Digital Fragility, Rigidity, and Malleability

On digital fragility: There is an interesting article over at American Scientist, “Avoiding a Digital Dark Age,” by the digital research director at the Long Now Foundation. For another explanation of digital fragility, see Abby Smith, “Preservation,” in A Companion to Digital Humanities (Blackwell, 2004, and available online).

On digital rigidity: Kindles don’t seem to work well in academia (“generally, students were more apt to use their Kindles for recreational reading”).

On digital malleability: Macmillan “is introducing software called DynamicBooks, which will allow college instructors to edit digital editions of textbooks and customize them for their individual classes.”