Aggregation and Reuse of Digital Objects’ Metadata from Distributed Digital Libraries
September 27 2009, Corfu, Greece.

Introduction

The number of distributed digital repositories (and digital objects) is increasing rapidly. Such growth gives new opportunities for initiatives using the distributed metadata to create novel network services with content and functionality not possible to achieve before. European examples of such initiatives are Europeana and DRIVER projects funded by the European Commission. A national-level example can be the Memory of the Netherlands portal.

The PIONIER Network Digital Libraries Federation (DLF) developed by PSNC Digital Libraries Team is also similar service. But, besides of the creation of new services on the basis of the aggregated metadata, the DLF also allows the further reuse of aggregated metadata in external services like Europeana. In this context the DLF plays the role of Polish national metadata aggregator.

During the development of the DLF we had to face several types of problems, such as different metadata schemas used in aggregated digital libraries, lack of controlled vocabularies or notation standards, lack of fully compliant OAI-PMH interfaces or even the aggregation of the metadata from repositories with valuable resources but without any dedicated metadata interfaces. We also had to solve different organizational and policy issues and be prepared to cooperate with external services interested only in some subset of aggregated objects basing on their type, subject, language, licensing policy etc.

Tutorial Scope

With this tutorial we would like to share the experience we have gained during the development of the PIONIER Network Digital Libraries Federation. It will be focused on problems which we had to solve in order to make the DLF a successful service, really useful and important both for digital library creators and end-users. The tutorial will also show the expected and unexpected positive effects which were achieved during the DLF creation, like the automated mechanism of the coordination of digitization widely adopted by several hundreds of institutions in Poland. Moreover, we would like to present the open-source software package created for the project and show how to use it for setting up DLF-like services in different networks of repositories.

The scope of issues covered by the tutorial is especially important in the context of programmes like eContentPlus and its successor - the CIP ICT Policy Support Programme.

Target Audience

The tutorial’s target audience consists of practitioners interested in the creation of national or regional metadata aggregators. The need of the creation of such aggregators is stressed by the Europeana related projects (see section 3.3 of the Europeana Outline Functional Specification - EDLnet deliverable 2.5, version 1.2) and the CIP ICT PSP (the objective 2.2 is titled "European Digital Library – aggregating digital content in Europeana"). Also the participants of ongoing eContentPlus projects, focused on content aggregation for Europeana (like EuropeanaLocal or ATHENA), should be interested in the tutorial.

Tutorial Structure

The tutorial consists of four 1.5 hour parts.

The first part will be introductory, describing the development of distributed digital libraries in the PIONIER Network, its current state and the role of the PIONIER Network Digital Libraries Federation both in national and European context.

The second and third part will be focused on chosen, most interesting aspects of the process of the national metadata aggregator creation, based on our experience with the DLF. All above parts will have the form of presentations and on-line demonstrations.

The last part of the tutorial will be the most practical one. In this part we would like to show participants how to use the DLF software package in order to create their own metadata aggregators, ready to be connected to initiatives like Europeana or DRIVER. Participants having their own laptops with them should be able to set-up their own aggregators, with the tutors support if needed.

Each part of the tutorial will also have a special time slot reserved for the discussion and the exchange of experience between participants.

Organizers

• Cezary Mazurek, Ph.D., is the Head of the Network Services Department at PSNC. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Poznań University of Technology in 2004. His research interests include a wide variety of advanced network services including portal solutions, digital multimedia libraries, streaming technologies, distance learning and access to grid services. He has been the manager of numerous projects in those fields coordinated by PSNC, including the Multimedia City Guide, Polish Educational Portal, and Digital Library Framework: dLibra, Nabór 2003-2009, PROGRESS and interactive TV platform for the Polish national television. He is an author or co-author of over 30 papers in professional journals and conference proceedings.
• Marcin Werla, M.Sc., is the leader of the PSNC Digital Libraries Team (http://dl.psnc.pl/). The team is focused on the development of dLibra Digital Library Framework, Digital Libraries Federation service and also participates in ENRICH and EuropeanaLocal projects. Since 2004 he is also the main organizer of annual national "Digital Libraries" workshop held by PSNC. He is also the author or co-author of several papers in professional journals and conference proceedings.

Related webpages:

Tutorial's External Site

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