Digital libraries: Philippine digital cultural heritage archive launched

Filipino netizens may soon be welcomed into the virtual doors of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). Established in 1969 with the mission to promote and preserve Philippine culture and heritage, the CCP is set to undertake an historic digitization of its audio-visual collections, in partnership with EMC Corporation, a leading information infrastructure solutions provider.

The electronic archival project involves the digitization, migration, storage and security, management – and eventual online public access – of the CCP Library’s vast holdings. This includes approximately 40,000 hours of audio, 30,000 hours of tapes from its film archive, 6,500 photographs, 28,000 photo slides, and at least 56,000 literary manuscripts. Approximately 600 hours of performances are recorded at the CCP annually. Steps towards digitization began as early as 2007, but with a current staffing complement of ten full-time staff, it will take an estimated ten years to fully digitize and migrate the library’s existing holdings. However the center’s staff hopes that latest technologies would play an important role in the preservation and accessibility of its collections. EMC has already provided the hardware, software, and technical support that the project entails.