Welcome to The European Library Newsletter!
+ Agenda
+ In Focus: David
Sargsyan – The National Library of Armenia (NLA)
+ In Depth: The European Library Application Profile
Implementation in ALEPH OAI-Modules
+ News:
- Portal
Release Version 1.6: Quicker, Better & Nicer!!!!
- EDLproject:
Towards Cross-Domain Metadata Interoperability
- The CITY: 1st Theme
chosen for the European
Digital Library
- Nomination for the Bonnie
Hilditch International Librarian Award
+ Partner’s update: The
British Library (BL)
exhibitions and events
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The European Library Newsletter recorded its 2000th subscription in
November 2007! The growing interest in The European Library and the cooperation
between the National libraries of Europe appeals to more readers every month;
we would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for joining us!!!!
In this issue of the Newsletter, David Sargsyan, Director of the National Library of Armenia,
shares his insight about being part of The European Library as a Full
Participant* from January 2008. We also feature an interview with Walter Zabel, Head of the Austrian National Library IT
department, an overview of the new Version 1.6 portal
release, EDLproject cross-domain metadata
interoperability and EDLnet’s first chosen
theme for the European Digital Library prototype website. We also announce
several new jobs in The European Library Office so, if you are interested,
click on the link in the Jobs and Careers section and send
us your CV.
The European Library Office team
wishes you an excellent winter break; we are looking forward to presenting our
new Newsletter format in February 2008!
Note that you can find a definition of all terms with asterisks at the bottom of this Newsletter in our "Explanatory Note".
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- Online Information 2007
Conference, Olympia Grand Hall,
- DIGMAP Workshop in the National Library of Portugal,
- The European Library Contacts Working Group (CWG) meeting in the
National Library of
Denmark, Copenhagen, December, 10th and 11th 2007.
- American
Library Association, Midwinter
- DELOS
Conference on Digital Libraries,
- IFLA -74th World Library and
Information Congress, Quebec City, Canada, 10 -14 August 2008
CALL FOR PAPERS - The
deadline for submitting a detailed, abstract (500 words) and full author
details is 30 January 2008. Click here for more information.
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IN FOCUS: DAVID SARGSYAN – THE NATIONAL
LIBRARY OF
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We have
taken this opportunity to ask
The European Library: ”How does the
National Library of
Additionally, the NLA also collaborates closely with the National Library of Iran and the Scientific
Technology Library of
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
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
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+ THE
EUROPEAN LIBRARY APPLICATION PROFILE IMPLEMENTATION IN ALEPH OAI-MODULES
The
ALEPH system is commonly used by librarians to manage their collections
and bibliographic records. OAI-PMH is an access protocol that allows librarians
to submit their collections for web purposes. The Austrian National
Library (ANL) is currently developing ALEPH-OAI “translation” software that
will considerably ease partners’ compliance to The
European Library Application Profile.
The
European Library provides query results from national libraries collection
records through 3 different access methods; SRU.
Z39-50
or, preferably, OAI-PMH.
The OAI-PMH environment defines a mechanism for data providers to expose their
metadata through Dublin Core (DC), a simple and common initiative to create a
"digital library card catalogue" for the Web. OAI collections are
directly indexed in The European Library records. Concretely, if all
collections were accessible via OAI, the end-user would get the best, most
relevant and quickest answers to his query. Currently, only 33% of the
collections within The European Library environment are OAI-PMH compatible.
In order
to extend the amount of OAI compatible records and ease the partners’
compliance to The
European Library Application Profile, the ANL is developing a system that
will ease the conversion between ALEPH Version 16 & 18 of OAI modules and
The European Library Application Profile. We have asked Walter Zabel, Head of
the IT department of the Austrian National Library, to explain
the purpose of such an initiative. “The initial objective is to set up an
OAI-interface that is flexible enough to easily provide additional tags to
The
project started during the first quarter of 2006; Walter acted as coordinator
between the ANL Library System vendor, the ANL System Librarians, the
Application Administrator and The European Library Office. “We decided
to hire our system vendor during the development period rather than develop it
ourselves. Since it is a complex piece of software, we expect fewer problems
with future version changes. During 2006 and 2007 we received several alpha and
beta versions for testing. We finished the test phases with the DC-Q version
successfully in the course of last month” adds Walter. “We are currently
setting up the OAI-provider software on our production system and will
deliver data for 2 catalogues with 4 sub-collections by the end of the year.”
