The Preservation of Knowledge in the Digital Age (2024) is a comprehensive report commissioned by the Arcadia Fund and produced by Ageh Consulting. It addresses a critical and timely challenge: how to ensure long-term public access to scholarly e-literature in an era where libraries increasingly license — rather than own — digital books and journals.

Focusing on academic and public libraries in the UK, EU, and US, the report examines the limitations of current licensing practices and the risks they pose to future access and preservation. Drawing on extensive interviews, contract analysis, and global surveys of librarians, the authors highlight systemic issues surrounding e-book preservation, including legal, technical, and economic barriers. Key findings reveal that perpetual access is often misunderstood, inconsistently applied, or undermined by publisher restrictions — especially as works transition out-of-commerce or into the public domain.

The report introduces the concept of this problem as a “wicked problem” — highly complex, with no simple or singular solution — and calls for an integrated, sector-wide response. It highlights the vulnerability of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (AHSS) literature, especially scholarly monographs, which are at greater risk of disappearance than STEM publications due to funding gaps and low commercial value. The study also critiques overreliance on dark archives (e.g., CLOCKSS, Portico), noting that while they are valuable, they lack transparency and are not substitutes for library ownership.

The authors present 16 detailed recommendations to improve policy, infrastructure, and collaboration. They emphasize that without robust, legally supported, and well-resourced preservation systems, future generations may lose access to vast swathes of digital scholarly knowledge. The report ultimately serves as a high-level strategic overview and call to action for policymakers, libraries, funders, and publishers across the Euro-Mediterranean region and beyond.