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"In Focus" is a collaborative section that provides edited coverage of national libraries and partners in the form of an interview.

The European Library office produces a bimonthly newsletter in English to which you can subscribe by filling in the right column form. This newsletter is intended to inform partners, professionals, and the general readership about recent events and information related to The European Library; it serves as both a source of news and a platform for an exchange of information for all partners.

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Aeroflot - Russian Airlines – celebrates its 85th anniversary. The Russian State Library, along with the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, the Aeroflot Museum, the New Gallery Arts Fund and the "Contact-Culture" publishing house presents a unique exhibition featuring the history of Aeroflot in more than 60 posters. The collection provides colourful anecdotes depicting Aeroflot’s commercial and promotional campaigns over the years.

Aeroflot has become one of the most popular and successful commercial airlines; it represents Russia’s entire historical air transportation industry. However, its definitive branding was only adopted in 1932 following a number of previous names: "Dobrolyot" (Добролёт), "Rosavaikhim" (Росавиахим) and "Aviakhim" (Авиахим).

In the early days, the company not only transported passengers but also mail and cargo to new east and westbound routes. It also carried out other more unusual tasks, including pest control! Rodents and insects were used in Soviet propaganda as symbols of the "decaying bourgeoisie", so the "fight against pests" had a double meaning. In 1925, The Society of Friends of Chemical Defence and Chemical Industry, "Dobrokhim" set up by Leon Trotsky, merged with "Dobrolyot"; the main purpose was to "construct a reliable fence of toxic gas to protect the new society"!

During the Khrushchev period however, the fence was lowered and the psychological battle moved to a rather racy field; beautiful Russian air attendants gradually replaced Politburo members on the covers of the popular Ogonyok magazine.>/p>

"The ‘Aeroflot History in Posters’ exhibition has considerable value because of its political nature" says Nina Baburina, arts critic, researcher of the Russian State Library and Soviet period poster expert. "Posters represent one of the most politically loaded genres of fine arts and the chronological sequence of productions dedicated to the ‘homeland wings’ represent an exceptional milestone in the art of propaganda in Russia".

"It is very honourable and a fantastic opportunity for a commercial company of any scale and age to be part of an art exhibition" adds Lev Koshlyakov, Deputy General Director of Aeroflot. "The collected posters that are anchored in Russian history have brought back to the surface an incredibly rich material of forgotten facts and milestones; all these anecdotes give us the experience of a unique ‘aviation carnival’".

Exhibition catalogue available in PDF format at: http://www.pro-act.ru/aeroflothistory.pdf.

The Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries and for Bibliographic Information (ICCU) is one of the founders of The European Library. As such, it has an excellent track record in partnerships and has considerable experience to pass on to new Full Participants. We have asked Cristina Magliano, Head of the Cataloguing Department, to share her experience and opinion about The European Library and to explain the specific situation of Italy as regards the position of the ICCU, which was founded in order to coordinate the cataloguing activities of the Italian libraries.

The Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries and for Bibliographic Information (ICCU) was founded in 1951 in Rome. It currently employs 50 people divided in 5 departments. Cristina Magliano joined the ICCU in 1980; she now runs the Cataloguing Department responsible for coordinating and promoting activities such as cataloguing standardisation, bibliographic format (UNIMARC), metadata used in national digitisation projects, etc. Cristina is also involved in several committees, such as the IFLA Permanent UNIMARC Committee and the IFLA Cataloguing Section.

The European Library: "How many people actively collaborate with The European Library in your organisation?"

Cristina Magliano: "5 employees worked for The European Library when it was first launched in 2005. Their tasks very much evolved around deliverables within Work Packages (WP1: Publisher relations, WP3: Metadata and WP4: Interoperability.) At the moment, there are 2 employees working part time for The European Library, one person is our Contacts Working Group representative and the other one is our Technical Working Group representative. The decrease in staff members is due to the fact that people have left the ICCU, either for other jobs or because they were retiring and have not been replaced. Work within the ICCU is very much institutional project dependent."

"The partnership with The European Library is prestigious and very important for us; we promote it through all the conferences we attend and our training programmes. Our participation in The European Technical Working Group gives us the opportunity to share knowledge and experience. It also allows us to develop a cooperative framework for Italians projects based on the model set by The European Library. In "Internet culturale", for example, our Italian portal for cultural heritage, we apply the same technical model. Furthermore, we have established an Italian metadata profile based on The European Library Metadata Registry."

The European Library: "How is the partnership between the ICCU and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF), which stands as a representative of one* of the national libraries of Italy?"

