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DEFF activities in 2005

DEFF secretariat

The DEFF secretariat coordinates the activities in DEFF and is placed at the Danish National Library Authority. The Authority’s deputy director, Bo Öhrström, has the dayto-day responsibility for DEFF.

The secretariat has eight members of staff whose salaries are paid by DEFF. This in an increase in staff by two compared with 2004 and reflects increased activity within in particular the license area, i.a. due to the Ministry of Education’s institutions joining DEFF.

One of the Authority’s consultants is permanently attached to the DEFF secretariat, working primarily with electronic publishing, digitisation, elearning and library-IT. The Authority’s lawyer assists in contractual negotiations and deals with legal issues, while the Authority’s communication consultant handles DEFF’s communication activities.

Apart from dayto-day tasks the DEFF secretariat’s most important activities in 2005 were the planning and arranging of a number of DEFF events in cooperation with the participants of the programme committees.

DEFF events 2005

  • Information meetings about electronic information resources from 7. February till 9. March throughout the country

  • Seminar on the AAI projects 9. February at The Royal Library in Copenhagen

  • Seminar on XML Web Services 11. March at Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby

  • Conference marking the Ministry of Education’s reentry into DEFF 18. April at The Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen

  • Conference in collaboration with ISI. Distribution of prizes to frequently quoted Danish scholars 24. May at Moltke’s Palace in Copenhagen

  • Seminar at The Royal Library on propagation of XML Web Services 25. May at The Royal Library in Copenhagen

  • Consortia Day – licenses and professional networks in DEFF 17. August at University of Southern Denmark in Odense

  • International review 18.-19. August at The Copenhagen Admiral Hotel

  • Standardization courses for educational libraries – on danMarc2 and the interplay between DanBib and local bases 22.-23. September at Schæffergården in Gentofte and 13.-14. October at Vingstedcentret in Vejle

  • Seminar on future information structure – ’Building The Info Grid’ 26.-27. September at Copenhagen Business School in Copenhagen

  • Seminar on search engines – ’Federated Search’ 13. October at the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen.

DEFF programme areas

The programme areas reflect DEFF’s strategic action lines. They include six very different areas with associated programme committees responsible for the development of each individual area.

The most central area is cooperation on purchase and administration of digital information resources within the license area. Within System architecture work is going on with development and consolidation of access management and extension of a serviceoriented architecture. E-publishing and elearning focus on the establishment of an infrastructure and standards for the libraries’ handling of new material and on the development of the user’s information literacy.

Within User facilities the emphasis is on user service in the shape of virtual reference and improved usability on the libraries’ homepages. And finally, within Portals the main issues are consolidation of existing portals and development of these professionallybased accesses to information.

DEFF activities in 2005

Members of DEFF’s programme committees

User facilities

Peter Søndergaard

E-learning

Stig Broström

E-publishing

Annette Winkel Schwarz

Licenses

Helle Lauridsen

Portals

Birte Christensen-Dalsgaard

System architecture

Arne Sørensen

User facilities

The programme committee User facilities had an unusual large number of meetings in 2005 with seven working group meetings, dealing with project preparations and completion of the programme area’s second action plan.

The action plan 2006-2007 presents the following vision:

The programme committee User facilities has a vision of developing the meeting between library and library patron. User facilities’ vision operates in the ’cross field’ between those development tendencies which are considered positive for the users and those actual conditions as regards information dissemination that create barriers for those users’ access to information. User facilities’ vision shapes the action plan’s dual strategic logic between focusing on the usersupporting element in information dissemination and on those elements that create barriers for access to information. The vision is realised in the following action lines:

The formulation of the action lines provides the framework within which the projects are developed. Two usability studies were completed in 2005. 11 major Danish research libraries took part in one of the studies and submitted the report The userfriendly digital research library, while the other usability study between the Arkade libraries is to submit its report in 2006. The object of usability studies is to localise problems and barriers that library users face in their attempt to gain access to the libraries’ materials and resources: Localising such barriers goes a long way towards trying to remove them. Once introduced in the libraries, considerations inspired by usability methods ought to develop into a permanent intellectual tool to be used in the libraries’ deliberations on user service. As part of the reporting User facilities programme committee therefore developed a project dealing with the establishment of a knowledge centre for library usability with an obligation to gather new experiences within this field, assist the libraries with initiating usability studies and arranging conferences on the subject. The project outline is being worked up at the present time.

