Cooperation between Estonian research libraries: integration and resource sharing issues Jüri Järs Director Tallinn University of Technology Library Akadeemia

Cooperation between Estonian research libraries: integration and resource sharing issues

Cooperation between Estonian research libraries:

integration and resource sharing issues

Jüri Järs

Director

Tallinn University of Technology Library

Akadeemia tee 7

12611 Tallinn, Estonia

Phone: 372 6203564 Fax: 372 6203561

E-mail: [email protected]

http://www.lib.ttu.ee/


Topics:

– Preconditions and institutions– Legislation issues– Coordinated collections development– Creating common databases– Joint supply of electronic resources– About other common projects


Preconditions:

– the object of cooperation– the will to cooperate– organisers-coordinators– “the rules of the game”

(regulations, agreements, contracts)– executors-implementators– tools and connections for cooperation– the roof under which the cooperation could be

realized


Main institutions:

– Estonian Librarians Association, ELA (founded in 1923, reestablished in 1988) committees of bibliography

collections development education and training classification and indexing terminology rare books

section of special libraries working group of distance learning roundtable of the directors of research libraries


– Estonian Libraries Network (ELNET) Consortium (founded in 1996)working groups of MARC-cataloguing

analytical description authority files retrospective conversion music, art and cartographic literature periodicals circulation

technical issueselectronic acquisitions digital library

virtual library


– Council of Research Libraries (formed in 2002 by the Ministry of Education and Research)


About legislation: some milestones

2000 Development plan of Estonian libraries

2001 Organisation of Research & Development Act

2002 Requirements for a research library


Requirements for a research library:– the main task (specified in statutes) is to collect, to process, to store

and to make available the information supporting research and development activities

– the destination group is research workers– public access to free of charge basic services– the availability of the system for selecting adequate information and the

conditions for preserving and using it– the collections are developed at least in two subject areas from the

following: natural sciences, technological sciences, medical sciences, agricultural sciences, social sciences, humanities

– the collections are described and classified according to the international standards which are valid in Estonia

– the library carries out research and development activities, publishes reports of its activities, is engaged in acquainting the research and development institutions and researchers, creates bibliographical databases

– the collections are reflected in the common electronic catalogue of Estonian libraries (ESTER)





2002 Requirements for a research libraryRules for nominating research libraries

First research libraries nominated


Nominated research libraries:

– Tartu University Library (2002)– Tallinn Technical University Library (2002)– Tallinn Pedagogical University Library (2002)– Estonian Agricultural University Library (2004)





2002 Requirements for a research libraryRules for nominating research libraries First research libraries nominated

2003 First funding received according to the Act

2004 The regulation about funding principles and common acquisition plan


Coordinated collections development: history

1960s Union catalogue of foreign periodicalsCommission of collections at State Libr.

Committee

1970s Union catalogue of foreign books Joint study of collections and their use

1980s Second joint study of collections and their use

1990s Committee of collections development at ELA

1994 Regulations of the Ministry of Culture


– common acquisition plan with 57 responsibility areas– three acquisition depth levels specified:

A - as completely as possibleB - selected itemsC - few selected items

– division of tasks between 15 research and special libraries


Shortcomings:

– no additional funding for fulfilling the specified tasks– no online information system available for sharing

data about the existing collections and current orders

– the acquisition levels were library-oriented– the classification scheme (57 subject areas) was too

general and complicated to use it in practice


RLG Conspectus by goals and activities:

– assessment of available collections– specifying acquisition goals and priorities– coordination of current acquisitions– preservation and withdrawal of collections– strategical planning– guaranteeing necessary funding


RLG Conspectus: acquisition depth indicators

0 - out of scope

1 - minimal level

2 - basic information level

3 - study support level

4 - research support level

5 - comprehensive (maximal) level


Complete acquisition matrix of research libraries

By UDC and using three acquisition depth levels:– basic information level– study support level– research support level


