EN    EN EN 
 
EN    EN  COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels, 11.8.2008 
SEC(2008) 2372 
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
 
accompanying the   
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSI ON TO THE COUNCIL, THE 
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE EU ROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMI TTEE OF THE REGIONS 
 
Europe’s cultural heritage at the click of a mouse 
 
Progress on the digitisation and online accessi bility of cultural material and digital 
preservation across the EU 
  
[COM(2008) 513 final]
 
EN 2   EN CONTENTS 
1. Introduction and aim of this paper ............................................................................... 4 
2. i2010 — Digital Libraries initiativ e: main steps taken 2005-2008.............................. 4 
3. Progress towards a common access point to Europe’s digital cultural heritage .......... 5 
3.1. The vision of a European Digital Library .................................................................... 5 3.2. Europeana .................................................................................................................... 6 
3.3. European Digital Library Foundation .......................................................................... 6 4. Progress in the Member States: digitisation................................................................. 7 4.1. Introduction.............................................................................................................. .... 7 
4.2. Overviews of current and planned digitisation ............................................................ 7 4.3. Quantitative targets for digitisation and related financial resources planning............. 9 
4.4. Partnerships between cultural instituti ons and private-sector organisations.............. 10 
4.5. Large-scale digitisation facilities ............................................................................... 11 5. Progress in the Member St ates: online accessibility.................................................. 12 
5.1. Introduction.............................................................................................................. .. 12 
5.2. Promoting access through Europeana ....................................................................... 12 
5.3. Improving conditions for digitisation and online accessibility.................................. 14 5.3.1. Improving online accessibility of orphan works........................................................ 14 5.3.2. Improving online accessibility of out-of-print works ................................................ 16 5.3.3. Improving online accessibility of public domain works............................................ 17 6. Progress in the Member Stat es: digital preservation.................................................. 17 
6.1. Introduction.............................................................................................................. .. 17 
6.2. National strategies and plan s for digital preservation................................................ 17 
6.3. Exchange of information with other Me mber States on digital preservation ............ 19 
6.4. Multiple copying and migration of digital material for preservation purposes ......... 19 6.5. Legal deposit of born-digital material........................................................................ 20 6.6. Legal provisions for web harvesting.......................................................................... 20 7. Work with stakeholders ............................................................................................. 21 7.1. High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries .......................................................... 21 
7.1.1. Introduction............................................................................................................ .... 21 
 
EN 3   EN 7.1.2. Copyright ............................................................................................................... .... 21 
7.1.3. Public-private partnerships ........................................................................................ 22 7.1.4. Scientific information ................................................................................................ 23  
7.2. Work with stakeholders on film archives................................................................... 24 7.3. Interoperability Working Group ................................................................................ 24 8. Technical issues ......................................................................................................... 24 8.1. Leveraging research and deploym ent of digital libraries........................................... 24 
8.1.1. Digital libraries under eContent plus.......................................................................... 25 
8.1.2. Digital libraries and digital preservati on research under the Framework Programme25 
8.1.3. Future support .......................................................................................................... .. 26 
 
EN 4   EN 1. INTRODUCTION AND AIM OF THIS PAPER  
Europe’s cultural institutions ― archives, museums, libraries, audiovisual archives ― hold a 
hugely valuable resource, representing Euro pe’s collective memory. Information and 
communication technologies provide powerful tools to  exploit this heritage, for the benefit of 
all citizens. By bringing it onlin e, citizens will have easier access to this information. It will 
enable them to appreciate their own past as well as their common European history. 
Moreover, it has major creative and economic potential. It attracts new users and new 
demands and drives the emergence of media-rich  services to use and re-use the material.  
Many cultural institutions are already using the ne w technologies successf ully, digitising their 
collections and providing users with improved a ccess and services. Much more remains to be 
done, however, to speed up digiti sation activities and improve th e accessibility and long-term 
availability of cultural information in Europe. Th e goals set for the Digital Libraries initiative 
call for action at all levels ― political, strategic, and technical ― to show both the 
heterogeneity and the connections that can be made between countries, domains, institutions 
and collections. Digitisation policies and strategi es therefore need to be joined up, through 
coordination at national and at European level. 
This paper deals with questions related to pr ogress on the digitisation and online accessibility 
of cultural material and dig ital preservation across the EU . Its aim is to support the 
Commission Communication ‘Europe’s cultural heri tage at the click of a mouse’ and expand 
on it with further background information. The information is based largely on progress 
reports from all 27 Member St ates received between February  and April 2008 in reply to a 
request from the Commission to the Member St ates’ Expert Group on Di gitisation and Digital 
Preservation. 
2. i2010  — DIGITAL LIBRARIES INITIATIVE : MAIN STEPS TAKEN 2005-2008 
Digital libraries, and in partic ular the vision of a European Digital Library, have been on the 
political agenda at European level for more th an three years now. This has led to the adoption 
of a set of political and legislative acts by most of the EU institutions (Commission, Council, 
Parliament, Committee of the Regions and Economic and So cial Committee). What has 
emerged is a broad consensus between the differ ent institutions on the overall objectives of 
the Digital Libraries initiative, as well as on the means to achieve them. An overview, in 
chronological order, of th e steps taken at European level is given below: 
• 30 September 2005 ― Adoption of the Commi ssion Communication ‘i2010: 
digital libraries’, which outlines the vi sion underlying the Digital Libraries 
initiative and deals with Europe’s cultural heritage. Th e Communication is 
accompanied by an online consultation of stakeholders. 
• 14 November 2005 ― Council, exchange of views. The Communication is well 
received by all Member States, which ar e willing to contribut e to the European 
initiative. 
• 15 June 2006 ― Committee of the Regions, opinion welcoming the Digital 
Libraries initiative and emphasising th e role of regions and cities.  
 
EN 5   EN • 24 August 2006 ― Commission Recommendation on digitisation and online 
accessibility of cultural material, and digital preservation (referred to in the rest of 
this document as ‘the Recommendation’). 
• 13 November 2006 ― Council conclusions, including priority actions and an 
indicative timetable, adopted on the ba sis of the Commission Recommendation.  
• 14 February 2007 ― Commission Communicati on on scientific information in the 
digital age: access, dissemination and preservation.  
• 22 March 2007: Commission Decision setti ng up the Members States’ Expert 
Group on Digitisation and Digital Preservati on. The group’s task is to monitor and 
assess progress in the imp lementation of the Comm ission Recommendation and 
the Council Conclusions.  
• 27 September 2007 ― Parliament Resolution on digita l libraries. The resolution is 
very supportive of the initiative and the approach taken by the Commission. 
• 22-23 November 2007 ― Council Conclusions on scientific information in the 
digital age, welcoming the Commission’s in itiative and inviting Member States to 
work together on the accessi bility and preservation of  scientific information. 
• 13-14 February 2008 ― European Economic and So cial Committee, opinion 
supporting the launch of the Eur opean digital library in 2008. 
For the audiovisual sector, the Parliament  and Council Recommendation of 16 November 
2005 on film heritage and the competitiveness of related industrial activities also contributes 
to the aim of making Europe’s cultural herita ge more accessible and preserving it for future 
generations. A specific report on the implem entation of this Recommendation has been 
prepared by Commission staff. 
3. PROGRESS TOWARDS A COMMON ACCESS POINT TO EUROPE ’S DIGITAL CULTURAL 
HERITAGE  
3.1. The vision of a European Digital Library 
Digitisation has benefits beyond improved accessib ility. Coordination of digitisation between 
institutions and the various cult ural domains leads to reunificatio n of dispersed collections or 
the linking of seemingly disconnected docum ents and artefacts. This provides both a 
convenience to the user and a more complete picture of the heritage preserved in the 
collections all over Europe. Therefore, th rough the Recommendation, the Commission has 
triggered support for the creation of a European  Digital Library: a uni que resource providing 
access to Europe’s distributed cultural heritage. It  will ensure that millions of great paintings, 
historical writings, ancient manuscripts, pers onal photos, and important national documents 
from Europe’s libraries, archives and museum s will become more available, valuable and 
usable, and it will facilitate ne w added value services in educa tion, media and entertainment.  
In November 2006 the Commission’s plans for a European Digital Library were endorsed by 
the Culture Ministers of all EU Member States  and backed by the European Parliament in a 
Resolution in September 2007. The rapid develo pment of a single, direct and multilingual 
 