A common feature of the eleven libraries’ usability study was that the users find it difficult to make the most of the libraries’ offers of electronic resources. This situation can be remedied by adapting homepages etc., and the service could be marketed more effectively. The working group therefore discussed and outlined a new User facility project on marketing, following the same methodical model as in the previous usability project. The project is expected to be discussed in the DEFF Steering Committee at the beginning of 2006.

Within the action line ’Improved information access’ User facilities and ’Ask a librarian’ over the year discussed a common project on local and national virtual reference applying new and shared software. The DEFF Steering Committee approved the project, and in early 2006 a twoyear joint project will start up with the application of software VRLplus+ developed by the American Docutek. About 15 special and research libraries will be invited to participate with local installations.

With help from the User facilities programme committee CVU-Mid West received funding for ’The analysis model – a web tool’ where library and instructors together will develop an IT tool for i.a. dissemination of information.

In 2005 User facilities joined a project on revitalising the service: ’Books to your doorstep’. This meant that the DEFF catalogue gained a new purpose as catalogue for the libraries taking part in that service. As a result of a relaunching of the service, it became possible in 2005 for the users to return borrowed material to any participating library.

In the coming period the User facilities programme committee will further attempt to modernise, dynamise and adapt the libraries’ user service according to the action plan for 2006-2007.

E-learning

Closer interplay between the digital library and digital tuition, development of students’ information literacy, access to the library from a Learning Management System (LMS) and accessibility of video material on the net are some areas that the elearning committee have been dealing with in 2005.

Development of information literacy

Development of information literacy has been an important theme for the elearning committee over the past year. A number of projects have been launched that represent the Ministry of Education as well as the university sector in various ways. The aim is closer integration between professional education environments, making the development of information literacy no longer exclusively a library task, but also a task to be solved in cooperation between library and education.

The DELA-project

The elearning committee launched the important DELA-project (Digital Educational Library Access), which is engaged in bringing the library to the user in the actual learning context. Via the virtual learning environment the user can access relevant material from the library’s collection. As part of the project a pool for learning objects has been developed, LORE (Learning Object Repository).

Video material – part of digital library services in the future

The committee also launched the project ’EduMedia’, which will give the users online access and opportunity to distribute learning and researchrelevant video material via streaming on the Internet.

Compendia on the net

Communication and knowledge dissemination is one of the elearning committee’s permanent goals, and was therefore also a field of activity in 2005. A way to fulfilling this goal has been the project ’Research libraries as facilitator for netbased tuition’. The project has dealt with the task of transferring experiences and knowledge within the field of ecompendia to other DEFF institutions. This happened via oneday workshops for interested institutions.

Site on copyright

Finally the elearning committee has been working on copyright issues in cooperation with the epublishing group.  

E-publishing

Initiator of a Danish research portal, midwife for epublishing of smaller periodicals, active in Open Access issues as well as digitisation of materials for teaching and research are some of the areas that have figured on the agenda of the epublishing committee.

Forskningsportal.dk

A great effort has been made to realise the plans for a national research portal for journalistic communication of research results. A concept description and a web mockup have been presented in a scheme design and submitted for hearing to ministries, research institutions and among disseminators of research. Generally speaking there is considerable back up. Work on the implementation of the portal will be continued in 2006.

Research registration

Research registration and publishing has been another important theme during 2005. The PURE system has been implemented in seven universities. Work is going on to integrate PURE and The Danish Research Database. Formats have been developed and working routines described.

From printed to electronic periodical

An important area has been the work with smaller periodicals’ migration from printed to electronic form. The target group was noncommercial periodicals published by universities, libraries or companies or a combination of these. A project has been testing a number of epublishing software and analysing the deliberations of the periodicals as to the change to epublishing. Two periodicals representing the areas of technicalnatural science and humanities/social sciences were migrated. The project finished with a workshop in November.

Preservation of data in Institutional Repositories

There is an increasing awareness of the need for the preservation of digital data in connection with the building up of Institutional Repositories. A project was therefore initiated within this area.

Digitisation and Open Access

During the past year a vast number of governmental commission reports were digitised. These attract a large user group (law students, lawyers etc.), which would mean heavy wear on the collections, but in this way the collections are made available to a much greater extent.

The programme committee has also started to focus on digitisation of teaching materials and the question of rights to published material, including the need for dialogue and awareness on behalf of ministries, universities, research councils and research agencies in relation to Open Access.

