Roderic Parker lays out the British Library’s strategy

Digital materials present a challenge to all libraries and archives. The British Library is not alone in looking for answers in this rapidly changing area. We are looking for solutions to a wide range of problems; both on our own and in co-operation with others.

The problems of changing technology are epitomised by the BBC Domesday project. The BBC’s electronic Domesday project, a survey of British life in the eighties, was released in 1986 but was nearly unusable 15 years later. The hardware and operating system were obsolete, and the videodisks were deteriorating. It needed concerted preservation efforts by the Universities of Leeds and Michigan, and the National Archives to rescue it and make it publicly accessible. Another five years and it would probably have been too late.  By contrast, the original Domesday Book written in 1086 is still readable today, although written in Latin, and has recently been digitised and moved online to allow greater access.

Current problems

First, digital storage is not stable. We know that even the best managed, best quality media will deteriorate over time, a ‘time’ measured in decades. Print on paper also deteriorates, but the timescales here are more likely to be centuries. Can we be sure that, despite careful storage management, we can guarantee access to today’s files tomorrow?

Second, digital materials always need a device to ‘read’ them: a computer, an MP3 player, or something else. This runs yesterday’s software on yesterday’s hardware, and will inevitably be left behind by tomorrow’s technology. Will we be able to read today’s materials tomorrow?

Third, all library processes need to evolve to handle digital items. The very intangibility of digital items means that traditional library methods need to change.

There is little point in planning long-term services unless we can guarantee that the materials we hold will continue to be available into the future. The British Library is doing many different things to ensure that this will be so.

British Library activities

Our secure storage system is now deployed on our two main sites, with planning for a third site at the National Library of Wales at an advanced stage. Under this system, we can take in a digital file or a set of related files, and ‘sign’ it so that at any future time we can guarantee that the file is the same as when we received it. We will regularly check all the files stored so that we will be able to recover a clean version if we do detect any changes.

Our secure storage system will preserve the original sequence of digital ‘bits’, but to keep this data useful we need to look at other strategies. One is transforming data files into more modern file formats that can be read by newer application software. Another is using new software that behaves on current systems like old software did on now-defunct systems. These strategies are part of our Digital Preservation Strategy Framework.(1)

We are also the lead partner in the four year EU-funded Planets (Permanent Long-term Access through Networked Services) project: a 15-member consortium working on the long-term preservation of digital text, images, audio, and dynamic data sets.

The British Library is one of a dozen or so bodies which has recently helped turn the proprietary document format developed by Microsoft into an international standard. Microsoft’s customers, using this standard, should soon have more confidence that they can store and manage their data for the long term.

We have also, jointly with the US Library of Congress, announced our support for managing the content of electronic journals, and its description, according to a widely-respected standard. The widespread use of this standard should help ensure long-term access to e-journal content.

The innate ease of copying and transferring digital items does not relieve the Library of the responsibility to protect the rights of their producers. This involves more than the digital equivalent of copyright on printed publications. We have commissioned work on the very difficult issues around establishing and applying access policies.

Overall strategy

The British Library’s current strategy was expressed in Redefining the Library, published in July 2005.(2) One strategic priority for 2005 to 2008 is to develop the National Digital Library as a key part of the UK’s research e-infrastructure, to work with others to shape this e-infrastructure, and to continue our innovative digitisation programmes.

In these and other ways, we are ensuring that we can keep today’s electronic heritage for tomorrow’s users.

References

1. See British Library Digital Preservation Strategy Framework
2. British Library Strategy

Roderic Parker works for the British Library’s Digital Object Management Programme