Integrity of electronic records (D.D. Rusch-Feja and McKemmish)

An interesting point raised in “Libraries: Digital, Electronic, and Hybrid” by D.D. Rusch-Feja is that “Traditional subscriptions to scientific literature are being made subject to access only through licensing agreements, as opposed to ownership, as was possible with printed versions of the same item.” Think of all the censorship possibilities built into this function!  This is the same issue I was struggling with when making a decision to purchase an e-reader.  I did decide to buy a kindle, and I do like using it, but I think it has its limitations. The kindle owner does not own the material they are reading. And so, at any time the materials could be changed, or deleted all together. If I’m choosing a book to read at the beach, I may not be as concerned as if I was reading something potentially controversial. Until this technology changes I won’t buy anything for my kindle that I would ever want to reference at a later date.

This topic is addressed in “Traces” by McKemmish in a slightly different way. She comments on the ability of the ruling body to choose information that might be dangerous or controversial, and intentionally destroy it. She discusses this in the broad examples of Bosnia and South Africa, but this is an issue on a very small scale as well. Sometimes individual books and artwork that are considered offensive in some way are changed to be more agreeable. Physical records can certainly be destroyed, but it seems to me that electronic records are subject to many subtle types of tampering as well as deletion.  

I think this is an issue that is related to all forms of electronic media to some degree.  How can information scientists be sure that any data stored electronically is safe from tampering? It may be easier to see when a paper record has been altered. Changes in electronic records can be subtle and hard to see. And not only changes in the record itself, but what about weighting electronic searches to pull up some information in preference over another? I’m interested to learn what steps are being taken to protect electronic records.