Digital Preservation
The British Library collects and must preserve an increasing amount of digital material for future users. The diversity of digital material and frequent changes in computer technology present ongoing challenges for long term preservation and access. The British Library is at the cutting edge of international research in this area and our digital preservation team works closely with colleagues across the Library to improve the longevity of our digital collections.
The Challenge of Digital Preservation
The British Library is committed to preserving digital content for the long term, safeguarding our intellectual heritage so that it can be used by future researchers. The rapid rate at which technology is evolving makes this a significant challenge.
User access to digital files is often highly dependent on the technology that was used to create them. As technology evolves, it can become difficult to reliably files created on older platforms. The speed at which technology is currently developing means that environments and formats run the risk of becoming technically obsolete, and therefore inaccessible, in a relatively short space of time.
Solutions are needed to proactively address this and maintain our ability to reliably access digital content far into the future.
A Strategy for Digital Preservation
In 2006, the digital preservation team produced a ten year strategy to ensure perpetual access to the digital material held in our collections. The mission, goal and principles of that strategy remain broadly valid.
The strategy is currently being revised to ensure it remains in line with the Library’s more recent 2020 vision and corporate strategic priorities for 2011 - 2015.
The new strategy will clarify our preservation priorities and determine our focus for the next five years.
International collaboration
Digital preservation is a global challenge and the British Library digital preservation team is committed to working collaboratively with the wider digital preservation community.
We have participated in several national and international initiatives since 2004 to advance the state of the art and state of the practice in digital preservation. Details of our major past and current collaborative activities can be found here.
