Librarianship and information science in Italy:

a brief overview

Antonella De RobbioCentro di Ateneo per le BibliotecheUniversità di Padova - Italy

Palmer School of Library and Information Science,Long Island University, New York

January 2005

Antonella De Robbio

Summary

1. Institutional libraries: asset in Italy

2. Legal asset: Italian legislation

3. Librarianship formation in Italy

4. The role of the professional associations

5. Projects and initiatives1. Italian OPACs

2. Digitalization

3. Open Access

4. Copyright

5. Consortia

6. E-learning

7. Research activity

Antonella De Robbio

1. Institutional asset of libraries

15.000 libraries (36% are new, last 30 years)– 49.6% North– 21.3% Center– 29.1% South– 1/5 has a Web site– Over 7000/15000 have some type of automation system– 1 SBN Index: 2000 adehesions to SBN (National Service Network) – 800 OPACs applications (singles or collectives different than SBN)

20.000 librarians and workers Mainly historical material: rare book, manuscript, maps, prints Librarian building: some good news in last years The main characteristic of our Italian system is that it is NOT a

system: lack or really and efficient central coordination

General

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1. Institutional asset of libraries

46 Public Governative (State) 2 National Central:

– Firenze (BNI Italian National Bibliografy)– Roma

7 National (in addition to 2 Centrals) 11 Monastic Several historical Several Administrative: Ministerial, Houses of

Parliament, Constitutioal Organs, other administrative sector

Governative and Administrative Libraries

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1. Institutional asset of libraries

2200 (central, faculty, dept., inter-dept. seminar, …) Strong coordination activity in order to reduce the

number by constitution of Sistems Library for each University (almost 70%)

Considerable dynamics Markable technological applications Personell high skilled and professional Activity in consortia Task force on copyright Group on Open Access

University Libraries

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1. Institutional asset of libraries

School libraries: a sector extremely weak Lack fo specific role for school librarians Some big project promoted by Minister

– First envolved 600 school with WinIRIDE sw– Now a new pilot project inside SBN (500) by e-learning training

Public libraries: almost 6000, 12000 librarians– municipal, provincial – Very short rooting of the librarian service within Italian society– 10 million of users on 60 million of inhabitants

School Libraries and Public Libraries

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2. Legal asset: Italian legislation (1)

We have three new laws in Italy which have an high impact on libraries

1. New copyright laws: National law which modifies the (1941) law Reception of the European Union directive A Unique text is missing: the law is now as a genetic monster Compromise of free use fields: access right borderline (we

must pay a lot of money to SIAE) Research and teaching are penalized

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2. Legal asset: Italian legislation (2)

2. New law in publishing field– Definition of editorial product, comprehension of digital

contents as e-journal– The University is in conflict with the Government Fees

Agency about VAT because it doesn’t agree with the GFA’s interpretation of the law which demands a tax of 20% on e-journals and databases

3. New law on legal repository– Previous law was enacted in 1939– National Libraries are involved– Law not very clear about tasks and actors

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3. Librarianship formation in Italy

Year 2002: new law (reform of university curricula): 3+2, + master of I and II level, + specialistic courses

77 Universities LIS is collocated in Class n. 13 concerning Science on Cultural

Heritage– Humanistic and historical sections: the modern concepts on digital

libraries are not teaching inside degree courses, also librarianship is often missing (generic topics)

– Only 7 Universities offer specific degrees, 19 offer specific components inside common degrees (total 26/77)

– A lot of specialist masters and courses are offered from private sources (see AIB directory)

– Almost 2000 students (degree or diploma): 80% of these are women

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4. The role of the professional associations

AIB: Italian Libraries Association AIDA: Italian Association for Advanced Documentation Many tools and services are organised and managed by

these associations– Several e-journals on LIS fields: the most important are open

access – High activities on formation and upgrade– AIB-CUR: the discussion list of the Italian librarians (more than

4000 subscribers)– AIB-WEB Italian OPACs Directory and MAI: the Italian MetaOpac

(OPAC asset)– AIB-WEB Segnaweb: a VRD for public libraries– AIB-WEB DFP: a VRD concerning governative and istitutional

documents

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5. Projects and initiatives

1. Italian OPACs

2. Digitalization Minerva framework BEIC (Fundation) BDI (Ministerial)

3. Open Access Messina Conference AEPIC/PLEIADI Status quo on Italian

repositories Sw for e-journals building

and management

4. Copyright Copyright on national front Copyright on UE front

5. Consortia A model for cooperation Critical factors

6. E-Learning front some projects

7. Research activity

Antonella De Robbio

5.1. Italian OPACs

Italian OPACs Directory includes all the OPACs listed by region (a total of 20 lists)

