Long-term Preservation of Electronic Literature
Sabine Schrimpf
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Adickesallee 1
60322 Frankfurt
Abstract
Authors have always been looking for new and innovative
ways of aesthetical expression and they have been quick
to take advantage of the new possibilities, offered by the
World Wide Web and the Internet. Today, there is a
respectable community – in terms of size and quality – of
“digital poets”, who publish their texts in the internet and
whose literature above all shares one mutual feature: a
prominent and crucial use of computer technologies.
Being the cultural heritage for future generations,
electronic literature is worth preserving, just as any other
form of contemporary literature. Yet, due to its use of
interactive and dynamic elements and reliance on the
latest technology, contemporary electronic literature is
extremely vulnerable and difficult to document. While
archives, libraries and museums are still trying to develop
preservation strategies for electronic literature, many of
the early works have already volatilized. In Germany, two
institutions and a cooperative network have joined forces
in order to address this challenge concertedly: nestor, the
network of expertise in long-term storage of digital
resources, the German Literature Archive, and the
German National Library.
Background
As opposed to the preservation of research data, no
comprehensive, international efforts address the
preservation of electronic literature. So far, there have
only been a few initiatives in the USA which address the
need to preserve electronic literature, such as the
Preservation, Archiving, and Dissemination (PAD)
project of the Electronic Literature Organization or
Archive-it, a collaboration of the Library of Congress,
the Electronic Literature Organization and the Internet
Archive. These projects are still in their early stages of
development.
In Germany, the Deutsche Literaturarchiv Marbach
(DLA, German Literature Archive Marbach) is
responsible for collecting, archiving and making
available contemporary German literature. Primary
sources and secondary literature are collected as
comprehensively as possible. Since 1997, the DLA has
expanded its efforts to electronic literature, beginning
with the inclusion of the collecting field “e-journals”.
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB, German
National Library) is the legal deposit library for all
German and German-language publications since 1913.
As of 2006, native digital publications are also included
in the German legal deposit law.
In cooperation with nestor, the German network of
expertise in long-term storage of digital resources, DLA
and DNB have taken the initiative to develop a
preservation strategy for electronic literature in
Germany. In March 2008, they managed to bring
together the relevant stakeholders in the German
National Library in Frankfurt: authors, archivists,
librarians, and legal experts met to discuss the challenges
of long-term preservation for electronic literature. [1]
The issues discussed in relation to the collection and
preservation of electronic literature included (among
others): selection, collection, context, intellectual
property rights, and technical issues, the most crucial
aspects of which will be presented in the following.
What is electronic literature?
“Electronic literature” is a simple-sounding label for a
broad and multifaceted literary field that has evolved
from as well as together with the internet. According to
the U.S. Electronic Literature Organization, the term
refers to “works with important literary aspects that take
advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by
the stand-alone or networked computer” [2]. This
includes two aspects: A technical and a
sociological/communicational aspect. Apart from
integrating the technological opportunities which the
internet provides, electronic literature makes use of the
particular interactive communication structure of the
internet.
Electronic literature has (in the most cases) emancipated
from the static, linear text narration to which print
literature is bound. With the capabilities of the internet,
innovative literary forms have developed in recent years:
e.g. hypertext fiction, interactive and collaborative
fiction, digital and audio-visual poetry, poetry that is
generated by computers, or readable computer art
installations.
The Electronic Literature Directory [3] introduced for
browsing purposes a twofold genre classification:
Genre/Length vs. Technique/Genre. While the former
lists the relatively traditional categories Poetry, Fiction,
Drama, Nonfiction, the latter distinguishes between the
internet-specific literary forms Hypertext, Reader