EN 6   EN access point to Europe’s cultural heritage th erefore also serves an  important operational 
purpose, in providing a showcase of  what will be possible if Europe’s digitised collections in 
libraries, archives and museums become accessible to  citizens. This is e ssential if we are to 
capitalise on and retain the interest that  all stakeholders have shown so far.  
3.2. Europeana  
The work towards a European Digital Librar y involves tackling political, human, technical 
and semantic issues in order to facilitate an interoperable system between the cultural institutions in Europe. In autumn 2007, sevent y senior managers and technical experts from 
museums, archives, audiovisual collections and libraries all across the EU started work in a 
thematic network co-funded by the European Commission’s eContent plus programme, to 
prepare a detailed plan for realising the vision of the European Digital Library and for what 
they have named Europeana . Their work builds on the suc cess of earlier initiatives ― the 
longest running one being a se rvice called The Eur opean Library (TEL), a search facility 
across 150 million titles from 172 collections  in 31 European national libraries. 
By November 2008, Europeana  will provide a multilingual interf ace with direct access to at 
least two million digitised objects  selected from among what is already digitised and available 
from some of Europe’s major museums, archives  and libraries. Content will be taken in from 
aggregators and national portals or will be ha rvested from individual organisations. Special 
attention is paid to th e needs of the visually impaired. By 2010 the number of digital items 
accessible through Europeana  will go far beyond the six million originally envisaged. 
Moreover, Europeana  will not just be limited to public domain material but, where possible, 
will also concentrate on representing Europe’s more recent cultural records. 
The French National Library helped the Europeana  service move a step closer to the 
goal of a comprehensive collection of cu ltural heritage by raising funds for 
uploading 80 000–100 000 items each year from the library’s Gallica collection. The French National Library also provided a starting template for what will be used as 
the basic Europeana  interface. 
3.3. European Digital Library Foundation 
For the purpose of creating an organisational entity at European level that will be in charge of 
building and sustaining the Europeana  service, a foundation was established on 8 November 
2007 in The Hague, the Netherlands, formalising the agreement between European archives, 
museums, audiovisual archives and libraries  to work together in the delivery of Europeana . 
The Foundation’s first prior ity is the launch of the Europeana  prototype in November 2008 
that will demonstrate proof of concept. The Foundation is open to cont ent holders (such as 
individual museums, archives and libraries) a nd national and European as sociations of content 
holders. Ministries and funding organisations can support the work of the foundation through 
an associate partnership. Signatories so far incl ude most of the professional associations that 
act on behalf of the European cultural herita ge domains (European Re gional Branch of the 
International Council on Archives, Interna tional Federation of Television Archives, 
Association Cinémathèques Européennes, European Museums Forum, Conference of 
European National Librarians, Ligue des Bi bliothèques Europée nnes de Recherche, 
International Council of Museums Europe, Cons ortium of European Research Libraries). 
 
EN 7   EN 4. PROGRESS IN THE MEMBER STATES : DIGITISATION  
4.1. Introduction 
Digitisation is expensive and time consuming fo r many institutions and work is needed on 
strategic and operational levels. Even though in some Member  States support for the Digital 
Libraries initiative has stimulat ed more attention to digitisa tion and additional funding, a lot 
still needs to be done to create coordinated ap proaches at national level. The i2010 — Digital 
Libraries initiative aims to have a lasting effect on existing structures at European level and in the individual Member States. Me mber States have started to r ecognise the value of digitised 
culture and have urged for European action to c oordinate digitisation efforts. Whereas in the 
past initiatives within  and across Member States were unknown, at the heart of the Digital 
Libraries initiative today is concern to optim ise the leveraging effect s between the various 
actions taking place. 
4.2. Overviews of current and planned digitisation 
One first step is to improve the identification of what is and will be digitised. A number of 
different practical and or ganisational solutions have  already been taken up. 
Triggered by the Recommendation, national mini stries and other government departments 
have started to collect inform ation on digitisation at national  level. In Germany, Sweden, 
Ireland and the Netherlands, for example, t horough qualitative evaluation of digitisation 
policies is being carried out with the aim of a ssessing the impact of digitisation so far and/or 
steering future policy and funding. In most Me mber States dedicated committees, expert 
groups, newly established author ities and evaluative and expl oratory surveys have been 
established since 2005 to provide a more accura te basis for claims about the digitisation 
efforts taking place and the need for improvements. 
The overviews and surveys of digi tised material show that much of the digitised material is 
not yet accessible on the web, thus limiting its usability. 
In Poland, according to research conducted in 2007 by the Committee for 
Digitisation, the number of digital objects in libraries was estimated at 200 000, of which over 130 000 were accessible online. In Polish archives, of the ca. 500 000 
digital objects only one percent is estimated  to be accessible over the internet. For 
museums, only one to two percent of th e ca. 500 000 digital objects can be found 
online. 
In Germany, the Institut für Museumsforschung recently requested all German 
museums to provide information on their current digitisation status. Although about 
a thousand museums reported possessing digitised artefacts, only 250 of them replied that they had made arrangements to  offer actual online access to these 
objects. 
The reasons for this can vary. They can be of a practical nature (e.g. lack of resources and 
know-how; digitisation may be seen mainly as a preservation tool), of a legal nature (issues 
related to data-protection or intellectua l property rights), or a mixture of both. 
In most Member States cultura l organisations have recognised  how registries of digitised 
collections can contribute to improving the info rmation available on digitisation status. In the 
 
EN 8   EN UK, for example, the Strategic Content Alli ance will develop a st rategy for content and 
service registries. And, although registries ar e mainly domain-specific, in a few cases 
integration is planned, such as in Sweden wh ere the online catalogues of national archives, 
libraries and audiovisual archiv es will all be brought together  from 2008 on. This could allow 
easy comparison and steer future digitisation policy. 
In Slovenia, a new Cultural Heritage Pr otection Act was adopted in early 2008 that 
manages interoperability between the digital sources of different institutions in one 
national register. The Act also requires digitised cultural content to be made 
accessible through the register if the digi tisation is financed from public money. 
Besides the creation of regist ries, many Member States stre ss the useful role of portal 
websites for creating overviews of digitisat ion activities, e.g. as developed under the 
MICHAEL project (presenting a cat alogue of a variety of digital collections, serv ices, projects 
and institutions) or the European Library proj ect (providing access to th e digital catalogues of 
national libraries). However, it is not yet always  clear to what extent such information is 
actually taken into account in further decision making, and different information sources will 
need to be made interoperable and usable not only to identify digital collections but also for 
profiling so that digitisati on priorities can  be set up. 
In Belgium, the Heritage Preservation and Exploitation Programme will establish 
for the French Community an online inventor y of digital collecti ons, a directory of 
institutions and an overview of progress on di gitisation funds, as well as projects per 
sector and per institution. Similar initia tives exist for the Flemish and the German-
speaking communities with the purpose of avoiding duplication of efforts. 
At the same time, as more and more cultural in stitutions make their digital items harvestable 
through Europeana , a more complete picture will emerge  of the digitised material already 
available at European level. Europeana ’s central index will provide  descriptive information at 
object level and will include di rect links to the original digital objects, enabling a detailed 
overview. 
Not only the Member States, but also the Co mmission itself is involved in digitisation 
projects. At the end of 2007 the EU Publications Office l aunched its digital library 
project. This project intends to offer Eu ropean citizens free online access to all 
official publications ever produced by the European Uni on institutions, agencies and 
other bodies. The entrance porta l to this digital library dating back to 1952 shall be 
the EU Bookshop website making availabl e all publications fo r free downloads. The 
PDF files will contain searchable text la yers and will comply with the latest 
guidelines for long-term preservation. A print-on-demand option will also be available. The digital library created by the Office will, in due course, also be accessible through Europeana. A pilot phase of  the Office digital library project 
(PODL) started beginning of Februar y 2008. 6 000 publications, requiring around 1 
million pages to be scanned, will then be available in EU Bookshop as of summer 2008. Based on the results of the pilot phase,  the main phase envisages the treatment 
of the complete physical archive of th e Office, demanding the scanning and handling 
of about 13 million pages by October 2009. This  makes this project one of the most 
ambitious digital library projects in the world, given the timescale and volume.  
 
