Steve Knight, Associate Director National Digital Library, National Library of New Zealand
In New Zealand, the issue of preserving the nation’s digital cultural heritage, past, present and future is addressed by legislation and central government policy. The National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) Act 2003 requires the National Library to collect, preserve, protect and make accessible digital collections, along with traditional paper collections, in ways that ensure current and future access to New Zealand’s documentary heritage.
At implementation level and in line with its own New Generation National Library strategy, the National Library of New Zealand is ensuring it has the infrastructure, technology and organisational structure and work processes to preserve and provide access to the digital heritage collections it is responsible for.
The National Digital Heritage Archive (NDHA) Programme was established in July 2004. Due to be completed in 2009, the NDHA is being developed and implemented in partnership with Ex Libris Group and Sun Microsystems as a commercial solution to the issue of digital preservation.
The first release of the software has been deployed and has been undergoing a rigorous testing process prior to going live as a full, production system in October.
Concurrent to software development and hardware procurement, organisational readiness to integrate the new system is being strengthened. This includes business change and integration workstreams preparing the organisation for implementation.
The NDHA Programme is also developing tools to integrate the NDHA system with the National Library’s collection management systems and access products. Early outputs include Indigo, an internal submission application.
An NDHA business unit has been established to research and manage digital preservation including the operational activities related to the handling of digital material collected through legal deposit and unpublished donations.
This presentation will outline the National Library’s work on digital preservation, how the NDHA fits into that work, what is expected to be delivered through the NDHA, and how the organisation is preparing to integrate the new systems.
Presentation (PDF)