95 participants from 23 countries attended a workshop on the digitization of library material in Europe, from 24 to 26 October 2007 in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark. The workshop was jointly organized by LIBER and EBLIDA.

During these three days, the delegates listened to and discussed papers presented by high-level representatives from the European Commission and from a selection of national and university libraries involved in digitization projects for Europe’s cultural and scientific printed heritage. Also a number of initiatives from the private sector were presented. Subjects varied from general digitization strategies and priorities, the preservation of digital material and its cost, the construction of a global registry, copyright problems up to funding and strategic alliances. The workshop ended with a thorough discussion in small groups about the general vision that should be applied in the digitization activities, about intellectual property rights, about the discovery architecture for digital objects, about cooperation and mass digitization and about standards and policies. On the basis of the outcome of these discussions, a set of recommendations was formulated. These recommendations will be presented to the European Commission (which has started with the development of the European Digital Library or EDL) and to the European library community in general.

Thanks to the high level of expertise and involvement of the speakers and the participants, this workshop has turned into a very successful event, and its results may be of long-lasting importance. The generous sponsoring of JISC, OCLC and the Royal Library in Copenhagen facilitated the quality of the organisation. Many voices were already raised for a follow-up workshop in the not so distant future.

A full report of the workshop is available at the JISC website

PowerPoint presentations from the LIBER EBLIDA Workshop.

Workshop images

Workshop Evaluation Form

Please find an updated list of delegates attached. The document is password protected to avoid email harvesting. The password is "digitisation" (without quotes).