AustLit

'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.' (Publication abstract)