Monday 9 March 2015

Gooseberry and the British Library

 
 
It’s March, and I’ve just had some exciting news. Gooseberry is to appear in a promotion by the British Library’s digital arm to persuade small digital publishers—such as my own Seventh Rainbow Publishing—just how easy it is to upload their titles using their portal.
 
Although digital publications have been around for quite some time, it often takes governments a while to recognize a new technology, to work out how it ought to be dealt with (a minefield of a question, which they could easily get wrong), and to find the necessary funding to implement their proposals.
 
In Britain in 2013, a law came into effect requiring digital publishers to fall in line with their traditional counterparts in offering a copy of any newly-published title to the British Library’s legal deposit. Thus the portal, the interface between digital publishers and the British Library, was born. I was proud to be included in the very first intake, and I am thrilled to be represented in the portal’s new promotion. I wish them the very best of luck.