ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the immediate establishment of a decentrally-organized library of digital research collections. To support the development of such a distributed research library in Germany, the author recommends the institution of a special funding program with the federal and state governments' participation through the Bund-Lander-Kommission. Because of the potential to integrate digital library collections into the working environment, thereby expanding resources and accelerating access, we can expect to see an increased willingness to digitize older collections. An essential precondition for the ability of the digital deposit library to fulfill its responsibility is the long-term preservation of acquired digital publications. Long-term preservation will succeed only if reliable technology can be harnessed in service of a thoroughly consistent archiving concept based upon the reformatting and conversion of publication forms available for sale and use. In preparing the national bibliography the digital deposit library should not restrict itself to its own collection.
