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Nature 459, 775-776 (11 June 2009) | doi:10.1038/459775a; Published online 10 June 2009

Open Innovation Challenges

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The future of saving our past

Jeremy Leighton John1

  1. Jeremy Leighton John is curator of eMANUSCRIPTS at the British Library, and is principal investigator of the digital lives research project.
    Email: jeremy.john@bl.uk

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As letters and diaries give way to e-mails and laptops, fresh challenges and opportunities have emerged for archivists. Jeremy Leighton John explores the digital wilderness for the British Library.

In 2000, the tenaciously original evolutionary biologist and Royal Society professor Bill Hamilton died after an expedition to the rainforests of Africa, and within months his archive was delivered to the British Library in London. Unlike archives received in the past, this one did not consist only of boxes of papers — handwritten letters, typed draft essays and the like.