These
initial results allow positive projections: “The best case scenario will
allow us to gradually increase the DC-Q schema as planned; consequently, the
new schema will exactly meet the needs of The European Library. Data delivery
in The European Library schema should be possible in the first quarter 2008”.
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+ PORTAL RELEASE VERSION 1.6: QUICKER, BETTER &
NICER!!!!
The European
Library launched a new version of its website on the 4th of
December; the changes involve significant lay-out improvements and reflect a
constant care for understanding user needs. It also introduces the latest
partners’ collections and the first The European Library web-exhibition.
Version 1.6 objectives were to cover the remaining challenges introduced by the
2007 Editorial Plan and to facilitate “search” patterns following the Metadata
Working Group* recommendations.
New collections
and new themes: The European Library introduces 6 new collections
from the National libraries of Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Russia-Moscow and Spain.
Additionally, the Treasure pages
have been converted into a searchable collection. Visitors can now access 307
collections under The European Library.
The Metadata Working Group has been investigating ways to improve the
“SEARCH” interface; their conclusions led to a clearer presentation and more
accurate search themes. Additionally, the Metadata Working Group reviewed
the order of metadata fields displayed on full record.
New “The European Library - FireFox speedup” plug-in: Version 1.6 also introduces a FireFox
speedup plug-in that optimises FireFox network settings for federated
searching. The installation of the plug-in is likely to increase the speed of
overall retrieval time by 60%. Click here for more details.
New HOME page
and First Web Exhibition: The HOME page overall lay-out
and content have been brightened and direct access to The European Library first
web-exhibition has been set up. The exhibition
features 300 pictures of the National libraries of Europe, a unique and
fascinating gallery that mirrors the broad architectural variety of The
European Library partners across
New
“Assistance”: The “Help?” interface has been considerably
improved so that first-time visitors can access not only version 1.5 Help text,
but also “FAQ’s” and “User Guide” within the same pop-up display. Additionally,
a “search” tool has been added to help visitors identify the answers to their
queries. Click on “Help?” on the HOME page for
more details.
New LIBRARIES pages: A new presentation of the
LIBRARIES section has been introduced. Access is based on a more interactive approach
via a clickable map of
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+ EDLPROJECT: TOWARDS CROSS-DOMAIN METADATA
INTEROPERABILITY
EDLproject Work Package 1 - Task 4 aims at mapping and harmonising the known metadata
schemas and repositories in use across libraries, museums and archives, and to
create a prototype metadata registry. This ambitious task needed some adjustments, however, to achieve a
successful outcome with the time and staff resource available.
Sally
Chambers, Interoperability Manager for The European Library, has posted the deliverable “D1.1 -
Towards metadata interoperability between Archives, Audio-Visual Archives,
Museums and Libraries” on the EDLproject
website. The report provides an assessment of the model by which metadata interoperability has been accomplished
between the national libraries in
The report recommends that achieving consensus on metadata standards,
developing a multilingual European Metadata Registry and creating a European
Metadata Centre of Competence are essential strands for achieving metadata
interoperability.
Sally Chambers is very pleased that this initial work can be continued as
part of Work Package 2 of the EDLnet Thematic Network. “Within EDLnet, Makx Dekkers is
leading a dedicated work group (WG2.1) on Standards and Interoperability of
Standards (focused on metadata). This work group includes metadata specialists
from museums, archives, audio-visual archives and libraries. Work is already
well underway on the development of an EDLnet metadata specification and a
cross-domain object model!”
