Web Publishing Guide

Preserving Publications

There are several ways in which you can contribute to the preservation of publications.

PANDORA Project

PANDORA, Australia's Web Archive, is a growing collection of Australian online publications, established initially by the National Library of Australia in 1996, and now built in collaboration with nine other Australian libraries and cultural collecting organisations.

Through PANDORA, the National Library is archiving online publications with the permission of their publishers. PANDORA complements the Legal Deposit Scheme and can be advised of publications available for archiving via the Pandora notification form.

Digitisation

Creating and providing access to digital copies of published material gives an agency's clients and customers the potential to pursue educational, cultural appreciation and commercial opportunities wherever they live or work and is another way of preserving agency's publications.

Tell Me About?

Not only have cultural agencies such as libraries, archives and museums used new technologies to digitise their collections in order to provide their clients with access to these collections wherever they live or work, but other agencies also have digitised records and other materials to facilitate streamlined online processes.

Why Provide Digitisation of Records?

Digitisation enhances the potential for synergies with other digital collections through shared descriptive information in consolidated or federated online databases.

For audiovisual materials, digitisation minimises the generational loss inherent in older analogue and compressed digital audiovisual formats, and it reduces the costs of migration required to manage rapid changes in formats.

Note that this information focuses on the digitisation of print and other materials. It does not directly cover issues associated with imaging, which involves the creation of an image of the item. While there are numerous differences in the processes, a key difference is that digitisation means that all the information within the item is available in electronic form and can be searched. Imaging provides a copy of the original, but elements within the item cannot be searched unless the copy is further processed by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.

Why Must I?

Preserving online publications is not mandatory but is recommended as best practice.

Legal deposit obliges publishers to deposit copies of their print publications in libraries in the country in which they are published. The legal deposit provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 do not cover electronic publications.

How Do I?

• PANDORA, Australia's Web Archive (National Library of Australia)
• Digitisation of Records (AGIMO, Better Practice Checklist)

Who Can Help?

For Pandora:

For digitisation:

What's Related?

• Archiving
• Retaining Access to Outdated Content