Digital Knowledge For All, But What About For Ever?

A report published by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) throws out a challenge about the future access to digital museum, library and archive collections. MLA and DPC are working with a range of national partners to ensure that the knowledge held in those institutions can be accessed wherever and whenever it is needed... The results show that there is a significant commitment to digitisation, with over 80 digitisation projects currently in place. However, the survey highlighted a major concern that 90 per cent of the projects were externally funded and therefore took no account of the need to provide the long-term, sustainable support needed to preserve and protect public access to the digital collections.