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ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 38 | April 1999


NLA at work

Director of the Library of Congress Digital Library Program visits NLA

Between the 2nd and 5th of February, Laura Campbell, the inspiring Director of the Library of Congress Digital Library Program, was invited to visit the National Library and share information about her experiences in establishing this massive American digitisation project. The National Digital Library Program can be visited at: http://memory.loc.gov

While Laura Campbell was here, she gave a public lecture in the filled-to-capacity theatrette, discussed her program with Library staff and the National Library Council, and gave the keynote address at the National Library's Digital Library Forum. The forum provided an opportunity to discuss aspects of Australian digital developments, and to share information about the activities of national and State libraries, and other cultural institutions.

Laura Campbell

The National Digital Library Program is converting Library of Congress collections to digital form, building a national program incorporating the collections of other institutions, and making these collections available to the widest possible audience. The program has a budget of US $60 million (Aud $ 94 million). While US$15 million has been acquired from Congress, the rest has been derived from private sponsors. The program aims to convert 5 million American history items to digital format.

The National Digital Library Program also played a key role in establishing the National Digital Library Federation. This federation is establishing conditions that will encourage and promote the digitisation of materials throughout the United States. The federation consists of libraries and other organisations, and has established working groups which are investigating discovery and retrieval; intellectual property rights; economics (especially funding issues); and digital archiving.

During her visit, Laura Campbell inspired many people, both within the National Library, and in other libraries and cultural agencies, with details of the achievements of the Digital Library Program and the federation. Of particular interest was the establishing and operation of the federation, the ways in which private sponsorship was obtained, how the program involves user groups, and details of its technical specifications.

Laura Campbell

 

 

 

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: lkirwan@nla.gov.au

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