ERPANET Case Study: Project Gutenberg

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Title: ERPANET Case Study: Project Gutenberg
Author: ERPANET
Release Date: January 4, 2005 [eBook #14585]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERPANET
CASE STUDY: PROJECT GUTENBERG***
Copyright (C) ERPANET 2004

ERPANET Case Study: Project Gutenberg
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 4
Chapter 1
: The ERPANET Project 5
Chapter 2
: Scope of the Case Studies 6
Chapter 3
: Method of Working 8
Chapter 4
: Project Gutenberg 9
Chapter 5
: Details and circumstances of the Interviews 10
Chapter 6
: Analysis 11 Perception and Awareness of Digital Preservation 11
Preservation Activity 12 Compliance Monitoring 14 Digital
Preservation Costs 14 Future Outlook 14
Chapter 7
: Conclusions 16

Executive Summary Project Gutenberg is the first and largest collection
of eBooks made freely available to the public. The project philosophy
is that the greatest value of computers is not their computing power, but
rather their potential for the searchable storage and retrieval of library
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around the world. This case study differs form many other ERPANET
studies in that the project is volunteer-driven. As such, there are no
financial or business incentives to preserve the eBooks. The real
incentive lies in the belief that literary works in the public domain
should be freely accessible to as many people as possible for as long as
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far into the future.
Chapter 1
: The ERPANET Project The European Commission and Swiss
Confederation funded ERPANET Project (1) (Electronic Resource
Preservation and Access Network) works to enhance the preservation
of cultural and scientific digital objects through raising awareness,
providing access to experience, sharing policies and strategies, and
improving practices. To achieve these goals ERPANET is building an
active community of members and actors, bringing together memory
organisations (museums, libraries and archives), ICT and software
industry, research institutions, government organisations, entertainment
and creative industries, and commercial sectors. ERPANET constructs
authoritative information resources on state-of-the-art developments in
digital preservation, promotes training, and provides advice and tools.

ERPANET consists of four partners and is directed by a management
committee, namely Seamus Ross (HATII, University of Glasgow;
principal director), Niklaus Bütikofer (Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv),
Hans Hofman (Nationaal Archief/National Archives of the
Netherlands), and Maria Guercio (ISTBAL, University of Urbino). At
each of these nodes a content editor supports their work, and Peter
McKinney serves as a co-ordinator to the project. An Advisory
Committee with experts from various organisations, institutions, and
companies from all over Europe gives advice and support to
ERPANET.
Chapter 2
: Scope of the Case Studies While theoretical discussions on best
practice call for urgent action to ensure the survival of digital
information, it is organisations and institutions that are leading the
drive to establish effective digital preservation strategies (2). In order to
understand the processes these organisations are undertaking,
ERPANET is conducting a series of case studies in the area of digital
preservation. In total, sixty case studies, each of varying size, will
investigate awareness, strategies, and technologies used in an array of
organisations. It is anticipated that upwards of 500 organisations,
institutions and public bodies will eventually contribute to this research.
The resulting corpus should make a substantial contribution to our
knowledge of practice in digital preservation, and form the foundation
for theory building and the development of methodological tools. The
value of these case studies will come not only from the breadth of
sectors included, but also through the depth at which they will explore
the issues.
ERPANET is deliberately and systematically approaching disparate
sectors from industry and business to facilitate discussion in areas that
have traditionally been