Library of Congress forges digital preservation alliance

By Ben Bain

| August 4, 2010

The Library of Congress is forming a new partnership dedicated to preserving and providing access to digital content.

The Library of Congress “is committed to leading a distributed approach to digital stewardship,” said Laura Campbell, associate librarian for strategic initiatives. “This is the best way to sustain and extend the library’s historic mission to make resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people. It is also the best way for all cultural-heritage institutions to sustain and extend their missions in the midst of a revolution in how knowledge and creativity is created and disseminated.” The NDSA will start with a core group of founding members drawn from current NDIPP project partners, the library said. The members will develop a road map for immediate action including a process for expanding membership, it added.

The Library of Congress has started a new partnership between organizations that work to provide access to digital content to bolster preservation of important content.

The partnership, named the National Digital Stewardship Alliance, will develop improved preservation standards and practices, the library said Aug. 3. The alliance will also work with experts to identify categories of digital information that are most worthy of preservation and take steps to make it part of a national collection, it said. The new group will provide national leadership for digital preservation and training, the library added.

The NDSA is an outgrowth of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program that the library has administered since 2000. The NDIPP has involved partnerships between more than 170 institutions to provide access to a diverse national collection of digital content, the library said.

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The Library of Congress is forming a new partnership dedicated to preserving and providing access to digital content.