Creating common databases

1974 Database of foreign books (30 libraries)

1980s PC-based not standardized, incompatible solutions

1990 Database of foreign periodicals (20 libraries)

1992 Working group of library automation at ELA

1993 Common principles of library automation Information System of Estonian Libraries

1996 ELNET Consortium

1998 Integrated library system live


Integrated library system - “all in one”:

– database of Estonian national bibliography– database of CIP records (books in print)– union catalogue of participating libraries– tool for storing and managing the local data

(acquisitions, patrons, circulations etc) of each member library

– centre for distributing bibliographic records– source for coordinated collections development


Shared database (ESTER) contains data about:– books– periodicals– sheet music– maps– sound recordings– articles from Estonian journals– links to selected electronic documents


– add their unique data (shared MARC21 9XX fields)– link their item records

Harmonized “rules of the game”: – unified cataloguing rules – Estonian Subject Headings – UDC numbers

Only one bibliographic record for each title to which participating libraries:


– information technology– staff training

Advantages: – quality of the unified database– end-user can make searches under one constant

interfaceeither in the catalogue of one libraryor in the union catalogue of ELNET libraries

Economies in expenses:

– man-power


Supply of electronic resources

1998 Trials of paid online databases

1999 EBSCO databases jointly purchased by 3 libraries

2000 OSI eIFL project

2001 ELNET Consortium as negotiator and contractor

2002 Central support 64 000 euros




– 5 abstract databases

– 4 other packages (factographical, dictionaries, etc)

Consortium-wide licenses2 – 9 participating libraries depending on databases

EBSCO country-wide licensemore than 100 libraries and institutions have access

a “big deal” may be a very good deal

ELNET Consortium offers access to:

– 8 e-journal packages (more than 10 000 titles)


– the negotiations are complicated and there is not enough professional competency in each library

– it is more probable to achieve the optimum solution in price and performance

– the trials of non-subscribed databases are organized centrally

Advantages:

– the same financial resources enable cooperating libraries to buy more because of their bigger critical mass


Standardization: joint projects case by case

1991 Estonian Communication Format published

1993 Estonian UDC project started

1996 Creation of Estonian Subject Headings started

1999 Estonian UDC published

1999 Estonian Subject Headings published

1990 Translation and adaptation of the CCF started


What do the libraries need?– Estonian National Standard– Translated International Standard– National Library standard– International Standard is acceptable

1999 Permanent working group of standardization

at the National Library


Established as Estonian National Standards:– Library performance indicators– International library statistics– Standard of librarian profession


Some performance indicators for university libraries:– acquisition expenses per student– library maintenance expenses per student– library staff (FTE) per student– computer-based workplaces per student– percent of students passing through the information

retrieval courses


Translated international standards: – ISBN, ISSN, country codes– Dublin Core metadata elements– Library terminology– Transliteration from Cyrillic alphabet


Web-based defining dictionary with equivalents in

English, Russian, German, Finnish and French

about 3000 library terms


Established as National Library standards: – IFLA ISBDs– Format for bibliographic databases


Joint projects of retrospective conversion

Open Estonia FoundationOpen Society Institute Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Estonian publications - in terminating phase

4 mln volumes in electronic catalogue ESTER

12 mln volumes in collections of participating libraries

Different projects started in 1999 and 2000 thanks to


Digitation from microfilms

The aim of the joint project is – to make the content of microfilmed documents

easily available for the end-user in electronic form

2002 special scanner was obtained, tuned up and tested

technology for saving and desrcibing the image files

2003 software for indexing image files web-based solution for open access

2004 15 titles from 1857-1920 of digitized Estonian newspapers available for public use


Creating common information portal

2001 – 2002 concept, basic principles and requirements

The goal is to introduce for end-users an information portal which allows:

– secure– single point– multi-protocol

searching against the variety of sources – licensed full-text or citation databases– local digital collections– web sites– search engines– Z39.50 databases– library catalogues


– Estonian diacritics– Cyrillic alphabet

2003 MetaFind software was tested and evaluated

The metasearch software must be able to search in


Documents

Cooperation between Estonian research libraries: integration and resource sharing issues Jüri Järs Director Tallinn University of Technology Library Akadeemia