Sally - Academic Bibliography at Ghent
Ghent and Lund are collaborating on the online system. At Ghent an academic enters the detail of their research output. Until recently they only had to input the metadata but now they have to deposit file as well. This the main database for registration of research output and used to provide information to external bodies as required (if academics do not deposit material then this will result in a reduced allocation of monies to Faculty). At the moment they can choose to have open or closed access but the the desired end state is full open access. There is a quality control check and two staff check entries to ensure minimum quality is maintained. Files are uploaded as PDF. They are testing to open up the system more broadly for the deposit of other digital material from academics eg photos
Cath - Records and archives at Ghent
Very traditional and paper based systems for records but with the appointment of a new manager for the area they keen to develop a new records management model for Ghent. The Archives (University records) will move to be part of the Library to be managed alongside the heritage collection.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The New Librarian?
It seemed that each of the continuing professional development sessions I went to were full house and standing room only. We had the Librarian from Business and Informatics Library in Illinois talking about redefining librarian roles and services one afternoon.
They are taking outreach very seriously and pushing the boundaries of what a librarian is - they have redesigned their service and engagement model and repositioned themselves in the University . The Librarians now play a key role as career consultants. It seems to be working and at Illinois and the Library are now being invited to partner on other initiatives because of this. The speaker ended with the comment that others are entering our domain so why are we so scared to go into others domains??? Food for thought??
They are taking outreach very seriously and pushing the boundaries of what a librarian is - they have redesigned their service and engagement model and repositioned themselves in the University . The Librarians now play a key role as career consultants. It seems to be working and at Illinois and the Library are now being invited to partner on other initiatives because of this. The speaker ended with the comment that others are entering our domain so why are we so scared to go into others domains??? Food for thought??
Visit to Ghent University Library
On Friday I travelled to Ghent from Milan and was most fortunate to be invited 
as a fly on the wall to the Google International Press Conference at Ghent for their book scanning project. You know what they say about best laid plans.....the flight was late and so was the train to Ghent so I arrived just as they wrapped up the press conference but was able to take part of the tour for media.
After the media left I was fortunate enough to spend most of the afternoon with Inge Van Nieuwerburgh who is the coordinator of the Digital Library (and leads the in house digitisation program).
Ghent Library in summary: The heritage collection is one of the most important in Belgium after the Royal Library.
The collection is ho
used the the Book Tower which is classified as a monument. It is undergoing major restoration including building an underground repository - the uniqueness of the collection means there is limited access to the physical objects. It also houses a reading room as the collection is closed and because of the uniqueness much of it has very limited access.
In 2007 there was a serious flood - damaged 20,000 books
The Library has centralised core functions and there is usually a library per faculty (11 faculties spread over the town) - Political and social sciences has a purely virtual Library.
Central library has approx 2million volumes, 5,ooo serials, 4,000 newspapers, 136 papyri, 6,500 manuscripts, 700 incuabula, 10,000 early paintings 40,000 letter, 117 private archives, 60,000 photographs, 1 million ephemera items , 8 metres death notices, 18,000 auction catalogues + many other items. 16,000 volumes are from the period 1500 - 1599.
The Library started a electronic catalogue in 1984 and have scanned it 2.6 million cards from its card catalogue in 2004 and are OCR'd and searchable
Google Books project is focused on all out of copyright books in the Library and makes them available online. It commenced in 2007 all will scan all books published to 1869. Size, condition and value all play a part in selection (no manuscripts digitised). The investment from the Library is doing some basic description, retrieving books and preparing for shipment and in return the Library receives a digital copy of the book in three formats TIFF (per page) and PDF. Staff are not informed of the location of the digitisation centre they ship books to or the process which is used. It takes on an average turn around a month from sending to receiving books back. .
After the project 300,000 volumes will be available through google book search. Currently 91,814 volumes have been scanned 60% of which full text is available via google book search. It is estimated it will take 3-5 years to scan all books
The project has raised the profile of the Library (and the collections) and staff have noted a significant increase of enquires from research as a result.
In house Digitisation projects
Mainly project funded or in partnership with faculties and a staff of two undertake most of the digitisation. On demand digitisation take much of their resources..
Workflow is: Selection - restoration (low level inc cleaning) - pre cataloguing (minimal description) - scan - temp storage (to ensure it meet minimum requirements/criteria ie ID, metadata etc) - repository(then online).
Equipment - large flat bed, A2 bookeye and flexible digital camera set up which is use for much of the digitisation. Camera sources from America and bench from Zertchel (they did not consider the Zertchel option as it was too "fixed" for their needs)
as a fly on the wall to the Google International Press Conference at Ghent for their book scanning project. You know what they say about best laid plans.....the flight was late and so was the train to Ghent so I arrived just as they wrapped up the press conference but was able to take part of the tour for media.After the media left I was fortunate enough to spend most of the afternoon with Inge Van Nieuwerburgh who is the coordinator of the Digital Library (and leads the in house digitisation program).
