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| TELplus workplan |
The work of TELplus is organised in eight workpackages (WPs).
WP1: OCRing previously digitised material
Leader: Austrian National Library
Many of the European National Libraries have digitised content that is not searchable in detail, as no descriptive metadata are used on lower levels of the document structure. The WP concentrates on already available images. Its goal is to use these images for creation of full texts via OCR. The produced full text will be used for detailed searching in
existing digital libraries; thus, a considerable added
value will enrich the existing data. All the OCR-processed collections
will be searchable via The European Library,
preferably through OAI-PMH protocol.
WP2: Improving the usability of The European Library through OAI PMH compliancy
Leader: Instituto Superior Técnico
To be able to improve the usability of The European Library and to offer new services,
the data that libraries currently hold in proprietary databases that are only searchable
via the z39.50 protocols, needs to be made available for harvesting via the OAI-PMH protocol.
Most of the 25 EU National Libraries in addition to Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania,
Switzerland, Norway and Iceland hold content that is only accessible via z39.50 or SRU.
This WP is implementing OAI-PMH access for a substantial number of collections from 10
of the project library partners, namely, National Library of Estonia,
National and University Library of Slovenia, National Library of Latvia, National Library of
Lithuania, National Library of Hungary, National Library of Portugal, French National Library,
National Library of Poland, Slovak National Library and National and
University Library of Iceland.
WP3: Improving accessibility
Leader: French National Library
The aim of this WP is to improve accessibility in two ways: by improving full
text indexing and investigating automatic vocabulary mappings.
Currently, existing search engines do not deal with full text in digitised libraries.
The activities of this WP are:
- compare existing search engines to the specific requirements needed for digitised
libraries
- develop a prototype based on an existing search engine which meets the
above mentioned requirements to be integrated into or linked to The European Library
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investigate how automated techniques can be applied to the
MACS multi-lingual case, namely the subject headings of Rameau, LCSH and SWD, in
order to help multi-lingual subject access in a The European Library-like framework.
The MACS project
gathered 4 national libraries (Swiss National Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France,
British Library and Die Deutsche Bibliothek) interested in improving multi-lingual search
processes for their collections. The project developed
manually an alignment between parts of three vocabularies used by these
libraries (LCSH, Rameau, SWD), which came in English, French and German.
Thanks to equivalence links between the headings of these vocabularies, the user can search
in a collection using his/her own language,
independently of the one the collection is described in.
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Carry out user tests to verify whether the developed tools correspond to what users want,
with a particular attention to multilingualism.
WP4: Integrating services with the European Library portal
Leader: National Library of the Netherlands –
The European Library Office
Main objectives of this WP are:
- to create a modular services infrastructure that enables users to integrate services with the European Library portal.
- to standardize service descriptions to enable their exchangeability and to facilitate shared use of services by digital libraries in general.
- to lower the barrier for the user to explore, extract and even create service descriptions to create a personalised digital library by means of a registry with service descriptions.
Services under consideration are:
- Service to allow users to relate digital objects, to add annotations or to add tags
- Services to search in thesauri.
- Services to resolve and visualize geographical queries.
- Semantic enrichment service (allows users to classify search results by adding terms from controlled vocabularies and thesauri).
- Service to highlight search terms in images of text documents
- Service to zoom in on images
- Semantic integration services to provide on-the-fly access via the The European Library portal to data sources that are themselves not accessible via SRU or OAI.
This WP will also provide translations of collection descriptions into 26 languages.
By mid 2008 The European Library will be providing access to about 280
collections. Currently most collection descriptions are in English.
Translation of the most important elements (i.e. Title + Description) of all
280 collection descriptions into all 26 languages will be a significant step towards true multilingual access in The European Library.
WP5: User personalisation services – log file analysis and use of annotations.
Leader: University of Padua
The work on user personalization is necessary to direct the designers of advanced information services giving insights and directions towards new services of interest for the users.
The work package findings serve to guide the design of software components for new added-value services of interest to the final users of digital libraries management systems.
Main goals of this work are the analysis and categorization of context to derive specifications for the design of innovative personalized services for the final users of a European Digital Library. Work will be undertaken in six areas:
- analysis of user requirements
- log analysis
- profile building
- personalized search
- personalized alerting/notification
- annotation sharing.
WP6: Extending membership of The European Library to the national libraries of Bulgaria, and Romania
Leader: National Library of the Netherlands – The European Library Office
In 2007 Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU. All other EU national libraries are members of The European Library or working towards it. It is therefore essential to include the newest member states using the methodology tested in TEL-ME-MOR and EDL project.
WP7: Dissemination
Leader: Eremo srl
Website and communications channel for the project. The European Library has its own dissemination team and uses the marketing channels of the national libraries to ensure wide coverage.
WP8: Management and Coordination provides the management, co-ordination and residual evaluation activities and the leadership and monitoring activities necessary in an extensive action of this kind.
Coordinated by the National Library of Estonia. Scientific management by Eremo srl. |
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