The Digital Blog

Author: Claus Gravenhorst
at Colloquium of Library Information Employees of the V4+ Countries

Accessible information is a basic need of the society or to put it another way … of everyone. Usually the original can only be accessed in printed form or microfilm/microfiche, which means search, use and distribution of the information is time-consuming, cost-intensive and not available for everyone. The digitisation and conversion of printed items into electronic formats were, until recently, complex and cost-intensive. Insufficient budgets and/or resources prevented extensive transformations to digital repositories. Reliable methods for long-term security and the storage of these enormous data sets were virtually unavailable.

As the result of the METAe project (http://meta-e.uibk.ac.at), funded by the European Commission through the 5th Framework Research Program, CCS Content Conversion Specialists GmbH, Germany developed a comprehensive software solution, available on the market since 2003 under the brand name docWORKS. It is a production tool, which offers an integrated workflow for automated, structured conversion of printed documents into digital objects, which describe the physical and logical document structure by consistent use of international XML standards. These XML documents are to be equated concerning quality and structure with born digital documents and can be transferred to digital library systems, portals, document, content and knowledge management systems as well as virtually any media output device.
The main goal achieved through the project was the automatic generation of administrative, descriptive and structural metadata. The advantages of highly structured documents:
As “digital original” they meet the requirements for a digital long-term storage in repositories
With the use of XML open metadata standards, the data can be transformed and migrated to meet current and future requirements (more…)

http://www.bnf.fr/pages/catalog/num_masse.htm

The National Library of Norway has taken the next important step in their digitization programme. While the process of digitizing all documents ever published in Norway is still in progress, the Library has now put online their first books. A large amount is available for free and can be accessed at www.nb.no/sok . Currently the search interface is only available in Norwegian. Search can be performed via keywords inside the fulltext, although no hit highlighting is possible at current stage. Why not connect and play around a little bit? To view books online, please make sure to hit “Digitalt innhold - Ja” and “Materialtype - Böker” on the top left tool bar. [FK]

Es stellt sich die Frage, ob und wie man in großen Bibliotheken sowohl Räumlichkeiten und Personal, als auch das Produktionsumfeld für eine Massendigitalisierung realisieren kann, ohne daß man Schätze aus der Sammlung verkaufen muß, die dies finanzieren.

Edelste Lösung ist wohl für Bibliotheken, die Tore zu öffnen und externe Gelder und Dienstleister hineinzulassen, die quasi ohne Belastung des “bibliothekarischen” Ablaufs die Arbeit als gute Geister erledigen. Und eins, zwei, drei oder fünf Jahre später sind die Bücher digital.

Schon ganz schön bescheuert, wenn man überlegt, wofür in der Welt alles Geld ausgegeben wird - oder - wieviel die Börse an einem schlechten Tag verbrennt. Wenn man das in Digitalisierung stecken würde, dann könnte ich jetzt mal schnell in die Erstausgabe von The Celtic Twilight von W.B. Yeats reinschauen.

Schade Schade.

Time drops in decay
Like a candle burnt out.
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day;
But, kindly old rout
Of the fire-born moods,
You pass not away.