Fears digital heritage could be lost over lack of archive

The National Library has warned that part of our digital heritage could be lost because internet content is not automatically saved.

Physical publications printed in Ireland are legally preserved by the National Library but despite an enormous volume of digital publishing, there is no law in place to archive electronic documents.

Regulations recently came into effect in Britain which oblige the libraries mandated to archive print publications to begin storing digital records posted on the web.

According to the British government, the move was made in order to preserve the records of this era for future generations.

The National Library said legislative and resource difficulties have prevented it from following suit.

“The ephemeral nature of digital content and the delay in our ability to capture that content increases the risk of loss of our published heritage as more of it now appears in digital form, whether as a website or as a publication on a website,” it said in a statement.

In order to save pages legally, the National Library must seek permission from each website involved and it does not have resources to do this on a large scale.

“In order to select, preserve, promote, and make accessible the published output of the nation which is now increasingly online, we would need substantial resources in terms of people, technology, and finance to establish and embed the new workflows required to make this possible,” it said.

The library said it had used its own resources to begin archiving digital content on a small scale since 2011. This involved storing internet content on the general and presidential elections and the recent referenda.

Following the death of Savita Halappanavar, an effort was made to capture the internet discussions on the abortion debate, with a balance of pro and anti postings.

The library also sought help from the public to identify priority sites that should be preserved.

From 158 suggestions 108 are now being archived.

Last November, the National Library contacted county librarians in a bid to nominate local pages of interest that should also be protected. It received responses from 62% of county librarians.

“Interesting local websites were nominated, ranging from local history sites, local online publications, events, festivals, genealogy sites, or websites that were thought to be in danger of disappearing and worth archiving. Thirty-four websites were captured,” it said.

Because of a quirk in the status of Trinity College Dublin it is a legal deposit library for British and Irish publications. This means it will be archiving sites from the UK domains but not from the .ie sources.