British Library to secure digital content

By Jessica Twentyman

THE BRITISH Library is adopting a new data security system that will enable it to safely store the content of its National Digital Library, which will contain everything from digitised versions of centuries-old manuscripts to digital journals and web archives. It is expected to amass up to 300 terabytes of content over the next five years.

The Library has chosen a document sealing engine from security specialist nCipher to timestamp and digitally sign every item stored in the Library to ensure that electronic documents and other materials are authentic and are not modified from the original.

The nCipher DSE200 system uses electronic signatures to ‘seal’ digital material. Unlike paper-based signatures, digital signatures provide an audit trail of both the document author and the document content. By including a secure timestamp, a time-based audit trail is also created further enhancing the ability to validate the authenticity of documents. In this way, the Library will be able to detect any tampering of the original document, even if it occurs many years after the original document was created.

“The Library wanted a secure storage solution that would ensure that no material is lost or altered. Throughout history, traditional library materials have decayed and have been destroyed or damaged. But while this will inevitably continue, we now have a new weapon enabling us to make sure that our electronic material remains unchanged and authentic,” says British Library spokesman Roderic Parker.

The British Library receives a copy of every printed publication produced in the UK and Ireland and purchases materials extensively from around the world, contributing to a collection of some 150 million items. It is already sourcing digitised materials from print and audio publishers, archiving part of the web and digitising some of its own collections of printed materials.