Examples, goals, possibilities and limitations of international cooperation

1
Examples, goals, possibilities and limitations
of international cooperation

• ETD 2003, Berlin
• May 22, 2003
• Elena Balzardi Barbara Signori
• Swiss National Library

2

• When a community loses its memory, its members
  no longer know one another. How can they know one
  another if they have forgotten or have never
  learned one anothers stories? If they do not
  know one anothers stories, how can they know
  whether or not to trust one another? People who
  do not trust one another do not help one another,
  and moreover they fear one another.
• Berry, Wendell. Home economics. New York, 1987

3

• Elena Balzardi
• Swiss National Library
• Head of the Collection Department and Leader
  e-Helvetica project
• Barbara Signori
• Swiss National Library
• e-Helvetica projectLeader of the partial projet
  Organisation

4
Content

• The SNL and its context
• History and main tasks
• National context
• National cooperation
• e-Helvetica project
• International cooperation
• Cooperation with DDB and ÖNB
• Metadata for electronic theses and dissertations
• URN Uniform Resource Name
• System for long term preservation
• Conclusion

5
History and main tasks

• Swiss National Library (Bern)
• Funded in 1895
• National bibliography The Swiss Book since 1901
• Main task collect Helvetica, list them to the
  databases, make them accessible to the general
  public, preserve them for future generations
• No legal deposit law but agreement with the
  Association of Swiss Booksellers and Publishers
• Collection includes print, offline and online
  publications

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National context (1)

• Schweiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra
• 7 millions inhabitants
• four different national languagesSwiss German
  64French 20Italian 8Rhaeto-Romaic
  1Other languages 7

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National context (2)

• Universities in the German, French and Italian
  speaking part of Switzerland
• Two big library networks from University
  librairies (IDS and RERO)
• Between 3000-4000 new theses per year

8
National cooperation

• Association of Libraries and Librarians of
  Switzerland
• Conference of Directors of University Libraries
• Networks IDS and RERO
• The Swiss National Library is not a University
  Library

9
e-Helvetica project

• Building up a collection and handling the long
  term preservation for electronic offline and
  online Helvetica
• Long term preservation with in cooperation with
  the Swiss Federal Archives
• Storage place beginning from 2004

10
International cooperation

• Intensified cooperation between Schweizerische
  Landesbibliothek (SLB), Die Deutsche Bibliothek
  (DDB) and Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
  (ÖNB)
• Cooperation at the level of the CENL, CDNL, IFLA
  and specific other partners

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Cooperation with DDB and ÖNB

• DDB, ÖNB, SNL are cooperating since 2001
• Exchange of information
• Cooperation on specific projects
• Willingness of sharing knowledge by Die Deutsche
  Bibliothek has been and still is very profitable
  for SNL

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Metadata for electronic theses (1)

• DDB collects electronic theses since 1998
• Transfer of the theses and its metadata tested
  and organized between the University Libraries
  and the DDB
• Workflow developed
• DDB has given access to all documents and the
  submitting form

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Metadata for electronic theses (2)

• Metadata set has been analyzed by SNL, ÖNB and
  DDB
• Adaptations and approvement on a shared metadata
  set
• International cooperation between SNL, ÖNB and
  DDB was profitable for the national cooperation
  in Switzerland
• Directors of the Swiss university libraries have
  given their general agreement in adopting the
  metadata set

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URN Uniform Resource Name

• Persistent identifiers
• Pre-work by the DDB
• Proposition of enlargement the usage of the
  decentralized URN infrastructure from Germany to
  Switzerland and Austria
• Result common workflow
• International application

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System for long term preservation

• National libraries as archiving libraries
• Build up long term preservation systems
• SNL has been looking for partners in the library
  field
• Administrative limitations forced SNL to look for
  a national partnership
• Cooperation with Swiss Federal Archives

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Conclusion

• International cooperation is possible
• The benefit is proven
• Open mind and willingness to work together are
  key points
• Working together is a way of ...knowing one
  anothers stories and trust one another

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• Thanks for your attention!

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