The term born-digital refers to materials that originate in a digital form.NDIIPP, "Preserving Digital Culture," Library of Congress. This is in contrast to digital reformatting, through which analog materials become digital, as in the case of files created by scanning physical paper records. It is most often used in relation to digital libraries and the issues that go along with said organizations, such as digital preservation and intellectual property. However, as technologies have advanced and spread, the concept of being born-digital has also been discussed in relation to personal consumer-based sectors, with the rise of e-books and evolving digital music. Other terms that might be encountered as synonymous include "natively digital", "digital-first", and "digital-exclusive".Susan S. Lazinger, "Issues of Policy and Practice in Digital Preservation," in Digital Libraries: Policy, Planning, and Practice, ed. Judith Andrews and Derek Law (Burlington: Ashgate, 2004), 100
Discrepancies in definition There exists some inconsistency in defining born-digital materials. Some believe such materials must exist in digital form exclusively; in other words, if they can be transferred into a physical, analog form, they are not truly born-digital."Introduction - Definitions and Concepts," Digital Preservation Coalition. However, others maintain that while these materials will often not have a subsequent physical counterpart, having one does not bar them from being classified as 'born-digital'. For instance, Mahesh and Mittal identify two types of born-digital content, "exclusive digital" and "digital for print", allowing for a broader base of classification than the former definition provides.G. Mahesh and Rekha Mittal, "Digital Content Creation and Copyright Issues," The Electronic Library 27, no 4 (2008), 678.
Furthermore, it has been pointed out that certain works may incorporate components that are both born-digital and digitized, further blurring the lines between what should and should not be considered 'born-digital.' For example, a digital video created may utilize historical film footage that has been converted.Amy Friedlander, "Summary of Findings" in Building a National Strategy for Digital Preservation: Issues in Digital Media Archiving, Council on Library and Information Resources and Library of Congress, 2. It is important to be aware of these discrepancies when thinking about born-digital materials and the effects they have. However, some universals do exist across these definitions. All make clear the fact that born-digital media must originate digitally. Also, they agree that this media must be able to be utilized in a digital form (whether exclusively or otherwise), while they do not have to exist or be used as analog materials.
Etymology The term "born digital" is of uncertain origin. While it may have occurred to multiple people at various times, it was coined independently by web developer Randel (Rafi) Metz in 1993, who acquired the domain name "borndigital.com" then and sustained it as a personal website for 18 years until 2011. The domain is now owned by a web developer in New Zealand. The original website is archived here.
Examples of born-digital content
Grey literature and communications Much of the grey literature that exists today are almost entirely conducted online, due in part to the accessibility and speed of internet communications. As the products of the vast amount of information created by organizations and individuals on computers, data sets and electronic records must exist in the context of other activities.Kenneth Thilbodeau, "Building the Archives of the Future," D-Lib Magazine 7, no. 2 (February 2001). Common content includes:
Email Documents created in word processors and/or observed in viewers. Examples include Microsoft Word, Google Docs, WordPerfect, Apple Pages, LibreOffice Writer, and Adobe Reader. Spreadsheets used to organize and tabulate data are almost entirely digital. Common applications include Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc, and Lotus 1-2-3 (discontinued). Presentations used to present data and ideas are created with software such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, LibreOffice Impress, and Prezi. Electronic medical records Social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit have originated in the networked world, and are therefore born-digital by default.
Digital photography Digital photography has allowed larger groups of people to participate in the process, art form, and pastime of photography. With the advent of digital cameras in the late 1980s, followed by the invention and dissemination of mobile phones capable of photography, sales of digital cameras eventually surpassed that of analog cameras. The early to mid 2000s saw the rise of photo storage websites, such as Flickr and Photobucket, and social media websites dedicated primarily to sharing digital photographs, including Instagram, Pinterest, Imgur, and Tumblr. Digital image files include Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), Tagged Image File Format (TIFF), Portable Network Graphics (PNG), Graphic Interchange Format (GIF), and raw image format.
Digital art Digital art is an umbrella term for art created with a computer. Types include visual media, digital animation, computer-aided design, 3D models and interactive art. Webcomics, comics published primarily on the internet, are an example of exclusively born-digital art. Webcomics follow the tradition of user-generated content and may later be printed by the creator, but as they were originally disseminated through the internet, they are considered to be born-digital media. Many webcomics are published on existing social media websites, while others use webcomic-specific platforms, such as Webtoon, or their own domains.