Cristina Magliano: "Our partnership with the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze is very strong. ICCU and BNCF work together on many national and international projects. We cooperate in studies about standards for digitalisation projects, in the "Italian Committee for Metadata Standards" and the BNCF remains our main partner within the SBN, the Italian libraries network coordinated by the ICCU. Many working groups involved in the development of SBN include BNCF and ICCU employees."

(* The other one is the BNCR, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma)

The European Library: "Is the ICCU currently collaborating with other cultural institutions?"

Cristina Magliano: "The ICCU has been involved in many initiatives to work on Italian digital library projects and to develop national coordination in the use of metadata for digital objects description. This has been evident in many different projects of cultural heritage. The MAG Committee, for example, has been set up in collaboration with the most important private and public institutions within the libraries, museums and archives sector. I am personally involved as coordinator for the Italian Committee for Metadata Sstandards and Application within the Cultural Heritage Sector, in which representatives from all three types of organisation are participating. The Committee coordinates metadata implementations in digitisation projects at a national level."

The National Library of Armenia (NLA) will join The European Library as a Full participant in January 2008, along with 7 other National libraries of Europe.

The project FUMAGABA will be managed with financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and will run until July 2009. A Sharing Knowledge Workshop, jointly coordinated by the Swiss National Library and The European Library, is scheduled for March 2008; FUMAGABA's objective is to enlarge The European Library full partnership by adding the national libraries of the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, Georgia, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Azerbaijan.

We have taken this opportunity to ask David Sargsyan, Director of the National Library of Armenia, to report about this collaborative boost for his organisation and the NLA’s cooperation programme in general. David joined the NLA as Director in 1998 and currently manages 360 people in the library.

The European Library: "How does the National Library of Armenia cooperate internationally?"

David Sargsyan: "The partnership established between the National Library of Armenia and The European Library is, of course, very important to our organisation. The NLA has been a member of CENL since 2006, when it started its cooperation with The European Library as a Basic Participant. Joining as a Full Participant from January 2008 will be a great opportunity for us. It will expand our already existing programmes of cooperation across Europe and Asia; the NLA has been a member of IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and institutions) since 2007, and the Library Assembly of Eurasia, which gives us a collaborative partnership with all Commonwealth of Independent States.

Additionally, the NLA also collaborates closely with the National Library of Iran and the Scientific Technology Library of Iran; the NLA has the password to the server of the Scientific Technology Library of Iran, which allows us to access the scientific information of more than 20 countries collaborating with Iran.

However, our collaborative activities remain within the library environment and the NLA does not have exchange programmes with archives or museums, which are different clusters under the Ministry of Culture of Armenia."

The European Library: "How do you foresee the opportunities offered by the NLA full partnership?"

David Sargsyan: "The integration within The European Library as a Full participant is of course prestigious for the NLA; it increases our information field. Additionally, this partnership gives us a good opportunity to preserve both past and present cultural heritage and to improve our cooperation with some of the greatest libraries in Europe. It also gives us responsibilities, which we unfortunately have difficulties handling satisfactorily at the moment."

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The National Széchényi Library (OSZK) joined The European Library as Full Participant* under the TEL-ME-MOR project in July 2006. Adam Horváth, Director of Informatics of the OSZK and their representative in the Technical Working Group in The European Library, describes his activities within his organisation and the OSZK participation to TELplus.

Adam graduated from the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest M.A. in Hungarian language and literature and library science. He completed a postgraduate course at the International Computer Education and Information Centre as a programmer. Adam became Director of Informatics of the National Széchényi Library in 2001; his solid knowledge of remote data access protocols created an early partnership with The European Library through the TEL-ME-MOR project.

The European Library: "How many people work for the OSZK?"

Adam: "Although the library had to cut back on staff in 2007, we still employ about 500 people. In my department I lead 22 people; 5 of them, mainly programmers left the library environment last spring in order to get higher salaries in the private sector and another 2 will leave this autumn. I am not allowed to replace them. This is one of the biggest challenges in my field of work: the library can't compete with the salaries in the commercial environment.

The European Library: "How many people work in collaboration with The European Library since the OSZK joined as Full-Participant in 2006?"

A varying number of people work for The European Library. Work package leaders are assigned to these tasks on a permanent base (but not exclusively). Others are recruited depending on the actual work involved. People assigned to The European Library either permanently or occasionally often do not work for the Information and Computer Technology Department, but rather for the Document Supply Service, the Manuscript Collection, and Reference and Readers' Services."