Licenses

2005 was the year when the Ministry of Education’s reentry into DEFF became really noticeable. More than 40 Ministry of Education institutions have gained access and their demands for resources other than those of the research libraries have encouraged the establishment of professional networks. These are composed by participants from all library types and they help towards a broad and professionally wellfounded selection process. The networks were established in late summer 2005.

Development in number of DEFF license agreements and libraries

Development in number of DEFF licence agreements and libraries

Since DEFF in 1997 signed the first consortium agreement on behalf of a number of libraries, the number of both participants and agreements has risen.

The first agreement in 1997 had eight participants. From 2000 the number of participants has risen annually, but it is obvious that from 2004, when the Ministry of Education’s institutions joined the license agreements, the number of participants has risen markedly. The number of license agreements is increasing steadily. However, it is very likely that the increase will not go on at the same pace.

DEFF perspective plan for licenses 2005-2006

During 2005 the license committee also worked on a revision of the perspective plan for the license area. The plan indicates that the aim of the license committee is to help the institutions to acquire as much relevant academic information as possible for scholars, teachers and students. Acquisition takes place via national cooperation in order to streamline the process and the administration of licenses as well as to obtain as much information as possible at the most reasonable price available. Cooperation takes place on an international scale in order to obtain the best prices and conditions.

Over many years the license committee and Directors’ Forum of the Research and Higher Education Libraries have discussed scales for payment of individual licenses. The big old periodical licenses were all agreed on the basis of the individual library’s stock of printed periodicals, and many years later this may seem unreasonable. The question of scales has therefore been examined and discussed very thoroughly, but it was subsequently agreed by Directors’ Forum of the Research and Higher Education Libraries that redistribution within the Directors’ Forum of the Research and Higher Education libraries was not expedient and the project was finally shelved.

The license committee’s sustained wish to try to negotiate a professional license across the libraries was eventually realised, but unfortunately the offer was not sufficiently attractive to make enough libraries want to participate.

Agreements on ebook licenses, however, have been much more successful. Not only have the large periodical publishers Elsevier, Wiley, Springer and Thieme etc. embraced the medium and started to publish ereference works in a serious way. Many new packages have also seen the light of day and been exceptionally well received by Danish libraries. E-books present an entirely new challenge to the libraries, and it is to be expected that the work with ebooks will become more and more prominent.

A lot of hard work has also gone into agreement on more Danish licenses. This is heavy work for both the DEFF secretariat and the libraries, as Danish publishers generally speaking are not inclined to put Danish literature on the net.

At the very end of 2005 the license area went from being a group set up by Directors’ Forum of the Research and Higher Education Libraries to becoming a true DEFF programme area. It is to be hoped that the muchdesired cooperation with the other DEFF programme committees, which the license committee initiated, can be strengthened and unnecessary duplication avoided.

Elsevier – Number of downloads 2000-200 incl. DADS figures

Elsevier - Number of downloads 2000-2005 incl. DADS figures

The Elsevier agreement is the biggest agreement, both in terms of volume and price, that DEFF has entered into. Since the agreement was signed at the end of 1999, usage has been steadily increasing.

A number of smaller institutions have subsequently been included in the agreement, making the total number of participants 39.

The comparatively big increase that happened in 2003 is due to the fact that Elsevier bought up Academic Press and made their titles available from 2003. An increase of about 300,000 downloads clearly shows that users have accepted the electronic periodical.

Average price per download

Average price per download

Price per download (DKK)

Since 2002 the price per download (on average) has been falling every year. This shows that fortunately the number of downloads increases more than does the price. It also shows that electronic periodicals are being used, and that it is a medium to be reckoned with in the future.

 

Portals

In 2005 the work in the portal committee was characterized by three main activities:

Migration of existing subject portals to Keystone

Keystone is DEFF’s Open Source tool for the construction and running of subject portals. In 2005 the work on migration of the last subject portals to Keystone was completed. The portals in question were: The Virtual Music Library and Bizigate. The two portals were at the same time moved to the DEFF portal hotel, bringing all DEFF portals together.

The new Virtual Music Library at www.dvm.nu reflects the increased focus on dissemination of source material: The online periodical Dansk Musik Tidsskrift (Danish Music Journal) has been supplemented with all the articles published in Jazz Special from 1991 ff and the Nordic Sounds from 1982 ff.

