Digital Preservation and Authentic Legal Information

Abstract

Writing and researching about the permanence of digital documents is a quizzical, self-referential activity. I set out to uncover approaches to the problems facing the longevity of authentic legal information. How did I do this? Primarily, I accessed and read electronic documents. My exercise here might very well suffer the same issues raised in the information science and legal literature. Faulty, inconsistent, and potentially inauthentic electronic databases may unduly – however subtly – shade my analysis. For what I’m doing here – a student’s attempt to add to an academic discourse – I’m pretty unconcernedThe subject of my focus, however, is an entirely different matter. The law has consequences large and small. Legal information, whether in the form of publications or records, impacts our lives in concrete ways. Criminal codes convict. Election rules elect. Construction standards keep roofs from falling in. The law is important. Further, although “the law” is a complex political, social, and interpersonal construct, it is ultimately expressed through words.Digital files distributed through the internet present problems to information generally, and to the law specifically. If we take a skeptical view – as I think we should – how do I know that words I read are the words that were written? This paper is a meditation on that question and search for an answer.Part I describes the issues of authenticity as they’re discussed in the English-language library and information science literature. Part II describes the importance of authenticity to the law. Finally, Part III describes the potential dangers if we fail to adequately address preserving authentic legal information. At each step along the way, we’ll see the need for libraries and archives to take an active role in the creation of documents and foster a trustworthy informational environment.