1

Denmark’s Electronic Research Library

1998-2003

2

Contents• The DEF secretariat

• Background– Specialist survey– Vision– Implementing the vision– Activity areas

• Project organisation– Social organisation– Technical organisation

• Activity areas– Results from the four activity areas– The utilisation of the grant

• Experiences from the project period

• DEF 2003

3

DEF-secretariat

• 8 employees:– The deputy director of the DNLA, Bo Öhrström as

daily leader of the project

– A leader of the Secretariat - administration, coordination, accounting, employees etc.

– A project coordinatior - digitisation, e-learning, e-publication etc.

– A secretary - administration, accounting

– Two portal editors - support of SBIGs, component development, management and development of deff.dk

– Two employees in licensing - contact with suppliers, support of libraries, coordination of consortia, renewals, test access etc.

– One part-time marketing employee and some legal assistance

4

Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEF)

• DEF is the result of the previous government’s IT-political action plan The Information Society for all – the Danish model from 1996

• Following a specialist survey in 1996 which established the foundation for the project, the first initiatives were launched in 1997

• With the national budget for 1998 the project became a reality with a budget of 200 mil. DKK distributed over the period 1998-2002

• Three ministries:– Ministry of Education

– Ministry of Research

– Ministry of Culture

5

The DEF vision from the specialist survey February 20th 1997

“The network of research libraries should form a virtual system which transcends the frames of regional/local libraries and makes available the libraries’ collective information resources (digital and traditional) to users all over the country in a simple, transparent way within the given legal and financial framework”

6

Implementing the vision (1)

• A DEF portal as the common access to the hybrid library - both electronic resources and physical collections

• Models for user-involvement which ensure that development is user-centered

• A distributed system architecture with cross searching of library catalogues and shared portal software for building SBIGs based on shared technical standards

• User-administration system with ‘electronic key’ enabling single sign-on independently of the user’s physical location

7

Implemening the vision (2)

• Bibliographical standards for metadata, subject data and cataloguing rules for webresources

• Technological up-to-date IT-systems in the local research libraries

• National SBIGs for selected subject areas chosen on the basis of a national strategy

• Access to international SBIGs in larger subject areas• Access to a critical mass of digital resources• Access to selected physical collections in digital form• Electronic access to all paperbased catalogues• Common access to Danish electronic research publication

- The Danish National Research Database (DDF)

8

Implementing the vision (3)

• Shared user facilities including an offer of selected electronic services e.g. training programmes

• Organisation and funding for ‘DEF after DEF’ ensuring continued cooperation between research libraries

Digitalmaterial

Physicalmaterial

User

DB

Bibliographicalsearch (Z39.50)

Author

Search engine

Publisher/Association UserAuthor

Library

Informationsearch (“Harvest”)

10

Four main activity areas

• National infrastructure• Library infrastructure• Digital resources• User facilities

11

Activity areas - national and library infrastruture

• National infrastructure

– The DEF portal www.deff.dk is established as the common access to the electronic research library and both digital and physical collections

– Development of a common system for access management which gives the user – wherever he is placed – access to payable information resources

• Library infrastruture

– The national infrastructure is based on the individual research libraries’ IT systems. It is therefore essential for a well-functioning and modern national infrastructure that the local systems operate on an equal and technically advanced level

12

Activity areas - Digital resources (1)

• Conversion of printed catalogues

– improve the electronic access to the research libraries’ physical collections, thereby making them more visible and attracting more users. Within the activity area, support is given for the conversion of paper-based catalogues and bibliographies on the basis of annual applications submitted

• Digitisation

– Preparation and adoption of a national policy for digitisation. DEF also provides financial support for digitisation of relevant collections and journals.

13

Activity areas - Digital resources (2)

• The Danish National Research Database

– The project management at Risø Laboratory is constantly trying to increase the number of data suppliers and through technical development projects DEF seeks to improve the possibilities for delivering data to the base

• Licenses

– Purchase of electronic journals and databases. The research libraries’ cooperation in DEF’s license group is the obvious forum for decisions on the purchase of electronic journals and databases

14

Activity areas - User facilities

• Various projects

– Support of projects in the libraries aimed at developing new tools and methods for further development of the libraries’ service to the user as well as tools which support the end user’s handling of information resources

– Focus on e-learning, information literacy and SBIGs

15

Stakeholders, partners and environment

• Internationally (examples):– Technology (JISC, Nordic cooperation)

– Licenses (ECOLC, ICOLC, Nordic cooperation)

• Nationally (examples):– The research libraries

– The ministries

– The Danish National Library Authority

– The principal’s association

– The Research Net

– The public libraries

– Danish Bibliographic Centre

– Education libraries

DEF organisation

S ec re ta ria t

S ys tem in fras tru c tu re-g rou p

L icen se-g rou p

R eferen ce-g rou pfo r S B IG s

Tech n ica l-g rou pfo r S B IG s

S u b jec t lib ra rian -coop era tion

P orta l-g rou p C ata log u e-g rou p

S teerin g C om m ittee

C oord in a tion C om m ittee

17

National infrastructure deff.dk

• Practical implementation of the DEF vision• The vision is a system of systems• Main project for 5 subprojects:

