The British Library has outlined how it will cope with a shift from print to digital publishing.

Lynne Brindley, the Library's chief executive, announced plans to develop the infrastructure to store, manage, preserve and provide access to digital material in the same way it has for the 'physical' national collection for the last 250 years.

'We have worked hard over the past few years to secure the legislation we need and we have worked in collaboration with publishers, other libraries and with technical partners to build the necessary systems to ensure long-term access arrangements,' Brindley said.

In 2003 the Library heavily backed a private member's bill in Parliament to extend its records facility to include electronic materials, such as web sites.

The Library, which manages a 160 million strong collection of books, manuscripts, patents and sound recordings, says it now collects and provides links to a variety of sources to ensure that global research is rapidly available to researchers.

Brindley also predicted that the publishing industry will soon be following the Library's lead, saying she expected the switch from print to digital to be mainly complete by 2020, with only 10 per cent of new material remaining as print only.

'Most people are aware that a national switch to digital broadcasting is expected by the end of this decade. Less well known is the fact that a similar trend is underway in the world of publishing,' she said.

The Library's collection of physical items includes information on everything from oraclebones to kilobytes.

Brindley was speaking at the launch of the Library's new three-year strategy.