One of the biggest uncertainties presented by e-book licensing is whether today's e-book acquisitions will meet the needs of future readers. As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first e-books, it's hard to ignore the fact that most libraries have print collections that reach back a hundred years and more. We don't know what parts of today's written culture will be in demand 100 (or even 40) years from now or how readers will expect to approach them. For that reason, texts must be in a form that can evolve with reading technology, and the evolution must not depend on the permission and continued existence of publishing companies, platform vendors, rights management software, proprietary software or hardware. Formats must adhere strictly to standards. The forty-year-old texts from Project Gutenberg can still be read today because they used very simple formats; these are being converted to newer more capable formats such as EPUB for easy consumption on e-book readers. Going forward, there will be continuing challenges in the evolution of photos, graphics, mathematics, scripting, and linking of e-books.
LOCKSS, a peer-to-peer preservation system in which libraries are taking the lead in preserving e-journals and other websites. LOCKSS has been working to extend its digital preservation efforts to e-books; about 45,000 e-books are "in-process", and it's expected that another 30,000 will be added in 2012.
