“We still do not know how long we can maintain and store digitally preserved library materials,”

says Deanna Marcum, Ph.D., associate librarian for library services, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. at the recently-held talk at American Center, New Delhi. The Library of Congress, Washington DC, is actively working towards making it a traditional and digital library, which seems to be the need of the future. So, what are the challenges and how are they overcoming these? Excerpts.
Pix courtesy: Gaurav Sharma, American Centre

Pix courtesy: Gaurav Sharma, American Centre

The Library of Congress is the oldest federal cultural institution in US and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library’s mission is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. A talk on ‘The Library of Congress Looks to a Digital Future” was scheduled in February 2010 at the American Centre, New Delhi, which was attended by over hundred people.

As per Deanna Marcum, Ph.D., associate librarian for library services, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., the Library is actively working towards audio-visual conservation. “The digitization process is on and 1000s of videotapes are being converted into the digital format. We have developed an automatic process for it, which is much speedier, but we have many video and audio tapes still to be converted,” she told.

The Library of Congress also redesigned its preservation research and testing lab and conservation lab in 2009, with an investment of $2 million on equipments and a team of seven new scientists. “We also have a fellowship programme wherein we take ten scientists a year to work on preservation research. We have hyperspectral imaging capacities which help us in deciphering the text on age-old documents which have deteriorated over the years,” she told.

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with nearly 143 million items on approximately 650 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 22 million books and other print materials, 6 million recordings, 15 million photographs, 6 million maps, 6 million pieces of sheet music and 62 million manuscripts. But, since the items are increasing every single day, they are planning an off-site storage facility for collections. “For this, we have rented space from US military, where there is a tall building with storage modules at Ft. Meade. Modules 1 and 2 are already functional and house 3 million items. We plan to move 30 million items to modules 3 and 4 over the next three years. And in our future plans we would like to have as many as 13 such modules for safely and securely managing the collection,” she added.

Telling more about the digital library, Deanna told that they are continuously building their collection by web harvesting and e-journals. The library has already done digital deposits for digital newspapers and the second on the league is e-journals, for which they have identified 600 titles of electronic journals to begin with. “We want to expand our legacy to build same kind of digital library as we are known for in the pre-digital era. But, we still do not know that how long we can continue to keep the digitally preserved materials. Besides, the websites are growing exponentially and we have to really work very hard to preserve the information on net,” she said as a matter of concern. She mentioned about National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIP) which works with other institutions in US and will soon expand to work with international organizations. “The library originally funded with $100 million but due to financial difficulties, had to refund back $47 million. Nevertheless, the library is investing $6 million a year for the next few years,” she added.

Deanna also informed about a new project funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to identify and scan frequently used material in the Library’s general collection in the public domain (published before 1923). “We have digitized 65,000 titles and made them available free of cost with Amazon.com for general use. We are also providing our scanning services to federal agencies.”

Previously, the Library of Congress catered to people above 18 years of age, but now to encourage young readers, they reduced the age to 16 years. Besides, they have a separate Young Readers Centre where children can come with their families and read together. “We are also encouraging young readers through exhibits, tours and programs,” she added.

Fire is one hazard which all libraries should take precautions for and at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Virginia, they are well-equipped for that. “We have 124 nitrate film vaults in the library and in the case of fire, only one of the vaults will be destroyed, while the rest will remain intact. This is the safeguard against fire, which could destroy this rich heritage,” she told.

“Nevertheless, it is challenging to have a digital library along with the legacy collections of the Library of Congress, but it is really exciting to imagine the possibilities of the future digital library,” she concluded.

–Varsha Verma