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Announcements
January 2012
Digital-heritage-preservation-conference - Call for papers 
UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme, in cooperation with the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies and with the Library of the University of British Columbia, and in partnership with IFLA, ICA, ICOM, WIPO, Google, Microsoft and others, is sponsoring a three-day conference concerning the preservation of documentary heritage. This Conference will provide a platform to showcase major initiatives that could lead to synergies both in research and implementation. An open, dedicated space will be soon established on UNESCO's CI website for this event which will provide a restricted area to share documents. Prospective speakers are invited to submit abstracts of proposed presentations in any areas related to 'The Challenges' listed in this Call for Papers. The presentations should be about original work or research findings/recommendations and take the form of either a traditional paper or an interactive tutorial, seminar, or workshop. All abstracts will be reviewed by the Conference Programme Committee to ensure that the programme provides significant, timely, and authoritative information. The traditional papers will be allotted 20-minute each and delivered in thematic sessions concluded by a commentary and a discussion. The tutorials, seminars or workshops will be allotted 3 hours each. The presentations should advance the state of knowledge in the areas and issues described in this flyer. The conference languages are English and French. Complete details:
Job news: Guest Lecturer for Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
The Department of Information at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) in Germany is seeking a guest lecturer in the field of Information Science, for a 1-2-year teaching position in their International Programme: 'Digital Information Services', with the aim of promoting the internationalisation of their study programmes. Lectures are conducted in English. Candidates must have a Ph.D, be a member of a university abroad, and have teaching experiences at university level. S/he is expected to teach 2-3 modules, each module consisting of 4 hours, for a teaching load of about 10 hours per week. Calendar terms: mid-March to mid-July; end of September to beginning of February. According to Professor Dr. Ulrike Spree, "We would be happy to find a colleague who takes an interest in our research focus 'Knowledge Access and Accessibility', and who is committed to the internationalisation of study programmes and student life." Salary: ca. 53,000Euros/year, depending on status at the home university - plus required social security contribution. Timeframe Deadline for letter of interest: 15 March 2012, via email to: Prof. Ursula Schulz: ursula.schulz@haw-hamburg.de or Prof. Dr. Ulrike Spree: ulrike.spree@haw-hamburg.de Estimated move to Hamburg: February 2013 Start of summer semester: 11 March 2013 Hamburg University of Applied Sciences With about 14,000 students, HAW is one of Germany's largest universities of applied sciences. The Department of Information is part of the Faculty of Design, Media & Information, offering two bachelor programmes and one master programme, namely Library and Information Management, Media and Information, and Information Science and Management. For further information, visit:
UNESCO endorses the IFLA Manifesto for Digital Libraries  UNESCO has endorsed the IFLA Manifesto for Digital Libraries at its General Conference 2011. The Manifesto provides principles to assist libraries in undertaking sustainable and interoperable digitisation activities to bridge the digital divide - a key factor in achieving the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. Digital libraries are essential for access to information, and for preserving national heritage. IFLA President Ingrid Parent welcomed the endorsement: "IFLA believes that access to information resources supports education and health as much as cultural and economic development. Information about the world's achievements allows all people to participate constructively in the development of their own social environment." She further pointed out that equal access to cultural and scientific heritage is every person's right. "It helps promote learning and understanding of the richness and diversity of the world and its peoples, not only for the present generation, but also for the next generations", Parent said. Promoting the free flow of ideas is also one of UNESCO's priorities. Janis Karklins, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information stressed the importance of digital libraries within UNESCO mandate: "Their ability to reach and serve broader communities, while offering access to a range of information that would otherwise have been difficult, is perhaps the key asset of digital libraries. Users can freely browse library collections irrespective of the time of day or their physical location". However, Karklins cautioned that "Marginalized groups and disadvantaged peoples could remain on the periphery of knowledge unless barriers to access, including digital illiteracy, were reduced". He therefore lauded the endorsement of the Manifesto as "part of the efforts of UNESCO and its partnership with IFLA to develop strategies for the sharing of information". The IFLA Manifesto for Digital Libraries is also an important instrument for achieving the objectives of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Many countries have created national digitisation programmes, and more will do so. IFLA strongly supports and encourages both national and international digitisation strategies as well as single library and partnership initiatives. Digital libraries can only offer full access to the heritage of nations if steps have been taken to develop policies and to implement initiatives for digitising documents and records, as written down in the Geneva 'Principles' and the Geneva 'Plan of Action' of WSIS. The Manifesto was initiated by former IFLA President Claudia Lux (2007-2009). Prior to UNESCO's endorsement, it was approved by the IFLA Governing Board in 2010 and by the UNESCO intergovernmental programme Information for All (IFAP) in February 2011. The endorsement enables IFLA members to work with UNESCO Member States within the context of national e-strategies aimed at increasing access to information and development. It provides IFLA members with a stronger foundation on which to lobby for and to implement digitisation activities. IFLA maintains a long and lasting partnership with UNESCO notably in the areas of library cooperation, promotion of universal access to information and information preservation. IFLA has had formal consultative relations with UNESCO since 1947. During this time, UNESCO has endorsed several important pieces of IFLA policy, including the IFLA/UNESCO Public Library Manifesto, in 1994, and the IFLA/UNESCO Multicultural Library Manifesto, in 2009. The previous IFLA Manifestos endorsed by UNESCO continue to have a great impact at a global level and contribute to the development of new frameworks for high-quality library services. Find out more here. December 2011National Library of Spain Celebrates 300th Anniversary  The National Library