The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIP)

The Library will work closely with federal partners to assess considerations for shared responsibilities. Federal legislation calls for the Library to work jointly with the Secretary of Commerce, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Archives and Records Administration. The legislation also directs the Library to seek the participation of "other federal, research and private libraries and institutions with expertise in the collection and maintenance of archives of digital materials," including the National Library of Medicine, the National Agricultural Library, the Research Libraries Group, the Online Computer Library Center and the Council on Library and Information Resources. The Library will also seek participation from the nonfederal sector. The overall strategy will be executed in cooperation with the library, creative, publishing, technology and copyright communities. In early 2001 the Library established a National Digital Strategy Advisory Board to help guide it through the planning process. This board is made up of experts from the technology, publishing, Internet, library and intellectual-property communities as well as government. The availability of electronic information is today taken for granted. With the rapid growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web, millions of people have grown accustomed to using these tools as resources to acquire information -- from a Ph.D. candidate conducting research for a dissertation to a teacher who might not be able to take a class on a field trip to see historical artifacts to a lifelong learner. Digital is rapidly becoming a principal medium to create, distribute and store content, from text to motion pictures to recorded sound. Increasingly, digital content embodies much of the nation's intellectual, social and cultural history. The Digital Preservation Program will seek to provide a national focus on important policy, standards and technical components necessary to preserve digital content. Investments in modeling and testing various options and technical solutions will take place over several years, resulting in recommendations to the U.S. Congress about the most viable and sustainable options for long-term preservation. The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program is a public service project of major importance to the nation as well as the world.