The European Library: "The OSZK is involved in TELplus / Work Package 4; "the main objective of Work Package 4 is to create a modular web services infrastructure that enables users to integrate services with the European Library portal." Could you tell us more about it? What are "services"? What are the benefits for end users? What improvement would that imply for The European Library?"

Adam: "A service can be anything on the Internet: a translation service, an online bookstore, a library catalogue, a digital library, a thesaurus and so on All of which might be related to The European Library portal through bibliographic data. For example the portal may offer a link to a translation service translating an abstract from the search results or may offer a link to an ordering service when the results contain an ISBN field. The main benefit for the end user is that many Internet resources are linked to the catalogue by just one click. Work Package 4 of TELplus aims to develop the technical background to this integration service; this will include, among other things, the possible standardization of service descriptions. A good service description format will allow end users to create their own personalised digital library."

The European Library: "Does the OSZK collaborate with other National Libraries and on what terms?"

Adam: "The OSZK has collaboration programmes with other national libraries. There are permanent and occasional programmes. The permanent ones include interlibrary loans with several national libraries, book exchange with almost every national library and expert exchange programmes with some of them (the latest exchange programme was launched with the Slovak National Library). The OSZK organizes conferences, exhibitions and publishes books together with other national libraries. The main participants are the Austrian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian and Russian national libraries. Occasional programmes include working together under the umbrella of different EU funded projects. In the field of informatics we have a good level of cooperation with the national libraries of the Nordic Countries, the National Library of the Netherlands and with many other non-national libraries."

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The Cyprus Library joined The European Library as Full participant under TEL-ME-MOR project in January 2007. Antonios Maratheftis, Director of the Library describes this changing phase for the Cyprus Library, its partnership with other national libraries across Europe and its collaborative level with other cultural institutions.

Antonios Maratheftis joined the Cyprus Library in 1999 following four years in the University of Cyprus Library as Librarian, then Acting Director and four years as a Lecturer for the University of Maryland (Heidelberg). Antonios has a Master of Library and Information Science and a [Philosophy] Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Anthropology/Folklore from the University of Texas-Austin.

What does Full Participant of The European Library imply in your organisation?

It implies prestige because of our close cooperation with some of the greatest libraries in Europe but also responsibilities, which we unfortunately have difficulties handling satisfactorily. To fully play our role means to be able to contribute as far as we are concerned and to try to enrich The European Library collections, especially with digital images and material, and this is something that we cannot do without the necessary human resources and proper technological infrastructure.

Could you voice your experience, advice basic participants, or perhaps comment on your European Library collaboration during the Basic to Full Participant shift.

The Cyprus Library employs 10 people including non-professionals, and has no marketing and research departments or any full-time technical support personnel; if we, despite these difficulties, managed to overcome the obstacles and succeed in making the transition move, then surely any national library can make the step from Basic to Full Participant.

Does the Cyprus Library collaborate at any level with other National Libraries and on which terms?

We have occasionally cooperated with the National Library of Greece on various issues in the past and at present with EDLproject and The European Library. We also have cooperated with other colleagues from CENL on various issues such as seeking their valuable insight about copyright or building plans.

Is the Cyprus Library currently collaborating with other cultural institutions like Archives and Museums?

The Cyprus Library has cooperated in the past with the State Archives in the field of preservation. A member of the Library staff received practical training in the art of book preservation and even though we now have our own preservation lab. in the Library, we still rely on support and advice from the State Archives staff for the more difficult preservation cases. The Library also has a close working relationship with the University of Cyprus Library. For example, there is cooperation in trying to establish a union catalogue of libraries in Cyprus.

The Russian State Library (RSL) is one of the 24 Basic Participants of The European Library. We interviewed Elena Zimina, Deputy Director of International Communication Department about the RSL partnership with The European Library, with other national libraries across Europe and its collaborative level with Russian cultural institutions.

Elena Zimina joined the RSL in July 2006. She previously worked in the private sector and the American Cultural Centre in Moscow. Elena’s daily activities involve managing the Virtual Reference Service (OCLC) that enables RSL’s staff to broadcast reference questions to library users, and monitoring The European Library collaboration.

How is the partnership between the Russian State Library (RSL) and The European Library considered in your organisation?

Collaborating with The European Library is of course prestigious for the RSL; we regard this partnership as profitable and strategically important. We already promote The European Library through our representative status as Russian State Library; the linking programme for example was a good opportunity for us to promote The European Library on national ground. However, the step towards Full Partnership is unfortunately a financial matter at this point; we hope to be able to join as soon as the situation is economically feasible.