List of the national collective catalogues; Connected OPACs list, which includes only the OPACs connected

to the MAI MetaOPAC; INFOOPAC cards, which display information on each OPAC in the

database; MAI help; References page, listing full-text articles (in Italian) and directories

concerning OPACs, MetaOPAC, virtual libraries; Annual activity reports of the MAI service. It is an AIB service

A project of AIB – Italian Libraries Association

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Integrated Library Sistems

in Italy different from SBN

(the national system)Not all have an Internet OPAC

There is a project for dialogue between

SBN and theother ILS

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The National catalogues

SBN: the national service (no e-resources)– Total Poles: 54 – Total of Libraries: 2205 – 7 millions of documents for over 20 million of localizations– University present: only 20 on 77– 34 OPACs (collectives) are present in MAI

ACNP: for periodicals (includes link to e-journals )– Titles ACNP Database    127084– ISSN Database     1153361– Titles held 689067– Libraries in ACNP 2446      – Last ACNP update Jan 16, 2005

SBN Index = Unique Catalogue

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MAI: the MetaOPAC Azalai Italiano

MAI (MetaOPAC Azalai Italiano) is a virtual union catalogue of Italian libraries developed through co-operation between the Italian Library Association (Associazione Italiana Biblioteche, AIB) and the Consorzio Interuniversitario Lombardo per l’Elaborazione Automatica (CILEA).

It provides services on Italian OPACs through some tools, built up from a database (containing all Italian OPACs, almost 800)

250 OPACs of Italian libraries are currently permitted to query simultaneously through three meta-search interfaces, differentiated to satisfy users with varied needs:

– selective search, which performs searches after selecting OPACs through a list; – search by region, a graphical interface, which presents a simplified map of Italy

and its regions (selecting a region, all the related catalogues will be selected); – global search, allowing to query immediately all the connected OPACs.

After the user's choice, the system queries the specified set of OPACs through the Internet, starting simultaneous remote queries, and sorts the results in a cumulative format.

What’ s MetaOPAC Azalai Italia MAI

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MAI: the MetaOPAC Azalai Italiano

The database currently contains 800 OPACs of which – Italian university OPACs represent 32%. – Library co-operatives account for 41% of the OPACs, – 40% of the OPACs are in city areas whilst – 32% are in provincial areas, and 23% are in regional areas, while the rest are

spread throughout Italy. The numbers of OPACs in schools have developed significantly since 2001, reaching

10% of all Italian OPACs by 2003. The annual growth in OPACs, in 2003 was about 10%. During 2002 and 2003, public library OPACs, covering city or provincial areas also

increased in number. The OPACs in the database are subdivided into seven categories:

– public libraries (307 OPACs)– state and government libraries (33 OPACs)– church and ecclesiastical libraries (713 OPACs)– school libraries (78 OPACs)– university and academic libraries (213 OPACs)– libraries of research institutions (121 OPACs)– other libraries (145 OPACs).

MetaOPAC Azalai Italia MAI: some data

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5.2. Digitalisation

1. recommendations and technical guidelines about digitisation, metadata, long-term accessibility and preservation.

2. digitisation: process, cataloguing and management, including metadata for the preservation;

3. legal aspects: IPR/copyright and data protection;4. correlate and harmonise activities carried out in

digitisation of cultural and scientific content for creating an agreed European common platform

General activites

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The MINERVA framework

European culture can be freely accessible through the digitisation of cultural content. This will also support and promote the cultural difference in a global scenario [Lund principles]

The European Commission asked Member States to officially nominate national representatives for digitisation.

All the people appointed are the National Representatives Group – NRG.

Network of all the 25 Member States’ ministries.Italy coordinates the project.

Result: The Charter of Parma

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The Charter of Parma

Quality in cultural Web sites (Parma 20-21 November 2003), held during the the Italian Presidency, the Charter of Parma was introduced. This is a shared programme adopted by the NRG that strengthen the Lund Principles that are its background.

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The contents of The Charter of Parma

1. Intelligent use of new technologies2. Accessibility3. Quality4. IPR and privacy5. Inter-operability and standards6. Inventories and multilingualism7. Benchmarking8. Co-operation at national, European and International levels9. Enlargement10. Building the future together: at the forefront of the knowledge

society

•a big open shelf structure on different disciplines in Milan•integration of different supports, and materials•over 500,000 works (almost 900,000 items)•several digitalised collections •a wide repository for physical collections coming from other local libraries•almost 3,700 user stations•BEIC will be open in 2011, but digital collections are already underway

DBI: Italian Digital LibraryItalian ministry for Cultural Heritage

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5.3. Open Access front

Messina conference The OA activities carried out in Italy can be

divided into the following areas – Institutional and Open archives (data providers)– Open Access journals– Service providers– Promotion & Advocacy– Critical Issues– Future developments

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Messina Conference

The OA movement in Italy has an active participation by single universities, research centres and supercomputing consortia.

