i2010 Digital Libraries

a European Commission Initiative for Europe’s Cultural Heritage and

Scientific Information

Javier Hernández-RosEuropean Commission

DG Information Society and Media

Conference “Libraries and Innovation”Luxembourg/Brussels 1-2 December 2008

Libraries in the Digital Environment

– Digital libraries as the result of ICT revolution: accessibility + reuse

– Digital technologies “amplify” the socio-economic impact of libraries

– Libraries’ responsibility to share their «unique» content with the world

i2010 Digital Libraries’ initiative: the context

• Part of i2010, the Commission strategy for the information society

• Letter of 6 Heads of State and Government of 28 April 2005– Major digitisation initiatives in the US

• Ongoing activities at European level– Co-ordination and co-funding

i2010 Digital Libraries’ initiative: main features

• Two main blocks: cultural content, scientific information

• Aim: make Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage accessible to all

• Deals with all types of material: books, newspapers, films, archival records

• At present only a small percentage digitised and available online

• Digitisation, online accessibility, digital preservation

i2010 Digital Libraries’ initiative: work ongoing at different levels

• Political: Commission Recommendation (August 2006), Council Conclusions (Nov. 2006), Parliament Resolution (Sept. 2007), new Commission Communication (Aug. 2008)

• Work with stakeholders: High level group on digital libraries (Copyright, Public-Private Partnerships, Scientific Information)

• Technical: co-funding through 7th R&D Framework Programme and eContentplus

• Operational: establishing the European digital library- EUROPEANA

Political/institutional levelnext steps

• Reports February 2008 from all Member States’ available online• Commission Communication on progress adopted in August

– Focus: implementation Recommendation– Areas for attention: funding of digitisation, Europeana, Orphan

and out of print works• Council Conclusions under French Presidency, Culture Council of

Ministers (20 November 2008)

Work with stakeholders• High level group on digital libraries

– Cultural institutions, publishers, technology firms, academics– Aim: addressing the ‘hard questions’ with stakeholders

• Work on copyrights, public/private partnerships, scientific information

• Spin-off process on orphan works: Memorandum of Understanding on Diligent Search Guidelines

Digitisation

• Overviews of digitised material– Avoid duplication, create synergies

• Digitisation plans +associated financial planning• Public-private partnerships• Digitisation facilities

Online accessibility

• Integrated access• Contribution to common access point (EUROPEANA), work on standards

• Intellectual property rights• Towards a 20th century black hole?• Orphan works, out of print works• Barriers to use of public domain material

Digital preservation

• Risk of losing digital information• Digitising without a preservation strategy

may become a wasted investment• Strategies and plans• Update of relevant legislation

– Legal deposit– Web harvesting

Technical level: Co-funding

• FP7-ICT-Digital libraries: e.g. centres of competence for digitisation (IMPACT project), technologies for digital preservation

• FP7-Capacities programme:E-infrastructures projects (scientific rep., data rep., user communities) – e.g. DRIVER

• eContentplus (2005-2008), range of projects involving archives, libraries, museums, audiovisual archives – e.g. EDLNET

• eGateway

Technical level: Co-funding

• Continued support for digital libraries

– 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7):

69 MEUR in 2009 and 2010– Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP):

50 MEUR in 2009 and 2010

The European digital library- EUROPEANA -

• Common multilingual access point to Europe’s cultural heritage

• EDL Foundation established in 2007: libraries (CENL – LIBER), archives, museums, audiovisual archives

• Targets:– By 2008: 2 million objects searchable and

accessible – By 2010: 10 million objects searchable and

accessible, content of all types and from different institutions

The European digital library- EUROPEANA -

•Launch on 20 November 2008, in connection with Culture Council: done...sudden popularity crash!•We are at the beginning…•Perspective of the user: direct search in different types of collections•Critical mass of content, user-friendly interface, multilingual

The European digital library- EUROPEANA -

Looking into the future: consolidation and new challenges

•Cross-domain collaboration•Interoperability (EDL-net)•Sustainable funding-model •Bringing copyrighted works into Europeana

• Link to private initiatives• Licences (cross-border issues)

•Enhanced features: cross-language/semantic search, collaborative tools (“Web 2.0”)

What is the Commission doing in scientific information?

• Commission Communication 2007• Discussions with stakeholders (research

community, libraries, publishers) to arrive at a shared vision

• Actions through funding programmes– Research on digitisation / digital preservation– Data repositories– eContentplus programme (PEER project:

experiment with embargo period)• Publications resulting from Community

funded research (FP7)– ‘Author pays’ publishing as eligible costs– Pilot projects on publication in open repositories in

specific programmes

I2010 Digital Libraries: Results

• Work in progress and concrete results at different levels:– EUROPEANA, the common access point to Europe’s

cultural heritage– Work on basic conditions for digitisation, online

accessibility and digital preservation: increased commitment by Member States, new legislation

– Work with stakeholders: Memorandum of Understanding on Orphan Works, agreements in Member States (i.e. BNF-SNE)

– Technical work: digitisation and digital preservation competence centers

Conclusions: new digital opportunities lead to a “renaissance of libraries”

• Digital environment and Internet add a new channel of communication between cultural institutions and users

• “Digital convergence”: the boundaries between different types of organizations are vanishing: libraries, archives, publishers, etc. All merged in Europeana

• Enormous opportunities and new dilemmas (i.e. IPRs vs open access reuse) are the two sides of the coin!

• Need to join forces, also at EU Institutions’ level, for the best result in terms of access to culture and science for all!

www.europeana.eu

Europe’s digital library, museum and archive

Thanks!

• More information at the Digital Libraries’ initiative web site:

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/index_en.htm

• For questions:javier.hernandez-ros@ec.europa.eu