National Library of Scotland to digitize archive

The NLS, established in 1925, holds copies of every publication in the U.K., dating from the Middle Ages right up to the latest novels.

The rare book collections alone comprise 1 million books. Many of these are original printed volumes dating from 1455. The core of the collection is Scottish material.

David Dinham, the library’s information and communications technology manager, said storing the collections electronically will both protect them against disaster and improve the public’s access to rare and valuable documents. Until now, public access to some ancient documents in fragile condition has been restricted to preserve them.

Part of the project has been awarded to Glasshouse Technologies to provide consultancy in the design and implementation of a new storage infrastructure to make available the 100 terabytes needed to store the archive.