European digitisation activity

European Digitisation Activity:
Issues for the creation of a digital
Europe

Dr Paul Ayris
Director of UCL Library Services and UCL Copyright Officer
President of LIBER (Association of European Research Libraries)

p.ayris@ucl.ac.uk

Contents

1. The European Information Landscape
2. LIBER and Europeana Travel
3. LIBER and Early European Books
4. Copyright and IPR
5. Digital Preservation
6. European policy on Open Access
o EU Consultation on Access to, and Preservation of, Scientific Information
o LERU Roadmap Towards Open Access
7. Conclusions

Local
VRE/VLE/ Student/UCL Library Prescribed core readings holdings
local web systems and textbooks Paper and e-

Research collaborations; Pay fees; book residences;
Books/Journals/
Primary data; Group pay fines; see course and Core textbooks (STM);
AV/Digital Collections
project work; Learning exam marks; see loans Digital readings (AHSS)
and Archives
interface information

Digitised/born-
digital materials

E-Journals, E-Books,
YouTube, FaceBook, Flickr Global resources - free
mass digitisation

Google interface to External content
Social networking tools
Internet subscribed and free

Europeana Travel

 See http://www.europeanatravel.eu/
 LIBER project launched at Tallinn in May 2009
 Completed in May 2011
 See http://www.libereurope.eu/ National Library of
Latvia
 and an article on Europeana Travel at
http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/issues/2009-2/index.html?000469
 €1,000,000 project, funded by EU
 Aim was to digitise over 1,000,000 units of content on the themes of
Travel, Tourism and Exploration and to make these materials
available via the Europeana portal at http://www.europeana.eu/

Partners

 19 project partners
 Includes 10 National Libraries
 6 University and Research Libraries
Göttingen State and University Library
Lund University Library
Moravian Library in Brno
Trinity College Dublin
UCL (University College London)
University Library of Innsbruck
University Library of Regensburg UCL SSEES

Content Output Units
Images 33,300
Pages 193,650
Maps 5,857
Books 15,879
Documents 18,300
Glass Plates 3,733
Film Negatives 25,000
Photographic Objects 11,600
Journal Pages 155,000
Shellacs 30
Postcards 180,000
Manuscripts / Graphic sheets 604

User Needs Involvement Country
General reading Google minded All partners
General User Native interface Uses You Tube
Homework Uses Web 2.0 All partners
School children Native interface
Research matter Specific material All partners
Academic User Trusted sources Advanced search
Expert Pay for Value Specific material All partners
Researcher Added services? Advanced search
Librarian / Best practice Target for Whole of Europe
Archivist Add information dissemination

Issues with this approach to digitisation
 Fantastic content …but
 Project was only 50% funded
by the Commission
 European Research Libraries do not
have digitisation as a budget heading
in their operational budgets
 Only material out of copyright
could be included because rights
clearance would have been too
complex National & University
 No centralised arrangements for Library of Slovenia

the digital preservation of content

Early European Books

 LIBER chairs the Early European Books Advisory Board
 A commercial offering from ProQuest
 Aim is to create high-quality digitised content for ALL Europe’s
printed output between 1475 and 1700
 Builds on the very successful EEBO service (Early English Books Online)
 Typically, nation’s output is 50% in Latin and 50% in the vernacular
 Business model is subscription based for at least 10 years, Open
Access to the work thereafter
 Open Access in the country of origin from day 1

Making digitised content relevant

 Principal feature of the offering is the mass of content being made
available – aim is for complete European coverage
 Open Access is a feature of this commercial offering
 Materials will be available to the world, free at point of use, after a
minimum of 10 years
 Partner is respected as a world leader in offering digital content to the
research community
 For list of packages currently available
 See http://eeb.chadwyck.com/marketing/about.jsp

Copyright and IPR (Intellectual Property Rights)

 How can Openness be embedded in the European Information
landscape?
 World will not become Open Access overnight
 Steps can be taken to change the current way the world works
– for education and research to enjoy the results which more openness
brings
 The EU should make changes to the current EU copyright framework
 Hargreaves Report in UK urges a number of changes to the UK
copyright framework and a closer linkage between UK and EU
legislative positions
 See http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview-finalreport.pdf

Copyright and IPR (Intellectual Property Rights)

 There should be a fair dealing exemption for text and data mining for non-
commercial use
 This would strengthen research across the EU
 EU should identify ways for extended collective licensing to take place for out
of commerce and orphan works
 so that these materials can be digitised for the benefit of research and education
 EU should ensure that contracts and licences cannot overturn Fair Dealing
exemptions, as currently happens
 Fair dealing exemptions should also cover format shifting to allow libraries
and memory institutions to digitally preserve for the long term the digital
content that European researchers use and need
 Were this progress in the EU’s copyright/IPR frameworks to be made,
Member States could follow suit
 Greater openness would result if these changes were made.