Dansk Musiklitterær Bibliografi (Danish Music Literary Bibliography) and Dansk Musikfortegnelse (Catalogue of Danish Music) from the Royal Library’s database are also searchable from The Virtual Music Library.

The migration of Bizigate meant that the portal was supplemented with an English user interface. The link pool of resources registered in the old Bizigate has also been thoroughly sorted and tidied.

Finally, the DEFF secretariat has assisted the development of Juraportal.dk (law portal) in Keystone.

Evaluation of the subject portal concept

The study Portals in Danish research libraries, subject portals and web pages was completed. The study consisted of interviews with representatives from 13 research libraries and the objective was to examine experience of and need for dissemination of academically relevant Internet resources.

The report revealed i.a.:

In connection with interviews it was also discovered that the construction of subject portals has been most important for professional cooperation:

The hybrid library – from the users’ point of view

The aim of the project was and is to secure the basis for making decisions on:

Input was collected through field studies where nine selected users kept a diary and also through two workshops where ideas were put to the test. The idea is that the identified statements will be quantified in connection with a major questionnaire.

The final report is being drawn up, but preliminary results seem to be:

On information retrieval

On staff

On the physical library

The library is used as a framework for studies and professional intercourse, but the library’s staff and resources are only used to a small degree.

Other activities

In 2005 the programme committee initiated two theme days. The first was a followup to the work with migration, while the other dealt with future plans for the portals. Despite the portals’ established plan for the future work, there was also a wish to continue meeting and discussing portalrelated tasks and issues.

System architecture

One of the most important general activities was the planning and staging of the conference ’Building the Info Grid’ with over 200 delegates from all over the world. The conference marked the increasing focus on international cooperation and must be deemed a great success (http://seminar.deff.dk/).

Access management (AAI): At the beginning of the year most of the projects started in 2004 were completed. One project, which were to produce statistics for traffic through proxy servers was, however, not completed till autumn 2005. The project on local authentication whose aim was to consolidate the existing access management system used by Danish scholars and students, continued in 2005 with special focus on integration of CAS (Central Authentication Service). The system was offered as a package to several of the major research libraries and has been implemented in a number of them.

New projects in 2005 are ’Consolidation of user databases’ where The Royal Library and the State and University Library are establishing a system that ensures integration with external user data from the mother institution on the basis of a consistent data model. Together with the project ’E-periodicals and Shibboleth’ these have provided the professional and experimental basis for the year’s major result within the area of AAI, which is the formation of a joint national initiative DK-AAI in cooperation with The Danish Rectors’ Conference’s ICT-initiative. Towards the end of 2005 a financial basis was established for starting DK-AAI as a national framework for access management for research and higher education. The main purpose for 2006 within this field will be the establishing of DK-AAI as a more permanent organisation. This will happen by way of concrete results that demonstrate the utility value and will ensure a complete national backing in the three ministries and among the universities.

XML-based web services (XWS): The sub area likewise completed the 2004 projects at the beginning of 2005. The XWS part has in 2005 been working on a project which uses Fedora, a web service based library architecture, as generic architecture for repositories. Most pilot projects have shown positive results, but as we are talking about pilot projects with services that are not necessarily central to libraries, it has proved difficult to obtain any wider acceptance of the web service concept on behalf of many libraries.

A project was therefore launched with focus on gaining greater acceptance of web services and on identification of the application that can form the basis for a more complete acceptance. The project arranged a theme day in spring 2005 and again in January 2006. The main purpose in 2006 for XWS will be to continue and complete the work with Fedora and to identify and realise web services with broad application and exploitation in the libraries.

DK-AAI is based solely on open standards.

DK-AAI

Proposed organisation: DK-AAI is organised and financed initially as a collaboration between The Rectors’ Conference’s ’Project Digital Management’, Danish Research Network and DEFF (Denmark’s Electronic Research Library). The Ministry of Education and SEDIRK (The Assembly of Director Generals of the Danish Government Research Institutes) participate in the organisation with a view to a swift extension of this initiative to related areas.

The organisation must have access to resources in the form of money and working hours. Based on inspiration from Finland (HAKA projects) and Switzerland (SWITCH-AAI) the above organisation has been proposed.



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This page forms part of the publication 'Denmark's Electronic Research Library. Annual report 2005' as chapter 5 of 10

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