The role of IT tools in the institutional preservation of literature

Abstract

The field of cultural preservation has experienced enormous hope thanks to digital technologies. It has emerged as a remedy for the issues with content accessibility and media breakdown. Theoretically, digital technology allows for flawless replication, universality (any content may be digitalized), homogeneity, and ubiquity (non-competitive access to content) (the life cycle is integrated in an interoperable technical system). But, in practice, one must deal with problems like the emergence of new formats, the logical obsolescence of content, the proliferation of altered copies, and complex and heterogeneous reading contexts. Digital data archiving and preservation seem to be especially important in the realm of electronic literature. The preservation of electronic works of literature raises a serious theoretical and practical issue. A digital literary work is in fact not an item, but it is also typically not a straightforward, momentary event, such as a performance or a digital installation. In actuality, it combines the two: it is both a transmittable item and, more importantly, a process that can only take place in an actualization. This paper will give a summary of these important topics.