Implementation of Digital Libraries : from the beginning to the future Experience of Gallica

Digital Library of France

Sophie SepetjanLegal Department

Bibliothèque nationale de France

Brasilia, Feb.12 2007

What is Gallica ?

A patrimonial and encyclopaedical digital library of french culture

Multimedia ressources fromAntiquity,Middle Ages through the early 20 th century

The origins of Gallica (1)

President François Mitterrand’s project of a digital library – 1988

Start of digitization in 1992

In October 1997 opening of the first Gallica prototype web site

The origins of Gallica (2)

creation of a public library of the French-speaking culture starting with a collection development policyDigitization of books and images in image formatdigitization of tables of content in text mode

Digitization in BnF (1) : Why digitize?

Access to sources for searchers and scholars :

Conservation of the original documents and archiveCommunication to distant users

Digitization of rare or precious documents to give access to a larger public « Cultural heritage »Valorization of rare or precious documents

Digitization in BnF (2)evolution of the politics of digitization

CORPUSESBooks : corpus of authors (Balzac, Hugo…)Images : significative extracts of specializedcollections (Atget,société de géographie)

VALORISATION : thematical multimedia filesAnthologiesExhibitionsThematic files

Classicalfrench-speaking

authors

Non french-speakingauthors

Secondaryauthors

Authors’ CorpusesAuthors’ Corpuses

Periodicals’CorpusesPeriodicals’Corpuses

Editorial seriesThematical Corpuses

Editorial seriesThematical Corpuses

Encyclopaedical toolsDictionnaries …

Documentary Charta Gallica 2003http://www.bnf.fr/pages/infopro/cooperation/po_chartegallica.htm

Still an encyclopaedical digital libraryIn connection with public’s expectations

Original documentary corpusesMajority of french documentsHighlights : history, litterature, sciencesTools for the research

New prioritiesA better coverage of 16th to 18th centuriesDigitization of press and journalsMore images and sound

Digitization in BnF (3)The different steps

1. Thematical selection - Definition of navigation mode, presentation’s pages et metadatas

4. Description of documents in the database - metadatas

5. constitution of digitization lots

2. Legal expertise of documents – (agreements)

7. digitization

9. digitization of the tables of content

6. Bibliographical description of documents

8. Quality control

10. Quality control

3. Preservation expertise of documents – Original or substitution supports. (Microforms if necessary)

11. Download on SI - SADownload on Gallica : description, metadatas, presentation pages.

metadatas

?structuremetadatas•Put the files together

•Reconstitution of thedocument’s structure

Description metadatas•Make a link betweenthe digital book andthe original one

•Give access to thedigital copy

Administrative metadatas•Rights of access

•Preserve technical informations which are necessary to read the digital files

A digitized book is a succession of digital files without integrity

a unique identifier

GALLICA : description of the content (1)

Printed documents•90 000 volumes in image mode •1240 volumes in text mode

Images•80.000 images, from BnF’s and others institution’s collections.

Sound30 hours (« Archives de la parole »)

GALLICA : description of the content (2)The different domains

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

Histoire et Géographie (30% )

Littérature (29% )

Sciences et techniques (15% )

Sciences sociales (9% )

Philosophie (6% )

Religion (5% )

Langue et linguistique (2% )

Arts (2)

Généralités (1% )

Antiquity 3%

Middle-Ages 5%

XVI. century 7%

XVII. century 6%

XVIII. century 21%

XIX. century 40%

XX. century 18%

GALLICA : description of the content (3) : chronological coverage

Monographic documents : 80%

Reference texts : complete works of main authors, fondamental texts of law and sciences …Dictionnaries

Periodical press : 20%

Scientific and specialized periodicals Daily and weekly newspapers, and grand folios

GALLICA : description of the content (4) : printed documents

GALLICA : description of the content (5) : imagesDépartement des MANUSCRITS• 1000 illuminated images : books of Charles V • Illuminated manuscripts (mandragore)

Département des CARTES ET PLANS• Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville (Gallica)• Société de Géographie de Paris (Gallica)

Département des ESTAMPESet de la PHOTOGRAPHIE• Eugène Atget, Étienne-Louis Boullée,Jean-Jacques Lequeu ,Hippolyte Destailleurs …

Département de la MUSIQUE• Portraits of musicians

MONNAIES, MÉDAILLESET ANTIQUES• Basile

ARTS DU SPECTACLE• Affiches de cinéma

GALLICA : description of the content (6) : sound

DOCUMENTS SONORESConsultation (Gallica) MP3

Different kinds of valorisation :Thematical files ex: France in AmericaAnthologiesVirtual exhibitions ex : Fouquet

How :A pluriannual programmation Priority to non copyrighted documents multimedias Specific accessesSpecific presentation pages

GALLICA : Valorisation of the collections

175 x 243 pixels

145 x 124 pixels140 x 177 pixels

209 x 138 pixels

434 x 600 pixels

439 x 600 pixels

128 x 192 pixels

Résolution C 512 x 768 pixels

Gallica :Statistics of audience

Measure of audience (marking of pages + statisticson the Gallica provider)

43 000 visits, 38 000 visitors a day15 167 889 consulted documents a year (41 556 a day)

Who45 % France, 55 % abroad65 % education, research, book market

GALLICA : the future (1)

Modernisation of Gallica

- conversion into text mode (OCR) of 16 millions of pages

- new functionnalities (full text search, annotations,…)- modernization of accesses and interfaces

GALLICA : the future (2)…on the way to the European Digital Library (Europeana)

Increase the volume of documents

- More digitization (in texte mode)- (from 8000 volumes every year to 30.000 in 2007

and 100000 up to 2007/2008)

- Give access to copyrighted documents

The future : Europeana (1)

- The European Digital Library- Ambitious project of digitization,preservation

and communication on the web of numerous millions of european documents

- via a common, unique and multilingual access point

- 23 National Libraries, supported by the European Commission

The future : Europeana (2)