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RSS feedsThe milestone item is a digitised copy of a newspaper originally published in 1864 and scanned as part of the 19th century British Library Newspapers project.
Through the project, the national library recently made more than two million pages of historic newspapers available online. The system was developed to enable long term storage of the digital material that forms an increasing proportion of the nation’s intellectual output.
Steve Green, head of the digital library programme, British Library said: “The task of collecting, preserving and providing long-term access to the nation’s digital assets is in many ways a daunting and complex undertaking.
“The sheer amount of material being published digitally is challenging enough in itself, but the wide range of different formats – many of which will inevitably become obsolete – makes preservation and future accessibility far from straightforward.”
He added that in the last few years since the programme started, the library has in place the foundations of a fully scaleable system that can handle large quantities of digital items, ensuring their availability for future generations of researchers.
“The fact that we have just added our half-millionth digital item to the store is an indication that our digital capability is maturing – particularly in relation to comparatively straightforward items.”
British Library now plans to develop processes for handling more challenging materials such as archived websites and the more complex XML format e-journals. While the amount of material held in the digital system is still small by comparison with the totality of its digital collections, the library hopes that the groundwork established will take it closer to its goal of a full-scale digital library facility, and a national library that’s a genuine hybrid of print and digital.
The Birmingham Daily Post, dated Monday 19 December 1864 - the latest digitised item - offers a vivid snapshot of life 145 years ago. Along with accounts of an 82-year-old man who died after falling out of bed and two men before the courts for bigamy, it also features a report on President Lincoln recommending to the US congress the passing of a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.
The digitised newspaper joins other items including e-journals, newspapers, digital sound recordings, born-digital material received through voluntary deposit arrangements with publishers and more than 65,000 digitised books of the 19th century.
