As we observe digital literature and how humanists are generating work in an electronic age, it is critical to consider the impact of archiving and the possibility of preserving such works, or if these projects are truly ephemeral and exist only for the purpose of creation. From our Thursday class last week, I am still grappling with the concept of creating work for it not to be remembered or lasting as I support experimentation but feel disconnected from willingness to lose time and effort. This tension is inherently echoed in the archives themselves as without rules of what should be saved, it is hard even as scholars to understand what we deem as historically, culturally, and/or creatively worthy. While the digital is frequently glorified as being an answer to such questions as seen in the rise of digital archives, Bode and Osbourne reveal that with a new frontier comes new challenges. As such, “While digital archives and methods for reading them have enormous potential for book history, this trend presents its own challenges for reading the archival record. The emphasis that is sometimes placed on the ‘seemingly infinite’ potential of digital archives – including ‘unprecedented access to rare or inaccessible materials; comprehensiveness… [and] consolidation’-downplays the many aspects of our cultural heritage that are not being, or cannot be, translated to digital form” (Bode and Osbourne 233). Even through the most sophisticated digital methods and prestigious institutions, the digital can not save all aspects of human creativity for a variety of reasons. Through our time in Special Collections and bibliographic work, the experience of materiality can not be underscored to scholarship and understanding, which is lost in digital archives. Conversely, materials that were never physical, like electronic literature, can lose their ingenuity from their original creative process with the loss of certain technologies and features like Flash. The joint challenge of physical and digital preservations reveals the fragility of archiving that has always been inherit which helps me rationalize the ephemerality of digital humanities when I consider all the born-physical humanities creations that have already been lost.