EN 9   EN 4.3. Quantitative targets for digitisation a nd related financial resources planning 
Real quantitative targets are still difficult to fi nd for most Member States. Although the aim of 
funding programmes is normally to enhance access to collections, rather than simply increase 
the amount of content, quantitative targets can, for example, contribute to technological and 
organisational efficiency, priori tising the digitisation of speci fic content, or planning of 
budgets — both within Member St ates and at European level. Figures for most Member 
States, where they exist, are merely expressed in terms of quantitative results of projects already completed or funding made  available in previ ous years. There are some exceptions: 
the major cultural organisations (national libraries, national archives, national museums) that run multi-annual digitisation plans as well as some national programmes (e.g. in Slovenia) or 
large digitisation schemes (e.g. in the Netherlands) that have plan ned in detail the number of 
objects for each domain or thematic area. 
Information about available and planned budget s or funding for digitisation shows a very 
diverse picture across the whole of Europe. Ov erall, funding for digitisation is still being 
made available on a small scale and in a fragmen ted manner in most countries and, therefore, 
it is difficult for most Member States to pres ent digitisation budgets and targets in an accurate 
and aggregated form ― with the exception of the figures for some larger, individual 
institutions. Only in those Member States that have already prioritised digitisation at national 
level can the related financial resources and planned targets be provided normally and, 
therefore, is the coordination and planni ng of resources for digitisation easier. 
In Romania, cultural content owners were requested to send a precise approximation 
of the estimated costs over a three-year pe riod, taking into c onsideration the number 
of resources to be digitised, the timeframe, the necessary equipment and the identified training needs. This informa tion will feed into a multi-annual programme 
and budget under the recently appro ved Public Policy Proposal  on the digitisation of 
cultural resources and on th e creation of a Digital Library of Romania. 
In Finland, a national programme and ac tion plan on digitisation, including 
quantitative and qualitative targets, will be laun ched in 2008. It will be based on the 
Commission Recommendation and the Council Conclusions and will be part of the broader national information society poli cy. In 2008, a new State budget line of €2 
million was already made available for digi tisation of cultural material and for the 
accessibility and preservation of  digital cultural content. 
In the Netherlands, €90 million (out of a total budget of €154m) was allocated to 
‘Images for the Future’, a programme for the large-scale digitisation of film, video and audio heritage. This allocation was m ade possible on the basis of thorough 
economic research, including an impact assessment that calculated €176 million of eventual positive economic effects deriving, inter alia, from increased use of the 
digitised material and copyright and fa r-reaching cost reduction through better 
handling conditions and professional delivery services. 
In Cyprus, the Press and Information Office has been working for two years on a 
pilot programme for the digitisation of it s Press Archive, which dates back to as 
early as 1878 and includes about three mill ion pages. The costs amount to around 
€1.2 million. The programme is  carefully planned and will be completed in a number 
of phases, also in order to find financial resources outside the government budget. So 
far, 250 000 pages have been digi tised and are available online. 
 
EN 10   EN A few Member States make use of the EU Stru ctural Funds as a way of finding extra funding 
for digitisation, for example Finland, Slovakia and Lithuania. In Lithuani a, a detailed national 
digitisation strategy has been drawn up and, w ith the support of €9 million from the EU 
Structural Funds, five large digitisation pr ojects will be carried out between 2007 and 2013. 
In 2007, the Commission launched the Numeric  study. This two-year study will establish a 
framework of standardised methods for the coll ection and analysis of data on digitisation in 
the EU. More and better information should en able governments and institutions to more 
precisely identify their digitisation efforts, to make comparisons, and to plan further 
digitisation. 
4.4. Partnerships between cultural institut ions and private-sector organisations 
Examples of public-private partnerships a nd sponsorships by private organisations are 
emerging in some Member States as a new way of funding the digitisatio n of cultural content, 
as an alternative to pub lic funding. Certain Member States ha ve also developed incentives to 
attract private investments in the cultural domai n. Most of the smaller Member States report 
no experience at all, or, as in the case of Esto nia, mention that the small size of the State and 
the language is hampering privat e-sector interest in  digitisation, although there are exceptions, 
e.g. in Latvia. 
In Latvia, to encourage partnership and cooperation in the digitisation process, a 
special purpose programme ‘Cooperation of Archives, Museums and Libraries in the Digital Environment’ was developed. Within this programme cooperation between archives, libraries and museums, autho rs and users as well as with private 
companies is being stimulated within various, relatively small-scale projects. 
In Slovenia, a Public-Private Partnership Act entered into force in 2007. The Act 
provides new opportunities for private promot ion of digitisation projects in public 
institutions. The new legi slation includes general pr ovisions on public-private 
partnerships that are also applicable to the area of digitisation. P ilot projects started 
in the National Archive and the National Libr ary, ranging from simple sponsorships 
for digitisation to new business models based on joint exploitation of digitised 
content. 
The size of successful collaborati ve ventures involving public a nd private entities has varied, 
ranging from small local initiatives up to exampl es of large-scale digitisation projects. Also 
the forms of the collaboration and the business m odels show a high degree of variety, but they 
can be grouped in two main categories: sponsor ships (direct funding of digitisation activities 
by private entities) and public-p rivate partnerships involvi ng the provision of technical 
resources (digitisation equipment,  infrastructure and know-how). 
In Spain, Telefónica is cont ributing €10 million towards th e digitisation of National 
Library objects to be included in Europeana . Also, the Spanish Biblioteca Virtual 
Cervantes in Alicante is based on a spons orship scheme. Examples of quite large 
partnerships based on technical support ar e available in the United Kingdom, such 
as that involving the British Library and Cengage Gale for digitised historical 
newspapers. Other digitisation partnerships are reported for e.g. Germany (Bavarian State Library), Belgium (Ghent University) and the United Kingdom 
(Oxford University Library), all of them  with Google. Another model of public-
private collaboration concerns collaborative research where industry contributes to 
 
EN 11   EN the development of digiti sation technologies (e.g. in the CATCH research 
programme in the Netherlands). 
Engaging in public-private partnerships could creat e pitfalls (e.g. exclusiv e deals) and there is 
a need in Member States to build up a better body of experience on the benefits and risks, for 
both parties, and to understand what good or accepted practice is, and where the public interest might be compromised. In the Un ited Kingdom, research is being done on the 
developing business models by  the Strategic Content Allian ce. And the Commission’s High 
Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries has addre ssed the issue of public-p rivate partnerships 
through a report based on a set of case studies, analysing issues such as success factors, 
choice of partners, business models, IPR, prot ection of the public domain and exclusivity 
issues. 
4.5. Large-scale digitisation facilities 
Turning the vision of a European Digital Library into reality calls for Member States to step 
up the rate of and capacity for digitisation and the usability of the resulting content in new 
services. The Commission has therefore recomme nded Member States to build up, on the 
basis of existing competence, large-scale digitisa tion facilities. The aim is to provide smaller 
archives, libraries and museums with more wide ly available access to advanced digitisation 
technologies, innovative tools and services, an d expertise and knowledge. Only in this way 
will it be possible to enlist the critical mass of resources required and to increase the capacity 
for digitisation in Member States. 
In quite a few Member States digitisation centr es have been established in different forms 
already, linked to eith er a university (e.g. Germany), a natio nal library (e.g. Fi nland, France, 
the Netherlands), a national archive (e.g. Swede n, France, Greece), a ministry (e.g. Italy) or a 
private company (e.g. Hungary). In Spain extr a funding is made available for digitisation 
training tools for archives to promote the use of standards required by Europeana . 
In Slovakia, the National Library is es tablishing, with co-funding from the EU 
Structural Funds, a high-capacity digitisation centre in the former  military depots in 
Vrútky. Procurement and construction acti vities are currently in progress and two 
out of four automatic page-turning robot s will be in operation by November 2008, 
along with high-capacity di gital storage (1.5 PB). 
In Sweden, under the auspices of the Na tional Archives, a di gitisation centre (MKC 
— Media Converting Centre) was set up fo r the large-scale pr oduction of digital 
images from national, regional and local ar chives as well as content holders other 
than the archival institutions, for exampl e the Swedish land survey. The aim of MKC 
is to achieve effective utilisation of resources in Sweden and to maximise the 
throughput to reduce costs per unit. 
In France, one of the French National Library’s mass digitisation programmes 
allows the digitisation of about 30 000 prin ted documents and the conversion to text 
mode of another 60 000. Another of the library’s mass digitisation programmes is digitising some 8 000 documents a month. By  late 2010, the library’s online portal, 
Gallica, will provide access to some 400 000 printed documents, simultaneously available in text and image mode, represen ting over 45 million pages. Gallica has a 
full-text based search engine and offers reade rs the possibility to create a personal 
space where they can save their documents and insert page markers. 
 
