The Open Preservation Foundation (OPF) is pleased to welcome the National Library of Portugal (Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) as its latest affiliate member.

Founded in 1796, the National Library of Portugal (NLP) holds the largest historical and cultural bibliographic collection in the country with over 3.5 million items from a wide range of genres, both in print and manuscript.

NLP acts as the National Bibliography Agency responsible for legal deposit for the Portuguese National Bibliography, the National Union Online Catalogue – PORBASE, established in 1987, and for the National Digital Library, launched in 2001. Since 2001, the NLP has been developing its digitization programme and over 26,000 documents (2.5 million images) are currently available through the National Digital Library web site (http://bnd.bn.pt/).

We are very pleased that the National Library of Portugal has joined the OPF.” said Dr. Ross King, Chair of the OPF. “This demonstrates their commitment to the digital preservation community and we look forward to working with them to support their mission to preserve Portugal’s digital cultural and scientific heritage.”

Helena Patrício, Director of Special Collections Services at NLP commented “By joining the OPF we hope to benefit from up-to-date knowledge, expertise and tools that will enable the National Library to deal more efficiently with major digital preservation issues such as digital asset preservation, preservations costs and technological obsolescence management.”

The NLP joins OPF members from archives, libraries, research institutions, universities, and service providers collaborating on shared solutions for effective and efficient digital preservation.

To read more about the NLP visit: http://www.bnportugal.pt/

For more information about the benefits of becoming an OPF member and how to join visit: https://staging.openpreservation.org/about/join/.