National Digital Library of Latvia

The National Library of Latvia (NLL) has been engaged in the digitization of cultural heritage since 1999. and since 2007. is leading the national program for digitization of cultural heritage. The biggest effort so far has been made to digitize newspapers and journals, considering the bad physical state of these items, their historical and cultural value and demand for these items. NLL has digitized more than 3 million pages of newspapers and journals, effectively digitizing most of the periodicals published in Latvia in Latvian, German, Russian and other languages through the beginning of the Second World War. NLL has digitized more than 7000 monographs published in Latvia, which are deemed to have a significant historic or artistic value, many hundreds of historic maps, many thousands of historic posters, postcards, prints and other image materials, however the pearl of the NLL's digital holdings is the collection "In Search of Lost Latvia" which consists of more than 25 000 historic photos, depicting the history of place and people in Latvia. Digitization projects are performed in a close cooperation with other memory institutions of Latvia, as well as experts in history and culture of Latvia. NLL has engaged also in preservation of digitally born cultural heritage, especially harvesting of web resources - currently NLL is selectively harvesting 3000 Latvian domains. NLL has also begun to raise the awareness about the importance of free access to the scientific information and to promote the open access principles. Too coordinate and strengthen the digitization activities in the cultural sector NLL has initiated the development of national policy for the digital cultural heritage with an aim to agree on common goals and priorities for digitization and to use the available human, financial and technical resources in a more effective way. NLL strongly believes that a national policy for the digital cultural heritage is an absolute necessity to overcome the institutional barriers and to implement a coherent strategy for digitization, creating loosely centralized digitization networks on local and national level, enabling institutions to use shared technical resources, implementing compatible technical standards, enriching and reusing the know-wow developed in different institutions. NLL has developed a "Digitization handbook" which serves as a de facto standard for digitization, summary of the best practice of digitization and a learning tool for Latvian cultural institutions. Currently NLL is developing its infrastructure and know-how of digital preservation to share both with the rest of cultural institutions of Latvia. To make the digital cultural heritage accessible for as wide an audience as possible NLL has developed an national level solution for management, preservation and access of the digitized cultural heritage called DOM. According to the architecture of the national digital library the DOM platform holds all the digital objects digitized by NLL and its partners and makes them available for other information systems, which provide a richer access to the digital objects. NLL has created specialized information systems for a rich access to newspapers, journals and monographs, maps, harvested web resources, historical image materials, specific interfaces for children and people with disabilities, as well as for a federated search of both digital, physical and subscribed information resources of NLL, a system for creation of virtual exhibits, a system for digitization on demand. All the information systems together form the national digital library, ensuring a consistent use of technical standards, re-use of digital objects and user-friendliness. End users can participate in the creation of the digital library through these interface, enhancing the OCRed text of newspapers, enriching the metadata of historic photographs, and submitting digital objects of cultural and historical value of their own. An important factor influencing the accessibility of cultural heritage in digital environment obviously is copyright. Latvian copyright legislation allows for cultural heritage institutions to digitize their holdings without asking for a permission of copyright holders, which considerably encourages the digitization efforts. Digital objects can be made available onsite, as well as on the closed network of public libraries, so called "Network of Light", considerably widening access possibilities to the digitized cultural heritage so that it can be accessed by a wide audience on the premises of public libraries. Currently NLL is leading discussions between lawmakers, cultural institutions and rights holders about the further liberation of copyright regime in Latvia regarding the accessibility of digital cultural heritage. Proposed changes would allow cultural institutions to use thumbnails and excerpts of protected works without asking for permission of rights holders to promote the digital objects and to make the digitized works available beyond public libraries, in other cultural and institutions, using secured closed connections. The issue of e-book availability in libraries has also come into the spotlight lately. Recognizing that a legal solution that would allow libraries to acquire and lend e-books just as their physical counterparts is unlikely in the nearest future, NLL is leading discussion with publishers trying to find a contractual solution which would satisfy both libraries and publishers.

http://www.lndb.lv/

Local implementation: --- lo

Ongoing from 1999/01/01 to 2013/01/01

* Information and communication infrastructure
* Access to information and knowledge
* ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life
      * E-government
         * E-government strategies
         * E-government systems
         * Knowledge management
      * E-learning
      * E-science
* Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content

• Project
• Programme
• Tool-kit
• Database