Welcome to
The European
Library
Newsletter!
+ Agenda
+ In Focus;
Elena Zimina & the Russian State Library
(RSL)
+ News
- New chair for The European Library Management
Board
- Final
Preparations for version 2.0 Of The European Library Metadata
Registry
- The European Library static content “Face
Lift”
- A resolution
service For European National Libraries?
- Brand and The
European Library: Management Board
Recommendations
- Progress on short term Interoperability Recommendations
for The European digital library
========
The EU 50th anniversary
of
In this Newsletter, Elena Zimina,
Deputy Director of International Communications Department of the Russian State
Library gives an overview of the RSL cooperative level with The European
Library, other national libraries and other cultural institutions.
This April issue also features an
overview of the latest Management Board meeting held in
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:
Note that you can find a definition
of all terms with asterisks at the bottom of this Newsletter in our "Explanatory
note".
======
======
Conferences and
meetings The European Library is participating in during
2007:
+ Open
Educational Practices and Resources for Lifelong Learning –
+ FESABID 2007 - Sandiago de
Compostella (Saint James of
Compostela) – May 09/11,
2007
+ INFORUM 2007 -
=============================================
IN FOCUS: ELENA
ZIMINA - THE RUSSIAN
STATE LIBRARY (RSL)
=============================================
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
Elena Zimina joined the RSL in July
2006. She previously worked in the private sector and the American Cultural
Centre in
How is the
partnership between the
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
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
The expansion of
the Full Participant members of The European Library is an ongoing process. As
EDLproject national library partners are
integrating their collections into The European Library, new collaboration
projects are already on the horizon for
2008-2010.
The integration of EDLproject
partners collections into The European Library are scheduled throughout 2007.
The national libraries of
The Swiss Development Agency, on the request of
the Swiss National Library, has offered to
sponsor the national libraries of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia
Herzegovina, Georgia and Macedonia, Moldova and Ukraine with a
240’000€ funding project during a 2
years period (2008-2010). This sponsorship will enable these national libraries
to become full members of The European Library by the end of 2008
The Swiss Development
Agency are also to be thanked for the monies provided to the TEL-ME-MOR national
libraries which has considerably eased their transition from project to fully
paid up members.
=============
+ NEW
CHAIR FOR THE EUROPEAN LIBRARY MANAGEMENT BOARD
Lynne Brindley,
Chief Executive of The British Library, elected as the new chair of The European
Library Management Board*.
During the sixth meeting of The
European Library Management Board, held at the National Library of the
Among the items on the agenda were
the approval of The European Library’s audited accounts for 2006, a
questionnaire about the digitisation programmes of the national libraries,
recommendations on Branding for The European Library (refer to
Brand And The
European Library for further details) and an update to The
European Library’s Product and Services Plan. The Board also discussed the
possibility of hosting collection descriptions externally in a Web 2.0 semantic
tagging environment and has agreed in principle on a pilot to be able to
understand the challenges of such a move. The next meeting of The European
Library Management Board meeting will take place in September in
=============
+
FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR VERSION 2.0 OF THE EUROPEAN LIBRARY METADATA
REGISTRY
During the
latest meeting of The European Library Metadata Working Group* (MWG) held at the
British Library in London on 26th and 27th March 2007, the
final preparations for the launch of 2.0 of The European Library Metadata
Registry where made.
The new version of the Metadata
Registry, which is scheduled for release on 15th May 2007, will not
only be a standalone website, but will also include a searchable Directory of Terms. This new feature
of the registry has been developed by
=============
+ THE EUROPEAN
LIBRARY STATIC CONTENT “FACE LIFT”
Following the
4th Full Participants Contact Meeting recommendations in
The European Library applied an
intermediate “face lift” to the Organisation
pages. Following TEL-ME-MOR project successful conclusion in March 2007, the
TEL-ME-MOR website will become part of the Cooperation archives of The European
Library portal in the course of April 2007; the archive of the previous
“GABRIEL” and “TEL project” will also be made publicly accessible. The May
Version 1.5 release of the portal will look to further merging of the Libraries
and Treasures pages under a single access point in the portal. The November
portal release will introduce a dedicated partners’ exhibition page and feature
exhibition/web-exhibitions across national libraries in
=============
+ A
RESOLUTION SERVICE FOR EUROPEAN NATIONAL
LIBRARIES?
On
16th March 2007, the Persistent Identifiers'
Working Group of the Conference of European
National Librarians (CENL) met with representatives from The European
Library’s Technical Working Group* to discuss the potential of developing a
National Libraries Resolution Service for Europe.
