Long-term Preservation of Electronic Literature

Authors have always been looking for new and innovative ways of aesthetical expression and they have been quick to take advantage of the new possibilities, offered by the World Wide Web and the Internet. Today, there is a respectable community – in terms of size and quality – of “digital poets”, who publish their texts in the internet and whose literature above all shares one mutual feature: a prominent and crucial use of computer technologies. Being the cultural heritage for future generations, electronic literature is worth preserving, just as any other form of contemporary literature. Yet, due to its use of interactive and dynamic elements and reliance on the latest technology, contemporary electronic literature is extremely vulnerable and difficult to document. While archives, libraries and museums are still trying to develop preservation strategies for electronic literature, many of the early works have already volatilized. In Germany, two institutions and a cooperative network have joined forces in order to address this challenge concertedly: nestor, the network of expertise in long-term storage of digital resources, the German Literature Archive, and the German National Library.