I received an unusual but “excellent” request during the week. Needless to say I said yes.

The Western Australia State Library have written to ask if they could include this blog in PANDORA, the National Library of Australia’s archive of online publications.

PANDORA, Australia’s Web Archive, is a growing collection of Australian online publications, established initially by the National Library of Australia in 1996, and now built in collaboration with nine other Australian libraries and cultural collecting organisations.

The purpose of the PANDORA Archive is to collect and provide long-term access to selected online publications and web sites that are about Australia, are by an Australian author on a subject of social, political, cultural, religious, scientific or economic significance and relevance to Australia, or are by an Australian author of recognised authority and make a contribution to international knowledge.

Truth be told, I am a little chuffed by the request. I had never heard of PANDORA before this. But it is huge with all sorts of sites from archives of election websites to well …. interesting stuff. Last month it had over 23,000 titles, 73,983,487 files and over 3.26TB of storage. A fantastic resource.

For those with nothing to do I have copied the email I received (correspondent’s name and contact details omitted).

Request for permission to archive the Biting the Dust Blog into PANDORA

The State Library of Western Australia aims to build a comprehensive collection of Australian publications to ensure that Australians have access to their documentary heritage now and in the future. The Library has traditionally collected items in print, but it is also committed to preserving electronic publications of lasting cultural value.

PANDORA, Australia’s Web Archive, was set up by the Library in 1996 to enable the archiving and provision of long-term access to online Australian publications. Since then we have been identifying online publications and archiving those that we consider have national significance. Additional information about PANDORA can be found on the Library’s server at: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/index.html

We would like to include the Biting the Dust Blog, in the PANDORA Archive and I would be grateful if you would let me know whether you are willing to permit us to do so, that is, grant us a licence under the Copyright Act 1968, to copy your publication into the Archive and to provide public online access to it via the Internet. This means that you would grant the Library permission to retain your publication in the Archive and to provide public access to it in perpetuity. If you are not the person with authority to give permission, please advise us who is.

We would like to re-archive your publication periodically to record significant additions and changes.

If you are willing to grant us such a licence, please complete the short form at the end of this message and return it to me.

There are some benefits to you as a publisher in having your publication archived by the Library. If you grant us a copyright licence, the Library will take the necessary preservation action to keep your publication accessible as hardware and software changes over time. The Library will catalogue your publication and add the record to the National Bibliographic Database (a database of catalogue records shared by over 1,100 Australian libraries), as well as to our own online catalogue. This will increase awareness of your publication among researchers using libraries.

Yours sincerely,

Librarian ,E-Team
State Library of Western Australia
Perth Cultural Centre
Perth WA 6000

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Tagged as: archive, NLA, PANDORA, Western Australia State Library