Plans to cut government funding by between five and seven per cent are threatening the British Library’s digitisation project.

The original proposal was to spend £2.3m this year and £3m next year on the Digital Objects Management (Dom) scheme, which includes the creation and upkeep of the IT architecture.

But according to briefing documents circulated in parliament, funding is no longer guaranteed.

A House of Commons motion put forward by Liberal Democrat Paul Holmes says the threatened cuts will ‘severely curtail the library’s strategy, resulting in the loss of UK digital output to future generations and creating gaps in the intellectual record of the nation’. So far the motion has 25 signatories.

Holmes says he hopes to pre-empt an attempt by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to free up cash to contribute to the soaring cost of staging the London Olympics.

Library chief executive Lynne Brindley said: ‘It is clear the cuts will have far-reaching and harmful implications for the British Library’s services and reputation.

‘If applied they will fundamentally weaken our stewardship legacy for future generations and destroy a truly world-class UK institution.’

The Dom programme is intended to preserve and manage digital assets and to overcome problems caused by the physical degradation of storage media.

So far the library has digitised about 20 million pages – just one per cent of its entire collection.