Libraries fear digital lockdown

BBC Libraries fear digital lockdown:

"But as publishers attempt to stop the public illegally sharing books and articles, the DRM they employ may not cater for libraries' legal uses.

'We have genuinely tried to maintain that balance between the public interest and respecting rights holders,' Dr Clive Field, the British Library's director of scholarships and collections told the BBC News website."

We may have been through a period where we can obtain rare and old books. We have been able to access the writing from other centuries. Now, technology may create a society where we can preserve very little. Changing technology, formats, lack of capacity to trace the whereabouts of keys to unlock digital information all mean we shall be deprived of a sense of history and great works can be lost forever. Most of our books are going to be digitally reproduced soon. It means libries and publishers may be at cross purposes. It means books might not be available to all, which means we shall return to the era prior to public libraries where only certain sectors of a community had access to knowledge. So many things need to be considered and worked through. We have quite a challenge here if we want to safeguard our knowledge and literature...and , oh, how easy to lose so much with a hard drive crash, a server crash or a absent minded tough on the delete key. Feudal times , here we come.