EN 12   EN Although the willingness to set up digitisation se rvices is impressive in  most Member States, 
it is not always clear how such facilities are exp ected to operate with their ‘constituency’ in 
practice, how they will bring a bout scalability, a nd in what ways they w ill actually contribute 
to the reduction of costs and to sustainability. Besides, the focus is currently on technologies 
capable of improving digitisation processe s for text-based materials and support for 
digitisation of other types of objects is still limited. 
Parallel to the actions in Member States, the Commission, through the Information Society 
Technologies work programme (FP7-IST) fo r 2007-2008, has established as a research 
priority the development of competence centres  for digitisation and digital preservation at 
European level. This support should bring togeth er the existing expertise that is being built up 
in several organisations across Europe and will work toward s convergence of the various 
competences and capacity available in the Member States. 
5. PROGRESS IN THE MEMBER STATES : ONLINE ACCESSIBILITY  
5.1. Introduction 
One of the challenges addressed by the Commission Recommendation is the online 
availability of digitised material. This  concerns the practical accessibility through Europeana  
as well as the framework conditions for the onlin e accessibility of in particular orphan works, 
out-of-print works and public domain material. Mo st twentieth century material is still in 
copyright, and without solutions to  bring in-copyright works online, there is the risk of a ‘20th 
century black hole’ on the intern et, a situation in which most  material from before 1900 
would be accessible but much less from more recent times. 
5.2. Promoting access through Europeana  
The Commission Recommendation urges Member St ates to implement measures that will 
stimulate cultural institutions as well as priv ate content holders to make their collections 
available through  Europeana  and measures that will contribute to the implementation of 
common standards. 
In some Member States, this was translated di rectly into the amount of funding available for 
institutions to digitise ― be it at institutional level or through increased special programme 
funding from ministries. New f unding is awaiting evaluation in countries such as Denmark, 
Ireland, Hungary and Romania or has recently been  allocated in, inter alia, the Netherlands, 
Greece, France and Finland. 
In Greece, the current national Informa tion Society Programme is supporting 180 
different digitisation projects from muse ums, libraries and archives with total 
funding of around €100 million. As from 2008 it is specifically concentrating on 
achieving interoperability with Europeana . Under the Greek National Digital 
Strategy 2008-2013 this support will be cont inued and the amount of content readily 
available for inclusion in Europeana  will increase significantly. 
In the UK, the Integrated Architecture Project will make a large number of digital 
items from thirty different institutions available to Europeana . In Germany a 
‘German Digital Library’ is under development,  bringing in content from institutions 
at the federal state level and the level of the Länder . It will be the German building 
 
EN 13   EN block to Europeana  and involves public  and private content holders. In Spain, the 
National Library of Spain will digitise with private sponsoring an extra 200 000 
items to be included in Europeana . 
In most cases, the extra funding for digitisati on comes with standardisation criteria for 
bringing about interoperability between initia tives at national level and for guaranteeing 
interoperability with Europeana . The standardisation work pe rformed in the past by the 
Minerva project that was co -funded by the Commission, and the work currently ongoing in 
the framework of the Europeana  project, are quoted as the main reference for standards and 
criteria at national level. Most Member States are establishing national portals and ― if the 
methods and standards used are consistent with the Europeana  model ― such portals can be 
important initial bu ilding blocks for Europeana , as they can function as an easy aggregator of 
a significant amount of underlyi ng content to be delivered to Europeana . 
In Spain, all projects funded under the Spanish National Digitisation and Public 
Access Plan will have to conform to the standards recommended by Europeana , so 
all the relevant content will become available also at the European level. 
In Ireland, a number of institutions , e.g. An Chomhairle Leabharlanna and the 
Library Council, are examin ing the implications for Europeana  interoperability in 
relation to their websites. At  the same time, a national st eering committee made up of 
key stakeholders will oversee and carry out a wide-ranging survey and emphasise 
the Europeana  initiative by encouraging institutions to consider implications for 
interoperability at national and at European level. 
In Bulgaria, the digitisation centre at the Institute of Mathema tics and Informatics 
will prepare and provide common digitisation guidelines and ensure their dissemination throughout the country to impr ove interoperability at national level 
and with Europeana . 
The Commission Recommendation also urges Memb er States to stimulate private content 
holders to make their content se archable and discoverable through Europeana . Some projects 
directly involving publishers an d other private content holders  have been reported already. 
These projects concern the online availabil ity of in-copyright works. The German Book 
Dealers and Publishers Association developed the Libreka! project, a central access portal 
allowing search for and paid access to German  in-copyright books. A partnership between the 
French National Library and the French Publ ishers’ Association is developing a common 
platform and a business model that aim to brin g benefits to both the private and the public 
sides within the context of Gallica. In Italy, an agreement between the State (ICCU — Ministry of Culture Heritage  and Activities) a nd the publishing house La terza guarantees the 
right of the Italian Digital Libr ary to digitise and publish on th e internet, free of charge, the 
entire classical book collection ‘S crittori d’Italia’. In Belgium, the central catalogue of the 
Flemish public libraries has been  linked to the central databa se of the book trade via data 
exchange and using the same front-end system. Users can now consult both systems and have 
a ‘borrow-or-buy’ option. 
Next to implementing the measures addr essed by the Communication, Member States’ 
departments and national funding organisations can contribute to Europeana  by becoming 
associated participants in the European Digital Library Foundati on. This will make it possible 
to support more directly the activ ities to link the digitised heritage from all Member States. 
 
EN 14   EN 5.3. Improving conditions for digiti sation and online accessibility 
Reviews of the national intellect ual property and copyright legi slation considering new ways 
to facilitate online accessibility in a digital en vironment are or have been on the agenda of 
several Member States. Public consultations, review reports, working groups and amendments 
to the legislative framework are reported by most Member States. In certain cases, legislation 
was actually adapted. For example, the Italian law on copyright was amended in early 2008 in 
order to allow the non-profit free disseminati on of low-resolution images and sounds on the 
internet for teaching and educational purposes. Other ― non-legislative ― policy lines point 
in the same direction, such as the Dutc h government support for the development and 
implementation of the Creative Commons licence scheme in the Netherlands. 
In the Czech Republic, a dedicated worki ng group for the European Digital Library 
and Copyright was convened by the Copy right Department of the Ministry of 
Culture, to discuss key principles for orphan works, out-of-print works and rights 
clearance centres, to launch consultations  on copyright-related problems, and to 
collect the opinions of the different stakeholders, incl uding libraries, museums, 
archives and publishers. 
5.3.1.  Improving online accessibility of orphan works 
Orphan works are works for which it is very  difficult or even impossible to find the 
rightholders. It is therefore impossible to obtain a licence fr om these rightholders for the 
digitisation and online accessibility of such works. The Recommendation urged Member 
States to adopt mechanisms to deal with the issu e. Still, at this moment, a large majority of 
Member States do not have any legislation or other national mechanism in place to facilitate 
the use of orphan works. 
In a small group of Member States (Denma rk, Finland, Sweden and Hungary) extended 
collective licensing is used as a solution to th e problem of orphan works. This system is not 
specifically tailored to orphan works but, as its application is general, it will cover the 
problem of orphan works as well. The system a pplies automatically to all rightholders in a 
given field, even if unknown or untraceable. 
Denmark and Hungary are in the process of a dopting a mechanism to deal with orphan works 
that is stronger than the general extended co llective licensing scheme. Germany is working on 
a legislative solution within the context of a broader adaptation of its copyright legislation. 
France has a judicial mechanism in place that ca n be used in relation to orphan works and is 
considering introducing a lighter mechanism. In  a few smaller Member States, orphan works 
are currently not perceived as a pr oblem deserving special attention. 
In many countries the issue is being debated in  dedicated working groups, sometimes as part 
of the broader discussions on the legal fr amework. The main solutions that are under 
consideration in the Member States are: 
• Extended collective licensing; 
• The grant of a non-exclusive licence by an independent body following a diligent search 
for the rightholders. This is the mech anism that Hungary is considering; 
 
