THE CURRICULAR ASSET WAREHOUSE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS: A Digital Archive’s Sustainability Case Study

Abstract

What happens to the devices that host digital objects – hard drives, monitors, computer peripherals, storage media – when it is time to upgrade digital preservation environments and workflows? Each step of the production and stewardship of digital objects requires devices and software that have short life cycles and multiple drivers of ever faster obsolescence. These devices flow out of digital repositories and contribute to the fastest growing waste stream of the 21st century: electronic waste or “e-waste.“ The Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is currently working with the head of the university’s Sustainable Design program to perform a case study of the sustainable management of its large volumes of digital video and image content production and preservation, within an analysis of its institutional purchasing and waste management paradigms. The purpose of this analysis is to determine how device obsolescence at CITL can be mitigated to avoid future costs and to minimize the department’s contribution to the global e-waste problem.

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Creators

Hodgin Jones, Karin; Jones, Jimi; Bianconi, Robyn; Moran, Liam

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Keywords

media asset management; sustainability; electronic waste

Publication Type

paper

License

CC-BY 4.0 International

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