Battle to leave the vanishing electronic book in posterity

ByTim RT

"Two people from 16 to 24 years old prefer paper books from electronic books"Although the survey results have been published, the e-book market has expanded, and the number of people who publish themselves at online markets is on the rise. However, the current e-book includes "It is difficult to preserve records for leaving it in future generations"There is a big problem that there is a possibility that precious books may disappear without being conveyed to future generationsThe VergePointed out.

The fight to save endangered ebooks | The Verge
http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/9/5688146/the-fight-to-save-endangered-ebooks

Called "the lowest movie director in history"Ed WoodThe director has been known for all movies he has failed in box office and constantly praised for poor poverty and his later years have earned his living by writing budget film scripts and pornographic novels and died in poverty. However, despite being the worst movie too, he continued to make works without losing passion for the movie, so he gained attention after his death and he was "anti-genius of Hollywood" "mutation of art AsTim BurtonDirector andQuentin TarantinoI got an enthusiastic fan, including a director.


Such a pornographic novel which Ed Wood wrote with various pen names was treated like garage at that time, but now as one of precious booksCornell UniversityIt is stored in.

Publisher'sBoo-HoorayIn the press release when doing a novel exhibition written by Wood director in 2011 "Even in modern times where you can easily find books using Google and other search engines,paper bagIt is really rare to see it. " The person in charge of Boo-Hooray seems to have spent a lot of time collecting Wood's books, but when many writers write books to modern times when many authors sell e-books from Kindle and self-published publishing platform If so, it may have been more difficult to collect books.

Publishing was a more difficult act than it was now in times when there are only paper books. But in the paper book "ArchivistOr as long as the collector saves the publications, even after 100 years it can be read as if it was only a year since publication. " E-books can not be archived and recorded, they can not be sold to second-hand shops, and can not be overwritten by each company's copyright system and can not be rewritten as a new format, so it is difficult to keep it for a long time like a paper book.

Why is it difficult to preserve e-books? First of all, there is a problem that it is not a book data itself, but a license that allows you to use data, which is currently being sold in online shops such as Amazon.

ByUnten44

We collect, organize, store and convey various forms of records such as books, movies, music CDs, photographs, etc. to the futurearchiveIn the US and Europe, specialize in archivingArchivistThere is also a profession called. In the case of the U.S., the archive has been supported by "the exhaustion theory of the right" which is legally free for physical books, movies and albums to be handled by those who acquired it. However, unlike physical content, digital contents such as e-books do not have a lifetime, and there is a characteristic that copy and distribution can be done easily. Because it is possible to make inexhaustible copies and make pirated copies, there are many trials concerning the use of digital contents, and there are trials where rights exhaustion theory has been accepted for contents sold in the downloading method In 2013, the ruling was also given that the theory of right exhaustion about digital contents would not be accepted. Not only e-books,CADHandle software etc.AutodeskThe trial states that "Users can not purchase software and only gain permanent licenses impossible to grant", and Apple's iTunes convention also states that " It has only contents, and it can not transfer the account which set usage right to someone ", etc. are written.

In this trend, in consideration of security aspects of publishersPenguinHe ceased to lend e-books in 2011, likewise the publisherHarperCollinsIs an e-book vendor'sOverDriveWe restricted the lending service in the form of "Number of loans per e-book per book is 26 times".

On the other hand, in the library, e-books are lent out using a special format, but the part that publishers are concerned may be that pirated editions may be widely produced from only one library book It was getting. Therefore, each companyDigital rights management(DRM) system makes it difficult for third parties to copy and reuse e-books. As a result of preventing the pirated version from being circulated, restrictions on e-books became severe and it became difficult to preserve books that should be done originally.

Many of the public libraries that are not aimed at preserving books and that are required to lend out popular books are not problematic even with licensing system but when they become research libraries aimed at "book of historical record" The story is different.

