eBooks: The Preservation Challenge

Abstract

The article discusses the responsibility of electronic resource preservation for libraries, focusing on the categories of usability, authenticity, discoverability, and accessibility. The author comments on the challenges of Digital Rights Management (DRM) for electronic book preservation, the management of bibliographic metadata, and the ways in which the non-profit digital preservation service Portico is handling preservation of electronic books and journals. Also discussed is the growing consensus for digital preservation in the scholarly community amidst the increase of digital library acquisitions with endorsements from the Association of Research Libraries and the Association of College and Research Libraries in 2005.