A conference promoted by the Italian Council of Rectors held in Messina on November 4-5 represents the first official action of the Italian universities rectors in support of OA.

Here University Rectors gathered at Messina University signed the Berlin Declaration. A conference press will follow the signature of the document.

34 Universities signed the Messina Declaration (follow Berlin Declaration)

Up to now over 64 Universities have formally adopted the initiative(only 13 are not present)

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Institutional archives & Open Archives

Institutional Archives – Constantly increasing

Sw:Eprints (Bologna, Firenze, Messina, Padova, Trento) + Cnr Bologna, Scuola Superiore di Catania, SISSA + CASPUR

Sw: Dspace (Parma) Sw: CDsWare (Roma “La Sapienza”, Messina)

– Type of material: articles pre-print, doctoral theses, teaching material, technical reports, working papers, conference proceedings, miscellaneous ( multimedia documents covering the cultural and scientific production of the university

Disciplinary Open Archive– E-lis (Library & Information Science)

sw:eprints

15 institutional DP + E-LIS

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Open Access Journals

Freely accessibile academic journals– Fragmentary context– not standard compliant

“Open Access” Journals– Compliant to the Budapest Open Access

Initiative– Quality control, OAI- PMH compliant

Critical issue: being economic sustainable– see SISSA JHEP- Journal of High Energy of

Physics – See Journal of the Pancreas

DAFNE and Zpub for Rendiconti del Seminario Matematico UNIPD

AEPI project: an Italian Platform for elecronic publishing

Development of sw for creation and management of e-journal

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Service Providers: infrastructures, services and tecnologies

CILEA – Iniziativa AEPIC (Academic E- Publishing Infrastructures)– Infrastructure for the planning, creation, managing of

Open Archives, OA journals

CILEA & CASPUR– Italian Platform to access open archives and

institutional archives PLEIADI- Portale per la Letteratura Elettronica Italiana Archivi e Depositi Istituzionali/Portal to the Italian Electronic Archives and Institutional repositories

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PLEIADI: an Italian SP

The platform, named PLEIADI ( Portale per la Letteratura Elettronica Italiana Archivi e Depositi Istituzionali - Portal for the Italian Electronic Literature in Open and Institutional Archives)

The portal offers end-users a federated search of Italian and foreign institutional archives and of general OAI compliant archives, news feeding and alerting services, helpdesk on copyright issue, statistics, citations parsing, and in the near future export facilities, bibliographic formatting, etc. will be available. A copy of the original project is available electronically in English on the AEPIC website. Originally the project was carried out only by CILEA and some months later CASPUR joined.

Italian Platform for OAI

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PLEIADI: objectives

• to improve access to the academic/content distributed in various open archives in Italy (data providers)•to create a national platform for access to the various data providers through a unique interface delivery of value added services to the Italian academic and research community (service provider)•The services: a portal, harvesting, indexing & information retrieval, gateway Z.39.50, metadata crosswalks, gateway metacrawlers,UTF-8 mapping. •In the future it will also provide export services to different formats and legal deposit.

Architettura – PLEIADI- Presente e Futura

User

Service Provider

Data Pro

viders

Portal

•Receive data from users•Provide Data to SP

•Receive data from users•Provide Data to SP •Harvesting

•Classification•Caching•Indexing•OPAC•Citation Parsing•Open URL•Metadata crosswalks•Gateway for crawlers•Full-text search•Statistics•Export facilities•Z39.50 for discovery services•Time stamping•Copyright•Legal deposit•Permanent URL•Digital preservation

•Harvesting•Classification•Caching•Indexing•OPAC•Citation Parsing•Open URL•Metadata crosswalks•Gateway for crawlers•Full-text search•Statistics•Export facilities•Z39.50 for discovery services•Time stamping•Copyright•Legal deposit•Permanent URL•Digital preservation

Ser

vice

P

rovi

ders

•Access management•Alerting•News feed•OA-relevant info•Forum management WG•Implementators VRD•Developers’ test bed•Italian OA list

•Access management•Alerting•News feed•OA-relevant info•Forum management WG•Implementators VRD•Developers’ test bed•Italian OA list

Por

tal

CILEACILEA

CASPURCASPUR

document archiving

metadata feeding

Added-value

metadata feeding

do

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retr

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implem

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PLEIADI- Architecture

Services Harvesting (Celestial) Caching (Celestial) Indexing & Information

Retrieval (Cheshire) Server Z39.50 Metadata crosswalks Gateway Metacrawlers Export Services * UTF-8 (mapping) Statistics * Legal Deposit * Copyright ** Future development

Portal

Access Management

Alerting & NewsFeeding

Relevant information on OA word

List of Italian OA archives

Forum and RSS news service

VRD for implementators/testbed

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Promotion & Advocacy

Institutional policy to fulfill archives Sensibilization of authors (create consensus)

– Questionnaires, Surveys (University of Brescia, SISSA) Diversified approach according to discipline

– Self-interest (impact on research, more citations, more funds, advancement in the carrier)

Seminars, workshop, Messina Conference Web site of AEPIC collects information on OA initiatives in

Italy and abroad, web –links, OA relevant documents, statements, etc.

