i2010 Digital Libraries a European Commission Initiative for Europes Cultural Heritage and Scientific Information Javier Hernández-Ros European 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 Europes 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 7 th R&D Framework Programme and eContentplus Operational: establishing the European digital library- EUROPEANA

Political/institutional level next 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 20 th 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 ( ), range of projects involving archives, libraries, museums, audiovisual archives – e.g. EDLNET eGateway

Technical level: Co-funding Continued support for digital libraries –7 th 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 Europes 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 Europes 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!

Europes digital library, museum and archive

Thanks! More information at the Digital Libraries initiative web site: activities/digital_libraries/index_en.htm For questions: