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Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science to Explore Challenge of Media Preservation Dec. 10

BOSTON (November 15, 2002) - Howard Besser, an expert in digital preservation efforts, will speak on "The Challenge of Media Preservation: Digital Works and Time-Based Media" Dec. 10 at 4 p.m. in the Beatley Browsing Room at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS), 300 The Fenway. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Besser, director of New York University's Moving Image Archive and Preservation Program and senior scientist for NYU's library, will discuss the fragility of both digital and time-based works, since he says works with dimensions of time or those that are digital pose enormous problems for conservation and preservation. He will talk about how the volatility and interconnectedness of the Web poses a postmodern challenge in defining the boundaries of a work, and will suggest that a paradigm shift is necessary to overcome this challenge. Besser will discuss the importance of documentation in addressing aspects of digital and time-based works that we are unlikely to be able to preserve over time.

Besser is on leave from his faculty position at UCLA's Department of Information Studies. He has been involved in numerous digital preservation efforts, from the 1995 Commission on Preservation & Access Task Force on Preservation of Digital Information, to the Getty's 1997 Time & Bits: Managing Digital Continuity, to the University of California's 2001 Systemwide Task Force on Digital Preservation and Archiving.

This will be the twelfth annual ISI Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lecture. For more information, contact Anne Reid at 617-521-2805.

The Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science is consistently ranked among the top in the nation. It has the largest library and information science master's program in the country.