2. Build the digital research environment

Continue to develop the digital library system to provide storage, preservation and long-term access to the digital output of the nation. Develop a full production service for e-journal ingest and develop the capability to ingest additional content streams.

Continue to lead development of the European Commission funded PLANETS project in which national libraries and other bodies are developing a framework to support the long-term preservation of digital text, images, audio and datasets. Deliver the first release of preservation services which will diagnose and treat problems with digital material.

Continue to work through the Legal Deposit Advisory Panel and with publishers and the other UK legal deposit libraries to collect offline electronic content, e-journals and public web content through voluntary schemes. Move towards regulations for public web content via the Government’s impact assessment process.

Continue the digitisation of content from out-of-copyright printed books as part of a strategic partnership with Microsoft. Promote ready access to these items.

Digitise one million pages of 19th century British newspapers to add to the existing two million pages which are being made available on the web. Add 4,200 hours of audio content to the existing 3,900 hours of audio recordings already available online. These digitisation projects are funded by JISC – the Joint Information Systems Committee.