– DEF portal

– DEF key

– DEF catalogue

– DEF subject portals

– Danish National Research Database

Webbrowser

DEF Portal

DEF Portal Search(Cross search portals

& web-sites)

DEF Electronic Journals

(Title search)

Metadata

OAIharvest

Fulltext

Z39.50

Metadata

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39.50

Cata-logue

Z39.50 Z39.50 Z39.50

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

Z39

Kata-log

LDAP

Userdata

LDAP network(Authentication)

DEF Portal services with Web-userinterfaces

Databases with Z39.50, OAI or LDAP interface

Freely available for other applications in DEF libraries

deff.dk: DEF Portal and services 2002

DEF FagportalDEF

FagportalDEF Fagportal

DEFSBIGs

OAIOAI

DEFLink collection

(Main portal)

Webharvest

Z39.50 Z39.50

Danish Nat. Research Database

Z39.50

Meta data

Z39.50

DEF Catalogues(Search and order in lib. catalogues)

20

DEF in figuresSeptember 2002 (1)

• 31 libraries cooperate about the portal deff.dk (12 big and 19 medium-sized libraries)

• deff.dk gives access to app. 500 electronic web-resources: - Collections of journals, articles and reports - Bibliographies - DEF libraries - DEF library catalogues - Subject portals - Collections of links and virtual libraries

• 6 subject portals operate, and 5 more are under development

• 122 libraries have installed or will implement new library systems through DEF according to DEF technical standards

21

DEF in figuresSeptember 2002 (2)

• DEF gives access to 53 DEF licences including app. 8,900 journals in full text

• Each library can access from 1 to 62 products • 110 libraries (’sites’) participate in DEF licenses and

these cover an additional 194 institute libraries/institutes/hospitals

• Retroconversion of app. 2,5 mil. catalogue cards from 14 research libraries is in progress for a total amount of 19 mil. DKK (2,6 mil. Euro)

• 35 libraries participate in 20 DEF development projects concerning systems test, subject portals, user education, user statistics / user satisfaction, digitising, e-learning etc.

22

DEF in figuresSeptember 2002 (3)

• 11 user-conducted projects have been started • 3 libraries and 10 publishers participate in 5

digitisation projects apart from the digitising of selected core journals e.g.: – Weilbach Kunstner Leksikon gives information about

37,500 works of art and 6,000 Danish and foreign artists in 55 museums

– Illustreret Tidende consists of 65 volumes, 58,000 pages and 4,000 pictures

– Archive for Danish Literature contains 70 of the most important Danish classical authors’ works consisting of app. 150,000 pages digitised in full text, selected portraits of authors and extended with critical material

Ressource distribution on activity areas over five years ~ 26 mil. Euro

3,17 8,36 5,39 3,10 1,48 2,290,81 0,67 0,34

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

National infrastructure Library infrastructure Licenses

Retro conversion Digitisation Danish Research Database

Projects SBIGs Marketing

24

Philosophy in project development

• Cooperation, cooperation...• United effort often produces a better result than the

sum of every single effort• Planning according to “least resistance” produces

quicker results• Confrontation leads to consensus • Let the biggest libraries pull in the development

process

25

Gains from other activity areas in DEF (1)

• Common projects with shared financing develop products and services for everybody and avoid duplicate work

• A common EU-tender for conversion of card catalogues converts more cards for less money

• Common subject portals with quality-controlled information reduce the total amount of man hours for development and maintenance

26

Gains from other activity areas in DEF (2)

• Common tool development for all libraries minimises parallel development and delivers more information to the users

• Special user-conducted projects extend established projects from concrete user requirements - results can be re-used by libraries, researchers and students

27

From project to permanent activity (1)

• DEF project funding ends Dec. 31st, 2002• DEF budget analysis carried out in May/June 2002 by

– Ministry of Finance

– Ministry of Culture

– Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation

• DEF is now entered on the National Budget, taking effect from 2003 with funding of 13,0 mil. DKK (1,7 mil. Euro)

28

From project to permanent activity (2)

• DEF 2003 framework: – Cooperation, consolidation and extension

– Continuation of success activities

– Start-up of promising, new activities

29

DEF 2003 activities (1)

• Development and operation of technical national infrastructure with possibility of usage statistics

• Common acquisition of licenses for electronic journals and databases

• Development and operation of the Danish National Research Database

• Implementation and support for subject portals including development of tools

30

DEF 2003 activities (2)

Cooperation by subject Functional sharing of work Common systems operation Cooperation with other institutions/sectors Digitising E-learning E-publishing

31

Where to find DEF

• http://www.deflink.dkweb site of the DEF project• http://www.deff.dk

the DEF Portal