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One more step towards the European digital library
International Conference

Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main
31 January - 1 February 2008

About the conference

Focus
The EDLproject Conference aimed to:
- highlight and discuss The European Library's role in building the European digital library
- discuss strategic, technical and semantic interoperability between cultural heritage domains

Themes
- Inter-sectoral work of cultural heritage institutions
- Interoperability - organisational, semantic technical - between libraries, museums and archives (including audio-visual archives)
- Users & usability
- Digitisation priorities & roadmap.

Background & context
• On 30 September 2005 the European Commission announced its strategy to promote and support the creation of a European digital library, as a strategic goal within the European Information Society i2010 Initiative, which aims to foster growth and jobs in the information society and media industries.

The European digital library:
- will build upon the infrastructure of The European Library
- will have the overall goal of making European information resources easier and more interesting to use in an on-line environment.
- By 2010 will encompass full collaboration among the European national libraries as well as archives and museums.

• Similarly to its predecessor TEL-ME-MOR, EDLproject is an important building block in the creation of the European digital library. Funded under the eContentplus programme, EDLproject is integrating the bibliographic catalogues and digital collections of the National Libraries of Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain and Sweden, into The European Library. The project also addresses the enhancement of multilingual capabilities of The European Library portal, takes first steps towards collaboration between The European Library and other non-library cultural initiatives, and expands the marketing and communication activities of The European Library service.

• The work of EDLproject is being complemented and expanded by TELplus and EDLnet, two more pieces of the puzzle towards the creation of the European digital library. EDLnet is a thematic network for cultural heritage domains, focusing on the interoperability of cultural content between different types of cultural institutions, namely libraries, museums and archives. TELplus will enhance the service of The European Library by improving and facilitating access and use of the materials held by the National Libraries in all Member States in a multilingual context, improving standards-based interoperability. Both projects started in July 2007.