Libraries, archives, and cultural heritage institutions have always played a vital role in collecting, preserving, and sharing knowledge. While the formats we steward have evolved, our core mission has not. Yet in the digital environment, that mission is increasingly shaped—and sometimes constrained—by legal, technical, and policy frameworks that were not designed with libraries in mind.
A growing international campaign is working to change that.
At the heart of this movement are the 4 Rights for Digital Libraries:
the rights to collect, preserve, lend, and cooperate. These principles articulate what libraries must be able to do in the digital age in order to continue fulfilling their historically analog responsibilities—this time at digital scale.
To explore these ideas in depth, we invite you to join a session at Our Digital Past, Presence, and Future: Special Library Shop Talks, taking place on Friday, January 30, from 9:15–10:30.
Why the 4 Rights Matter
The 4 Rights for Digital Libraries offer a clear, values-based framework for navigating today’s digital challenges:
- Collect: Building and maintaining digital collections that reflect our communities and cultural record.
- Preserve: Ensuring long-term access to digital materials despite changing technologies and platforms.
- Lend: Enabling equitable digital access, including responsible forms of digital lending that mirror long-standing library practices.
- Cooperate: Supporting collaboration across institutions, borders, and sectors to strengthen shared memory infrastructure.
Together, these rights help library and archive professionals move beyond reactive compliance toward proactive stewardship. They open up new possibilities for advocacy, governance, and service design—while reaffirming that access, preservation, and equity remain core mandates in the digital age.
A Growing Global Commitment
Momentum around these principles continues to build. Internet Archive Canada recently joined the Our Future Memory project by signing its statement, affirming a global commitment to protecting digital rights for libraries, archives, and museums. This commitment signals a shared understanding: without clear digital rights, our ability to serve present and future generations is at risk.
Join the Discussion
This upcoming Shop Talk session will explore what it could mean for library organizations to assert these rights—individually and collectively. Participants will examine how the 4 Rights can guide the development of digital collections, safeguard long-term access, support digital lending, and strengthen collaboration across the cultural heritage sector.
Whether you work in a library, archive, museum, or related field, this session offers an opportunity to connect policy principles with everyday professional practice—and to envision a more equitable and sustainable digital future for memory institutions.
We hope you’ll join the conversation and help shape what digital stewardship looks like in the years ahead.
Additional information: https://www.internetarchive.eu/2025/07/04/protecting-the-past-to-power-the-future-internet-archive-europe-launches-the-our-future-memory-campaign/