EN 15   EN • A limitation or exception to copyright. In th e United Kingdom, the Gowers Review of 
Intellectual Property recomme nded to the UK government that a solution for orphan works 
is implemented at European level through an amendment of the Directive on the 
harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society 
(EU Copyright Directive). 
In Denmark, the legal issues associated with digitisation have been addressed in a 
proposed revision of the Danish Copyright La w. It includes a provision dealing with 
the general use of extended collective licen sing. The provision will grant permission 
to parties to make agreements in an area to be specified by the parties but with 
consequences for all rightholders in that  area. The provisions include an opt-out 
clause for rightholders who do no wish to be included in the extended collective 
licence. Moreover, the conclusion of agreements  in this area by collecting societies 
is subject to approval by the Ministry of Culture. The proposal will broaden the use of extended collective licensing from mo re specific areas to all areas where 
rightholders wish to use this practice. The proposed scheme will enable new parties 
to make use of extended collective licensi ng. The new legislation will contribute to 
solving the issue with orphan works and out-o f-print works insofar as a collecting 
society is appointed to repres ent the rightholders. The law is to come into force in 
2008. 
A relevant question raised in the 2006 Counc il Conclusions on the digitisation and online 
accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation has to do with the cross-border 
aspects of the solutions. This concerns in pa rticular the mutual recognition across Member 
States of orphan status, as well as the possibil ity to make the orphan material available over 
the internet. Addressing these issues is also essential for the accessibility of orphan material, 
digitised by national institutions , at European level through Europeana . 
On a practical level, the legislative mechanisms  can be accompanied by registries, shared at 
European level, of declared orphan works. Stru ctured databases or lists of orphan and public 
domain works do not currently  exist in Europe. EC-funded projects such as MILE and 
ARROW are quoted by Member States as action s that will help to fill the current gap. 
MILE deals with metadata for digital images, and it  is co-funded by the 
Commission’s eContent plus programme. It aims, among other things, to set up an 
‘Orphan Works Database’ which should act as a repository for all orphan works and 
invite users to offer information about those works. A nd a proposal rece ntly selected 
for co-funding under eContent plus is ARROW — Accessible Registries of Rights 
Information and Orphan Works towards the European Digital Library. European 
national libraries, publishers and collecting so cieties, also representing writers, will 
address the issue of rights informati on management to underpin the Commission’s 
Digital Libraries initiative. The project is  expected to deliver an infrastructure for 
the management of any type of rights information, to overcome the challenges of 
orphan works, out-of-print books, clea rance of protected material and 
interoperability between public and private co llections, and to faci litate the actual 
implementation of innovative business models for both di gital libraries and private 
econtent providers. 
 
EN 16   EN 5.3.2.  Improving online accessibil ity of out-of-print works 
Out-of-print works, wh ere the rights holder is known but where the work is no longer 
commercially available, give rise to a differe nt set of problems. A ccording to the reports 
received, in most Member States there are no sp ecific mechanisms to facilitate digitisation of 
and access to out-of-print and out-of-distribu tion works. Working groups and consultation 
processes have been activated, normally in connection with orphan works, but with a few 
exceptions practical measures or poli cy directions have not yet emerged. 
In the Netherlands, the National Librar y Forum (FOBID) and the Dutch Foundation 
for Copyright Interests recently signed a lett er of intent for an arrangement that will 
facilitate the mass-digitisation of collections by libraries. This will have to be further 
concretised in agreements for specific di gitisation projects. Such agreements would 
contain information about wh ich works are eligible for digitisation, the procedure 
for making these works available digita lly, and the fee possibly owed to the 
rightholders. The Dutch Foundation for Co pyright Interests and ‘VOICE’, the 
branch association for collec ting societies, will support cultural organisations in 
making the necessary arrangements with Dutch copyright holders. 
The Commission Recommendation and the model licence proposed by the High Level Expert 
Group on Digital Libraries are quoted by several Memb er States as the elements that started a 
national reflection on possible poli cy initiatives on out-of-print works. Some Member States, 
e.g. Italy, Slovakia and the UK, took an active ro le in promoting the model licence, others 
have used specific contractual arrangements to  facilitate access to out-of-print works (e.g. 
Italy). Smaller countries note that their market size could make adoption of the model licence 
relatively complicated and a lternatives should be expl ored (e.g. Luxembourg). 
Some Member States (Austria a nd Slovenia) indicate that in th eir legal system the notion of 
out-of-print work is already present and legally defined. 
Austrian Copyright Law ( Urheberrechtsgesetz ) contains an exclusion concerning the 
right of reproduction of works out of  print and works that are published 
(‘veröffentlicht ’) but not distributed in sufficient number (‘ erschienen ’), which 
allows public institutions to reproduce these works, if they do so without commercial 
intent. This enables these works to be di gitised, but does not a llow online distribution 
of the digital copies; it al lows on-site access only. 
The Slovenian Law on Copyright and Simila r Rights defines out-of-print works (less 
than five per cent or less than a hundred c opies) and allows public institutions to 
reproduce such works only for their own n eeds and not for public use. Furthermore, 
the Legal Deposit Act allows the deposita ry organisation, wher e the publication has 
not been available on the mar ket for at least two years and in case of loss or 
damage, to reproduce one mandatory copy of th e publication that is stored by some 
other depositary organisation for the purpose of preservation and availability for use 
on-site only.  
The related copyright exception is limited to re production (digitisation) and on-site access in 
the cultural institutions’ premises. In order to facilitate online access to out-of-print works 
through Europeana , further work is needed with stakehol ders and possibly at legislative level.  
 
EN 17   EN 5.3.3.  Improving online accessibil ity of public domain works 
Member States seem to have taken hardly any action to identify and eliminate barriers to the 
online accessibility of works in  the public domain held by public institutions. Most Member 
States do not address th e issue in their reports.  Some (e.g. Finland) indi cate that they did look 
into the matter and did not find any problem. A few Member States report that there are 
provisions in the national  legislation that limit the online ac cessibility of public domain works 
(e.g. Portugal, Sweden, Greece): 
• Legislation on public access to docume nts held by public bodies: the general 
principle of free access to information ma y be limited on grounds such as personal 
data protection (privacy) or State secu rity. Such provisions, concerning both on-
site and online access, may restrict access to material that, from an intellectual 
property rights point of view, is in the public domain. This a ffects in particular 
archives; 
• Legal provisions in the area of copyright giving the State certain exclusive rights 
in relation to public domain material; 
• Legal provisions concerning the protection of  the cultural heritage, providing that 
reproduction and dissemination of cultural heritage belonging to or held by the 
State is subject to a licence and to the payment of a fee, even if it is in the public 
domain.  
In particular the last two types of barriers can create unnecessary problems for making the 
public domain material accessible through Europeana . No actions are reported to address this 
type of barriers. 
6. PROGRESS IN THE MEMBER STATES : DIGITAL PRESERVATION  
6.1. Introduction 
Ensuring preservation of information into the fu ture brings with it significant challenges. 
Most organisations lack the policies and pro cedures to prevent digital information from 
becoming inaccessible in the course of time. El ectronic resources, regardless of whether they 
are created initially  through digitisation or are born digital, are threat ened by deterioration of 
the medium carrying them or obsolescence of th e technology on which they depend. There is 
growing recognition in all Member States of the potential societal  and financial costs of losing 
data and of the financial, organisational and le gal challenges to be faced  given the wide range 
of issues and stakeholders involved, at natio nal and international level. The Commission 
Recommendation drew Member States’ attention to  measures to lower the risk of information 
loss and wastage of resources. 
6.2. National strategies and plans for digital preservation 
Many Member States already be gan preparing national digital preservation policies some 
years ago through special committees or wo rking groups involving the main memory 
institutions.  
In Finland, the Ministry of Education set up a working group to draw up a plan for 
organising long-term preservation, with  emphasis on the legal preservation 
 
