Some Darker Sides of Digitization; or, Disappearing Data, Doubtful Descriptions, and Other Deformations of Print

In Transferred Illusions: Digital Technology and the Forms of Print (2009), Marilyn Deegan and Kathryn Sutherland write of “the ‘fast fires’ of digital obsolescence.” It is not only disappearing data that constitute a dark side of digitization, however. Its bleaker aspects are also represented in doubtful descriptions of works by booksellers on electronic catalogues and in deformed—and sometimes stolen—digitized editions of works originally published in printed form. Through four case studies derived chiefly from pre-twentieth-century Australian and Canadian literature, this article both explores some unattractive features of digitization and suggests ways in which they might be mitigated.