Seanad debates
Monday, 22 January 2024
Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters
National Library
12:00 pm
Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
I thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting this Commencement matter, which I also raised as a Commencement matter in 2021. I have heard of no progress to date, so I hope that today the Minister of State will have an update for me.
The National Library of Ireland is a depository where publications are sent to record the history of the State, but they do not have the same legal responsibility when it comes to digital content and websites. Today, I want to quote the former director of the National Library of Ireland, Sandra Collins, who was before the Oireachtas committee on culture back in 2021. The basis of my contribution today will be this quote. I am blue in the face from raising this issue, so I think her words will be more powerful as a former director of the National Library of Ireland. This quote is on the Oireachtas record, but I will again put it on the record of this House.This is from Sandra Collins, who is a former director of the National Library of Ireland.
In 2019, we did a full domain .ie crawl. Approximately 230,000 Irish websites end with .ie. With our technology partner, we captured a snapshot in time of every one of those websites. It is a resource that researchers and historians in the future will take as a record of what the country was saying during 2019. The act of collecting those websites put us [the National Library of Ireland] in breach of copyright legislation. We have that resource securely locked away, but we cannot provide access to it for researchers, historians and people in Ireland who are interested in it.
Each year that we do not do that, 50% of Irish websites vanish forever or are changed so that they are unrecognisable from what they are now. The records of referendums and general elections are all gone. In 2022, it will have been three years since we collected .ie domain data. In consultation with our board, we will not be able to take the risk of collecting it because of the risk and responsibility that puts on the library in terms of having breached copyright legislation. It would be useful for the report to go to the Cabinet for consideration and that the report recommend a legislative amendment to copyright legislation, which is the responsibility of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. [Obviously, the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has a particular responsibility here also]. That, in time, would allow us to capture those websites and our contemporary history before it is gone forever.
We are losing websites at an alarming rate. I had an amendment to the Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019 passed on one Stage, but it was taken out on a later Stage. As it stands, though, we are losing websites at an alarming rate. These represent our national memory, and the longer the Department fails to introduce an amendment to the 2019 Act, the more websites and the more of our memory we will lose for future generations. I hope the Minister of State has an update for me today in terms of a legislative amendment coming down the tracks.
Pippa Hackett (Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
I thank Senator Warfield for raising this Commencement matter. I am here on behalf of the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Martin. I will provide an overview on the establishment of a digital legal deposit for Irish web archiving and an associated timeline.
Legal deposit legislation is an important instrument in national cultural policy. It is relied upon in many countries to ensure the published output of a nation is collected and preserved by one or more prescribed institutions. This is intended to ensure, as the Senator outlined, that citizens and researchers, in the country and abroad, are guaranteed permanent access to the intellectual and cultural memory of the nation.
Today, a significant proportion of Irish publications are exclusively on the World Wide Web as digital content grows at an unprecedented rate. The nation's published and creative output is increasingly digital and online. Furthermore, web pages and digital publications are transient, often changing or moving. Without measures to collect and preserve online material, there is a risk that important documentary heritage will be lost and Government publications, online newspapers and websites documenting all aspects of life in the 21st century will be unavailable to future researchers. Without a comprehensive digital legal deposit framework, we risk compromising access to the total published output of the nation. This will, as the Senator outlined, impact the ability of the National Library of Ireland to continue to collect, preserve and make available this material for future generations.
To address this situation, many countries have amended their existing legal deposit legislation to incorporate the deposit of published digital output such as ebooks, web publications and other digital media. This is digital legal deposit and exists to some extent across the majority of EU member states. Section 29 of the Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019 introduced a provision for copyright libraries to request a publisher to deposit a copy of the digital publication first published in the State. This introduced digital legal deposit in Ireland. However, capturing the web, more specifically the .ie domain content, is a complex process that requires significant consideration. Section 108 of the 2019 Act provided that the Government would bring forward a report on the feasibility of establishing a digital legal deposit scheme to serve as a web archive for the .ie domain contents and advise on steps taken towards that goal.
Web archiving is the process of capturing portions of the web and preserving it in an archival format to ensure there is availability in future, with archived sites preserved long after the originals have disappeared. Since 2011, the National Library of Ireland has selectively archived the web, preserving online publications accessible via the Internet and which are substantially or primarily related to Ireland, its citizens and the Irish language, consistent with the National Library of Ireland's collecting mandate under the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997.However, as it moves towards the creation of an archive of Irish websites, there are a number of practical and administrative limitations to the process, most significantly that it does not provide for a complete record of Irish content websites.
The National Library of Ireland has the statutory mandate under the national cultural institutions legislation to collect for the benefit of the public. It can also meet the resource requirements to gather and preserve the information. However, legislative amendments are required to provide the National Library of Ireland with the authority to conduct a full domain web crawl of the .ie domain and websites of Irish interest on a periodic basis. To capture a complete record of Irish websites, this domain crawl would include the collection of content behind paywalls. In common with its other resources, the National Library of Ireland intends to make the content available on its premises. Content that originated behind a paywall and is available on the National Library’s premises would be the subject to a timeframe along with a negotiation and agreement with relevant publishers.
I will leave it at that.
Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
The Minister of State said that section 108 of the 2019 Act provided that the Government would bring forward a report on the feasibility of establishing a digital legal deposit scheme. Does she know if that report was brought forward and, if not, could she ask the Minister? Would she be able to find that out for me if I cannot find it out myself?
I note that section 29 of the copyright Act introduced a provision for copyright libraries to request a publisher to deposit a copy of a digital publication first published in the State. The Minister of State mentioned that it is capturing the domains of what we are talking about but that is not a digital deposit scheme. She also said we need a legislative amendment. I am prepared to table a legislative amendment if the Minister does not table one. Over many years, I have heard there are practical and administrative difficulties but we do not seem to have moved anywhere on this.
Pippa Hackett (Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has been working closely with the National Library on establishing the deposit scheme to serve as a web archive for the .ie domain. This process requires consultation with all the relevant stakeholders and consideration of aspects of intellectual property and data protection. A draft report on the feasibility of establishing a digital legal deposit scheme to serve as web archive for the .ie domain contents has been prepared and the proposed legislative amendments to provide a comprehensive digital legal deposit are now under consideration.
I understand it is hoped a report will be brought forward in the coming months. That is the detail I have but I will follow up on that with the Minister, Deputy Martin, on the Senator’s behalf.