EN 18   EN obligations of central go vernment bodies (the National  Archives Service, the 
National Library of Finland, the National Board of Antiquities, and the National Audiovisual Archive), and to look into the be nefits of shared tec hnical infrastructure. 
In Italy, various projects and networks are in place, aimed at Italian libraries and 
archives, to tackle collaboratively issu es such as the creation of scalable 
infrastructures for long-term preservation, the development of emulation strategies, 
the conduct of research, awareness rais ing, and the framing of local and national 
preservation policies. 
However, most countries still lack more preci se plans or strategies for tackling the most 
urgent issues and describing in  detail the various roles and re sponsibilities and the resources 
needed. Many reports mention the l ack of scalable tec hnologies and methods as well as lack 
of experience. Therefore, in few Member States  do strategies for digi tal preservation actually 
translate into changes and improvements at infrastructural and organisational levels. 
In Poland, a special committee is dedicated to shaping a national strategy for the 
digital preservation of Polish cultural he ritage. The strategy will consist of a 
framework for developing cooperation between all institutions responsible for cultural heritage and a number of main recommendations. Problems mentioned are 
that technical methods for the long-term pr eservation of digital resources in Poland 
are still far from functional or from being applied for mass usage, and that most 
Polish memory institutions have no experience in testing the sustainability of large 
digital repositories facing software and har dware obsolescence. This also impacts on 
the repository function in Poland. Only wh en trustworthy and lasting organisational 
and technical procedures are established will  repositories in Poland be able to rely 
on digital copies. 
Real progress is being made only in those countr ies that have one or more organisations with 
a long record in the area of digital preser vation and in collabora ting intensively with 
counterparts at national and Europe an level. This is the case, for example, in the UK, where 
the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), in which, inter alia, the British Library and other libraries, the JISC and research organisations are participating, has already been active for 
several years in building expertise among its  members and providing  a common national 
forum for the development and coordination of di gital preservation strategies in the UK. In 
the Netherlands, a National Coalition for Digital Preservation was established in 2007, at the initiative of the National Libr ary, and with support from the Ministry of E ducation, Culture 
and Science. Its ambitious aim is to ensure that within five years a national organisational and technical infrastructure is in  place, to secure the long-term  accessibility of scientific, 
commercial, governmental and cultural data. In  Germany, the NESTOR competence network 
has similar objectives, with a focus on training a nd the sharing of expertise and information. 
In Sweden, the National Archives, the Nati onal Library, and th e National Archive of 
Recorded Sound and Moving Images have t ogether embarked on far-reaching cooperation 
through the Centre for Long Term Digital Pres ervation and Access (LDB-Centre) based at 
Luleå University of Technology. 
Digital preservation costs remain a critical and little known issue. A Commission 
study on the socio-economic im pact of digital preservation was therefore launched in 
January 2008 and should lead to better knowledg e of the costs of fa iling to preserve, 
 
EN 19   EN the issues if data cannot be r ecovered, as well as the pote ntial value of new services 
based on preserved digital content. 
6.3. Exchange of information with other Member States on di gital preservation 
An effective platform for the exchange of information and good practice in digital 
preservation was found in the Member Stat es’ Expert Group on Digitisation and Digital 
Preservation on two different oc casions. On these oc casions presentations and discussions 
were held on progress in digita l preservation at national level, with special reference to legal 
and organisational arrangements as well as web harvesting. 
European projects co-funded from the Rese arch Framework Programme are the other 
platforms often mentioned by Member States fo r exchanging information and experience at 
European level. For example, the ERPANET project organised between 2003 and 2004 more 
than twenty workshops bringing together severa l hundred experts and prac titioners in digital 
preservation coming from museums, libraries and archives, the ICT and software industry, 
research institutions and government bodies all across Europe. Building on the earlier successful work of ERPANET, the DPE (Dig ital Preservation Euro pe) project co-funded 
under FP7 is playing an important role in terms of outreach in order to  attract people from 
various disciplines to digita l curation and preservation. DP E facilitates pooling of the 
complementary expertise that exists acro ss the academic research, cultural, public 
administration and industry sectors in Europe and fosters collaboration and synergies between 
many existing national and intern ational initiatives throughout the Europ ean Research Area. 
DPE addresses the need to improve coordina tion, cooperation and consistency in digital 
preservation activities.  
In some Member States digital preservation is being integrated into new relevant education 
and training curricula, for example the new Mast er’s degree course in conservation of new 
media and digital information at the State Acad emy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, Germany. The 
Commission recognises the need for more consis tency in education on digital preservation 
and the importance of spreading competence, tr aining and awareness at European level, and 
will bring together various stakeholders to explore the possibilities for developing a common 
European curriculum for digital curators. 
The need for collaboration is also reflected in the creation of the Alliance for 
Permanent Access, a group formed at the in itiative of the National Library of the 
Netherlands and consisting of national and pan-European research organisations, 
data centres, archives, libraries and pub lishers. The Alliance promotes new 
collaborative and coordinated actions at  European level contributing to a 
sustainable virtual infrastructure for perm anent access to scient ific information in 
Europe. 
6.4. Multiple copying and migration of digi tal material for preservation purposes 
Copying for the purpose of preservation of digital material is not perceived as a major legal 
obstacle by most Member States . Some reports mention consider ing a more explicit reference 
to digital material in the nati onal copyright law. At the same time, some related policies, e.g. 
with regard to electronic depos it, are still quite varied in mo st Member States and largely 
depend on individual voluntary licensing agreem ents with publishers, which raises ad hoc 
issues for copying for preservation purposes. Another issue mentione d is DRM clearance. 
DRM deployed by publishers is mainly for cont rolling copying for access purposes, but this 
can also limit a library’s copying activ ities with a view to preservation.  
 
EN 20   EN In the UK, a report by Andrew Gowers pub lished findings on the UK’s intellectual 
property regime in December 2006. It include d provisions to enable materials to be 
copied for preservation purposes. A formal  consultation on these and other copyright 
exceptions is currently under way and is exp ected to lead to legislation being 
introduced at the end of 2008. 
6.5. Legal deposit of born-digital material 
Until recently, voluntary agreements for the acqui sition and deposit of electronic information 
were the only instrument in most Member Stat es, either complementing the legal provisions 
or as the only practice (as is the case in the Netherlands). However, in more and more Member States the legal deposit legislation is  being revised to include electronic deposit 
obligations (e.g. Spain, Portugal, Austria) or has already been amended in recent years to 
cover also digital material (e.g. Finland, Germ any, France, Estonia). Member States that 
joined the European Union in 2004 have been  particularly swift in preparing deposit 
legislation or adapting it to  the digital environment. 
Although, in most countries, implementation usually  preceded regulation to  test the specific 
issues of acquisition, storage, preservation an d access, most Member States have reported 
only in vague terms on actual progress in implem enting their new deposit legislation. As for 
the question what is being done to prevent di vergence of depositing ar rangements with other 
Member States, an issue mentioned in many repor ts is the variation in types of electronic 
publications covered. For exampl e, the National Library of Fran ce also collects games, expert 
systems and databases. In Finland the manda te applies only to material on CDs and DVDs 
excluding computer programs. In some Member States the provisions refer to text-based 
information products rather than entertainmen t. There is a need for stronger cooperation 
between the depositing organisations to develop shared approaches, requirements and related 
certification criteria as to the acquisition, registration and storage of and access to the 
materials. A good example at national level is the case of Sweden, where the National 
Archives, the National Library and the Natio nal Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving 
Images are developing a joint repository management system. 
6.6. Legal provisions for web harvesting 
The collection of particular portio ns of the web and their preserva tion in an archive for future 
researchers, historians and the general public is taking place in most Member States. Only in 
about half of them is this on the basis of a le gislative arrangement. Su ch arrangements have 
given an official mandate for we b harvesting to specific instituti ons, such as national libraries 
or national archives. In all other cases, where no law legitimising web harvesting exists, the 
practice is blurred and fragmented as consent from the rights owner needs to be found on a case-by-case basis or access provided to these materials has to be restricted. 
In the situation where provisions for mandatory web harvesting exist thes e are often directly 
integrated in the provisions for legal depos it of born-digital material. The organisation 
responsible is normally the national li brary. No difficulties are mentioned with 
implementation once a legal mandate is in plac e, e.g. for dealing with the distribution and 
unpredictable temporality of online content, the rapidly evolving pub lishing and encoding 
technologies, the authenticity of the material, or  the vast number of act ors contributing to the 
web. Selection criteria used are often the country’s top-le vel domain (e.g. .fi) or the 
origination of a publisher/creato r/author. Although language could be considered it is hardly 
mentioned. Thematic selection also takes place, e.g. based on elections, government and 
university websites, newspapers. Access policies with regard to electronic deposit and web 
 
