Digital Libraries Working Group
ALA Midwinter Meeting
20 January 2007
Seattle , WA

Present: Claudia Alcala Iniguez (U Illinois), Dale Askey (Kansas State U), Judy Eckoff (CRL), Richard Hacken (BYU), Sebastian Hierl (Harvard), Jim Niessen (Rutgers), Deborah Rose-Lefman (Northwestern), James Simon (CRL), Sheila Smyth (UC Irvine)
Guests: Kobi Leins (Walter de Gruyter, New York), Clara Waldrich (K.G. Saur Verlag)

Introductions

The minutes from the meeting at ALA Annual in New Orleans in June 2006 were approved.

Technology transfer between North American and German libraries
Open source software and possible partnerships (Askey)
Dale suggests GNARP as possible coordinating entity for open source development of library catalogs, including targeted facilitation of sharing information and networking of individuals who are doing like or similar projects. For example, the US is moving toward open source ILS. The State of Georgia uses an open source ILS. In Germany, the University of Karlsruhe implemented an open source ILS about two years ago. No articles about Karlsruhe's ILS in English until a forthcoming article. The DLWG could invite German colleagues to conferences to share new developments from Germany, share news on GNARP and WESS listservs and then circulate the articles or information to technical staff at their institutions.

Also discussed was how we could work with ZVDD on making their records more visible to North-American users. For example, holdings in the DOAJ are now accessible through OpenURL resolvers and are being loaded into library catalogs; we should encourage/work with the ZVDD to follow suit.

CRL/RLG/NARA Digital Curation Centre (DCC), NESTOR developed criteria for trustworthy digital repositories; Opportunities for GNARP (Hierl):
There has been much recent discussion about the criteria for accrediting or certifying digital repositories. Could GNARP encourage publishers to include these criteria in database licenses? Germany companies selling databases in Germany must deposit content in long-term repositories. It is unclear whether non-German companies must also do this. Clara will follow up with the DFG about this. Do US institutions have access to this content? Follow up with DFG to find out who has access and where the content is. It may be important to have archives located in different countries. Perhaps as part of the license agreement, content would be deposited in trusted repository in US.

CRL/ProQuest German Dissertations Project (Hierl)
The trial for this project is in place for next six months. The username and password is temporary and is not for public distribution; Austin will provide new logon information for distribution to faculty and students.
http://proquest.umi.com/login/user
This project includes dissertations from 19th century. They are PDF files without full-text.
GNARP members are asked to take a look at this trial and give feedback. Should it be expanded to other subjects besides philosophy? Ancient near east, history of science, classics? Is full-text necessary? Not all dissertations are cataloged, so there is no subject access. Should participating institutions contribute in order to gain access? Sebastian will demonstrate it in Leipzig at Bibliothekartag in March. Austin will give presentation at ALA in Washington in June. Dale mentioned that Yale has collection of 18th century and older dissertations, mostly in Latin. Are these valuable for scholars or curiosities?

20th Century Germany History Online: (Clara Waldrich, K.G. Saur Verlag)
20th Century German History Online: National Socialism, Holocaust, Resistance and Exile 1933-1945 is a new database which was presented to the group.
This time period is the first to be published, other time periods in the 20th century will follow. As new time periods are added, subscribers will be able to search across multiple time periods in their subscription. The database includes primary sources originating from German and European archives, libraries, and research institutes. Some material comes from the Institut f?r Zeitgeschichte in Munich, which was founded in early 1960s. Interest in this database has been very high so far.
450,000 pages of primary sources have been digitized. Bavarian Ministry of Finance owns rights to Mein Kampf and other content. Volkische Beobachter also should be included, and K.G. Saur Verlag is currently in talks with Bavarian Ministry of Finance. 100,000 persons 20,000 places 10,000 organizations included in indexes of the database. 90% of the content is in German. The interface is in both German and English. http://www.saur.de/zeitgeschichte-online Free trials can be requested.

Briefsammlung Trew, offered by Harald Fischer Verlag (Hierl)
This database of letters about the history of science is based on resources at the University Library of Erlangen. There was a discussion of interest in consortial access via GNARP. The database can be purchased for 10 years; it is open access after that.

Bibliographie der französischen Literaturwissenschaft (Hierl)
There is no substantial update on this product, which is also known as Klapp.
A discussion ensued about how to reach out to non-GNARP institutions who may have the interest and money to subscribe to the Bibliographie der französischen Literaturwissenschaft,
BDSL, etc.

WESS-GNARP Inventory of Digital Projects (Hacken)
GNARP and WESS have developed an Inventory of Digital Projects, which is a gated wiki.
First additions are from Frankfurt conference presentation on Virtuelle Fachbibliotheken.
This might be a good place to build awareness of new projects. Add new category on main page? Dale may build demonstration of del.icio.us and RSS feeds.
Lists that Slavicists generated may be helpful. It will be circulated by James S.

Additional topics
Existing database (esp. Xipolis) discussion will happen at CDWG tomorrow.