To what extent does the RSL collaborate with other national libraries?

The RSL has an extensive collaboration programme with other national libraries throughout the territory, the ex Soviet Union countries and with Western Europe. The level of collaboration is multiple and goes from expert exchange programmes to book exchange, frame agreements, virtual library projects, etc. The collaboration level with ex Soviet Union countries and the National Library of Russia (NB of Russia) located in Saint-Petersburg is of course facilitated by the common usage of Russian.

Is the RSL currently collaborating with other cultural institutions such as archives or museums?

The RSL has an agreement with the State Archive on microfilming preservation. However, the level of collaboration is generally focused on exhibition activities. For example the RSL and the German Historical Museum are currently organising the “Art and Propaganda” exhibition featured in Berlin until the end of April. Similarly, the RSL, Tretiakov Art Gallery in Moscow and Artemizia foundation in Italy are involved in the organisation of "Saint Nicholas - Figure and Image, from East to West" - Bari, Italy, Castello Svevo. Last, the exhibition “Russia & the Soviet Union: Art, literature, theatre 1905 -1940” organised in collaboration with Palacco Ducale was held in Genova - Italy from October 2006 until January 2007.

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Patrick Peiffer joined the National Library of Luxembourg in 2002 following a Masters in Library & Information Science and a BA in Cultural and Media Studies. He is responsible for digitisation services and 3rd party licensing of content for the national portal.

The national language of Luxembourg is Luxembourgish. However, the official language of the civil service, law, and parliament is French, although legal debates are conducted partly in Luxembourgish and police case files recorded in German... How does the BnL handle languages and translation in general?

We obviously deal with multilingualism daily; conversations among colleagues are in Luxembourgish even if the majority of meetings are held in French or English. The BnL website is in French only but the OPAC* catalogue interface and national portal are in 3 languages; French, German and English. Historically, the object catalogue has always been in French, therefore subject queries can only be performed in French. About 2/3rd of BnL’s collections are non-Luxembourg material, most of which is in French, German, English and other European languages. The cataloguing data (metadata) is in the original language for some fields (title) and others are in French like pagination, subject headings, etc.

The BnL collections implementation in The European Library portal is scheduled for October, 2007. What are the technical or legal requirements the BnL needs to implement to meet the deadline?

There are no major technical issues at this point. However, we do need to clarify copyrighting matters in relation with catalogue items. Overall, we are optimistic. We are submitting 3 specific catalogues to The European Library, a Union catalogue starting in 1985 (LU1), a digitised catalogue of non-Luxembourg acquisitions prior to 1985 (LU2) and a Digitised collection (periodicals and reference works – LU3).

Is the BnL currently collaborating with other cultural institutions like archives or museums?

The BnL is close to such institutions due to the country’s size obviously. We are currently installing “Digitool” to present digitised archives in a suitable environment for long term preservation. It will provide a constructive approach by offering a set of standards on a national level by the end of 2007. These standards are of course relevant to other institutions involved in digitisation. The BnL is also looking forward to participating in EDL net proposal in order to tighten our collaboration and move forward to actual content integration. (Editors note: EDL net is a thematic network proposal of cultural heritage stakeholders aiming to get agreement on the European digital library under eContentplus programme)

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Irmgard represents the KB in The European Library’s Contact Working Group. She joined The National Library of the Netherlands in 2005 after a successful career in the private sector, first for the Netherlands Board of Tourism, then the Dutch Automobile Club and finally KPN, the Dutch National Telecommunication company. Irmgard always worked in the epicentre of strategic communication between customers, ICT and services. She joined the KB to be part of a smaller organisation where management board and executives are closer to their end users. A position she describes below.

The KB is one of the founders of The European Library. The European Library Office location in the KB was a CENL decision. What does hosting “The European Library” in the premises of the KB mean in reality? What is behind the purely obvious space allocation?

The KB focuses strongly on innovation and new technologies. In order to play an active role in today’s digitally minded world, international collaboration is an asset. The electronic depot (e-Depot) established by the KB to keep the national digital publications permanently available provided the KB the opportunity to build up an electronic archive for international scientific publishers. Together with the British Library the KB is a driving force behind the establishment of the Alliance of Permanent Access and its efforts to realise a European organisational infrastructure for the preservation of digital scientific information. Permanent accessibility of digital material demands an ongoing study of methods and techniques to realise digital preservation. In parallel with the development of the e-Depot, the KB has been investing in research in this area for years, and has been deliberately sharing its knowledge and experience with other institutes inside and outside Europe. One example is the participation of the KB in the large European PLANETS project, which creates a framework within which instruments for selecting, planning and executing preservation actions will be developed. Additionally, the KB operates in other sub-areas of information provision as initiator and coordinator of, and participant in, international projects and partnerships. The European Library is a perfect example of this kind of international collaboration. From the KB perspective, any new visitor generated by The European Library web traffic is a bonus as it is part of our widening of visitor sources policy. But they are still small numbers so we have to be careful of the time we invest in the extra workload generated by being a full partner of The European Library. However, we do see The European Library as one of our channels to market and hope to see it build on its current position.

