We're in danger of losing our memories

We have to make sure digital doesn't mean ephemeral, says the head of the
British Library

 
Lynne Brindley
The Observer, Sunday 25 January 2009
 
Too many of us suffer from a condition that is going to leave our grandchildren
bereft. I call it personal digital disorder. Think of those thousands of digital
photographs that lie hidden on our computers. Few store them, so those who come
after us will not be able to look at them. It's tragic.

As chief executive of the British Library, it's my job to ensure that this does
not extend to our national memory. At the exact moment Barack Obama was
inaugurated, all traces of President Bush vanished from the White House website,
replaced by images of and speeches by his successor. Attached to the website had
been a booklet entitled 100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush
Administration - they may never know them now. When the website changed, the
link was broken and the booklet became unavailable.

The 2000 Sydney Olympics was the first truly online games with more 150
websites, but these sites disappeared overnight at the end of the games and the
only record is held by the National Library of Australia.

These are just two examples of a huge challenge that faces digital Britain.
There are approximately 8 million .uk domain websites and that number grows at a
rate of 15-20% annually. The scale is enormous and the value of these websites
for future research and innovation is vast, but online content is notoriously
ephemeral.

If websites continue to disappear in the same way as those on President Bush and
the Sydney Olympics - perhaps exacerbated by the current economic climate that
is killing companies - the memory of the nation disappears too. Historians and
citizens of the future will find a black hole in the knowledge base of the 21st
century.

People often assume that commercial organisations such as Google are collecting
and archiving this kind of material - they are not. The task of capturing our
online intellectual heritage and preserving it for the long term falls, quite
rightly, to the same libraries and archives that have over centuries
systematically collected books, periodicals, newspapers and recordings and which
remain available in perpetuity, thanks to these institutions.

The British Library is undertaking a collecting and archiving project for the
London 2012 Games. With appropriate regulation, we aim to create a comprehensive
archive of material from the UK web domain.

I am fortunate to spend my working day in one of the world's greatest libraries,
a unique storehouse of 150 million items from ancient oracle bones to daily
papers.

Our treasures range from Magna Carta to the lyrics of the Beatles. Digital
Britain must include digitising this goldmine of content. Access to a digitised
British Library ought to be the right of every citizen, every household, every
child, every school and public library, universities and business.

We've made a start. Among the jewels of the collection are our 17th and 18th
century newspapers. This magnificent archive provides a vivid insight into two
centuries of British history, including the reporting of the French Revolution,
the South Sea Bubble and the inauguration of George Washington.

Because of their fragility, access to such newspapers is severely restricted,
but earlier this month, a digitised and fully searchable version of the
collection became available, for free, to UK higher and further education
institutions.

Tomorrow, Lord Carter will offer his interim report into digital Britain and I
will welcome a strong vision because of the fundamental importance for the UK's
cultural, creative and economic future in the global digital environment of the
21st century. This vision of a digital Britain must include the critical public
service of preserving digital Britain's collective memory and digitising the
unrivalled content within the British Library.

Anyone who watches television, films or reads novels can see how the UK is now
reaping the benefit of systematic public investment in its rich heritage. David
Starkey couldn't have made his forthcoming TV series on Henry VIII without the
British Library's collections. Anthony Horowitz used the library for research
when writing the popular television series Foyle's War and actor Alun Armstrong
researched for the part of Albert Einstein by listening to the only sound
recording of him at the British Library. Creativity does not simply emerge from
nowhere.

We are in danger of creating a black hole for future historians and writers. In
the British Library, the UK has an institution capable of leadership and a track
record of delivery to ensure that our digital future can be a rich goldmine and
not a void. For my part, I commit to championing this effort to the very best of
my ability.





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