Digital Preservation and Long-Term Access to the Content of Electronic Serials

The long-term preservation of information in digital form has been a subject of growing interest for the library and information professions since the late 1970s. Initially, this was a response to the growing use of digital technologies in publishing and the suggestion by Lancaster (and others) that society was steadily moving toward the use of information systems that would be largely paperless.l Much recent awareness of the digital preservation issue was facilitated by the publication in 1996 of the report of the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information commissioned by the Commission on Preservation and Access (CPA) and the Research Libraries Group (RLG).2 The report provided a good summary of relevant issues and acted as a catalyst for further research and development.