World Digital Library Partner Meeting - Project Update & Future Goals
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Presentation Transcript
World Digital Library Partner Meeting Washington, DC December 5, 2012 Project Update John Van Oudenaren Director, WDL
Progress in key areas in the past year Agenda • Content • Partner Recruitment • Capacity Building • Usage and User Engagement • Technical Development • Longer-Term Priorities • Sustainability and resource issues • Discussion and questions
Stage one Business Plan targets met Quality has been maintained Progress in high-priority areas But: The time may be right for a thorough review of 2009 Content Selection Guidelines Content
Partner Recruitment • Current status: 165 partners in 77 countries • 89 institutions in 46 countries have content on www.wdl.org • 10-12 institutions to be added in the next few months • Some success in building or recruiting national networks • National Library of Uganda • Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, Italy • CONACULTA, Mexico
Partner Recruitment Gaps • Some major countries are still totally unrepresented in terms of institutional participation (e.g., Indonesia, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Ireland) • Content from some countries is good but not fully representative of the country (India; Syria and Lebanon) • Many countries lack capacity to contribute in a meaningful way or do not know about the project
Capacity Building • WDL-funded digitization centers at: • National Library of Uganda • Iraqi National Library and Archives • National Library and Archives of Egypt • Training workshops with the Qatar National Library • Documentation and best practices (WDL, IFLA) • But: • Need clearly vastly outstrips supply
Capacity Building 2011 Business Plan proposal: • “Develop a comprehensive needs assessment and long-term strategy for capacity building. This should be done in cooperation with other partners and with organizations such as IFLA and UNESCO. What is needed is a comprehensive ‘white paper’ that deals with needs, different capacity building models, potential sources of funding, and related issues such as physical and digital preservation.”
Longer-Term Priorities • Scaling up the addition of content • Broad coverage of countries, cultures, topics, time periods, formats 100,000 item target • Toward universal participation • At least one content-contributing partner in every country • Adding interface languages • Hindi, German, Japanese • Other • Developing mobile applications • Tablets, mobiles
Longer-Term Priorities • New web site features FTS Better highlighting of partners Adaptation of search results page; improved use of facets • Developing areas of thematic focus with interpretive content Arabic science and technology Chinese rare books and maps Mesoamerican codices Other
Resources Library of Congress Project Management Team Generous in-kind contributions from partners Little room under current budgetary realities to - Launch ambitious capacity building initiatives - Tackle some of the longer-term priorities in a serious way
Content Medicea Laurenziana Library • The Florentine Codex, 1577
Content Bavarian State Library • Qur’an of Père Lachaise, 14th century
Content Library of Congress • Turkestan Album • Prokudin-Gorskii Collection
Content National Library of Spain • General Atlas of All the Islands in the World, ca. 1539