Digital Preservation

 US-UK Blue Ribbon Task Force on Economically-Sustainable Digital
Preservation laid out the conditions that should prevail in order for
the scholarly outputs of researchers to be digitally preserved for the
long term
 See http://www.jisc.ac.uk/brtf
 A number of scenarios looked at the level of preparation of various
communities to undertake digital preservation
 Academic libraries were amongst the best prepared
 US Film Industry, by contrast, was not.
 Jon Landau, the producer of Avatar, was honest in saying that no
arrangements had been made for the digital preservation of his film
 It was not clear whose responsibility to undertake that work it was

Digital Preservation
 European research needs sustainable infrastructures for long-term
access to digital materials
 Key Questions
 Roles and Responsibilities
 Does everyone need to undertake digital preservation, or can it be
left to a chosen few?
 What infrastructure is needed to deliver long-term access?
 Who will pay?
 How much will it cost?
 Does copyright legislation at the EU and Member State level need to
change?

Digital Preservation – LIBER and APARSEN

 LIBER is a partner in the APARSEN Best Practice network on Digital
Preservation
 Economically-sustainable digital preservation requires:
 Recognition of the benefits of digital preservation on the part of key
decision-makers
 Incentives for the decision-makers to act in the public interest
 A process for selecting digital materials for long-term preservation
 Mechanisms to secure an ongoing, efficient allocation of resources to
digital preservation activities
 Appropriate governance of digital preservation activities

LIBER and APARSEN

 LIBER will look at the level of preparation in Europe to adopt the Blue
Ribbon Task Force’s recommendations
 Led by Austrian National Library and the University of Patras
 LIBER will survey key stakeholders with an interest in digital
preservation 4 stakeholder categories
 Research Data
 Scholarly Discourse
 Collectively-created Content
 Commercially-owned Cultural Content
 The National and International agencies category of stakeholders
identified by the Blue Ribbon report will also be contacted
 Result will be a comprehensive Report on the situation in Europe

EU Consultation

 EU Consultation on Access to, and Preservation of, Scientific
Information took place in Luxembourg on 31 May 2011
 LIBER’s Statement is available at http://www.libereurope.eu/news/llber-
statement-at-the-public-hearing-on-access-to-and-preservation-of-
scientific-information-l
 Statement covers:
 Open Access
 Copyright reform
 Digital Preservation
 EU will be consulting further with a view to issuing an EU Directive

LERU Roadmap Towards Open Access

 A consortium of 22 research-intensive universities in Europe
 See http://www.leru.org/index.php/public/home/.
 LERU is committed to
 Education through an awareness of the frontiers of human understanding
 Creation of new knowledge through basic research, which is the ultimate
source of innovation in society
 Promotion of research across a broad front, which creates a unique
capacity to re-configure activities in response to new opportunities and
problems
 The purpose of the League is to advocate these values, to influence
policy in Europe and to develop best practice through mutual
exchange of experience

LERU

 LERU wanted to know what position, if any, it should take
on the Open Access debate
 General meeting of LERU Chief Information
Officers/University Librarians in December 2009
 Appointed a Working Group to draw up a LERU Roadmap
towards Open Access
 Road Map was considered by LERU Vice-Chancellors at their
meetings in London (2009) and Paris (2010)
 Being launched in Brussels on 17 June 2011

LERU

 Purpose of the Roadmap is to offer guidance on how to
position your University in the European Open Access
landscape
 Builds on the Open Access Statement of the European
Universities Association
 See http://www.eua.be/eua-work-and-policy-area/research-and-
innovation/Open-Access.aspx
 A Roadmap for all European Universities, not just LERU
members

LERU Roadmap addresses …
 Open Access in a wider context: Open Scholarship and
Open Knowledge
 Advocacy Statement on behalf of LERU Universities
 The LERU Roadmap – an Exposition
 The Green route for Open Access – Steps to Take
 LERU and the Gold route for Open Access
 Models of Best Practice to support the Roadmap
 Benefits for researchers, Universities and Society
 LERU is considering European E-Press developments

Conclusions

 For the European digital landscape to work:
 Universities will undertake large-scale digitisation using a variety
of Business Models
 Copyright and IPR frameworks are in need of reform
 Digital Preservation needs to be embedded at institutional and
project level to guarantee long-term access
 Leading European research Universities have a Roadmap for
Open Access and are investigating Open Access dissemination
routes seriously

If you have been…

 Thanks for listening
 Further discussion to follow
in Panel discussion

European digitisation activity

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