Digital Preservation

At Brookhaven Press, digital preservation is the process we use to duplicate and reprint books. We follow a series of steps in this process to ensure that you receive an exact duplication of the original title, whether you purchase a book or a CD.

Rather than photocopy each page of the original book, we scan each page so as to digitally capture every piece of information on the page. In other words, we create a computer file of the page. You can compare this to the files you create when you use your word processor or save a photo from your digital camera.

We then archive the file or data for each page. When you order a hardbound book, we print from these files to acid free paper. And you get an exact duplication of the original book, word for word.

When you order a CD, we take the scanned information and transform it into a word searchable format. You receive an intelligent book. You'll be able to search complete words, matching letters, and even words that look like the search term you enter.

Digital preservation is an advancement from preservation photocopying because it allows us to make unlimited numbers of reprints from the scanned data with no loss of information. Consider this: When you photocopy something, you lose some of the crispness and detail of the original--not always a lot, but you do lose something. And when you copy a copy, you lose even more, until you end up with blurred, low-resolution reprints.

With digital preservation, each reprint is as crisp and clear as the first, because you're starting with the same information. You don't get the same "generational loss" that you do with photocopying.

So when you order a Brookhaven Press title, you get an exact replication of the original, either printed on acid free paper and bound to library specifications or reproduced as a fully searchable CD.