The digital library programme at the British Library: goals and priorities

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to show how the British Library (BL) is responding to the changing world of publishing through the Digital Library Programme.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is a descriptive review of the factors that led to the BL establishing the Digital Library Programme. The paper describes the goals of the programme, the priorities for the programme, the mechanisms for providing access to digital material acquired by the Library and gives an overview of the approach to ensuring that material stored in the Digital Library System remains permanently accessible. It also gives a brief overview of some of the main challenges that the Programme faces.

Findings

The unique position of the BL within the research environment means that there is great benefit to be had in building a digital library to store significant amounts of material even where it is already available elsewhere. The reason for this is the ability of the Library to sustain storage and access over a much longer period than can be achieved by commercial companies. The Library has also built up significant expertise and a world leadership in the field of digital preservation. The use of a programme and project structure to manage the development of the infrastructure, processes and procedures has already shown that it can deliver significant benefit in the changing landscape of digital dissemination of information. The use of an iterative and incremental approach both for the programme as a whole and for projects within the programme has shown significant benefits in allowing the BL to make progress where the end goal is very ambitious and there is no obvious off‐the‐shelf solution.

Practical implications

This may have broad applications for similar complex projects.

Originality/value

The BL Digital Library Programme is providing a solution to the acquisition and dissemination of digital material on a larger scale than is common within the library and archiving community.

Citation

Green, S. (2009), "The digital library programme at the British Library: goals and priorities", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 136-139. https://doi.org/10.1108/02641610910985602