CDNLAO Newsletter
No. 58, March 2007
- Introduction
- Collection of Online Publications
- Archiving and Preservation of Online Publications
- Conclusion
Introduction
The National Library Board (NLB) was established in 1995 with
the
passing of The National Library Board Act (1995). One of the
functions of the Board is to provide a repository function for library
materials published in Singapore, which is effected through the legal
deposit framework.
"Library materials" refers to:
(a) any printed book, periodical, newspaper, pamphlet, musical score,
map, chart, plan, picture, photograph, print and any other printed
matter; and
(b) any film (including a microfilm and a microfiche), negative, tape,
disc, sound track and any other device in which one or more visual
images, sounds or other data are embodied so as to be capable (with or
without the aid of some other equipment) of being reproduced from
it (NLB Act 1995)
Between 1964 and January 2006, NLB has accumulated an estimated 860,000 volumes in its legal deposit collection.
In addition, NLB has the statutory responsibility for the maintenance and preservation of library materials deposited with the Board. This has been achieved through providing appropriate storage environment for the publications, and reformatting them into microfilm or digital images for preservation and access.
Collection of Online Publications
The NLB has an on-going programme for harvesting Singapore-related web
contents from the Internet for archiving which began in 2006. It
will focus on whole domain archiving of all .sg websites in 2007
estimated at 70,000 registered domains* as at Dec 2006.
* http://www.nic.net.sg/
Besides print copies, publishers are also required to deposit
2 copies of each publication distributed electronically and/or online,
with NLB. This requirement applies even if the publications have
already been archived together with the websites.
The size of the archive to date stands at 325GB and comprises the following formats:
| Total | HTML/Text | Images | Videos | Word/Excel/PDF | Others | |
| Size | 325GB | 144.64GB | 73.88GB | 21.75GB | 84.52GB | 245GB |
Archiving and Preservation of Online Publications
NLB makes a distinction between digital archiving and digital preservation. The act of downloading and storing them in a safe place is just a digital archiving strategy, which is short-term in nature. NLB is putting in place a digital preservation framework and system (infrastructure) to ensure that digital resources identified as having lasting values and significance, are safely preserved for long-term access and usage. The infrastructure should enable NLB to preserve the authenticity and integrity of the digital contents through generations of transformations that are needed due to technological obsolescence.
The digital preservation infrastructure will comply with two core digital preservation standards: the ISO standard for Open Archival Information System (OAIS, ISO 14721:2003) and meet the Trusted Digital Repository (TDR) requirements. Targeted to be ready by end of 2008, it is a critical component in the E-content Lifecycle Management Programme. The E-content Lifecycle Management Programme forms the foundation for other Digital Library programmes (such as Knowledge Management infrastructure) when it is completed.
In the meantime, it is important that NLB archives the online publications in its collection before they are inadvertently changed or deleted. Under its legal deposit programme, NLB has been encouraging the deposit of digital publications since 2005. To facilitate the deposit of such contents, NLB will have an ingest system ready by 2007 to allow publishers to deposit digital publications via an online gateway. The ingest system will have the following essential ingest functions:
- Identify and validate file formats of deposited publications;
- Protect the publications from unauthorized changes through fixity tools, and
- Preserve the integrity and authenticity of the deposited publications through checksums and various metadata capture and harvesting.
Conclusion
NLB is making systematic progress in establishing a digital
preservation infrastructure to preserve online and digital
publications. Digital preservation is a relatively new territory
that abounds with unknown risks. Nonetheless, NLB is poised and
prepared to face the challenges on the rough road ahead.
Submitted by:
Siow Lian San (Ms)
Senior Librarian,Digital Library Services
National Library Board
Copyright (C)2007 National Library Board, Singapore
