Our initial reason for embarking on this project was for reasons of conservation, rather than a desire to make the older text electronically available. Many volumes, especially from about 1850 to 1950, are on acidic paper which is deteriorating, but the volumes are still in regular use. Even careful use can result in torn pages and photocopying can be very damaging. Traditional conservation is very expensive (L600 or more a 500 page volume, or about 5,400 French Francs or 1,600 DM) and adds to the bulk of the volumes. We have looked at various solutions:
- scanning the volumes to produce a facsimile, printed on archival paper. This would probably mean destroying a set by disbinding it, but we have a spare set;
- scanning the volumes, but producing only an electronic version;
- spray deacidification or some other form of mass deacidification process. Such a process is being used by the Library of Congress but it is only suitable for volumes where the paper is in a reasonable condition, which is not the case in many instances;
- digitising from the microfilm. A microfilm edition of Hansard was produced some years ago.
We have still to decide on whether we wish to have a solely image based system, a solely text system, or a text plus image system like JSTOR (a project for electronic conversion of back files of journals: see their web page at http://www.jstor.org). Also relevant is the Internet Library of Early Journals project, which is a joint project by several British Universities to digitise some 18th and 19th century periodicals (http://www.bodley.ac.uk/ilej/). Nor have we taken decisions about the means by which the database would be searched.
We have had discussions with an expert from the British Library, which has done a lot of work in this area. (See Towards the Digital Library: the British Library's Initiatives for Access Programme edited by Leona Carpenter, Simon Shaw and Andrew Prescott, British Library 1998. ISBN 0 7123 4549 X. and see the British Library web site at http://portico.bl.uk and follow the links to 'digital library'. The most promising route seems to be to produce a digital version from the microfilm version of the text that was produced some years ago. We hope that some trial rolls will be done shortly. If this is successful we would set up a project board to take the work forward, with the aim of having money in our budget for the 2000/01 financial year, (the year beginning 1st April 2000) but we would aim to do a pilot project in 1999/2000. The project is a joint one between the House of Commons and house of Lords Libraries (the two Houses are separate organisationally and have separate Libraries. Costs are very uncertain at the moment, but they seem likely to be in the order of L200,000 or more.
Our interest in digitisation was initially from the point of view of dealing with a conservation problem. We now realise the potential benefits of having a searchable digital archive of the Official Report of the British Parliament. No decisions have been taken on the extent of availability of the material and whether it would be available outside parliament. We are considering whether to explore the possibilities of a link with a commercial partner, but the feeling within Parliament is likely to be opposed to any arrangement which would lead to the public being charged for access to the material.
This project is at the moment at a very early stage. The speed and nature of future progress is uncertain, but some action will need to be taken or our older Hansards will become unusable.
For further information please contact Keith Cuninghame, Director of Resources, house of Commons Library. Telephone +44 171 219 5781. Email: cuninghamekg@parliament.uk