Collections
Digital Preservation in NLW
The National Library of Wales has been collecting and preserving a record of the nation’s culture, heritage and knowledge since being established by Royal Charter in 1907. During most of that time the majority of the material being collected was in analogue or physical format:
- books
- journals
- manuscripts
- maps
- newspapers
- films
Today we are all using digital technologies to create knowledge and share it in ways that are transforming our behaviour and institutions. Preserving the digital material of today is critical to preserving the nation’s history and culture. In response to this the Library was granted a new Supplemental charter on the 19th July 2006 'to collect, preserve and give access to all kinds and forms of recorded knowledge, especially relating to Wales and the Welsh and other Celtic peoples, for the benefit of the public, including those engaged in research and learning.'
The Library is therefore committed to collecting and preserving our digital heritage for current and future generations and this is emphasized in the Library’s Corporate Plan where it states that 'we shall ensure access to our resources for the users of the future, by planning new storage for analogue material, ensuring preservation of digital material, preparing for electronic legal deposit, and exploring the possibility of becoming a Trusted Digital Repository'.
In 2003 the first Digital Preservation Policy was created and this was reviewed in 2008. As a result of this in November 2008 Sally McInnes was appointed as Digital Preservation Co-ordinator in order to co-ordinate activities within the Library. Following on from her appointment a Digital Asset Management Team was also established. Digital Preservation cannot be done in isolation and hence numerous staff from different departments within the library also play key roles within the digital preservation process.
What digital material do we collect?
The following is a list of the various types of digital material we collect:
- NLW’s corporate records in digital form
- Digital visual and audio collections created, received or recorded off-air as part of the collections of the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales
- Digital surrogates (including preservation master digital copies) of analogue material in NLW collections resulting from digitisation programmes
- Electronic publications received under voluntary legal deposit and published on physical carriers such as diskettes and CD-ROMs
- Websites originally published on the Internet and selected for inclusion in NLW’s archive
- Archival collections which comprise an electronic element usually computer files on physical carriers such as diskettes
- Other digital objects such as digital mapping products or digital photographs
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