Universal Availability of Publications Core Programme

Archive - Historical Material

Worldwide survey of digitised collections in major cultural institutions: an IFLA PAC/UAP joint project

The IFLA Core Programmes for Preservation and Conservation (PAC) and Universal Availability of Publications (UAP) are working together, on behalf of UNESCO [http://www.unesco.org], to undertake a survey of digitisation programmes in major cultural institutions, in order to establish a 'virtual library' of digitised collections worldwide.

Many national libraries and other institutions are now undertaking or planning digitisation programmes for some or all of their major cultural collections, whether this be for preservation purposes or to increase access to the documents.

However, a comprehensive worldwide listing of digitised library collections does not yet exist, and it is the task of this IFLA project to identify digitised collections of national importance worldwide. The project is being funded by UNESCO and has links to its Memory of the World programme since it will also attempt to identify collections which are of world significance and therefore suitable for inclusion in the Memory of the World register. The dual aims of Memory of the World [http://www.unesco.org/education/proap/new/f-mwp.htm] - the preservation of documents and collections, and the improvement in access to them - coincide with the aims of the two core programmes of IFLA which are jointly undertaking the project: Preservation and Conservation (PAC) and Universal Availability of Publications (UAP).

The Directory of digitised documents will take the form of a freely accessible database on the UNESCO website. The project began in 1998 with the distribution of questionnaires to national libraries to gather information on their digitisation programmes. The database will consist of a searchable listing of all the collections, together with clickable links to take the user directly to the website of the digitised collection. Individual items within a collection will not be listed, but it is assumed that detailed information about the contents of each collection will be available from the collection website.

Information is also being collected on the preservation issues surrounding the digitisation of materials. Digital preservation is perhaps one of the most neglected areas in the electronic library arena, with large volumes of data already lost because of lack of knowledge about long-term digital preservation issues. The project will aim to offer some information on how the issue of preservation is being handled by each of the libraries listed.

A more extensive article is available. The questionnaire on Digitization and Preservation is also available online and in Acrobat PDF format 3.0 [Acrobat PDF : 23KB].

For more information about the project, please send an email to Richard Ebdon at IFLA UAP, richard.ebdon@bl.uk