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SCENARIO
#2: ACADEMIC - NATIONAL AND REGIONAL REPOSITORIES/VIRTUAL
RESOURCES
Rationale
As
libraries deal with the shifting balance between print and
electronic resources, the literature continues to suggest
that preservation of legal materials in print will remain
important for a long time. But the increasing reliance on
electronic resources also mandates a more serious focus on
digital preservation efforts.
The
age of the virtual law library brings with it the need to
archive and preserve legal information in electronic formats.
Space and budget issues are forcing law libraries of all sizes
to weed print collections that are duplicated in electronic
formats. Although some law libraries are shrinking and there
is more reliance on electronic resources, many libraries are
not willing to discard print collections because of a concern
about the lack of preservation efforts for digital materials.
Even if repositories for print and microform materials are
established (see other repository
scenario), there is a need to preserve the electronic versions
of previously published materials, as well as material originally
published in electronic form, for easy access and regular
use.
Electronic
resources that need preservation include commercial and non-commercial
databases, electronic journals, original electronic texts,
web sites, and digital archives. These resources are often
here today and gone tomorrow; reliance on them as permanent
resources is risky. The effects of the U.S. Supreme Court
decision in The NewYork Times Co. v. Tasini (121 S.
Ct. 2381 (2001) and the near demise of netLibrary are two
widely publicized examples, but web pages also disappear regularly.
At
the same time, current digitization projects would benefit
from a more systematic and coherent approach, which dictates
working with other national digital preservation efforts and
participating in the development of standards.
Vision
- Law
librarians will participate in the efforts of other libraries
and agencies, including the Library of Congress and the
Council on Library and Information Resources, to help develop
a national plan for digital preservation. (See Marcum, "A
National Plan for Digital Preservation: What Does it Mean
for the Library Community?" at http://www.clir.org/pubs/issues/issues25.html#plan)
- National
and regional law libraries or centrally funded archives
assume primary responsibility for digital preservation projects
for assigned resources.
- Librarians
working in repositories will be responsible for the collection,
organization, maintenance and preservation of identified
electronic resources.
o The repository model serves the needs of other libraries,
not necessarily the needs of the individual user.
- Law
schools and law libraries will work with the ABA to revise
the Standards for Approval of Law Schools and Interpretations
to reflect the trend toward access to resources rather than
ownership of physical collections and to suggest some qualitative
measures of evaluation. For example, Standard 606 might
be revised to include more specific examples of the importance
of permanent access to electronic resources.
Implications/strategies for library areas
- Facilities
- Repository locations will require the technical and architectural
infrastructure necessary for storage of digital archives.
This will include a system of distributed servers and mirror
sites.
- Collections/content
- Law librarians and legal scholars will collaborate to
select the retrospective digital content to be preserved
in the repositories and to monitor new content prospectively.
- Staffing
- Librarians and others with expertise in legal literature,
information technology, digitizing and scanning techniques,
intellectual property, and rights management will be most
important in the virtual repository. Administrative body
to coordinate the repository system and to work with national
preservation programs.
- Services
- Law librarians will participate in national efforts to
develop and implement a digital preservation program for
legal materials. Repositories will provide digitizing on
demand.
- Budget
- Funds will be needed for administration, staffing, and
technology. Grant opportunities will be pursued.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
- Law
libraries collectively share the responsibility of preserving
a large body of digital legal literature for future generations
- Collaboration
between creators and users of content
Weaknesses
- Uncertainty
about cost of storage
- Scope
of what has already been lost
- Difficulty
of assessing and selecting the range of resources to be
preserved
Opportunities
- Take
advantage of national digital preservation efforts
- Law
libraries can take a leadership role in this important endeavor
Threats
- Electronic
media are developing faster than preservation techniques
and standards can be developed
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