PSNC Digital Libraries Team

Lucene 3.0.0 was released on 25 November 2009. Lucene is an open Java framework that is used for indexing and searching text in dLibra software. Lucene 3.0.0 is the first release with Java 5 as a minimum requirement. The API was cleaned up to make use of Java 5′s advantages. You can find many optimizations and new features in the latest Lucene, though it is not fully compatible with earlier releases due to many changes. The most important are near real-time search capabilities added to IndexWriter, new query types, per segment searching and caching, improvements in wildcard searching, improved Unicode support, high-performance handling of numeric fields and many more. Detailed information on changes in Lucene framework is available here.

We are planning to use Lucene 3.0.0 in one of the future versions of dLibra software. It will help us improve indexing and searching performance.

On the 16th of February 2010 in the ROARMAP registry a policy of the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS regarding the compulsory archiving of all published manuscripts in the IBB PAS institutional repository was registered. It is a 145th entry in this database and the first entry from Poland. Congratulations!

IBB PAS institutional repository is available at http://eprints.ibb.waw.pl/.

Between 16th and 18th February 2010 in Veria Central Public Library (Βέροια – city located in Middle Macedonia region in Greece) a training for ACCESS IT project was conducted. The training led by Adam Dudczak and Marcina Werla from PSNC DL Team covered wide range of topics related to digitisation, creation of digital libraries and aggregation of metadata for Europeana and other purposes. The training was divided into following sections:

1. What is all this digitisation about and which objects should be digitised?
2. How to digitize objects?
3. How to create a digital repository?
4. How to describe digital objects?
5. How objects and metadata from digital repositories can be reused?
6. How to (and why) prepare a repository for Europeana?
7. How to set up a metadata aggregator?
8. Should I know something more about digital preservation?
9. Why to evaluate accessibility and usability of digital libraries?
10. What comes next?

The training had 15 participants representing Greece, Serbia and Turkey.

In the ACCESS IT project these persons will create in their countries centres of competence on digital libraries, trying to cause the increase of the amount of cultural heritage available on-line and visible in Europeana. On the basis of materials prepared for the training and conclusions from discussions and practical exercises an on-line course will be prepared. It will be the basis for wide training action for cultural institution employees in three mentioned countries. This training connected with certification is planned to reach to several thousands of people causing the increase of knowledge and practical skills in the digital libraries area.

The training was described by regional press (1, 2, 3) and on the Flickr profile of the Veria Central Public Library some photos from the training were published.

Veria Central Public Library is one of the largest public libraries in Greece. It takes many initiatives related to European cooperation and to the promotion of reading. Particularly worth to notice and recommend is the idea of Magic Boxes – a way to arrange the library space for the youngest readers, which was implemented in Veria Central Public Library at the end of 2008.

This week the PIONIER Network Digital Libraries Federation (PIONIER DLF) has submitted to the DART-Europe data about another Polish e-theses and dissertations (ETDs) – the number increased by more than 700 publications, reaching a total value of 1 102. This is the credit of 5 new digital libraries that have decided to pass on information about their ETDs .

Presently 11 digital libraries are transferring their data through the PIONIER DLF to the DART-Europe portal:

1. ABC Kraków
2. Biblioteka Cyfrowa Katedry Lingwistyki Formalnej Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
3. Biblioteka Cyfrowa UMCS
4. Dolnośląska Biblioteka Cyfrowa
5. Księgozbiór Wirtualny Federacji Bibliotek Kościelnych FIDES
6. Podkarpacka Biblioteka Cyfrowa
7. Podlaska Biblioteka Cyfrowa
8. Śląska Biblioteka Cyfrowa
9. Wielkopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa
10. Zachodniopomorska Biblioteka Cyfrowa
11. Zielonogórska Biblioteka Cyfrowe

These libraries give access to Polish ETDs from 26 universities and 2 scientific institutes.

We would like to thank digital libraries listed above for successful cooperation in dissemination of Polish scientific work and also encourage more libraries to join this group.

Very good news for all administrators of digital repositories created using DSpace platform. Vangelis Banos published a DSpace plugin which allows to expose Europeana Semantic Elements compliant metadata through OAI-PMH interface. Source code and detailed instruction can be found at author’s website. Plugin was already used in digital library created and maintained by Veria Central Public Library (Greece).

In case of Polish digital libraries connected to Europeana via the PIONIER Network Digital Libraries Federation there is no need to expose the metadata in the ESE schema on the level of particular digital library. Data in the Dublin Core schema harvested from digital libraries is automaticaly enriched with the mandatory ESE elements and exposed in this form for Europeana.

On the February 9, 2010 on the website of FIDES Digital Library a digital version of “Księga Henrykowska” was published. It is a manuscript coming from XIII century, in which for the first time ever a sentence written in Polish can be found:

„day ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai”

which means „please, I will grind, and you take a rest”. This sentence can be found on the 24th page of the manuscript, row 9 from the bottom.

More information about this event can be found at FIDES Digital Library, and an interesting post was also published on the blog of Tomasz Kalota from the Wrocław University Library.

Since today on websites ofII “Polish Digital Libraries” Conference and VI “Digital libraries” workshop you can download slides preseted during speeches.

You may be also interested in full texts and presentations from the previous editions of the conference and presentations from previous editions of the workshop.

Iławska Biblioteka Cyfrowa (IBC), run by the Municipal Public Library of Iława (Poland), was recently made available on-line. IBC aims to build an open digital collection of materials concerning the Iława district. These are mostly articles from local and national magazines and books, manuscripts, maps, postcards or photos. Currently available are more than 800 objects, divided into three main collections: “Articles from national magazines,” “Articles from regional magazines” and “Books”. Thanks to the agreement with several publishers, the IBC can publish for free digital copies of articles from regional newspapers.

Iławska Digital Library is another local digital library, similar to Nowohucka Digital Library and Digital Library of Wejherowo. It is worth to take care of the visibility on the web in case of such  small digital libraries. Presented resources are unique and strongly connected with local themes. Therefore, it is difficult to find them for users who have no awareness of the existence of such library. It is much easier to find large digital libraries, such as the WBC or KPBC, because they publish not only local material but also materials generally related and important to Polish or European culture.

Issue 3/2009 of the PIONIER Magazine, published by PIONIER Consortium and Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center is available on-line in the PSNC Digtial Libraries Team Repository. This issue is devoted mostly to digital libraries.