Bavaria preserves library resources with Ex Libris

The Bavarian Library Network (BVB) has chosen Ex Libris Rosetta to provide long-term preservation services to all the academic libraries in the state.

In 2009, the Bavarian State Library (BSB) formed a partnership with Ex Libris to digitise texts, images, and sound files, as well as to save digital objects from websites to research data, ensuring their accessibility in the future. The new decision extends the existing BSB Rosetta implementation to all university libraries in Bavaria.

According to Ex Libris, the challenge of digital preservation consists not only in dealing with different data formats and the limited shelf life and rapid changes in storage media, but also in enabling digital data and objects to remain usable in the long term: the content must be accessible, retrievable and properly interpreted. In addition, an electronic workflow of the entire process from entry to discovery of the data is necessary.

From early 2014, use of Rosetta will be expanded step by step to the libraries of the universities and applied science institutions in the Bavarian Library Network. This will enable them to increase their range of services relating to the long-term availability of digital data. The implementation of Rosetta is supported by a special fund from the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture, Science and Art.