European strategies for digitisation: the context of i2010 digital libraries Pat Manson Head of Unit Cultural Heritage and Technology Enhanced Learning Directorate General Information Society and Media

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October scene setting  Long history of supporting innovation in libraries, in networking and in digitisation  A virtuous circle of actions – but unbalanced at European level Political - limited Strategic - intermittent Operational – more than 100 M€ in projects since 2000  Lasting effect on structures in Member States  Balance between actions, optimise leveraging

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October overview of presentation  Background to our strategies  Political framework  Current state of play  The challenges – with focus on digitisation  Our strategies for dealing with them – strategically and operationally

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October background: i2010 a reminder  i2010: Commission strategy for the Information Society – announced a flagship initiative on Digital Libraries: digitisation, accessiblity and preservation of cultural and scientific information i2010: digital libraries – launched 2 years ago  Quality access to content for all  Common multilingual access point  Work needed on 3 interlinked axes:  Digitisation  Online accessibility  Digital preservation  Made visible and operationalised through the European Digital Library

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October why Digital Libraries at European level?  Everyone should be able to access individual and shared heritage  Not only today but into the future  Shaped by common effort not disparate local solutions  Creative and economic potential of cultural and scientific content  Supporting education and research  New cultural and creative industries  Cultural expression and tourism  Media rich services

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October i2010 digital libraries ― a framework for actions  Commission Communication (2005)  identified issues that were political, strategic and operational ― applied to digitisation, accessibility and preservation  Commission Recommendation to Member States (2006)  Set out actions to tackle the challenges  Council Conclusions (Nov 2006)  endorsed actions, set out timeframe for all actors  confirmation of work towards the European Digital Library  European Parliament own initiative report (Sep 2007)  Endorsed the Commission’s actions and calls upon Member States  Supported European Digital Library

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October Council Conclusions ― more specifically  Council invites Member States:  To reinforce national strategies and targets and co-ordination within and between Member States  To contribute to the European digital library  To contribute to an overview of progress at European level  To improve framework conditions  Council invites Commission:  To stimulate & coordinate work towards European Digital Library  To improve policy coordination  To address framework conditions  To set up and chair a Member States Experts group and steer process of implementing the actions  To report on implementation progress, first time in 2008  Clear framework for actions with concrete timeframes – who should do what by when

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October the main challenges: legal - financial - technical Copyrights  Problem - 20 th century black hole  Addressed on strategic and operational level  Orphan works  Different categories -> different problems -> different solutions  Scalability of search guidelines  Practical mechanisms for clearing rights, registries  Big test: legal recognition between MS of orphan work status  Out of print works  Model licence  Strategic recommendations agreed between stakeholders  Next step – practical operational test beds that create body of evidence as to what works, if regulatory intervention is needed

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October the main challenges: legal - financial - technical Digitisation costs  Coordinated approaches to avoid redundancy – selection, prioritisation  Identification of what has been digitised  Incentives for public private partnerships  Sponsorship, co-funding, technical support  Need for body of experience on benefits and risks  Guidelines from sub group of High Level Group  Improving technologies for digitisation  Reduce costs for mass digitisation, for specific materials  Competence centres – leverage, research improved solutions, export competence, skills and services to smaller organisations

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October European Digital Library  Our strategy – operational role of the European Digital Library  Showcase the effects of political and strategic actions on the core problems  Retains political interest  Politically endorsed targets  Integrating critical mass of content into EDL  Reflect heterogeneity and connections between content in different formats and institutions  Implies – need for joined up digitisation policies and strategies, at national and EU level

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October measuring investments and progress  Input and output of digitisation – quantitative measures reported back to the political process  Member States – collect information on current and planned digitisation efforts  Commission study – statistical methodologies and indicators  Absolute and relative digitisation costs  Baseline statistical overview of digitisation volumes  Ways to measure digitisation progress  Contractor IPF asking for input from stakeholders  NUMERIC newsletter

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October conclusions  i digital libraries: not just a short term goal but a process  Long term vision demands  Cooperation of all stakeholders (ALMs plus private sector)  Already being taken forward in EDLnet  New services and new business models  Technically – providing multilingual access; interoperability in short term and longer term frameworks  Digitisation today must adopt practices that will support future usability and accessibility of digitised content

LIBER/EBLIDA Workshop on Digitisation, Copenhagen, October Further information from  “i Digital Libraries”:...activities/digital_libraries/  eContentPlus:...activities/econtentplus/  ICT workprogramme / FP7:...research/eu_research  NUMERIC study: THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!