe in 1970, all I have to do is do a digital search for digital content using the following criteria “Kilimanjaro “, “Doe”, and “1970”, and voila! Some types of digital content allow for classification using the content itself, in which case, I could search all documents that contain within their actual text the words, “nano-technology and clothing”. Through the above sorts of classifications, digital content becomes easily searchable, and much more easily accessible, to which we turn to next.
Access: So once digital content is stored and classified, access becomes the next differentiator, which perhaps is the most important. So far, a person might say, well a library can store and classify content, so how much value add, is this digital aspect bringing? When one looks at access, one begins to see the disparity between the physical and the digital content world. The Internet itself has been the greatest example of giving worldwide access to information. Supposing I happened to be doing some research in New York on the spread of Aids in Africa, and in particular in Zimbabwe. I could have ready access to the New York Library system, or perhaps the US library system through inter-library content loaning agreements. But if the content that I need is in Zimbabwe. Do I have to go there to get it? What if I am doing a regional sub-Saharan comparative analysis, would I have to go to every single nation to look for studies, reports, and statistics? Is there anyway for me to be able to access them from New York?
Publishing & Reproduction: Of course, publishing digitally is much cheaper than otherwise. Anyone with a home printer can print reports, photos, or if they have Internet access and a site on which to publish, upload their digital content. If the content happens to have an error, then they can do the correction and upload it in a matter of minutes- very different from say print publishers who have a lead-time, upfront marketing costs, shipping costs, etc. Reproducing digitally for better (but sometimes also for worse) becomes very quick and easy.
For more details, please go to http://www.tidwit.com/Whatis.asp.
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