Information Security Issues in a Digital Library Environment: A Literature Review

Hugo C. Huurdeman,Dydimus Zengenene,Audrey Anday,Enrico Francese,Muharrem Yılmaz

doi:10.15612/bd.2012.171

Abstract

This paper aimed to explore the literature on security issues that digital libraries should consider in managing digital resources. Books on information security and network security were consulted as well as several databases such as ERIC, Ebrary, LISA, Science Direct, EbscoHost, ISI, Google Scholar, ProQuest, Emerald Insight, ACM were searched to understand what particular aspect of information security and privacy in digital libraries exist from 2000 - 2010. Security in digital libraries is an issue of the most important, and should be considered carefully in creating policies and strategic plans of institutions wanting to set up a digital library. This paper focused on the four main streams that concerns security in the digital environment, namely: infrastructure, digital content, users and standards and legal issues. This literature review also built upon previous literature reviews, and is one of the few of its kind in the topic.

Highlights

Society has been increasingly dependent on information technology (IT) for several years
A very broad spectrum of articles that deals with the whole concept of security came out; so we decided to limit the articles to those that pertains to the four main streams that concerns security in the digital environment: 1) Infrastructure - This section focused on the importance of security applied in any system infrastructure that covers securing hardware and software, ensuring network security, and looking into Web vulnerabilities that can distract the smooth flow of communication and transfer of information in a wired or wireless environment
Moving his steps from this article, Kuny raised several points which in part repeat the concerns pointed out by Rothenberg (1995): ◊ Enormous amounts of digital information are already lost forever. ◊ Information technologies become obsolete very quickly. ◊ Document and media formats continue to proliferate. ◊ Technology standards will not solve fundamental issues in the preservation of digital information. ◊ Libraries will shortly see a demographic bulge of electronic material as the baby boom generation of authors and academics contribute material gathered during their careers. ◊ Much material will never make it into library collections for preservation because of increasingly restrictive intellectual property and licensing regimes. ◊ Archiving and preservation functions in a digital environment will increasingly become privatized as information continues to be commodified

Summary

Introduction

Society has been increasingly dependent on information technology (IT) for several years now. [...] The contents of most digital media [...] become unusably obsolete much sooner, as they are superseded by new media or incompatible formats”. Moving his steps from this article, Kuny raised several points which in part repeat the concerns pointed out by Rothenberg (1995): ◊ Enormous amounts of digital information are already lost forever. ◊ Technology standards will not solve fundamental issues in the preservation of digital information. ◊ Archiving and preservation functions in a digital environment will increasingly become privatized as information continues to be commodified. “The challenge in preserving electronic information is not primarily a technological one, it is a sociological one” (Kuny, 1997, p.4)

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Conclusion