The future of Trove, the National Library of
Australia’s public digital archives, is in doubt with just six
months funding left. The library’s director general has revealed that
it is facing “very, very big decisions” in the next few months.
The
last tranche of funding for Trove, which receives about $5m annually from the Federal Government and has more than 20m hits each year, is set to run out in July. While there
remains a possibility that Trove will be thrown a last-minute lifeline
in the May budget, that will come just weeks before it could be forced
to cease operations.
According to the National Library’s modelling,
Trove will need about $32m over the next four years to upgrade its digital archival system, which is aging. Introducing a paywall for users is not
an option, the National Library’s director general, Marie-Louise Ayres said.
“From the very
beginnings of the National Library’s work in the digital space, and
we’ve been in this space now for well over 20 years, we have had one
great driver – democratising access to our collections and the
collections of other cultural institutions and making sure that they’re
available to all Australians regardless of where they live, who they
are, and their ability to pay,” she said.
“Free
access to information is fundamental to libraries, and it is to us. So
from our perspective, egalitarian access is what drives us and we have
no interest at all in moving to an alternate model.”
Losing free, open access to the many resources Trove has to offer will be an enormous loss to students, historians, genealogists, and the many other people who regularly access the site. Like many others, I will be eagerly awaiting news on the future of this wonderful resource.