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+
THE CITY: 1ST THEME
The
CITY is the first theme chosen by the European digital library for the
prototype website that will launch in November 2008. The site will feature a
number of themes, the CITY was the first to be selected because a wide range of
digitised material is already known to exist.
The CITY theme is sufficiently broad to enable the prototype site to look
at two millennia of European urban experience from several perspectives. The
differences and similarities between
Initial ideas coming forward for virtual tours include:
- Cities of the future/cities of the past
- Migration and diaspora
- Design, shopping and urban cool
- Archaeology and architecture
- Utopias and cities of the imagination
- Riot and disorder
- Palaces and politics
Some 20 other themes are currently under consideration. The final
selection of themes will depend on the desk research that is currently
establishing:
- that there is enough digital material available to illustrate the theme
- that content for the theme represents holdings from each of the 4
domains
- that it comes from a number of different countries
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Following
the Mini
Library promotion on the web, the popular standalone Search box is now also
available through Facebook. Go to Mini Library in Facebook for further details.
If you have not registered yet, why not go to www.facebook.com
and join truly dynamic discussions?!
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+
NOMINATION FOR THE BONNIE HILDITCH INTERNATIONAL LIBRARIAN AWARD
The Bonnie Hilditch International
Librarian Award, sponsored by the Science-Technology and Engineering Divisions,
is presented to a librarian outside of the
The Special
Library Association - Science-Technology Division draws together members having an interest in the
role of library and information science as applied to the recording, retrieval,
and dissemination of information in all areas of science and technology. It
also promotes and improves the communication, dissemination, and use of such
information to the benefit of libraries and their users
Online form for nominations covering all of all
awards offered are available on: <http://units.sla.org/division/dst/Award/nomination%20form.html>
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THE BRITISH
LIBRARY (BL) EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS
The British Library (BL) currently
features the following exhibitions and web-exhibitions:
+ “Breaking
the Rules; The Printed Face of The European Avant Garde 1900-1937”; Europe's
creative revolution of the early 20th century - 9 November 2007 - 30 March 2008
- Pearson Gallery, The British Library, London NW1 2DB
+ “Online
Sacred Contexts”; The 2007 Sacred exhibition featured the common
ground of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. “Online Sacred Contexts” provides
many items created for the exhibition (videos, audio and flash animations). The
site is regularly updated.
+ “Turning
the Pages 2.0™” allows you to 'virtually' turn the pages of the
BL most precious books. You can magnify details, read or listen to expert
commentary on each page, and store or share your own notes.
+ “The Search
for a Northwest passage”; The many adventures, tragedies and achievements
in the quest for a connection between the North Atlantic and the
Find out more by clicking on the BL events/exhibitions page.
The
European Library invites all National Libraries to tell others about their
national library initiatives or exhibition programmes through our Newsletter.
To do so, send your email to:
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+ JOBS AT THE EUROPEAN DIGITAL LIBRARY!!!
Desperately seeking highly motivated employees
The European Library Office has 3 jobs to fill:
Are you interested?
Do you know the person who
wants to work on one of the most exciting projects in the cultural heritage
area ever? Are you allowed a secondment?
The Developer
jobs are based at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, The Netherlands, the Interoperability job can be based
anywhere in Europe but you would have to come to the Hague sometimes!
Interested? Then click on this
link and send us your CV.
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The editorial content of the above Newsletter was gathered with the kind
cooperation of
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http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/organisation/newsletter/newsletter_en.html
If you have any comments or
suggestions about the way we can further improve the newsletter or The European
Library portal please let us know! Use our feedback form or send your email to: Info@TheEuropeanLibrary.org
The
participating partners of The European Library are either
Basic participants or Full
participants. The digital collections of Full Participants are “searchable”
through the European Library portal.
The European Library Metadata Working Group represents The European Library members in issues
concerning metadata and protocols.
The European Library invites all National Libraries and members of CENL to communicate with our readers through this Newsletter or join the
“In Focus” list of participants. To do so, send your email to: Info@TheEuropeanLibrary.org