The Ministry of Culture’s Libraries Adviser Ülle Talihärm explained that whereas with the Legal Deposit Act currently in force traditional publications such as printed publications, audiovisuals and electronic publications were collected, then in the future digitally created publications will become as important.
“The collecting of digital publications will help create a complete digital collection of the Estonian cultural heritage. As the most important change the act will initiate the collection of the source material of printed publications and film to avoid the separate digitisation of printed publications and films in the future,” Talihärm confirmed.
Additional proposals to the developed version of the draft are expected from experts as well as interest groups during the official coordination in September.
Ülle Talihärm added that the opportunities to use digital information will improve for the entire Estonian population. “The good news for the readers is that the computer terminal set up in five large libraries creates the opportunity to examine the majority of the storage copies of new publications without the intermediation of an attendant,” Talihärm added.
The Storage Copy Act also affects all participants related to the publication and making available of literature, such as authors, publishers, printers, producers of audiovisuals and libraries receiving legal deposits. “Publishers will surely be pleased that the number of mandatory storage copies will reduce from eight to four. All publications must be submitted to the National Library of Estonia, who will forward them to the maintainers, which are the National Library of Estonia itself, the Estonian Literary Museum’s Archives Library, the Academic Library of Tallinn University and the University of Tartu Library. The collecting of the source material of Estonian films into the National Archives will also become more systematic,” said Talihärm.
The digital storage copies collected into the digital archive DIGAR of the National Library of Estonia enable to improve the availability of publications to partially sighted persons in the near future and to also develop services to readers of national libraries or those interested living outside Estonia in cooperation with publishers. The storing of the digital source material prepared for the creation of the publication and a chance to reuse it is however ensured for the publishers. Therefore, with the new collection principles the state is contributing towards storing digitally created publications that are important for the Estonian culture even more, so that their use would be long-term and would correspond to the expectations of the users of conservation collections now as well as in the future.
The Storage Copy Act is planned to come into force from 1 September 2016.