Digital Archiving and Preservation of Party History Documents: Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

In recent years, digital instruments and historical data have demonstrated transformational promise for historical study. Party history documents are preserved by methodical, deliberate attempts to protect and preserve political party-related historical documents, objects, and resources. Digital archiving and preservation present various types of obstacles, such as data deterioration, copyright concerns, technology obsolescence and the sheer volume of records that needs to be digitized. To address these challenges, we provide a framework for contextualizing and analysing the politics of digital safeguarding of heritage. It relies on literature from the humanities in digital history, archives, libraries, and information science. Firstly, the worldwide dimensions of the politics of digital cultural heritage focus on shifts that have taken place between the Global North and South as well as in the broader context of historical politics and preservation. The second focuses on the history and current state of digitization and offers a methodical examination of the procedure along with its political ramifications. The selection process for digitization and the cataloguing, classification, and addition of metadata are political processes with implications for politics. This paper concludes by addressing these issues and setting feasible solutions in place, we can guarantee the political party archives' long-term legacy and accessibility.