Electronic books
E-books are books that can be read through the digital screens of computers, smartphones, or dedicated devices.Gardiner, Eileen and Ronald G. Musto. "The Electronic Book." In Suarez, Michael Felix, and H. R. Woudhuysen. The Oxford Companion to the Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 164. The e-book sector of the book industry has flourished in recent years, with increasing numbers of e-books and e-book readers being developed and sold. E-publishing is particularly favorable to independent authors, because the digital marketplace creates a more direct connection between authors, their works, and the audience.Romano, "E-Books," 31. Some publishing houses, including major ones such as Harlequin, have formed imprints for digital-only books in response to this trend.Sarah Weinman, "Harlequin launches digital-only imprint. Will other big houses feel the romance?" Daily Finance, (November 10, 2009). Publishers also offer digital-exclusive publications for use on e-book readers, such as the Kindle. One example of this was with the simultaneous launch of Amazon's Kindle 2 with the Stephen King novelette Ur. In recent years, however, the sale of e-books from traditional publishers has decreased, due in part to increasing prices. Romano, Frank. "E-Books and the Challenge of Preservation." Building a National Strategy for Digital Preservation: Issues in Digital Media Archiving. April 2002. Pg. 28
Video recordings Videos that are born-digital vary in type and usage. Vlogs, an amalgamation of "video" and "blog," are streamed and consumed on video-sharing websites such as YouTube.
Similarly, a web series is a television-like show that is shown exclusively and/or initially on the internet. This does not include the streaming of pre-existing traditional television shows. Examples include Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, The Lizzie Bennett Diaries, The Guild, and The Twilight Zone (2019).
Sound recordings
Digital sound recordings have played a role since the 1970s with the acceptance of pulse-code modulation (PCM) in the recording process.Samuel Brylawski, "Preservation of Digitally Recorded Sound" in Building a National Strategy for Digital Preservation: Issues in Digital Media Archiving, Council on Library and Information Resources and Library of Congress, 53. Since then, numerous means of storing and delivering digital audio have been developed, including web streams, compact discs and mp3 audio files. Increasingly, digital audio are only available via download, lacking any kind of tangible counterpart. One example of this trend is the 2008 recording of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique by Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel.D.J. Hoek, "The Download Dilemma," American Libraries (August/September 2009), 55. Available through download only, it has presented problems for libraries which may want to carry this work but cannot due to licensing limitations. Another example is Radiohead's 2007 release In Rainbows, released initially as a digital download, before later receiving a physical release.Pareles, Jon (9 December 2007). "Pay What You Want for This Article".The New York Times. Retrieved 30 December 2007
Other media WebExhibits are websites that act as virtual museums for any variety of content. These often use both primary and secondary historical sources, maps, timelines, infographics, and other data visualizations to showcase the historical past. One example is Clio Visualizing History's Click! The Ongoing Feminist Revolution, a web exhibit about the American women's movement from the 1940s to the present. Clio Visualizing History was founded by Lola Van Wagenen in 1996 to meet the growing need for innovative history projects in multi-media platforms.
Journalism As existing print publications migrated to born-digital releases, digital native news websites such as HuffPo and Buzzfeed News have grown substantially. This trend toward web-exclusive content has seen the rise of "news applications," or news articles built with interactive features that cannot be replicated on print. "News Apps" are often heavily data-driven, using interactive graphics custom-built for the story by a team of software specialists in addition to the core group of writers and editors. Examples include Baltimore Homicides from The Baltimore Sun, Do No Harm from the Las Vegas Sun, and Snow Fall from The New York Times, which took a team of more than fifteen journalists, web developers, and designers to build.
Key issues
Preservation Digital preservation involves the conservation and maintenance of digital content. As with other digital objects, preservation must be a continuous and regular undertaking, as these materials do not show the same signs of degradation that print and other physical materials do. Invisible processes such as bit rot can lead to irreparable damage.NDIIPP et al., "International Study on the Impact of Copyright Law on Digital Preservation," 5. In the case of born-digital content, deterioration can occur in the form of bit rot, a process in which digital files degrade over time, and link rot, a process in which URLs link to pages on the internet that are no longer available. Incompatibility is also a concern, in regard to the eventual obsolescence of both hardware and software capable of making sense of the documents.