Analogue is dead! What is not digitally catalogued and available on the web is virtually non-existent. An important task of academic libraries is therefore to digitise information, make it accessible and reusable for scholars, and to secure digital data for the long term. Two disciplines in particular are responsible for securing these data treasures: retro-digitisation and long-term digital archiving.

In the new NACHGEFRAGT interview, Elke Roesner talks to two experts from these fields. Ulrich Ch. Blortz is Head of Retrodigitisation at the ZB MED and explains what exactly retrodigitisation is, which analogue treasures have already been unearthed - i.e. made digitally accessible - which still need to be unearthed and what the particular challenges are. Dr Katharina Markus, Head of Digital Long-Term Archiving, is concerned with digital data. Her job is to secure this data and make it available to the scientific community for the long term. She explains the threats to digital data, why long-term archiving is so important and why much more awareness is needed.

To the video (in German with English subtitles)