Archiving Digital Work: Defining the Present

Commentary:
Howard Besser (Professor of Education & Information Studies on leave from UCLA, and Director of the Moving Image Archive and Preservation Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts)
Alan Divack (Archivist for the Ford Foundation)

Presentation of Endangered Works:
Marjorie Luesebrink (M.D. Coverley; Hypermedia author (Califia) and President, ELO Board of Directors)

The advent of electronic literature with its media-rich elements of text, image, sound, structure, and interactivity presented readers with a new experience and materially altered practices of critical inquiry. Electronic lit is continually animated by the integration of new techniques, punctuated by the vigorous technological advances in the field. The characteristic variety and speed of change of e-literature, however, create a steady and increasingly complex obsolescence factor - e-literature works may quickly become difficult to access, archive, and preserve. The Preservation, Archiving, and Dissemination (PAD) project, underway for almost a year, invites you to consider the problems, issues, and challenges inherent in preserving access to works of e(X)-Literature and to join with us in identifying solutions.