Library of Congress Sets Goals in Digital Preservation Report, Including Push for Copyright Change
By David Rapp Mar 16, 2011The Library of Congress (LC), in a new report [PDF] on its National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) released last week, laid out several plans for the future, including increased advocacy for changes in copyright law and digital-preservation tax incentives for private institutions. It also outlined steps taken so far to foster more robust digital preservation projects nationwide—particularly the establishment of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) last year.
Public policy goals
According to the report, LC plans to explore several ways to create more incentives for institutions, public and private, to undertake digital preservation.
To that end, LC seeks to work with Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office to implement recommendations of the NDIIPP-cosponsored Section 108 Study Group Report [PDF], released in 2008. Section 108 of the Copyright Act allows libraries to make copies of copyrighted works for preservation purposes, but it has a limited scope due in part to its creation in a pre-digital age. The study group report recommends ways to ease the U.S. Copyright Act restrictions, including providing a Section 108 exception for museums as well as libraries.
According to the report, LC also intends to:
- convene an expert panel to explore the creation of digital-preservation-related tax incentives, to encourage corporations or private citizens to donate materials for preservation purposes.
- explore ways to encourage more public-private preservation partnerships.
- form a study group on preserving historically significant private business records.
- form a separate study group to look at ways that certain copyrighted works in the LC collection may be displayed or disseminated, "under terms to be mutually agreed upon" with copyright owners.
Looking forward
NDIIPP is a partnership between LC and more than 185 institutional partners in 44 states and 25 countries—including OCLC, the Internet Archive, and North Carolina State University Libraries, among many others. Over the last decade, according to the report, NDIIPP developed four major goals as a foundation for future growth: to develop a national preservation network including the aforementioned partnerships; to create a content collection plan that aims particularly to preserve at-risk content, including fragile or old materials; to build a shared technical platform; and to make public policy recommendations regarding legal and copyright issues that affect digital preservation.
Building on these goals, LC formed the NDSA last July. The Alliance, made up of NDIIPP-affiliated institutions nationwide, has a practical, brass-tacks approach to digital preservation: each member of the Alliance commits to collecting, providing, or curating content, or to providing specific services to other Alliance members, such as storage, infrastructure, tools, or cataloging services. More than 65 NDIIPP partners have joined the NDSA as of last month.
The Alliance may also provide a way to keep program costs down. The U.S. Congress established NDIIPP in 2000 with a $100 million appropriation, with which it funded digital-preservation projects for partners around the country, including such high-profile projects as Stanford University's LOCKSS ("Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe") digital preservation infrastructure. No funding remains from the initial $100 million, but the program currently receives an annual appropriation of $6.5 million.
"It is clear to everyone that we need to leverage our collective resources—which are limited, even in the aggregate—to do the work that is necessary for digital preservation across the country," William LeFurgy, the digital initiatives project manager for NDIIPP, told LJ last August on the formation of the NDSA. "We are looking to the NDSA to expand this effort in a cost-effective manner."
One near-term goal of the Alliance, according to the report, is encouraging members to continue to expand their digital collections, with a particular focus on materials on government, politics, and law; maps and geography; and news, media, and journalism.
