Selecting journals for digitisation

Piecing together the puzzle to create a European model

Dr Hazel Woodward

Cranfield University, UK

h.woodward@cranfield.ac.uk

Presentation to the Conference on strategies for European Libraries, Copenhagen, 13-14 March, 2000.

Selecting journals for digitisation - a global activity being undertaken by:

• individual institutions

• regional/ subject-based/ cross-sectoral consortia

• national organisations & institutions

• international projects

how can we get all these initiatives to feed into a cohesive European model?

Selection of journals for digitisation at local level

• rarely determined or influenced by national strategies

• “Each institution developing digital collections will have a distinct organisational mission and context which will define and influence the scope of its activities, its criteria, strategies and procedures for [selection] acquisition and collections development.”

Arts and Humanities Data Service

http://adhs.ac.uk/public/srg.html

Selection of journals for digitisation at local level

• print and electronic in-house journals (copyright owned)

• special collections of local/ national/ international importance

• activity will increase dramatically as automated library systems develop ‘digital media archive’ software

Selection at local level

• important locally published journals digitised in full for preservation purposes

• important journals contained within special collections digitised in full

• articles digitised on-demand to support learning, teaching and research

• articles purchased on-demand (e.g. Project HERON)

Journal digitisation by consortia

• (UK) JISC/ eLib projects e.g. Internet Library of Early Journals; Hybrid Library projects such as BUILDER

• (UK) Research Support Libraries Programme e.g.– Glasgow Digital Library Project

• (US) Arches - Archival Server and Test Bed - online repository for collaborative digitising projects

• most projects require external funding

• selection criteria within proposals open to peer review

• national/ international overview - prevent duplication and offer possibility of wider dissemination of outcomes

Selection issues & consortia digitisation projects

Guidelines for the selection of online Australian publications

• be about Australia• be written by an Australian of recognised

authority• be on a subject of social, political, cultural,

religious, scientific or economic significance and relevance

• have long term research value (e.g.peer reviewed journals)

Joint Information Systems Committee (UK)

• The Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER)The DNER is a managed environment for accessing quality assured information resources on the Internet which are available from many sources. These resources include scholarly journals, monographs, textbooks, abstracts, manuscripts, maps, music scores, still images, geospatial images and other kinds of vector and numeric data, as well as moving picture and sound collections.

NESLI - the National Electronic Site Licence Initiative

• NESLI forms part of the wider DNER strategy

• to increase and improve access to e-journals in higher education institutions (HEIs)

• to negotiate value-for-money deals for electronic journals for HEIs

• overseen by the NESLI Steering Group

• Managing Agent appointed to deal with publisher negotiations, subscription, access interface, authentication, and promote widespread acceptance of NESLI Model Licence

European and international initiatives

• Project Delta

• DIEPER - Digitised European Periodicals

• Project DigiZeit

• JSTOR

Developing a European model

• a European gateway to digital information– policies, strategies and guidelines

– organisations and websites

– data documentation and standards

– database of digitised journals

– news, events, discussion lists

– etc. etc. etc.

Selecting content for the European model

• there is no legal deposit for, and central database of, digitised journals

• digitised journals are being created at local, regional, national & international level

• many journals are being digitised as part of short term projects whose continued funding is uncertain and exit strategies unclear

• there are many thousands of journals (many from commercial publishers) which European libraries would like to have access to in digital form

• look at the success of JSTOR!!

Selecting content for the model

• need collaboration, co-ordination and strategic planning at a European level e.g. Project Nedlib - Networked European Deposit Library

• need to involve both national libraries and other national bodies involved in electronic resource provision

• need to appoint a content gatherer and negotiator (c.f. NESLI Managing Agent)– gather information on, and where possible provide access to, existing

content– negotiate permissions with publishers to digitise backruns of journals– liaise with digitisation experts e.g.HEDS– provide access interface– manage subscriptions/ licences

• need funding to cover costs of above!!

Selecting content for the European model

• Steering Committee to develop and oversee selection guidelines and criteria

– science and technology versus humanities and social sciences journals

– subject clusters (SuperJournal Project; NESLI) - core journals in a range of subject areas

– citation analysis - US bias might be inappropriate for European model

– on-demand - not core strategy but parallel activity