The Coming Crisis in Preserving Our Digital Cultural Heritage

Although there are still formidable technical and economic problems, progress is being made in preserving scholarly information in digital form, because there is a shared commitment to permanent access throughout the entire community of authors, publishers, libraries, and readers involved with financing, producing, distributing, managing, and using this literature. Indeed, the archival stability of the scholarly record is an essential characteristic of that record, but for consumer marketplace materials, there is no such broad shared commitment to preservation. Libraries are a niche market rather than the primary market for these goods, and have little bargaining power. The producers of any consumer materials today do not understand or care about what they must do to ensure preservation of their digital works for the very long term. Because these consumer market works are both an important part of our common cultural heritage and also raw materials for future generations of scholarship, we face a looming crisis as consumer goods move into digital form. This paper frames the crisis and discusses possible steps that may at least limit its impact.