Preserving digital only materials

[jfurrh@hsc.unt.edu]

Librarians are thinking of ways of preserving digital only 
material, including legal blogs. The National Digital Information 
Infrastructure and Preservation Program, coordinated by the 
Library of Congress and operated by over 130 partners across the 
nation, has the mission to develop a national strategy to 
collect, archive and preserve the burgeoning amounts of digital 
content, especially materials that are created only in digital 
formats, for current and future generations. This is an on-going 
project that is attempting to archive internet webpages. Of 
course with any project of massive proportions there are bound to 
be logistical questions about sustaining web formats over the 
long term. This group is attempting to answer those questions and 
save important intellectual discussion delivered over the web. 
Please see their homepage: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/

Jamie Furrh
Digital Projects Librarian

>>> Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu> 2/25/2009 7:57 PM >>>

This makes eminently good sense inasmuch as (1) articles
published in law journals are not peer reviewed (but simply
accepted or rejected by the student editors who manage the
journals) and hence law journals avoid the expense of managing a
peer-review system and (2), if I am not mistaken, whatever
copyediting is done is done by students also, serving as unpaid
laborers (but gaining some academic benefits from doing so). In
fact, this is so obviously a Good Thing, one wonders why it
wasn't done years ago. Need it always take a recession for people
to examine what needless costs are built into the system? Let's
hear it for all the trees saved!

P.S. One hears that some of the most authoritative and important
new legal publishing in short form is now being done by leading
scholars through blogs. Are librarians thinking about ways of
preserving this elusive literature?

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press