Problems of Preserving Electronic Literature

1
Problems of Preserving Electronic Literature

• Electronic Literature Organization
• Howard Besser
• UCLA School of Education Information
• http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/howard

2
Simpler than Electronic Literature The Wordstar
Problem
3
Problems Particular to Electronic Literature

• Disappearing software
• Enormous number of elements can, at times, be
  very important to preserve (randomness,
  interactivity, pacing, color, format, original
  artifact, elements used to construct the
  artifact)
• Pieces and Boundaries
• Recontextualization (Postmodernism)--which
  rendition to save?
• Dynamic Lack of Fixity (evolving works)
• Historical context
• Difficulty of authentication over time
• What Really is the Work?-

4
LeWitt Wall Drawing 340
5
Installing LeWitt
6
LeWitt Install Directions
7
The Short Life of Digital Info Digital Longevity
Problems

• The Viewing Problem
• The Scrambling Problem
• The Inter-relation Problem
• The Custodial Problem
• The Translation Problem

8
What can we do specific to Electronic Literature?

• Works themselves may no longer even exist in
  many cases, what we can save amounts to forensic
  evidence
• Enormous number of elements can, at times, be
  very important to preserve (randomness,
  interactivity, pacing, color, format, original
  artifact, elements used to construct the
  artifact)
• Too complex to save every one of these aspects
  for every type of material
• Importance of saving pieces, representations, and
  documentation
• Involve the authors to capture their intentions
• Importance of Standards
• Familiarize ourselves with recent conservation
  developments (Guggenheim Variable Media, Who
  Knows?, TechArcheology, Tate, IMAP)

9
Things that can be done

• Save documentation about the work and its context
• Save interviews with readers/viewers about the
  experience
• Construct repositories that save software, works,
  hardware, and engage in ongoing emulation
• Encode authors intentions-
• Adhere to non-proprietary software/standards as
  much as possible-

10
Authors Intentions Kendall Example
11
Tensions around StandardsFollow Standards (No
Owl, Hypercard, DHTML, Flash, )

• innovative, new functions

12
Problems of Preserving Electronic Literature

• Howard Besser
• UCLA School of Education Information
• http//sunsite.berkeley.edu/Longevity/
• http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/howard
• http//www.oclc.org/digitalpreservation/presmeta_w
  p.pdf
• http//www.oclc.org/research/pmwg/contentinformati
  on.pdf
• http//is.gseis.ucla.edu/us-interpares/
• http//www.diglib.org/preserve/ejp.htm
• http//www.longnow.com/10klibrary/TimeBitsDisc/
• http//www.archive.org/

13
Standards for encodingartists intentions(group
efforts w/i Cult Heritage community)

• Artists Interviews Project, Netherlands Institute
  for Cultural Heritage 1998-1999, Modern Art Who
  Cares (http//www.icn.nl/english/6.4.2.html)
• TechArcheology A Symposium on Installation
  Preservation (SFMOMA)
• More recent SFMOMA/Tate collaborations
• IMAP
• Guggenheims Variable Media

14
Structural Metadata Standards for Encoding
Multimedia- (no time for details)

• SMIL
• MPEG 4