BySamantha Marx

In the academic field, archivists are entrusted with publishers and scholarly documentsPorticoI will confirm the existence of the e-book by contacting with a third party like. The publisher allows Portico to store future-ready books and magazines on the database, and the library buys the access rights to the services offered by Portico. However, on the standpoint that it is not a publisher, Portico has not done aggressive public relations activities on books and documents, and it can not be said that libraries can collect books without fail.

As long as the publisher sells physical books in parallel with e-books, e-books may not be the main part of books, but Amazon has already signed a contract to publish books only for popular authors and e-books It connects,Stephen KingIn the case of Mr. Kindle 2, the reader who got Kindle 2 when Kindle 2 was released released the short story that is involved as part of the story only for e-books. Amazon will be unable to revise books and erase the existence of books if the writers are satisfied with Amazon's business model and publication centered on electronic books is done. Stephen King made himself out of print "RageIt is still possible to get the paperback at the secondhand bookstore (Nation: High School Panic), but if you sell the novel by Amazon monopoly, there will be no other way to get it.

About this situationCoalition for Networked Information(CNI) DirectorClifford A. Lynch"Although major publishers have done easily to" sell limited to digital books "so far, I believe that this situation will change soon." If the publisher After changing the format of the e-book, stopping the license system and closing the online shop, the library must find out how to save the book according to those changes.

Publishers and librarians who make the same problem concerning preservation of e-books, but they are beyond these limitsLibrary of Congressis. Even if the Library of Congress loses its commercial value, it preserves books as long as it is historically meaningful media. If the author or publisher wishes to publicly register the copyright of the book, it makes two copies to the American copyright office regardless of whether it is an electronic book or a physical book I will submit it if it is OK. In this way there is no license or format restriction, so in theory all documents can be recorded.

ByLynn Gardner

The Library of the National Assembly voluntarily preserves books that we think are worth preserving, but like Mr. Lynch, we are thinking about the legal and technical problems of preserving e-books Carl Fleischhauer, Project Manager. In cooperation with the publisher, the Library of Congress is trying to acquire a DRM-free file that is unlimited and can be converted to another format any number of times, and at the same time, "BagItWe are also developing a tool called.

In addition to licensing issues, there is also the problem that storing electronic books interacting with various media such as games, websites, databases, etc. is technically more complicated than storing simple text data. Even a single mathematical symbol is hard to record precisely digitally.

And, instead of the publication that major publishers have done, Kindle andSmashwordsSelf-published publications are being done from there, but there is also a problem that the archive does not keep up with it, and the author is not familiar with the radar, especially if it is not famous. Self-published books for archivists are more difficult to gather than books from major publishers, and it is doubtful whether the authors are sending copies for preservation to the copyright office, and even if they are sending them, There is also the possibility that it has been dropped from screening.

Of course, many of the authors' autographed book authors remain unnamed, and the books themselves are put in the garbage can and are quickly forgotten. However, like a novel written by Ed Wood, even if minor works today, it can be thought that tomorrow it is understood that the judgment is wrong and a historical record is done. This is a huge danger of today's problems.

Pulps SF and romance novels and manga were once thought as "genre not important for children", but now it is considered to be literary value and culturally important. When publications belonging to these genres first appeared, libraries did not collect by collecting value and became collected from later collectors. However, in the case of e-books, there is a limit on the right, so it is not easy to "copy a copy of your favorite book to the library or sell it to a second-hand bookstore".

ByCapture Queen

"The interesting aspect of digital content is that it is difficult for a collector to handle," said Lynch. In the case of a physical book, you can choose to save it in the warehouse for 50 years or read it to the grandchild after reading it, but if you can save the book you got with Kindle to anyone even if you can save it for 50 years It can not be said that there is a high possibility that it will disappear without being able to record publicly. Ultimately, when looking at the big eyes, the current way of e-books can lead to the loss of humanity as a whole, and we need to manage this situation.