Letter to the Editor: Authentic Digital Objects

Long-term preservation of digital objects requires curators to be able to guarantee the archival authenticity of the objects in a digital repository. In IJDC 4(1), Ronald Jantz suggested that a digital certificate is sufficient to ensure authenticity. The letter writer takes issue with this view and points out some of the archival misinterpretations in the Jantz article. He maintains that the archival literature is a rich source for discussions of authenticity that has been ignored to the detriment of Jantz’s arguments.