On Open Access

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Critical issues: OA archives

Setting policies, strategies, guide-lines to support OA – Role of CRUI- (Italian Council of Rectors) Library

Committee Need for a unique register of Italian Open and

Institutional Archivbes – Open Archives Standardization

Use of controlled vocabulary Same classification system OAI- PMH structure set Metadata format Quality (Metadata and contents) Copyright issue Authority Control Persistence

Medium and long term preservation

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Critical issues: Open Access journals

Possible business model, strategies, guidelines for the creation and managing/preserving of OA journals– Role of CRUI- (Italian Council of Rectors) Library Committee in

supporting OA journals – Role of CRUI – Academic/Research Assessing Committees

How can we distribute the cost of OA e-publications? Which economic models are sustainable?

Copyright Medium term and long term preservation

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Future developments

More political and institutional support for OA

Need for something equivalent to SHERPA and RAE

Adoption of Creative Commons licences Stronger collaboration between librarians

and academic/research community Promotion & Advocacy

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5.4. Copyright

Copyright on national front– SIAE and Publishers association negotiation – VAT matters on e-journals and db– Adoption of Creative Commons licences– Survey on Italian Publishers policies (Italian

Sherpa) Copyright on UE front

– Copyright Policies and Agreements: implementing the Zwolle Principles

– University Copyright Policies (before on national CRUI front)

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5.5. Consortia: a model for cooperation

Some progress towards national negotiations : the CRUI initiative Legal Deposit of electronic publication at BNCF (agreement between

the BNCF and commercial publishers and university presses) Italian periodicals indexing

– Economics, Marketing: ESSPER (40 partecipating libraries)– Law: ESSPER Diritto– Architecture : CNBA

Creation and management of information gateways by subject areas– SINM (in mathemathics)– SBBL in Lombardia in biomedical disciplines (university

libraries,hospital and policlinics libraries and research centres)

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5.5. Consortia: Critical factors

Absence of strong tradition in library cooperation Insufficient central national support in co-operation programmes Fragmentation

– Departmental libraries– Duplication– No central Library Authority

Difficulty in achieving economies of scale E-only based contracts are slowly making their way

– Cultural resistance– Lack of coordination in journal subscriptions in large universities– Need for more centralization; – Procurement procedure and the Italian law– VAT issue

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Consortial organizations

CIBER- Coordinamento Interuniversitario Basi dati e Editoria in Rete (26universities)

– Members are: CASPUR universities (6) + 19 Central-Southern Italian universities– Voluntary basis; no legal status,it is administratevey and technically supported by CASPUR. CIBER is

about to change its status into a more formal organization. Negotiations are handled by the co-ordinator and the secretariat and by ad hoc negotiating committees

CILEA – Supercomputing Applications Consortia (11 members + various research institutionsMembers are: 11 universities from the Northwest of Italy. CILEA acts on behalf of these universities and the same time as a service provider to other Italian universities or research centres which have not joined either CIBER or CIPE

CIPE – Coordinamento Italiano Periodici Elettronici (12 universities)– It’s a group of universities mainly from Central and Northern East part of Italy. No legal status, the

group is well organized, each university is formally committed to the group. The university of Padua acts as an official representative, signs contracts etc. The contract negotiations are handled by a board (university rapresentatives + consultant)

SBBL – a regional based consortia of medical schools and hospitals in Lombardy

Consortial licensing

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5.6. On e-learning front

A programme of training courses that uses open distance learning methodologies and platform open source (Moodle) has been set up to for librarians of Administrative Libraries (Dept. Public Function – Italian Ministerial Council Presidence)

A programme of training course for School Librarians (2500 trainers) has been set up from MIUR (Ministry of Education, University and Research funding three Consortia: CILEA, CASPUR, CINECA)

Some Universities have been set up e-learning methodologies and tools (Learning Objects, LOM, repositories…): library systems are involved

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5.7. Reseach on LIS

Research activities– CNR- Pisa

Cyclades, OpenDlib, Scholnet, DlibCenter

– CNR –Bologna Sail E-prints Service Provider

– SISSA Torii, prototype for multiple research in

OA archives and document evaluation

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Links

PLEIADIhttp://www.openarchives.it

MINERVAhttp://www.minervaeurope.org/

MAIhttp://www.aib.it/aib/lis/opac1.htm

BEIChttp://www.beic.it/

SBNhttp://www.sbn.it/

ACNPhttp://acnp.cib.unibo.it/cgi-ser/start/it/cnr/fp.html