EN 21   EN harvested material vary between Member States but are generally restrictive, for reasons of 
copyright or privacy.  
In Sweden, owing to restrictions in the Swedish law on pe rsonal integrity, the 
National Library, which started a web harves ting initiative already in the 1990s and 
has collected over 300 million files from Sw edish websites, is only able to provide 
public access to the material within th e premises of the National Library. 
7. WORK WITH STAKEHOLDERS  
7.1. High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries 
7.1.1.  Introduction 
In February 2006, the Commission set up a High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries, 
bringing together cultural inst itutions, publishers, technology firms and academics. The 
group, chaired by Commissioner Reding, has been working for over two years to advise the 
Commission on how to best address the organi sational, legal and te chnical challenges at 
European level, as well as to contribute to a shared strategic vision for digital libraries in 
Europe. Adopting a pragmatic method of work, the group has been able to build bridges 
between the different stakeholders , and to facilitate the identific ation of solutions to specific 
problems. Three priority work areas have b een identified: public-private partnerships, 
scientific information and copyright issues.  
7.1.2.  Copyright 
At its third meeting on 18 April 2007, the Hi gh Level Expert Group approved a report 
produced by the copyright subgr oup on three copyright -related issues: orphan works, out-of-
print works and digital preservation. The repo rt proposes a series of  concrete measures, 
essentially of a non-legislative nature, to be implemented on a voluntary basis by or with the 
direct involvement of the stakeholders (publishers , libraries, collecting so cieties, etc.) and by 
Member States. These measures constitute an  important step forward for facilitating the 
digitisation, online accessibility and digital pres ervation of cultural material and for enabling 
Member States to comply with the pr ovisions of the Commission Recommendation. 
In the area of digital pres ervation, the High Level Expert  Group recommends that public 
libraries, educational establis hments, museums and archives should be allowed to make 
multiple (an open-ended number of) copies where necessary to ensure preservation of the work. Moreover, the report indicates that copi es of born-digital works to be deposited in 
national deposit libraries under mandatory (leg al) deposit schemes should have any embedded 
protection device disabled.  
The report advises on how Member States and stakeholders should put in place mechanisms 
to deal with orphan works, in particular thro ugh a set of commonly agreed core principles, 
which allow interoperable solutions and mutua lly recognised mechanis ms on orphan works. 
The proposed solutions include:  
• Guidance on sector-specific diligent sear ch (or due diligence guidelines): what 
steps are considered as sufficient for fulfilling this prerequisite, such as consulting 
databases, organisations repres enting rightholders, etc.;  
 
EN 22   EN • Provisions for withdrawal shoul d the rightholder reappear; 
• Inclusion of commercial users but with sp ecial treatment for cultural, non-profit 
establishments; 
• Remuneration requirement (general or conditional on the rightholder’s 
reappearance); 
• Dedicated databases of orphan works;  
• Improved copyright metadata tagging to be included in digital/digitised material. 
The Commission has taken an active role in disseminating the results of the High Level 
Group through existing organisations and networks , such as the Member States’ Expert Group 
on Digitisation and Digital Preservation and through a stakeholders meeting held on 14 
September 2007, attended by representatives of authors and publishers from the different 
media sectors, libraries and other cultural institutions.  
As follow-up action in the area of orphan work s, four sector-speci fic stakeholder groups 
(text/books, audiovisual, music and visual/photography) have met on a regular basis to 
develop due diligence guidelines for each of  these sectors. These guidelines embody a 
common understanding of what measur es have to be taken before a work can be considered to 
be orphan. On 4 June 2008 stakeholders’ organi sations representing th e different sectors 
signed a Memorandum of Understanding, thus  endorsing the due diligence guidelines. 
The copyright report also addresses the issue of  how to ensure better access to out-of-print 
works. An out-of-print work is defined as ‘a work that is not commercially available, as 
declared by the appropriate rightholders’. The High Level Expert Group agreed a model 
licence for out-of-print works, to be adapted at national level, including a Community-wide 
licensing feature, to facilitate the lawful digitisation of out-of-print works by libraries and archives and their subsequent ac cessibility on-site or  through secure networks to authorised 
users. The model licence was subs equently extended to include internet online accessibility. 
At its fifth meeting on 4 June 2008, the High Level Expert Group adopt ed a final report on 
copyright related issues. The report consolidates  the work done in this area, including the 
issues of orphan works, out-of–print works, and digital preservation (in particular multiple copying for preservation pur poses and web-harvesting). 
7.1.3.  Public-private partnerships 
Public-private partnerships in the digital libraries domain are particularly interesting as a 
means of funding digitisa tion, given the large financial burde n often involved. For this reason, 
the Commission Recommendation and Council C onclusions encourage the development of 
public-private partnerships.  
At its fifth meeting on 4 June 2008, the High Level Expert Group adopt ed a report identifying 
opportunities, key success factors and guidelines fo r the use of public-priva te partnerships in 
the digital libraries domain, in particular for di gitisation, with the aim of  providing benefits to 
all parties involved: cultural instituti ons, private partners and citizens.  
The report is based on a number of case studies involvi ng different types of cultural 
institutions (libraries, archives, audiovisual archives, and museums) and private actors. It 
addresses key issues such as: exclusivity clauses; transparency of agreements; avoidance of copyright restrictions for digi tised public domain content.  
 
EN 23   EN Public access 
• The partnership should maximise public access and take into account long-term 
preservation and sustainability issues; 
• Public domain content in the analogue worl d should remain in the public domain 
in the digital environment. If restricti ons to user access and use are necessary in 
order to make the content available at a ll, these restrictions  should only apply for 
a limited time period; 
• The partnership should operate within th e framework of applicable intellectual 
property laws. 
Transparency and non-exclusivity 
• The partnership should be transparent and accountable. It should be managed 
through a formal governance structur e and based on a memorandum of 
understanding or contract that  is accessible for the public; 
• The partnership should not establish ex clusive agreements. Exceptionally, where 
exclusive agreements are necessary to provi de a service in the public interest, such 
arrangements should be time-limited, re gularly reviewed and transparent. 
Mutual benefits 
• Partners should clearly stat e their strategic objectives and the benefits for the 
citizen to be achieve d through the project; 
• Partners should take into account and respec t the different intere sts that may be at 
the basis of the partnership; 
• The partnership should fully utilise the e xperience and expertis e of the partners, 
and combine complementary skills and resources. 
7.1.4.  Scientific information 
The High Level Expert Group was ac tive also in the area of sc ientific information, providing 
a discussion and cooperation forum between scientific publishers and the scientific 
community. The Commission took an official positi on in the debate on sc ientific information 
through the Communication on scien tific information in the digital age: access, dissemination 
and preservation (adopted on 14 February 2007),  setting the objective of improving current 
and future access to scientific informati on. On 23 November 2007, the Council adopted 
Conclusions on scientific information in th e digital age, welcom ing the Commission’s 
initiative and inviting Member States to work together on the accessibi lity and preservation of 
scientific information. 
Through the High Level Expert Group, basic co nsensus has been built among stakeholders 
on: agreed principles on access; preservation of scientific information and research data; and 
future paradigms for scientific information. Th e most controversial i ssue remains the request 
for open access formulated by the research co mmunity and strongly rejected by publishers. 
The two parties have nevertheless agreed to con duct a large-scale experiment on the impact of 
the publication of scientific artic les in open repositories (the P EER project that will be co-
funded under the eContent plus programme). 
 
