Deposit Collections of Digital Publications: A Pragmatic Strategy for an Analysis

Abstract

This chapter presents an analysis and a recommended strategy to address the problem of the management of digital publications in deposit institutions. The perspective here assumed is of the national libraries, but part of the problem can be shared with archives and other similar institutions. In this chapter we will try to demonstrate that the problem raises new technical and formal issues to these institutions, with impact in multiple and not always clear dimensions, thus requiring a deep knowledge of the new emerging objects and also new and adjustable postures for management. To deal with the problem, we propose an approach based in a strategy taking in account three components: analysis of the structure of the problem, the concept of publication genre and the concept of scenarios. The work presented in this chapter is based on the results of the first phase of the project NEDLIB - Networked European Deposit Library, an international project promoted by a European consortium.