The challenges of digital preservation practices in selected public academic libraries around Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

This study is to discover the current issues faced by librarians in digital preservation practices in selected public academic libraries around Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The main objective is to compare the issues among the selected libraries and also to propose effective solutions for digital preservation practices. Several studies have analyses issues regarding on technology, organizational and legal. The study is using qualitative approach to get better understanding towards the issues. The target population for this study is a head division and a professional librarian who are managing on digital preservation materials from each of the selected public academic libraries. This study were using structured interview as a research instrument and were conducted by face to face and phone. The content analysis is chosen for this study. The researcher manually analyzed the data by organized the data from the structured interview. From the findings, in term of technology issue, the libraries require updated technology for hardware and software. For issue relating to the organizational, the study finds that there are two major challenges faced by the libraries which are staff and cost. In terms of legal issue, copyright is a major concern to all libraries. Therefore, the suitable technology for digitized materials is very essential because it involves with the future usage. Furthermore, to get the best quality of the output, the libraries require sufficient staff and enough budgets to buy updated technology for digitization activities. Finally, there is a significant to have a standard policy regarding on copyright in digitized materials in national level.