Ghent Library in summary: The heritage collection is one of the most important in Belgium after the Royal Library.
The collection is ho
used the the Book Tower which is classified as a monument. It is undergoing major restoration including building an underground repository - the uniqueness of the collection means there is limited access to the physical objects. It also houses a reading room as the collection is closed and because of the uniqueness much of it has very limited access.In 2007 there was a serious flood - damaged 20,000 books
The Library has centralised core functions and there is usually a library per faculty (11 faculties spread over the town) - Political and social sciences has a purely virtual Library.
Central library has approx 2million volumes, 5,ooo serials, 4,000 newspapers, 136 papyri, 6,500 manuscripts, 700 incuabula, 10,000 early paintings 40,000 letter, 117 private archives, 60,000 photographs, 1 million ephemera items , 8 metres death notices, 18,000 auction catalogues + many other items. 16,000 volumes are from the period 1500 - 1599.
The Library started a electronic catalogue in 1984 and have scanned it 2.6 million cards from its card catalogue in 2004 and are OCR'd and searchable
Google Books project is focused on all out of copyright books in the Library and makes them available online. It commenced in 2007 all will scan all books published to 1869. Size, condition and value all play a part in selection (no manuscripts digitised). The investment from the Library is doing some basic description, retrieving books and preparing for shipment and in return the Library receives a digital copy of the book in three formats TIFF (per page) and PDF. Staff are not informed of the location of the digitisation centre they ship books to or the process which is used. It takes on an average turn around a month from sending to receiving books back. .
After the project 300,000 volumes will be available through google book search. Currently 91,814 volumes have been scanned 60% of which full text is available via google book search. It is estimated it will take 3-5 years to scan all books
The project has raised the profile of the Library (and the collections) and staff have noted a significant increase of enquires from research as a result.
In house Digitisation projects
Mainly project funded or in partnership with faculties and a staff of two undertake most of the digitisation. On demand digitisation take much of their resources..
Workflow is: Selection - restoration (low level inc cleaning) - pre cataloguing (minimal description) - scan - temp storage (to ensure it meet minimum requirements/criteria ie ID, metadata etc) - repository(then online).
Equipment - large flat bed, A2 bookeye and flexible digital camera set up which is use for much of the digitisation. Camera sources from America and bench from Zertchel (they did not consider the Zertchel option as it was too "fixed" for their needs)
Interesting Fact
SFX was developed by a member of the Library staff and sold for a realativly small fee to ExLibris.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Libraries of the Future
In a very crowded room this topic was explored. - where will be in 10 years from now. Klaus Ceynowa from the Bavarian State Library talked about "libraries in digital life". The Phoenix was used as a metaphor and like this magical creature the old model will burn down within the next 10 years and like the Phoenix the Library of the future will emerge from the ashes. Two imperatives he pointed out - library as a services must be invisible and fully integrated and the Library as a place must be visible with stunning architecture and modern design. He described the decline in usage of library web pages,and predicted a convergence to mobile devices, flexible e-book readers and library on a contact lens!
State University Library part 2
Some more detail on my visit to State University Library.
In the 90's they moved from a decentralised to central model and from 150 to 33 libraries (ideal state is 16 and they are still working towards it). The Central Library division manages, cataloguing, interlibrary loans, subscriptions( licencing ejournals) and general co-ordination of basic services offered at satellite libraries. Milan campus has three Libraries Law, Philosophy and History.
5 services points are served by a total of 40 librarians (200 staff in total).
State University has 75,000 student and 3,000 teaching staff - opening hours are 9am - 7pm (demand has not justified extending these hours as the majority of student do not live in central Milan).
Same issues we face seem to face all libraries and State library also face financial and space issues. All their Libraries (except Law) are underground and the have excavated under the courts of the building to secure library space (all buildings are heritage protected so no major works can be undertaken to alter the structure).
Devils in the Detail
I delivered a condensed version of the paper written by Margaret and I on Thursday afternoon (after lunch - not the best pick for a session time) It was one of 7 papers in the statistics and evaluation session for the afternoon which saw speakers from Poland, America, Botswana, Spain and Italy present. The room was full and all went smoothly. In the audience a few Australians - Librarian from Yarra Plenty and Andrew from cultural collections and copyright. Having seen many presenters over the last few days get not so subtle reminders to wrap I kept almost perfect time getting the wrap us as I was on my last sentence. It seemed to be well received and due to time limitations only one question was taken.
It was also announced this afternoon that the 2013 conference will be the the Asia or Oceania region. Perhaps a second chance for Brisbane after being bumped in 2010.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
State University Library Visit
Today I spent most of the day at the State University Library. Below are some photos of the University. A more detailed blog to follow tomorrow.
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