Google Print and the principle of functionality

Purpose – The purpose of this Editorial is to outline the economic factors involved in digitisation and the maintenance of digital collections. Design/methodology/approach – The paper assesses the cost‐effectiveness of digitisation. Findings – Google Print's assumption that whatever has been published is worth digitising is a massively false and uneconomic assumption. Originality/value – The paper highlights the crunch point for arguments regarding digital preservation – determine costs according to the usefulness of the artefact and be ruthless about dropping items which do not meet “baseline measures of functionality”.