In 1996 the eponymous Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php) was founded by Brewster Kahle. In 1971 Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) was launched to provide free online access to e-books. I’m not sure when the first magazine was published with a free audio cassette or floppy disk. Inevitably the Library found itself the proud recipient of a steadily growing stream of cassettes, floppy disks and CDs. This was a new world, no mobile phones or Facebook or Twitter – and the Library began to plan for an unimaginable future.
The Online Computer Library Center, Inc in the United States set up the Online Cooperative Resources Catalogue (http://www.oclc.org/research/news/archive/1999-05-24.htm) in 1999 and the Library was the first European Library to sign up. We began to offer descriptions of websites of Welsh interest in our online catalogue and shared this information with other libraries throughout the world. Then we realised – websites change and websites move and sometimes disappear and in 2004 we turned our attention to archiving these websites (http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/) and looking for missing links.
The Library realised the importance and value to readers of subscribing to electronic journals and books and we have developed an extensive collection (http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=otherresourcesa-z) available to all visitors to the Library and to anyone in Wales registering as a Library member (http://psr.llgc.org.uk/psr/psr/register/en/personal) .
The Legal Deposit Libraries have been working with the government and the publishing industry to ensure long term preservation and access to our published electronic heritage ( http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=1514&no;_cache=1&tx;_ttnews[tt_news]=4233&cHash;=c3a37fd9db7065ece392d2828d5add93).
Our collections are made up of more than the published word. The Library collects the archives of people who have played important roles in shaping the history and culture of Wales and the records of insitutions of national significance. In the pre- Facebook and Twitter era this meant collecting paper. The unimaginable future has arrived and we are faced with the challenge of collecting, preserving and making available digital and hybrid archives – word documents and emails and more.
E-collecting and all that it entails is not easy but it offers limitless opportunities for working with others, sharing, partnerships and extending access to huge parts of our collections everyone.What’s next?
Kathryn Murphy