Singapore National Library Board to archive digital publications, websites

Thursday, 8 November 2018 Books+Publishing

In Singapore, the National Library Board (NLB) has announced it will archive digital publications and websites ending with the .sg domain, reports the Straits Times.

Around 180,000 websites will be added to the NLB’s legal deposit collection of Singaporean works, which currently encompasses 1.3 million items, with websites to be archived at least once a year. Until recently, only physical publications such as books and magazines were included in the collection.

Earlier this year, the Singaporean Parliament passed amendments to the Library Board Act allowing the NLB to archive .sg websites without having to obtain written consent from site owners.

The announcement of the digital archive comes as the NLB launched the Our Published Heritage exhibition at the National Library this week, which showcases items from the legal deposit collection, including magazines and out-of-print cookbooks, textbooks and children’s books.

‘We’re now able to capture our digital heritage as more publications move online,’ said National Library director Wai Yin Pryke. ‘In this digital age, maybe more things will be published digitally as compared with hard copies.’

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