Newsletter | October 2012

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Europeana Libraries Project

The Researcher of Tomorrow: Join Us!

We are an EU-funded project that will make digital objects from European research libraries freely available on the Europeana website, and on the new European Library portal for digital humanities researchers. Please see our project website: www.europeana-libraries.eu

A 1930s poster encourages tourists to visit Madrid; contributed by the

National Library of Spain.

The Researcher of Tomorrow conference on December 3rd and 4th will celebrate the achievements of the Europeana Libraries project over the past two years and look towards the future through talks and seminars. Highlights include:

• Reaching The Researcher: keynote talks on themes such as open access and the requirements of researchers.

• Funding opportunities for libraries: a look at the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.

• Joining The Cloud: an introduction to the new Europeana Cloud project, due to start in 2013.

• Hands-on Workshops: learn about marketing your library, the development of our new Europeana Research service and the European Library’s API.

Invite A LibraryThe Madrid meeting also marks the first time that our network meeting is open to the wider research library community.

This is a fantastic chance to introduce your peers across the research library community to our network. If you know a research librarian who would like to join over 100 like-minded library professionals for two days of thought-provoking talks and workshops, please share this URL:

www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/madrid

The full agenda and hotel recommendations will also be shortly published at the same web address.

The Europeana Libraries project will come to a close at the end of 2012 but before it does our network will meet once again to share and learn from each other — this time in Spain at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

FOLLOW THE CONFERENCE NEWS ON TWITTER!

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Photographs from John Thomas, who began work in 1863, will also be included. Although not as numerous as the Geoff Charles collection, the images are interesting because they portray all classes of Welsh society including ordinary tradesmen.

‘He always included the tools of their trade in the frame of the photo. In the image of the tailor, for example, you’ll see he has his scissors at his feet. I think this detail makes the images particularly interesting.’

Scholars can go further back in time through the topographical print collection, featuring works from as far back as 1750.

‘While the early topographical prints can be quite a naive and stylised type of artwork, the development of more complex artistic styles and techniques is evident in the later works. They

Photo Credits: Top Left - John Thomas (1838-1905) - The Tailor, Bryn-du, ca. 1875. Bottom Left - John Thomas (1838-1905) - An woman wearing a hat and shawl, ca. 1875. Top Right - Geoff Charles (1909-2002) - Children wearing their St David’s Day leeks, 1957. Middle Right - Geoff Charles (1909-2002) - Rhondda miners holiday week festivities, 1951. Bottom right - Geoff Charles (1909-2002) - Carneddog and his wife, Catrin,before leaving their mountain farm in Snowdonia, 1948. Above - John Boydell (1719-1804) - A view of Snowden, in the vale of Llan Beriis, in Caernarvonshire, 1750.

“ The idea of having our content featured on a single, digital portal for libraries is very appealing.

also reflect the enduring hold that the Welsh landscape has had over the artist. ‘

The text-based material being contributed includes over 100,000 pages from late 19th century Welsh and English language journals.

‘The journals offer a broad overview of the important social, political and religious debates that helped lay the foundations for the Welsh 20th century. They provide the researcher with an invaluable searchable resource.’

Beyond gaining a wider appreciation for its unique collections, the National Library of Wales also participates in the Europeana Libraries project to share experiences and learn new skills.

‘We’ve been digitising material for over a decade now at the National Library of Wales so this project allows us to share our expertise and — by working with other institutions — to learn new skills as well, such as the development of the Europeana Data Model.’

‘As a national library, the opportunity to become part of The European Library through our involvement in the project has been a real boost for us.’

‘We’re trying our best to make as much material available digitally as possible for the people of Wales and further afield,’ said Douglas Jones, Digitisation Programmes and Projects Manager at the library.

‘That goal fits with the ethos of the Europeana Libraries project and — for us — the idea of having our content featured on a single, digital portal for libraries across Europe is very appealing.’

Content from the National Library of Wales will be channeled through the Europeana Libraries project to the websites of both The European Library and Europeana. Through these platforms, the public and researchers will have a unique insight into 300 years of Welsh history from the 18th to the 20th century.

The material includes 120,000 images from photojournalist Geoff Charles. He travelled across Wales from the 1930s to the 1970s, covering everything from mining disasters to the daily routines such as the postman delivering letters.