Using National Bibliography Numbers
(NBNs), the “persistent and unique identifiers assigned by the national
libraries”, the National Libraries Resolution
Service will enable the persistent links to be created to the
digital objects in the national
libraries of
=============
+ BRAND AND THE
EUROPEAN LIBRARY: MANAGEMENT BOARD
RECOMMENDATIONS
As The European
Library attracts more projects and includes more members it becomes more
important to promote the brand name. This means that we have to insist on
the English version of the name, not that we think it is a great name but if we
don’t the traffic generated in the partner countries becomes wasted if it is not
directed to www.TheEuropeanLibrary.org.
Equally to capitalise fully on the dissemination opportunities that projects
give us we need to be more clever how they fit with the mother brand.
The Management Board Meeting held
on the 19th of March 2007 in
* Make sure that no future project
name should carry The European Library or its acronym,
* All communication whether from
The European Library Office or from the partner libraries should adopt the name
of The European Library as the sole brand name, therefore partners’ translations
of “The European Library” should not be used
* The “European digital library”
initiative must be closely monitored so that it is not confused with The
European Library, nor should it be understood as a project name.
* Clearly associate satellite
projects of The European Library under The European Library portal umbrella
(TELplus as well as EDLnet)
=============
+
PROGRESS ON SHORT TERM INTEROPERABILITY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE EUROPEAN DIGITAL
LIBRARY
On
9th March 2007, the second meeting of the European Digital Library
Interoperability Experts Group took place at The European Commission in
The initial task of
Interoperability Export Group is to prioritise which
interoperability issues can produce tangible and operational results by
2008. During the meeting, twelve recommendation
areas had been identified including object modeling, metadata standards,
multilingual search and retrieval, basic semantic interoperability and
authentication data exchange. Due to the complexity of the area, a
sub-group for Metadata and Packaging standards has been set up, led by
=============
STATS AND
FACTS
=============
+
FIGURES
- The European Library website
recorded a 30% increase of new
visitors in March compared to February.
- March top 3 visitors’ origin:
France,
+ TOWARDS
SERVICE IMPROVEMENT: ADVISORY BOARD AND MINI
SEARCHBOX
The European Library is setting up
an Advisory Board to help the Office improve The European Library portal
readability and understanding. The Advisory Board members are all candidates
recommended by national libraries throughout
The European Library is also
promoting the “Mini Searchbox”, which is a standalone search box that gives
access to all the functionalities of The European Library. The “Mini Searchbox”
can be set up on any website upon request; it is free and user friendly.
Installation can be done in 3 basic steps. Find out more by clicking
here:
http://libraries.theeuropeanlibrary.org/services/services_en.html#mini
The national libraries of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary have already adopted this
ingenious tool.
==============
==============
THE GERMAN
NATIONAL LIBRARY (DNB) EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS
The German National Library (DNB)
currently features the following exhibitions and events across
+ HANS TICHA - BOOK
& ARTWORK - 1970 - 2006: 30 years of Hans Ticha's artistic
activities. The exhibition is held in
+ During the German presidency of
the EU, the DNB organises a conference entitled "The
Challenge: Long Term Preservation - Strategies and Practises of European
Partnerships". The conference will be held in Frankfurt am Main,
20th-21st of April 2007. Click here for
more details (Document in English and PDF format)
+ The permanent exhibition of the
German
Book and Writing Museum in
Find out more by
clicking on the DNB
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:
===================
The editorial content of the above
Newsletter was gathered with the kind cooperation of Elena Zimina from the Russian State Library
(RSL), Britta Woldering from the
German National Library (DNB),
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The European
Library Technical Working Group represents The
European Library members in issues concerning metadata and protocols. This group
(Full Participants only) makes sure that technical developments are in line with
strategy, and help to create and test the portal and
website.
The European
Library Management Board: This group (Full Participants only)
is responsible for policy direction, the setting of subscription levels and high
level monitoring.
The European
Library Metadata Working Group is responsible
for the development and the
maintenance of The European Library Metadata Registry, which is a database
containing a list of metadata terms and their
characteristics.
Z39-50/SRU
is a
standard communication protocol for the search and retrieval of bibliographic
data on-line. Z39.50 is an old protocol developed before the Web existed. Its
complexity urged the development of a new protocol based on current web
standards called SRU (Search & Retrieve via URL's). SRU will gradually
replace Z39.50. The European Library protocol for searching purposes is the SRU.
To allow access to Z39.50 databases that are the most common ones in the library
collection environment, a SRU to Z39.50 gateway has been developed.