Bodleian Library To Preserve Digital Material For The Future

By 24 Hour Museum Staff

19/08/2008

Preservation of digital personal papers is to be made easier after a £500,000 grant to the Bodleian Library, Oxford for their futureArch project.

The grant from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation will allow the library to develop its technical facilities and allow for effective conservation of the digital versions of papers created by politicians, writers, scientists and intellectuals.

As more and more information is recorded in ‘hybrid’ form not previously catered for by traditional archive practice, the Bodleian, like many institutions, is having to grapple with the problem of preserving these records.

Material now being archived includes audio-visual and digital formats such as email, word-processed files and digital images - alongside traditional paper manuscripts.

Keeper of special collections at the Bodleian, Richard Ovenden, said: “The launch of futureArch will enable us to bridge the analogue-digital divide.”

One of the biggest areas of the Bodleian’s work of collecting and archiving is in the realm of British politics in the 20th and 21st centuries. These collections represent a significant quantity of material that will benefit from the planned technical innovations.

The three-year futureArch project will see the implementation of new practices and methods of data storage that will serve the needs of researchers and curators now and in the future.