BL seals digital content with a signature

The British Library (BL) has implemented a new digital signatures technology as part of its strategy to develop a National Digital Library ( read more here ). Digital rights management technology from nCipher enables the BL to authenticate every electronic document in its possession.

The nCipher DSE200 technology will create digital signatures for digitised versions of existing paper manuscripts held by the library, as well "born digital" new electronic publications, including audio files, electronic journals and web pages.

The combination of hardware and software works by giving each document a unique, time-stamped digital signature, which in turn provides a secure audit trail that will show any changes to the content. It means that the BL will be able to detect whether a document has been tampered with, even if it happens years after the document has been initially created. “As a library we are concerned with the long-term storage of digital objects,” said Roderic Parker, the BL’s communications officer for the National Digital Library. “We have to build systems that will guarantee the objects are unchanged.”

The storage and protection of digital material is a major challenge for the BL, particularly since the passing of The Legal Deposit Libraries Act, which entitles legal deposit libraries to a copy of every new electronic publication. The National Digital Library is expected to store 300 terabytes of content in the next three years. “This will include CDs, DVDs, sound files, scholarly journals published solely as e-journals, and e-books,” said Parker. “There is a vast growth in items that will be published in electronic format," Parker said, "The trend is that it will overtake printed material.”

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