LC's Billington Urges Congress to Restore Support for Digital Initiatives
-- Library Journal, 03/22/2007
In testimony Tuesday before the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Librarian of Congress James H. Billington described efforts by the Library of Congress (LC) to maintain access to vital "born-digital" material and web-based information, and urged Congress to restore support for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), the subject of a $47 million cut in the past fiscal year. LC had until then remained quiet about the cut—$47 million of a $100 million program announced in 2000—which was proposed in January and approved in mid-February to help resolve federal budget gaps. "Prior to the rescission, we were on the verge of making our next set of investments for the work of our current partners, as well as reaching out to new communities, Billington said. "At risk is not only the work of partners across the nation but essential infrastructure and content for the Library's mission to serve Congress." Indeed, he calculated the loss at $84 million—not just the $47 million in direct funding plus $37 million in already committed matching funds.
"We urgently hope that Congress will find a means, working with the Library, to provide funding to allow NDIIPP to complete its essential work on behalf of the nation," he said. LC had planned to expand the NDIIPP network to include demonstration projects for preservation of important state government records, with commitments to 35 states to preserve state-based digital geospatial, legislative, and agency records. Before the funds were taken away, he said, LC was finalizing a new NDIIPP project, Preserving Creative America, an effort to work with private industry to archive creative content such as "digital film, music, photography, other forms of pictorial art and even video games."
Billington also reported that LC is progressing in its initiative to build a World Digital Library (WDL). Google has provided a $3 million grant to start the project, which aims to collect and digitize "significant primary materials… that document the achievements of many different cultures," including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, sound recordings, films, photographs, and drawings. He acknowledged that searchers "can indeed find a flood of information on Google," but affirmed the role of a library. "Our goal is to integrate the best available electronic information into the knowledge, judgment and wisdom contained in books and in the minds of our curators so that Congress and the American people continue getting the same authentic, reliable information and knowledge that have been the hallmark of the Library since its inception in 1800."
