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E-Book Museum at Library of Congress?

Posted by timothy on from the bruce-sterling-has-a-head-start dept.

David H. Rothman writes "E-books and other digital publications in the U.K. are about to go into a national archive, and in fact the Brits and others have even shown an interest in the e-book technology of yore. Goodness knows, as some have pointed out, we already have enough virtual e-book museums--unwittingly created by the march of technology. But how about an International Electronic Book Museum in the Real World, ideally the Library of Congress? Before Luddites and crypto-Luddites keel over at the thought, they should keep in mind that the technology is already several decades old and that it would be helpful to collect the artifacts in a systematic way before it's too late. More at TeleRead."

2 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Re:my only complaint... by farnz · · Score: 3, Interesting
    What about the hardware to run it on? What about the OS? Is an eBook that only runs on 48K ZX Spectrums with Microdrives now good enough? Can we even read the media?

    The advantage of an open specification for the format (unencrypted PDF would work, for example) is that provided I can access the data, and provided I have a copy of the specification, I can read the books. If I don't have the specification in an alternative format, I'm screwed. If the reader requires (say) a PC without PCI to work, and I don't have a spec, I'm screwed.

    The second is more likely than the first, so I'd rather have a format with an open spec.

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  2. Library of Congress is working on it by spotteddog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Library of Congress is already working on a program for preserving "digitally born" documents. Look at http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/

    *disclaimer: I currently work at the Library of Congress, but not on this project.

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