Behind the scenes: The British Library and digitisation

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 1 May 2007 at 15:11

I was recently privileged to be guided around the British Library, to look a little deeper behind the scenes at the digitisation being undertaken. It's a UK legal deposit library, one of only four such organisations to store all British publications (the others are the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Library and Cambridge University Library).

It has also pushed to take copies of all publications 'born digital' - in 2003 the Library lobbied Parliament for legal deposit to be extended to electronic materials, including websites. Of course it also stores a vast range of other cultural artifacts.

Unlike Google and its Library Project, which has the ambitious (some would say vainglorious) goal of creating 'a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages', the British Library is somewhat more pragmatic in its ambitions.

To digitise all of its vast archives 'would be like trying to eat an elephant,' commented Aly Conteh, Digitisation Programme Manager at the Library. This is why the library has concentrated on iconic works, such as can be found in its Turning Pages application.

Taking advantage of the 3D graphics capabilities of Windows Vista, the book application contains exact scans of historical books and documents, such as the Magna Carta. It represents what electronic editions of old manuscripts can achieve. As well as virtually turning pages of a book, the user can zoom in on sections and explore ancillary information, including audio commentary. In other words, technology is supporting the 'material culture' of the book - there is more to an artifact than just a straight reproduction of text.

Developments on its next major publication - the Codex Sinaiticus, which is the oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament - are 'still in the pipeline', I was told. The disparate physical document will be 're-unified' in this digital version.

But it isn't just manuscripts from ancient times that get digitised. Neil Fitzgerald, British Library Microsoft Digitisation Manager, pointed out that the British Library, on a daily basis, serves the ad-hoc digitisation requests of the wider public. For example, to pay to scan particular pages in a book or magazine, with prices varying on the resolution of the image involved.

Another aspect of the British Library's work on digitisation is the range of specific research projects it undertakes. At any given time there may be 10 to 15 projects underway, in various states of completion and with various forms of sponsorship.

I was shown around the Mellon Foundation-sponsored International Dunhuang Project. This is digitising ancient Chinese scrolls that detail the commerce, and culture, of the ancient East-West trade route, the Silk Road.

Looking ahead, the work of the British Library can only increase in this important area. As more of our daily lives involve electronic - digital - means of communication, the responsibilities of cultural curators can only grow.