A Look at Preservation (or the likely lack thereof) in a Digital Age

Tony Ageh, Michael Bayler, Chris Durlacher and Julian Turner have taken a detailed look at the difficulties library face in preservation under currently prevailing conditions. RF has often lamented that books see to lose their importance for many publishers after they no long seem to have commercial value, and yet they fight to prevent digital sharing and even library archiving of those same works. It’s well worth a look:

“Digital-only e-books and e-journals will be lost unless publishers, research libraries, and dark archives collaborate to ensure their long-term preservation. 

Preservation of Knowledge in the Digital Age is a new report was commissioned by Arcadia from Ageh Consulting and co-authored by . It involved interviews with 43 key figures and a survey of librarians from a range of institutions. It highlights that even when libraries’ licences for e-books allow for copies to be archived, few possess the capability and resources necessary for systematic digital preservation. Moreover, although publishers’ agreements with so-called ‘dark archives’ should ensure that copies survive, this is rarely applied to ebooks and – for both books and journals – the principle that ‘lots of copies keeps stuff safe’ may be being breached in practice.

You can download the full report here.”