If you are not familiar with some aspect of digital preservation (or even if you are) there is a tutorial from Cornell University Library, now supported by ICPSR, which articulates the history and outline of the problem reasonably well, with links to most of the important sources up to the time it was created (2003-2006): "Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short-Term Strategies for Long-Term Problems," available at: http://dpworkshop.org/dpm-eng/eng_index.html

Ross Harvey produced some years ago a meaty book called Preserving Digital Materials (Saur, 2011) that is available as an e-book from the library and that I would advise reading to get up to speed as of eight years ago. (But consider that you may be working with digital objects that are eight years old...)

You will need to get Matthew Kirschenbaum's Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination from MIT Press, which has come out in paperback for $24 and is available for $21 as an e-book from MIT, at the Coop for probably more than that, and from Amazon in all kinds of forms including used. We'll use this book for its excellent explanations and for a few of the experiments that we will replicate.

Another book we will use significantly is Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema, Forensic Discovery (Addison-Wesley), which is surprisingly entertaining for a technical book on digital forensics. You can find reasonably-priced used copies of this book but can also access it free online at http://www.porcupine.org/forensics/forensic-discovery/

There is an excellent book entitled Preserving Complex Digital Objects (edited by Janet Delve and David Anderson), that was the outcome of a set of meetings that focused on especially art as well as videogames. I will assign a few readings but in spite of the horrid price (£69.95) it has some very interesting things to say, and you'll have to fight people at PCL to get it. If you are especially interested in digital art it is worth it.

You will see a number of other books referred to on the syllabus that you may want to purchase, but the assignments will be made available through online links or Canvas. This field continues to move so fast and change so often that most of the literature remains online. See the "Resources" page for easy access to additional useful materials that I will add to from time to time.