MabLab

MabLab is a three year National Library of Wales project, started in November 2012, which aims to establish a system to ingest, preserve and provide access to born digital archives and material received through voluntary deposit and donation.  Increasingly, organisations and individuals are looking to donate or deposit archival and other material in digital format, and the Library already has a substantial amount of legacy material in existing collections.  Unlike traditional paper archives, which have an almost infinite lifespan, born digital archives are at risk of being lost for ever because of hardware and software obsolescence and the dangers of bit rot and data loss.  Because of these risks, it is imperative that any accessible files in existing collections are transferred from their existing carriers (floppy discs, CDs, hard drives, etc.) and safeguarded and preserved at the earliest opportunity, and that any future deposits or donations of born digital material are similarly processed as soon as possible after coming to the Library.  It is hoped that MabLab will be able to provide solutions to this critical problem in the first year of the project, and that issues of making digital files available to users will be addressed over the remainder of the three year period.

Over the coming months, images extracted from original carriers in specific archival collections will be uploaded to the People's Collection Wales website.  The first images are from the archive of Brith Gof, the innovative experimental theatre company which was based in Wales from 1981-2002