direct access to the academic collection and reference works on the shelves while the national and manuscript collections are available for on-site consultation in a separate reading hall. From 1888 to 1979, the National Library published a list of new books acquired each year. In 1979, this was replaced by the Icelandic National Bibliography, containing an overview of Icelandic published books each year. In October 1991, the two libraries implemented a joint online public access catalog system, Gegnir, gradually replacing the card catalogs. Since 2001, this system has been implemented nationwide for all public libraries in Iceland and is managed by a consortium. As of 2008, Gegnir can also be consulted via the European Library. Since 1996 the library has engaged in several large digitisation projects providing open access to antique maps of Iceland (1998): Timarit.is – journals and newspapers (2002 in collaboration with the National Library of the Faroe Islands and the National Library of Greenland) –, Handrit.is – a catalog and digital library of manuscripts (in collaboration with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies and the Arnamagnæan Institute) –, and the online Icelandic National Bibliography (2008) among others. The library signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in September 2012. Administration and roles The roles of the National and University Library are defined with a special law dating from 2011 and related regulations. The library is defined as an independent higher education institution under the Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science and Culture which commissions the library board, consisting of seven members, and the National Librarian. Administratively the library is divided into five sections; conservation, services, communication, acquisitions and administration. The section heads form the library executive board, along with the National Librarian. The library has the duty to collect and catalog all published Icelandic print, electronic and audio material for preservation and continued access. It is to manage its extensive manuscript collection and ensure the continued conservation of all the materials it collects. The library collects materials partly through receiving the legal deposit from publishers and partly through acquisitions and gifts. The legal deposit is defined in a special law dating from 2001 where the collection of electronic material published on the World Wide Web is defined as being one of the tasks of the library. Currently, the library collects snapshots of all web pages within the Icelandic top-level domain