PSNC Digital Libraries Team

According to e-biblioteka Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego (e-bUW) portal, Warsaw University Library plans to digitize and publish on-line on e-bUW around 40 thousands publications until 2012. Documents which will be scanned are part of precious collection of 19th century periodicals. Readers will be able to browse various titles including “Kurier Warszawski”, “Gazeta Warszawska” and “Korespondent Warszawski”. The full list of titles that are to be scanned can be found here.

Scanning of those precious periodicals is performed in frame of the NUKAT – AUTOSTRADA INFORMACJI CYFROWEJ project, which is co-financed by Innowacyjna Gospodarka programme. We wish e-bUW successful project and many new publication on-line.

Moreover in frame of this project, KARO system will gain possibility to search metadata of all digital libraries connected to Digital Libraries Federation portal. Integration will be based on OpenSearch API implemented in DLF.

On a web page of the National Audiovisual Institute there can be found interesting report on digitalization of Polish culture. This initiative is supported by the Competence Centres, cited by the Ministry of Culture in 2009.
Report is divided into three parts:

• Definition, process
• Current state: threats, needs
• Future plans

Problems of this complicated process, tasks as well as challenges of the subject are presented by experts in the matter of archives and digitalization. The subject is also presented from other perspectives – legal, organizational and financial by experts from National Library, National Film Archive, National Digital Archive and National Audiovisual Institute. We can also listen to interviews with representatives from Ministry of Culture and many directors of culture institutions who speaks about digitalization of museum, audiovisual and photographic exhibits.

It is worth to investigate the subject and find out how difficult and time-consuming can be digitalization of culture; how many intermediate elements are connected with it.

On the 24th of May, 2010 around 10:20 AM the total number of publications in Polish digital libraries connected to the PIONIER DLF reached 400 000.

The publication number 400 000 is the Bridges-Our word: magazine of Jewish Workers’ Party (Sjon Poaley-Hashomer Hatzair). Y. 4 (1949) nr 44 (447) published on-line by the University of Warsaw Digital Library.

We also estimated the publications growth rate in Polish digital libraries over the last three months. According to data stored in the PIONIER DLF the average number of publications added every month is 15 000. At the end of 2009, we calculated the growth rate at the level of 10 000 publications a month. This means the increase of 5 000 publications! More can be found on the site with the total number of publications.

We are also pleased to note that digital librarians effort is appreciated by the History and Media portal. This site began a series of articles entitled “Found in Polish digital libraries” with particularly attractive materials found via the PIONIER DLF. We encourage everyone to read them!

Congratulations to all creators and contributors of Polish digital libraries!

In the current edition of D-Lib magazine (Volume 15 Number 3/4) you can find two interesting papers on digitsation:

• How Good Can It Get? Analysing and Improving OCR Accuracy in Large Scale Historic Newspaper Digitisation Programs by Rose Holley from the National Library of Australia
• Going Grey? Comparing the OCR Accuracy Levels of Bitonal and Greyscale Images by Tracy Powell and Gordon Paynter from the National Library of New Zealand

We encourage you to read it!

In the last two days two interesting publications focused on digital libraries were published in Polish digital libraries. The first one is a shared work edited by Jadwiga Woźniak-Kasperek and Jerzy Franke titled “Digital libraries: projects, realisations, technologies (Biblioteki cyfrowe : projekty, realizacje, technologie)”. In this book you can find a chapter written by Władysław Marek Kolasa titled „dLibra” Digital Library Framework – platforma do budowy bibliotek cyfrowych, describing the dLibra software developed by the PSNC Digital Libraries Team.

The second publication is titled “Standards in the process of  digitization of cultural heritage objects (Standardy w procesie digitalizacji obiektów dziedzictwa kulturowego)” written by Grzegorz Płoszajski. This book is based on the internal report of the Technical Standards of Digitized Objects Working Team, a part of the Digitization Team appointed by the Polish Minister of Culture and  National Heritage on the 24th of April, 2006.

Both books are written in the Polish language – if you know it, we encourage you to read those books!

According to the information from the official Google blog, the comapny has started an initiaitve focused on the increase of the avialbility and searchability of old newspapers. This aim will be achieved with a close cooperation with publishers, and in the scope of the digitization are… all the newspapers on the world. Digitized content will be avialable via the  Google News service.

W ramach “Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program” 25 czerwca udostępniono wersję beta serwisu Australian Newspapers. Serwis ten ma docelowo dawać dostęp do gazet z lat 1803 – 1954. Obecnie dostępnych jest w nim około 70 000 gazet, wszystkie zostały poddane procesowi OCR. Na serwis warto również zwrócić uwagę ze względu na atrakcyjny interfejs użytkownika. Czytelnicy gazet mają możliwość komentowania i tagowania poszczególnych artykułów, a także mogą nanosić poprawki w automatycznie rozpoznanym ze skanów tekście.

Biblioteka Narodowa Australii opublikowała pakiet informacyjny “Digitisation of Heritage Materials” zawierające wskazówki na temat oprogramowania i procesu digitalizacji obiektów dziedzictwa kulturowego. Pakiet skierowany jest do małych organizacji i społeczności.