Digital preservation (Long-term archiving)

Traditionally, the main tasks of a library have been to collect, store, organise and provide access to books and other materials. The digital revolution has expanded these responsibilities to include the challenge of preserving and maintaining digital information over the long term.

The ZB MED offers a variety of digital materials – and ensuring their preservation is one of its key goals. They include:

• Licensed full texts (journal/book contents)
• Data from the national licensing scheme
• Open access publications
• Electronic grey literature
• Electronic theses
• Audiovisual files
• Retrodigitised materials
• Research data

In collaboration with its Goportis partners TIB and ZBW, the ZB MED has been running a digital preservation pilot project since April 2010. The aim is to investigate the institutional, organisational and technical requirements for preserving long-term digital archives on a permanent basis.

As part of the Goportis cooperation scheme, the ZB MED is actively involved in competence networks on both national and international levels, such as nestor and the  Open Planets Foundation.