Published electronic media are becoming Grey

Kumazaki, Yui  ; Suzuki, Satoru; Kanazawa, Masashi*; Kunii, Katsuhiko; Yonezawa, Minoru  ; Itabashi, Keizo

JAEA Library focuses on collecting conference proceedings and technical reports which are very important and referred materials for our users in the field of nuclear science and technology. There are an increasing number of cases that they are published in electronic media such as CD-ROM and flash memories. There are problems as to manage such electronic media in a library. Largest problems for electronic media would be the long-term preservation and permanent access. Lifetime of electronic media are much shorter compared with paper and/or microfilm. In this regard, the JAEA library is struggling to preserve electronic media including related PCs and software for a long-term. One of the effective countermeasure should be preserving PCs and software to browse, emulation and migration to another media. However, our countermeasure is not good enough for users and preservation. The authors would like to present JAEA Library's current activities on long term preservation and use of electronic media, and it comes to the conclusion the fact that even published electronic media are becoming grey literature in certain environment.