Digital Libraries Working Group
ALA Midwinter Meeting
11 January 2004
San Diego, CA
Present:
Jeff Garrett (GRP Chair), Tom Kilton (GRP Past Chair), Michael Seadle (GRP Secretary and Webmaster), Dick Hacken (Digital Libraries Working Group Coordinator), Elmar Mittler, Beth Remak-Honnef, Reinhart Sonnenburg
Guests:
David Lincove, Michael Neuman, Rhonda Marker
I. Introductions & Announcements
Those present introduced themselves by institution, by position, and by their particular interests in digital resources. We were particularly pleased by the number of guests visiting. The coordinator gave information for those interested in joining the GRP and the working group.
Michael announced that there will be a GRP meeting at the Bibliothekskongress in Leipzig in March, at which he will assist in the coordination and liaison between the German and the North American members of the GRP and of this working group.
II. Report of Munich meetings of GRP
Dick reported on the Munich meetings and subsequent action items of the DLWG, referring to the website found at www.lib.byu.edu/estu/arl/munisum.htm
III. Progress report on initiatives being pursued and discussion on how to proceed with them:
A. Encouragement and support of digitization projects
1. Yale German dissertations – There was a question about any available finding guides and/or a bibliographic assessment of the 17th-18th century dissertations being considered for digitization. This might help point to the rarity value of the items – are they really as rare as we suppose, given German digitization efforts? It was suggested that Elmar Mittler would be a good contact person for Dale Askey to discuss this with. We wondered what departments or disciplines would be best served by the digitized dissertations and, if undertaken, what other partners would be helpful? Dick will talk to Dale about these points.
2. World War I materials – The University of Wisconsin, Madison is busily engaged in digitizing some of its own holdings in this area. Dick, as webmaster of a gateway to World War I documents, mostly in transcription, (http://www.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/) will work with Barbara Walden to make the Wisconsin World War I facsimile resources known and to search for other cooperative linkages.
3. "Content Enrichment Services for Online Catalogs” – Jeff Garrett reported on this project, a joint arrangement between the Bibliotheks-Servicezentrum Baden-Württemberg (Konstanz), the Universitätsbibliothek Stuttgart, and Northwestern University Libraries. Despite rejection of funding from the DFG, the partners plan to proceed with supplying Table of Contents information in the catalog record. In concert with the Bibliographic Control Working Group (chaired by Roger Brisson), we will keep in contact to see what assistance we can offer and what distribution of the resultant records to GRP members will be possible.
B. Location and display of digitized German resources
1. GRP-specific OAI harvester – Michael agreed to start an experimental OAI harvester specifically designed to enable relevant searches for the German Resources Project. Members of the GRP are reminded to make certain that their own digital collections are OAI-compatible (Open Archives Initiative), so that their metadata can be harvested. This project will undoubtedly start as a rough approximation and will require usage and feedback from working group members for fine-tuning and focus.
2. Traditional Internet gateway to German resources – At the same time the OAI harvester is begun, Reinhart has agreed to compile and maintain a traditional gateway to digital resources of interest to the German Resources Project. After discussion of possible organizational formats for the gateway, it was agreed that the Sondersammelgebiete (collection emphases at German libraries) would be an ideal way to organize the digital information. At the same time, it could revitalize the GRP contact partnerships by transatlantic discussion of relevant digital projects within given disciplines. There was some discussion of how much granularity (spectrum between wide inclusiveness or finely nuanced niches) we should strive for in the gateway. Members are encouraged to send Reinhart at first URLs and descriptions of broad disciplinary websites that fall within any of the nine Sondersammelgebiete (e.g., see categories on the left frame of WEBIS at http://webis.sub.uni-hamburg.de/ssg/themen/main.html).
C. Centralized solutions to the creation and display of digital resources in German studies
We did not spend a lot of time with this, since it is essentially a hope for the future that through contact with centralized organizations (such as CRL, with whom the GRP is assuming an ever greater role) the creation and display of digital resources, in German studies as well as otherwise, might be made into a broad cooperative enterprise. As possible we will lobby for this and raise awareness of its potential.
IV. Suggestion of new or revised initiatives (New Business)
Certain other digital projects were brought up, and we discussed ways we could possibly assist with them:
A. Sophie Project – this digital library of German women writers (1740-1927) found at the URL http://sophie.byu.edu/ is a project of the BYU German department, to which Dick will provide assistance as needed.
B. Jeff reported about the Bildarchiv der deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft, a pictorial archive of historic German colonies in Africa located at the Frankfurt University library (http://www.stub.bildarchiv-dkg.uni-frankfurt.de/dfg-projekt/Bildprojekt/frames/hauptframe.html). There may be some thesaurus translation work, German to English, with which the GRP – or some other entity – can assist. We will contact the Bibliographic Control Working Group to discuss the feasibility of our assistance.
C. Tom reported on the progress of the Emblem literature digitization cooperation between the University of Illinois and Herzog-August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel (see http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/emblems/). If there is some way in which the DLWG can assist with advice or expertise, Tom will let us know.
A. Michael also told us about a project to digitize images of decorative book bindings, including a small number of German ones, to be undertaken by the University of Alabama (See http://bindings.lib.ua.edu/about/bindingsnarrative.htm - Lou Pitschmann, principal investigator) partnering with the University of Wisconsin, Madison (Barbara Walden, co-coordinator). More information is needed on this project, including whether it is something that would fit within the DLWG’s purview.
V. Wrap up
Reports on progress for the above action items, along with results of the Leipzig meeting, will be reported at the Orlando meeting in June.
Dick Hacken, DLWG Coordinator
