Progress and Prospects for European Digital Libraries

Ron Daviesron@DELETETHISrondavies.be

Access, Oct. 12, 2006

The opinions expressed in this presentation are those of the author

and do not express the opinion of the European Commission

Progress and Prospects

• Current initiatives and future prospects– European Union – Member states

• Progress in infrastructure for interoperability and multilingual access– The European Library (TEL)– MACS / BS 8723

European Union• 25 Member States, 20 languages

• European Commission has supported enabling activities through research and Info Society programmes encouraging:– Interoperability, ensuring access across

borders and between different domains– Multilingual access, to ensure accessibility,

preserve cultural diversity

• Recent enhanced interest in digital libraries

EU chronology

• Dec. 2004 Google Print announcement• Apr. 2005 Letter from Pres. Chirac and five

leaders to Commission/Council• May 2005 Statement by Pres. Barroso• Communications from the Commission

– Sept. 2005 - i2010 Digital Libraries Initiative – Mar. 2006 - Step up efforts to create European

Digital Library– Aug. 2006 - Digitisation, online accessibility and

preservation

i2010 Digital Libraries Initiative• Vision to make European cultural

heritage easier to access and use in an online environment– All types of material (books, films and other

AV material, photos, archival documents)– Digitised and born digital materials– Different types of cultural institutions

(libraries, archives, museums)

• Make available by 2010 at least 6 million books, documents and other works

European Digital Library

• Online public consultation (225 replies): – Decentralized model with a visible portal– Interoperability based on standards– Harmonisation in copyright exceptions

• High level expert group to advise on key challenges (20 members)

• Digitisation responsibility of MS; EC to coordinate digitisation techniques, preservation, copyright, legal deposit

eContentPlus 2005-2008(Information Society)

• Create conditions for creation and access to digital content incl. cultural, educational and scientific content– Achieve interoperability through common

standards; facilitate access and use in a multilingual context

• 60 million € over 4 years (2005-08)

• In 2005, 19 projects supported out of 238 proposals

Research programme (IST component)

• Since 2000, 20 projects worth 54 m € have addressed dig lib issues, e.g. – PrestoSpace - standardised practices for

preservation and archiving of AV materials

– BRICKS - OS software for building and sharing distributed heritage collections

– Calimera - Knowledge sharing network for local cultural heritage institutions

• Likely increase in 2007-2013 (FP7)

Activities in Member States

• Digitisation in member states

• Different approaches in different countries– E.g. Microsoft - British Library agreement

to digitise 100,000 public domain books (25 million pages)

France - Initiatives

• Dec. 2004 - Google Print announcement

• Mar. 2005 - Statement by President Chirac

• July 2005 - Creation of steering committee (government and industry representation)

• Mar. 2006 - White paper setting forth French proposals and actions

France - White Paper

• Set out French activities in the near term– 80% of Gallica converted to text format– 300 - 400 K additional documents digitised– Develop mass digitisation procedures– Develop dissemination platform for

copyright and public domain works– Platform prototype currently in

development

Progress : Infrastructure for interoperability and multilingual access

The European Library (TEL)• Cross-searching of collections in

European national libraries (incl. digital collections)

• Development funded through EU and Council of European National Libraries (CENL)

• Based at the Dutch national library

• “Portal in the browser” -- low cost, low barrier technical solution

Gateway

SRU

Distr. dbs

OAI index

XSLT stylesheets

JavascriptSRU

Z39.50

Z39.50

XML

XML

Collectiondescriptions

TEL ‘model’ for the European Digital Library

• Very largely decentralised architecture

• Visible single portal

• Based on standards

• Project led to operational system– Over 11 million records including 500,000

digital documents– More than 25,000 users

TEL issues• “Portal in the browser” means results always

grouped by resource, no possibility to merge, rank

• Alternative models of federated search / central index of harvested data

• Resource selection problem (choosing a reasonable number of relevant resources)

• Multilingual interface via stylesheets, virtual keyboard but not multilingual subject access

EDLproject (TEL phase 3)

• Funded by eContentPlus (2005 call)

• Announced Sept. 2006

• Managed by German national library– Extend TEL to additional EU/EEA countries

(BE, GR, ES, IE, SE, LU, NO, IS, LI)– Extend multilingual capacity in interfaces

and advanced search mechanisms– Support future planning and cooperation

with other DL activities in EU

Multilingual Access to Subjects (MACS)

• Joint project of national libraries (BL, BnF, DDB, SNL -- CENL)

• Mapping between subject headings (SHL) in three different systems– Library of Congress Subject Headings (en)– Rameau (fr)– SWD (de)

• More than 30,000 headings mapped, 3,000 between all three SHLs

MACS principles

• No central editor

• SHLs are equal - no pivotal language

• Partners are responsible for validating links

• Link management interface / user interface

• Links are managed separately from partner databases but accessible for users via web

Issues in mapping SHLs• Use base headings in schedule,

enumerated headings in schedule or all enumerated headings formed by adding standard subdivisions, etc. ?

• Mapping from/to schedules (SHL in abstract for any number of applications) or from headings used in a particular catalogue (MACS approach)?

BS 8723 Structured Vocabularies for IR

• Revision of UK/ISO standards for thesauri, replaces existing mono- / multi-lingual thesaurus standards

• Includes guidance on mapping between different structured vocabularies including classifications, subject headings, taxonomies, ontologies as well as thesauri

• Will provide advice on exchange formats and protocols for interoperability

Key future events

• EC Communication on scientific and scholarly aspects of the European Digital Library (end of 2006)

• Announcements of funding for eContentPlus programme (second half 2006, early 2007)

• Publication of Parts 3-5 of BS 8723 (early 2007)

References

i2010 Digital Libraries Initiative

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/index_en.htm

French initiatives

Actualités -- Bibliothèque numérique européenne

http://www.bnf.fr/PAGES/dernmin/bnue.htm

Résumé du Livre blanc du Comité de pilotage http://www.bnf.fr/PAGES/dernmin/pdf/bnue.pdf

The European Library (TEL)

http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/index.html

Van Veen, T.; B. Oldroyd. “Search and Retrieval in The European Library” Dlib 10:2 (Feb. 2004) http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february04/vanveen/02vanveen.html MACS

Landry, Patrice. “Multilinguisme et langages documentaires: le projet MACS en contexte européen” Documentation et bibliothèques 52(2): 121-128.