Report: LC Needs to Develop a
Digital Strategy to Stay Vital
The Library of Congress must act quickly to “address strategy, management, funding, and staffing issues that threaten to render the institution second-rate among today’s digital libraries,” according to a report issued July 26 by the National Academies’ National Research Council. To continue as a meaningful depository for the nation’s political, intellectual, and cultural heritage, LC must develop the capability to collect and preserve e-books, Web sites, and other forms of electronic information.
However, the authors of LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress expressed concern that the library administration had not “internalized and expressed a strategic vision or found the tools with which to implement any such vision well enough or fast enough.”
The report made numerous specific recommendations, including working with the Copyright Office to ensure deposit of digital-only works, forming a planning group to coordinate digital preservation, working more closely with outside organizations to become less insular, and providing more training and networking opportunities for its staff.
The 200+-page report, drafted by a committee of librarians, academics, computer scientists, and management consultants, is the result of LC’s 1998 request to the NRC to review the library’s information-technology planning.
Posted July 31, 2000.
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