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Current activities of Die Deutsche Bibliothek in the field of electronic publications

MMB Digital Dissertations Digital Publications
Nedlib Long-term preservation Digitisation
CORC META-LIB

 

MMB

Users can access off-line media and the World Wide Web in a multimedia area of Die Deutsche Bibliothek (DDB). It is equipped with multimedia terminals, ATM connnections, workstations for the blind and vision impaired, as well as audio and video devices. Central to the multimedia section is a multimedia access system (Multimedia Bereitstellungssystem), developed in cooperation with CSC Ploenzke. The system provides controlled user access to the OPAC, to electronic publications and to the World Wide Web, integrated search and access via OPAC, access to a wide range of pre-installed electronic publications, printing and downloading, and media transfer for long-term preservation.

Digital Dissertations

The project Digital Dissertations was commenced in July 1998. About 300 dissertations are available via the server of Die Deutsche Bibliothek. New metadata delivery methods were introduced in March 1999. University libraries can submit metadata using either an HTML form, email or email attachments or they can link to a document containing the metadata. These additional services will lead to a wider acceptance, as university libraries can choose the process that best fits their internal situation.

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Catalogue entry of a Digital Dissertation

Figure1: A catalogue entry of a digital dissertation.

Digital Publications

A working group comprising several publishers, Die Deutsche Bibliothek and the publishers’ organisation, Buchhändlervereinigung, has been established to discuss questions of delivery, collecting, cataloguing, archiving and access to online publications. Participating publishers are Springer Verlag, Wiley-VCH, Dumont Buchverlag and K.G. Saur Verlag.

The discussion will lead to first projects for the delivery of online publications. After a test and evaluation phase, the results will potentially influence the national deposit law.

A delegation from the DDB visited the online division of Springer (Springer Link, http://link.springer.de/) in Heidelberg, to learn about the contents and the technical environment of this online publication service. Some of the online publications presented will be first candidates for archiving at the National Library. For this purpose, DDB will get access to the Springer Link system. The "book" processing will consist of cataloguing the online version and the delivery of the publications on a regular basis via CD-R.

The working group will also hold an information day on persistent identifiers and long-term preservation in September 1999. This event was organised because discussion and the results of a questionnaire showed that publishers need information on these topics.

Nedlib – Networked European Deposit Library

NEDLIB is a collaborative project of European national libraries. It aims to construct the basic infrastructure upon which a networked European deposit library can be built. The objectives of NEDLIB concur with the mission of national deposit libraries to ensure that electronic publications of the present can be used now and in the future.

Key issues to be investigated are: standards and interfaces for the generic architecture; electronic document technical data; access controls and archival maintenance procedures. IT-developers and publishers will assist in defining standards, methods and techniques. The commercial and copyright interests of publishers will be handled through access controls implemented when the publications are stored and activated when they are accessed. The architecture will be specified to address "today's access" and to ensure "future proofing". You can find information on Nedlib at http://www.konbib.nl/nedlib/.

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Long-term preservation of diskettes

A working group has been established to develop concepts for migrating the contents of diskettes to CD-ROM. Members of the working group come from the IT department and services and archiving department of the National Library.

Initially, a list of all existing diskettes or print publications with diskettes was compiled from the catalogue. About 3000 diskettes are available at Die Deutsche Bibliothek. These will be grouped into units of 50 publications in order to have a convenient number of diskettes to work with. The same number of diskettes will be transferred to a single CD-ROM.

After migration, the original diskettes will be separated from the books and will be stored together in the library stack. The books will get a label with information on the migration status (e.g. transferred, migration not possible etc.) and the call number of the new data carrier.

For the migration of the diskettes, the long-term preservation function of the MMB is used. This includes the transfer of the contents to the MMB system and a migration to a CD-ROM. For this transformation process, the MMB system makes use of the software "Winimage" that copies the contents of a diskette on a sector/track basis to a file, which can be re-transferred.

After transformation of the files that represent the contents of the diskettes, they will be written to a CD-R. Each diskette will be transferred twice: one copy will go into the stack and one working copy will be held at the MMB service for user access. The record of the electronic publication in the catalogue will be updated with a referral to the new data carrier.

The IT department is responsible for those diskettes that can’t be read, that are damaged or that are of a special file or data carrier format. A set of tools for disk repair and emulation will be collected to make some of the problematic publications available. Use of metadata and archiving of old operating systems is being discussed.

Digitisation of Exile Press

The project "Exilpresse digital. Deutsche Exilzeitschriften 1933-1945" is carried out as part of the project "Verteilte Digitale Forschungsbibliothek", sponsored by the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft". It is part of a bundle of projects called "Sammlung deutscher Drucke" (Collection of German prints). Its objective is the digitisation, indexing process and provision of selected newspapers and journals of the German Exile of the years 1933-1945.

Several exile papers have been scanned and made available via the web. Fifteen titles with about 50,000 pages have been digitised by an external service company. Bibliographic information and information about the digitisation are available for each paper. A search function offers access to selected articles based on search criteria such as author and title.

The user interface has been developed in JavaScript and requires at minimum Netscape Navigator 4 or Internet Explorer 4. Pages of the papers are presented in GIF-format and can be displayed in zoom modes of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. The single pages of the papers are also available in PDF-format. Another 15 newspapers will be digitised in the next months. A subject based catalogue for the journal Aufbau on cards with 50,000 entries, will also be digitised.

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Homepage of Exile Press

Figure 2: Homepage with search function of the Exile Press site.

CORC

Die Deutsche Bibliothek is participating in the research project CORC (Co-operative Online Resource Catalog) initiated by OCLC. CORC aims to establish a world-wide catalogue for online documents in a co-operative approach involving a large number of project partners (mainly institutions from the US). CORC is trying to bring together the world of traditional cataloguing and metadata use on the web.

CORC features co-operative cataloguing of web documents, accommodation of metadata, RDF/XML import/export, MARC and Dublin Core import/export, integration of DC and MARC in a single system, editing of records via Dublin Core and MARC views, assisted classification and subject heading assignment, automatic keyword extraction, link maintenance and reference access.

A client/server configuration is the technical basis of the co-operation between OCLC and participating institutions. The client for the submission of metadata and catalogue records is a Web browser (IE4 or Netscape Navigator 4) with a HTTP connection to the CORC server.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek will submit metadata and catalogue records of online publications – initially mainly for online dissertations. In a second step, authority files will also be delivered. DDB is expecting to gain useful experiences in metadata delivery and cataloguing of online resources. Information about CORC can be found at http://www.oclc.org/oclc/new/n239/feature/10feature.htm

Metadata – project META-LIB

Project META-LIB (Metadata Initiative of German Libraries) is trying to develop policies for metadata use at scientific libraries. It is focussing on adopting and using the Dublin Core set for digital and digitised resources. Project partners are Die Deutsche Bibliothek, Niedersächsiche Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek (State and University Library of Lower Saxony, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library) and Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut (German Library Institute). The role of DDB is to define policies and procedures for the cataloguing of online publications in the national bibliography.

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For futher information about these activities, please contact: Hans Liegmann or Jörg Berkemeyer of Die Deutsche Bibliothek.