Welsh History And Culture On DisplayThe National Library of Wales is digitising nearly 125,000 photographs, over 100,000 journal pages and 5,000 topographical prints for the Europeana Libraries project.

“ If you have an event scheduled,

or want to raise awareness for The European Library and your content,

please tell us. We’d love to join

you!

Nienke van Schaverbeke, marketing manager, promoting The European Library at IFLA’s annual conference in Helsinki in August.

Meet The European LibraryWe’re looking forward to meeting you at events across Europe this autumn. Full details are listed on the Europeana Libraries blog (www.europeana-libraries.eu) and The European Library website. (www.theeuropeanlibrary.org). Here are a few highlights:

Planning A Library Event? We can help!Staff from The European Library are travelling to library conferences and seminars across Europe to speak about our new website and the opportunity to become a member of our library community.

We can support your library event as well.

Simply get in touch and ask us to send a representative from The European Library, LIBER or CERL to speak at your conference or seminar.

Our agenda is filling up quickly, so please let us know about your event as early as possible by emailing marketing manager Nienke van Schaverbeke: nienke.vanschaverbeke@kb.nl

We may also be able to provide promotional material to help make your event a success and raise awareness for Europeana and The European Library.

Slovenian Library Association ConferenceWe will speak at the 5th Joint Conference of Slovene Special and Academic Libraries, on October 17-18th in Ljubljana.

Open Access To Knowledge In LibrariesHeld in Belgrade, Serbia on October 25-26th, this conference focuses on open and free access to knowledge in libraries.

Online Information 2012 Come to London, UK on November 20-21st for the largest gathering of information professionals in Europe. Visit our stand!

Looking Ahead To Europeana CloudWith the Europeana Libraries project drawing to an end, the next big project for the European Library is expected to be the Europeana Cloud project.

Europeana Cloud is due to start in February 2013 and will involve 35 partners. It has three main aims:

1. To provide access on the Europeana website to 2.4 million new metadata records and five million research–focused digital items from across European universities, libraries, data centres and publishers.

2. To create a cloud-based infrastructure capable of delivering cost-efficient content and metadata storage for stakeholders across Europe.

3. To develop a digital platform named Europeana Research. This platform will provide tools and services for researchers that encourage innovative research involving digitised content.

The European Library will co-ordinate the project. It will also play a leading role in building the technical infrastructure behind the cloud and the Europeana Research digital platform.

More details will be available once the project is fully approved by the European Commission.

Preparing For Our New Virtual Exhibition

When this featured collection debuts on The European Library website in November, it will unite several themes: new methods in medicine, the knowledge extension in the fields of natural history and the acknowledgement of this by the newly created Noble prize in 1895.

Vibrant posters from the 1913 Ghent World Fair are among the material that is likely to be featured in the exhibition. Held by the University of Ghent, these posters reflect on an event that was a notable culmination of the Belle Epoque - a period of history noted for new technologies and scientific discoveries.

The exhibition is also likely to feature maps, letters, journals, videos and photographs.

Once all of the content has been collected from partner libraries, work will begin to design the exhibition space. The completed showcase will be placed as a Featured Collection on The European Library’s website.

The website already features several exhibitions. Manuscripts and Princes in Medieval and Renaissance Europe is the most recent and can be seen here:

http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/virtual/regia

About 20 national and research libraries are assembling material for an online showcase that will focus on technical and scientific advancements in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ville de Gand, Belgique, 1913; From Ghent University Library’s

poster collection.

Traffic to the new European Library website continues to be strong following our redesign and many promotional events.

From July to September, the portal logged nearly a fifth more visitors than the year before.

The average visiting time also rose to 3 minutes and 22 seconds and the number of new visitors jumped by 15 percent.

Our bounce rate - or the number of people who only saw a single page before “bouncing out“ and leaving the site - also moved in the right direction. It fell by 3 percent.

Slightly less than half of website visitors “bounced” in the three months to September, while 54 percent of people stayed longer and explored an average of 4.5 pages per visit.

European Library Website Traffic Jumps

Spanish Dancers: New Content Spotlight

The latest content added to The European Library website includes these 18th century engravings of Spanish dancers in elaborate costumes. They were created by artist Marcos Tellez Villar and digitised by the National Library of Spain.