Associate librarian Jeremy York, a project librarian for HathiTrust, said preserving books is one of the core functions of a librarian and that using computers for preservation was just the next logical step.

“We believe what we were doing was the right thing all along, it’s great to have this validation so we don't have to fight this battle to do this core function,” York said. “Clearly it may be appealed, but it's significant that this statement has been made by a federal judge.”