What do you foresee as the possible impact on your department’s scope should The European Library become a European digital library, encompassing museums and archives as well as libraries? How will this affect the existing image of a National Library?

We are at the beginning of a virtual information “revolution” that may affect the role of traditional institutions in general. It is difficult to have any distance. No one can predict the outcomes of a collaboration with organisations like Archives and Museums but I do believe that the more product/market combinations, the better. We need to look to bring our specific library services to end users in various ways and a larger European digital library is of course a seductive option. However, from an organisational prospective, it is only fair to say that libraries are far ahead in terms of digitisation and collaboration programmes. In other words, it is difficult to look behind the project screen right now as we are at the very beginning of a long and complex process. What should be emphasised however is the position of users; would end users benefit from the collaboration of libraries with archives and museums? The library brand has to be watched closely; right now, libraries project the image of quality and reliability for some people, traditional and staid for others. We must comply with changing environment necessities without affecting the quality and reliability values that have made libraries reputation.

The National Library of the Netherlands is currently organizing an exhibition around the usage of magazines throughout the 20th/21st century. How does such a cultural event fit in the KB communication strategy?

The KB is a hybrid research library and has a growing strategy for both physical and digital exhibitions towards informed public (researchers) as well as general public. We opened last year a permanent public exhibition with a collection renewal every 3 months. We also organise every 4 years, an annual public exhibition in order to promote the “unknown” collections of the KB; the “Magazine” exhibition is our latest featured programme. Furthermore, we are re-opening our fully renovated reading rooms in April 2007 and will expand our services towards KB registered visitors. The objective is of course to increase our cultural heritage exposure for the public’s benefit. Although digital has proven to be the future, I strongly believe that there will always be a market for hardcopies and printed material. As a matter of fact, libraries still need to gain positioning in the digital world; currently the digital usage of library resources is mainly restricted to students and researchers. The wider audience has yet to take up digital usage of libraries. It may be that the “google” search generation has not grasped the collection selection understanding. In any case, more services around “Search” warrant much more investigation. Web exhibitions may enter this niche.

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Toomas Schvak is the Project Manager for Work Package 4 of the TEL-ME-MOR project. He joined the National Library of Estonia (NLE) in 2002 after earning his bachelor’s degree of Information Sciences in Tallinn. He was involved in the NLE shift towards the European Library Full Participant membership in January 2006.

What are your current activities within the TEL-ME-MOR project?

My present activities cover two specific grounds, the Estonian side where I work as Research and Development Centre Project Manager and the European side where I work as Coordinator for Work Package 4. WP4 aims to inform the memory institutions of new EU member countries about the financing opportunities offered by the European Commission for research and development. WP4 assignment does require major focus at the moment. The day-to-day activities involve project administration, keeping an eye on finances issues as well as schedule setting.

What is the National Library of Estonia position within the TEL-ME-MOR project?

The Conference Of European National Librarians offered the National Library of Estonia a partnership in late 2003, followed by the Work Package 4 assignment launched in February 2005. Furthermore, the 9th IFLA International Conference held in September 2005 by the NEL has given us the necessary expertise on an international ground to host the TEL-ME-MOR Final Policy Conference in Tallinn (Estonia) between the 18th and 21st of October 2006. The conference titled “The Digital Future of Cultural and Scientific Heritage” is designed around an ambitious programme, providing a forum for discussion of the latest digital library developments in Europe and in the world.

What are your expectations for the Tallinn conference in October?

I’m personally curious about the several debates, one of them being the Copyright outgrowth from the Publishers and from the Librarians points of view. I am also looking forward to hearing about national initiatives outcomes as in Norway, Singapore or India. Finally I am curious about private partner’s cooperation projects development, for example the Oxford-Google digitisation agreement.

How do you forecast the NLE European cooperation in the near future?

The Estonian academic population is rather restricted. We therefore would like to bring our collections to a broader public, and further enlarge The European Library collections to Museums and Archives. The National Library of Estonia will certainly take part of different EDL initiatives in that respect.

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