EN 24   EN 7.2. Work with stakeholders on film archives 
Within the context of the Pa rliament and Council Recommendation of 16 November 2005 on 
film heritage and the competitiveness of related industrial activities, th e Commission is acting 
as a facilitator for a framework agreement be tween film archives and rightholders. This 
agreement would regulate the use of deposite d films in archives, including access through the 
internet for researchers. 
7.3. Interoperability Working Group 
The Commission envisaged that th e interoperability issues for Europeana , especially given 
the short timescale for the launch of a firs t prototype at end-2008, needed support at a 
relatively early stage and with a lot of drive. The Commission therefore organised in early 2007 a series of three technical meetings w ith experts representi ng all four domains 
(museums, libraries, archives, audiovisual secto r) to discuss issues of interoperability and 
multilingualism in the context of Europeana . The aim of these meetings was to adopt a 
number of fundamental principles for Europeana  (distributed, hetero geneous resources, 
access at item level, all domains) and to esta blish an initial framework on which existing 
initiatives at national and European leve l could easily align, as  well as to make 
recommendations for a longer-term strategy to gi ve some stable perspectives to decision 
makers, cultural institutions and service providers  so that they could anticipate and undertake 
investments or new developments. The princi ples and recommendations were adopted by 
Europeana  in 2007. 
8. T
ECHNICAL ISSUES  
8.1. Leveraging research and depl oyment of digital libraries 
Progress on technical issues is a prerequisite for the development of digital libraries in general 
and improvement of the services of Europeana  in particular. 
In general, for creating Europe’s future digi tal libraries, research is needed, among other 
things to create new and improved mass dig itisation techniques and technologies, covering 
various types of objects, and to improve on OCR technologies to be  able to tackle the various 
fonts, multiple languages and variety in pape r material and document layout. Also, the 
creation of better and more cost-effectiv e preservation processes, through improved 
automation, is important to ensure that future generations can continue  to access the digital 
material. More specifically for Europeana , deployment of new technologies and tools is 
needed to find the most efficient ways to en compass the many metadata formats and be able 
to display text, pictures, vide o, sound and 3D objects effectively. Europeana  will need a 
model that can deal with different technical  architectures, can encompass harvesting and 
crawling, can deal with various protocols and standards, and is able to handle full text and 
metadata. Some research and deployment ac tions are unique to the cultural sector ― such as 
searching across the different organisational domains ― or unique to Europe, e.g. cultural and 
linguistic barriers. Improvements, therefore, also need to be made in multilingual search and 
retrieval and the use of seman tics to create more structured and cross-domain searching. At 
Community level, the Research and eContent plus programmes are supporting actions that will 
have to tackle this wide range of issues. 
 
EN 25   EN 8.1.1.  Digital libraries under eContent plus 
The eContent plus programme is part of the European Commission’s measures to facilitate the 
creation, dissemination, use and exploitation of di gital content in areas of public interest in 
Europe. The four-year programme (2005-2008) supports actions to tackle organisational 
barriers and promote the take-up of leading-edge  technical solutions to improve accessibility 
and usability of digital material in  a multilingual environment. Within eContent plus, about 
€60 million is allocated to rein force networking between museums, archives and libraries ― 
particularly for interoperability issues, to enha nce the quality of content with well-defined 
metadata and to tackle organisatio nal and technological barriers.  
Among the projects co-funded under eContent plus is EDLnet, a core project to Europeana  
that is bringing together museums, libraries a nd archives from 25 Member  States to work on 
an operational framework for interoperability be tween museums, archives and libraries. Other 
projects aim to bring into Europeana  collections from various cultural domains, for example 
VideoActive (television archives, radio archives ), European Film Gateway (film archives), 
Internet Gateway for the Archives (national ar chives), EDLocal (local and regional museums 
and other cultural organisations). 
From 2009 the eContent plus programme’s follow-up programme is going to be part of the 
ICT Policy Support Programme under the Comp etitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP 
ICT-PSP). 
8.1.2.  Digital libraries and digita l preservation research unde r the Framework Programme 
Under the Framework Programme for Research  and Development, the Commission co-funds 
research on digital libraries and digital preservation. This ha s been an area of incremental 
development, from building specific digital libraries towards work on infrastructures and architectures supporting greater in teroperability of re sources and services across distributed 
digital collections. 
The research priorities set for the current 7t h Framework Programme (FP7) will especially 
need to speed up implementation of the i2010 — Digital Libraries agenda. The focus is therefore on the establishment of massive, larger-scale, automated digitisation of various types of objects, as well as on the creation of more cost-effective approaches and on new 
technologies to search and automatically index c ontent. The challenge is to tackle the issues 
deriving from the heterogeneity of formats, objects and underlying co mputing platforms to 
create seamless virtual objects, as well as to build organisational infrastructures for digital 
preservation such as global and scalable objec t registries and reliable services guaranteeing 
the trustworthiness of the preserved data. 
There are also organisational ch allenges, for the archive, library and museum domain, in 
ensuring the availability of digitisation competences and, if necessary, of capacity ― not only 
in large organisations but also in smaller ones. This was behind the identification in the research agenda for 2007-2008 of the need to establish competen ce centres at European level 
that will support digitis ation and digital pr eservation. The purpose is to  leverage the effect of 
and on national actions, to improve technological capacity and solutions, to use 
complementarity to extend competence, and to deve lop skills and services  at European level. 
As a result of the first call for proposals , the Commission is providing co-funding of €11.5m 
in the IMPACT project, focused on digitisati on of printed materials, with the aim of 
 
EN 26   EN improving the technologies for optical character  recognition, for structuring documents and 
for working with different languages. 
Other projects previously funded under th e Framework Programme  included the DELOS 
Network of Excellence for integrating digital libraries research in Europe, as well as projects targeting archives and, in particular, audiovisu al resources. These developed, for example, 
methods and tools for semi-automatic inde xing and semantic annotation of non-textual 
objects such as music, speech and images. The PRESTOSPACE project worked on enabling 
automated preservation of and access to Eur ope’s diverse audiovisual collections.  
Currently, the MultiMATCH project is focusing on multilingual information retrieval for 
cultural objects of different media formats, and designing a system to support diverse user 
groups. For digital preservation, the Commissi on is funding the PLANETS project (where 
national libraries, archiv es and industrial partners join togeth er in developing t ools to integrate 
preservation into their work flows), CASPAR (covering the preservation of high-volume 
scientific data and multimedia art), as well as a coordinating action called Digital Preservation Europe that has the explicit goals of raising awareness, developing strategies and mobilising 
all stakeholders, including a wider research community, around the topic of digital 
preservation. Also within the Capacities Progra mme attention is given to the issue of digital 
preservation, for example in the context of the work done on digital repositories and their 
sustainability. 
Within the 7
th Framework Programme - and in particular the Cooperation programme theme 
6, Environment - the Commission also  addresses important aspects related to physical cultural 
heritage. These actions are complementary to t hose on digital cultural heritage and in many 
cases involve the same actors. Al so in relation to physi cal cultural heritage it is essential to 
use consistent and harmonised descriptions of cu ltural assets to improve the compatibility and 
interoperability of databases fo r the benefit of scientists, cons ervators, restorers, architects, 
owners and managers of these assets. 
8.1.3.  Future support 
Continued support for research and deployment actions in di gital libraries and digital 
preservation should guarantee the harnessing and strengthening of the synergies between 
digitisation, online accessibility  and long-term availability of Europe’s cultural memory. 
Through its funding programmes, the Commission will continue to support projects that 
enhance the digitisation, online accessibility and digital preser vation of cultural content and 
contribute to the development of Europeana . Under FP7, within the ICT work programme for 
2009-2010, digital libraries and digital preserva tion will be a specific  objective with an 
estimated budget of €69 million. And within the eContent plus programme, about €25 million 
has already been earmarked for digital li braries for 2008 whereas for 2009 and 2010 this 
support is expected to be continued within  the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme.