National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 61 | February 2003


Digital Archiving and National Libraries
Report on a Senior Executive Fellowship Study Trip

Pam Gatenby
Pam Gatenby

In August 2002, Pam Gatenby, Assistant Director-General, Collections Management Division, was awarded a Senior Executive Fellowship to research developments in digital archiving at selected national libraries. The Fellowship enabled attendance at the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) in Glasgow, and visits to the national libraries of Sweden, Denmark and Canada, and to the Library of Congress and OCLC.

Most national libraries now accept that their traditional role of collecting and safeguarding access to information published in their countries must extend beyond print based publications to those in online form. However, national libraries are at very different stages in developing their responses to this new responsibility.

There are many complex issues involved in ensuring important information in online form remains available for use in the long-term. They relate to the ephemeral nature and rate of growth of the Internet, deciding what is worth saving, the rapid rate of change of the technology on which digital publications depend, and a raft of legal and economic concerns.

The National Library of Australia has been at the leading edge of world developments in collecting and archiving cultural heritage information resources in online form since 1996, when it established the PANDORA (Preserving Access to National Documentary Online Resources of Australia) project. Collecting online resources is now a routine activity involving collaboration with other collecting agencies, creators and publishers of online resources.

Some other national libraries have also been collecting online resources routinely for a few years now adopting either a selective approach like Australia, or the Whole Domain Harvesting approach. For instance, the National Library of Canada, the Royal Library in Denmark, the National Diet Library in Japan and, to a more limited extent the Library of Congress, are taking the selective approach, while the libraries in Sweden and Finland are taking the Whole Domain Harvesting approach. Other national libraries are still experimenting with various approaches and researching solutions to particular problems.

At the broad level, the chief purpose of the Senior Executive Fellowship was to research developments among national libraries in collecting and managing publications in online digital form and in providing on-going public access to them. At a more specific level, Pam was interested in investigating developments relevant to particular challenges the National Library of Australia is currently facing. These relate to extending the scope of our collecting, managing more complex web resources such as databases, and to developing more cost-efficient ways of selecting and creating metadata for resources. Pam was also interested in overseas developments in the areas of legal deposit and electronic resources, and collaborative business models.

The study trip was extremely useful in providing current information on the digital archiving activities of national libraries and insight into their concerns and intentions. The observations made during the trip and the conclusions reached have helped determine the Library’s digital archiving action plan for the next two to three years. The main observations and conclusions were:

The overall conclusion reached as a result of the Fellowship study trip was that the National Library of Australia is still at the forefront of digital archiving and preservation activity among national libraries. The Fellowship confirmed that the Library’s approach to building its collection of significant Australian online resources and to meeting its objectives in the area of digital archiving, is still sound. A more cost-effective approach is not yet in place at any other national library or library related organisation. However, important activities are taking place that we must keep up with and take into account in our future planning.

The full report prepared on the Fellowship study trip is available at <www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/2002/electsum.html> In addition to the report, detailed appendices outlining current activities at each institution visited, are available from Pam Gatenby <pgatenby@nla.gov.au> on request.
—Pam Gatenby, Assistant Director-General, Collections Management

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