of Spain has kicked off a year of celebrations to mark its 300th anniversary. Activities to mark the milestone will take place throughout 2012. There will be theatrical performances, lectures about books as the source of knowledge, exhibitions, concerts, publications and a meeting of Cervantes Award winners, who will read extracts from their own texts, beside their portrait. Find out more about the celebrations and planned events, on the National Library of Spain's website. December 2011"Banned Books Advent Calendar" Draws International Attention A "Banned Books Advent Calendar" has been created by the Entresse Library in Espoo, Finland, and FAIFE, the Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression. Each day a new video stream window opens on several sites around the world, and a different once-banned book is presented by a key figure in the library network. Without giving away too much of the suspense, the featured books range from Hitler's Mein Kampf to Walt Disney's Donald Duck, part of the large cache of books that were once censured or banned. Even to this day, many books are still threatened. One of the participants - and excerpt readers - in this clever project is Jill Cousins, Programme Director of both The European Library and Europeana. In 1932, her father smuggled a brown-paper-wrapped edition of James Joyce's Ulysses from France into the UK, where it was banned for obscenity - as well as in the United States. "Language was important in our house, and my father was a huge believer in freedom of speech," Cousins relates. "We had no television, and books were both entertainment and a way of opening up your horizons into new worlds of imagination and new understandings." "One of my brothers now has the version of Ulysses that my father brought back with him," she continues, "but we all have the story of risking arrest to circumvent and be able to read a banned book." October 2011Commission's Recommendation on Digitisation and Digital Preservation The European Commission has just adopted a Recommendation on Digitisation and Digital Preservation, asking Member States to step up their efforts, pool their resources and involve private actors in digitising cultural material and making it available through Europeana. In particular, the Recommendation invites Member States to: The Recommendation is an update of a first recommendation adopted in 2006. It takes account of Member States' progress reports from 2008 and 2010, which show that although progress has been made, more and better action is needed as regards financial resources, quantitative targets for digitisation and solid support for Europeana. It also builds on the conclusions of the Comité des Sages, appointed by Commissioners Kroes and Vassiliou in 2010, on bringing Europe's cultural heritage online. September 2011
CENL supports Open Data licensing Meeting at the Royal Library of Denmark, the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), has voted overwhelmingly to support the open licensing of their data. This means that the datasets describing all the millions of books and texts ever published in Europe will become increasingly accessible for anybody to re-use. It also implies that vast quantities of trustworthy data are available for Linked Open Data developments, creating relationships between elements of information that’s never been possible before. The first outcome of the open licence agreement is that the metadata provided by national libraries to The European Library, the service owned by CENL, and Europeana.eu, Europe's digital library, museum and archive, will have a Creative Commons Universal Public Domain Dedication, or CC0 licence Workshop on Preservation Policies and Long-term Collections Management A workshop on Preservation Policies and Long-term Collections Management will be held on September 29-30th in Germany. The topics and objectives of the workshop are: The workshop will be hosted by the Saxony-Anhalt State and University Library at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is being organised by the LIBER Steering Committee on Heritage Collections and Preservation, in collaboration with the British Library and the National Library of the Netherlands. Registration is free but mandatory. Participants are asked to cover their own costs, including accommodation and catering costs. The lunch on Friday is offered by LIBER. You can find the provisional programme and registration form on the LIBER website. July 2011Digitization of Library Material Workshop In October LIBER and EBLIDA are holding a workshop on the Digitization of Library Material in Europe. It will take place on October 5-7 in The Hague, the Netherlands, and will focus on the potential libraries have for developing Europe's digital agenda. There will be four sessions with the following themes: User Experience, Business Models, Reuse (Metadata) and Workflow. For further information and registration, please visit the website. July 2011Applications Open For $1 Million U.S. Library Award Libraries are invited to apply for the Access To Learning Award (ATLA) - a $1 million U.S. prize that recognizes the efforts of public libraries and similar institutions outside the United States to connect people to information and opportunities through free access to computers and the Internet. Last year, the award was given to the Veria Central Public Library in Greece. Applications can be submitted until September 30, 2011. For more information, please see the Gates Foundation website. July 2011Neelie Kroes mentions Europeana Libraries at LIBER 2011 During LIBER's 40th annual conference in Barcelona, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission, welcomed the attendees with a video message. In her speech, she emphasized the importance of digitizing and offering free access to cultural and scientific heritage. Kroes also referred to Europeana Libraries as "a wonderful opportunity". Europeana Libraries is a project being coordinated by The European Library. June 2011The European Library Presenting At CERN
The poster will focus on large-scale aggregation, enrichment and linking of bibliographic records, and you can download a copy of the poster. Rene has been a member of The European Library team since early 2011. He previously worked on commercial open source software and in Linux administration. He studied Computational Visualistics at the University of Magdeburg and has a keen interest in the cultural sector. June 2011The European Library Annual Report & KPI Handbook
KPIs are key elements in the development of the Annual Report. The KPI Handbook provides the necessary background information required to collect and structure strategic management information on The European Library by means of key performance indicators (KPIs). The indicators are organised in the form and structure of a Balanced Scorecard (BSC), a strategic management tool that examines performance indicators from different perspectives. Press corner About The European digital library 
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The European Library has released its 2010 Annual Report. The document outlines our achievements over the past year, progress against core goals and our first official set of Key Performance Indicators. There are also profiles of our Management Committee members and The European Library team. 