Anglo-Nordic Seminar on Networking 1996
Session 4: National and Local Strategies Regarding Digital Libraries

A Summary of the Finnish Efforts

Annikki Hyvärinen
Helsinki University Library
Secretariat for National Planning and Co-ordination

Background

In Finland, as well as in other European and North American countries the state has been active in developing strategies concerning the new information society. The first national paper in Finland was published by the Ministry of Finance in 1994 and it was called the National Information Society Strategy (http://www.tieke.fi/tieke/tikas/indexeng.htm). This document was followed by a position paper by the Cabinet Office. The position paper was approved by the Government in January 1995. During and after that process the Ministries and other bodies have made their own projects and documents because it is expected, of course, that the national strategy will have an impact on all administrative and private sectors.

The Ministry of Education prepared a national strategy called "Education, training and research in the information society" in January 1995 (http://www.minedu.fi/infostrategy.html). In 1996 the Ministry prepared an Action Plan for the development of a "Cultural ly Oriented Information Society (Kulttuurinen tietoyhteiskunta, available in Finnish in http://www.minedu.fi/kulttuurinen_tietoyhteiskunta/sisus.htm). The Action Plan consists of 60 proposals for the years 1997-2000.

According to these two documents, it is urgent that information network services are made available to all schools and libraries. Attention is payed to the improvement of technical facilities of the scientific and public libraries and to the improvement of the professional skills of the librarians. Special interest is payed to public libraries. There is a firm intention that in the very near future public libraries should be ready to act as nodes in the open information network. The Action Plan also underlines the importance of co-ordination and co-operation between scientific and public libraries, museums and archives

The situation today

Where are we now then? The technical prerequisites for digital libraries in Finland are good. Connections to the international networks are provided by FUNET (Finnish University and Research Network), and as you probably know, the number of hosts connected to the network in Finland is higher than in any other Nordic country. In this respect, compared to the population density, we are the number one in the world. (see e.g. http://www.nw.com/zone/WWW /dist-bynum.html)

In Finnish university libraries there is also a long tradition of co-operation on national level. The LINNEA-network, the union databases (LINDA, MANDA, ARTO and VIOLA), and a common software have been a part of our everyday life for many years now. This, I think, is a good starting point for the coming efforts. However, as we all know, connectivity and reference databases are not enough anymore. - Fortunately, I would like to say.

Towards an information society

The Ministry of Education started in 1995 a program called "Finland as Information Society" (Suomi tietoyhteiskunnaksi, http://www.minedu.fi/tietostrategia/Tp1996.html) where funds for the development projects were allocated also to the libraries.

The public libraries have started a three year project and received 10 million Fmks from the Ministry for promoting Internet usage in public libraries. This amount will be spent e.g. on hiring regional network experts and on training of library staff in the use of networks and information technology in general. There is also a four year project called " The House of Knowledge" (http://www.kaapeli.fi/tiedontalo/english/proj-gen.html), which was started in 1995 and is administrated by the Finnish Library Association. The aim of this project is also to promote and enhance Internet usage in public libraries. This is done e.g. by organizing the resources of the Internet, developing search tools, and co-ordinating and supporting the Internet plans and initiatives of public libraries. Further information about numerous other projects in the public library sector (e.g. The Knot at the Cable, http://www.kaapeli.fi/knot-at-cable.html) can be obtained from the article written by Anneli Äyräs and Päivi Jokitalo ( Libraries and electronic publishing in Finland, http://www.kaapeli.fi/tiedontalo/english/rome96.html).

Scientific libraries and archives have also received funds (about 3,5 million Fmks) from the Ministry of Education for the innovative projects in 1996. A number of interesting projects in different universities and institutions are taking place.

The Virtual Library Project (http://www.jyu.fi/~library/virtuaalikirjasto/english.htm), as you probably heard earlier this week, is a joint undertaking of five universities, namely Jyväskylä (project management), Kuopio and Oulu University Libraries, the University of Art and Design Library, and Helsinki University of Technology Library. "The aim of the project is to improve and increase the use of net data especially in higher education in Finland. The project carries out an inventory of data available on the net and develops user-friendly, subject-specific virtual libraries. "

There are also some projects at Vaasa University Librarary. The Vaasa Region Electronic Library Project (http://www.uwasa.fi/~sukkula/index.html) is a joint effort of three public libraries and five research libraries in the Vaasa region. The Jyväskylä and Vaasa University Libraries also co-operate to create an electronic textbook library.

Åbo Akademi and the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland have started a digitization project of a picture archive. Helsinki University of Technology Library is working with an electronic publishing project and Kuopio University Library with an electronic current awareness service - project.

Memory (Muisti) is a project for digitization and network delivery of the Finnish National Collection. This is a joint effort of the National Archiv, The Finnish Literature Society, The National Board of Antiquities and Historical Monuments and the Computer- and AV-Centres of the University of Helsinki. In technical questions the project will also co-operate with Åbo Akademi and Turku University Library. The project began in 1996 and is co-ordinated by the National Library of Finland.

The aims of the project are:

The digitized material is chosen from the collections of the participating organizations. It consists of texts, pictures, manuscripts and maps. - During the next four years, the Ministry of Education will use totally 10 million marks to digitize material currently in printed form. Besides the above mentioned library and archival collections, different kinds of national registers and directories as well as national statistics will be converted to digital form.

Electronic publishing and document delivery via the network are the main objectives of Elektra, another project co-ordinated by the University of Helsinki. The project started in 1996 and will last for 18 months. The other participants in Elektra are Oulu University Library, Kopiosto r.y. (the Finnish copyright organization), The Federation of Finnish Scientific (Learned) Societies, The VTT Information Service, and two Finnish publishers (Gaudeamus and Yliopistopaino).

The objectives of Elektra are to:

Elektra will result in a retrieval and delivery service of electronic documents, which will be an integrated part of the LINNEA-network.

A strategy for digital libraries in Finland

A great concern about the future role of the libraries has been expressed on many occasions in Finland. The need of a national strategy and policy for libraries in higher education has also been announced. We are, however, more at the starting point of this work. In the National Library a group is preparing a scenario on the future of libraries, and The Secretariat of the National Planning and Co-ordination will work out, on the basis of the commission from all the university libraries, a national collection and service policy.

There is an expanding need to combine all the resources in the library sector and to have closer co-operation both on national and international level in order to ensure the information services of higher education, research and economy. One concrete way towards this purpose is the joint database licensing which, I hope, will soon be reality also in Finland. At this stage we are negotiating with ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) and Academic Press, and the intention is to make the consortia as wide-ranging as possible so that the maximum benefit from this effort would be gained.

In the near future at least the following questions need to be answered

My personal view is that in the near future more electronic and multimedia libraries will be established in the Finnish universities. At the moment at least in the universities of Jyväskylä and Kuopio some plans already exist. These and other efforts too, will in the future bring the computer centres and libraries into much closer co-operation. There will also, I hope, soon be available a much broader scale of services in the LINNEA network. Besides bibliographic data, more and more electronic material will be delivered via the network.

As the discussions in this seminar have showed, there are many problems connected to the electronic material. I have to say that anyway I am an optimist, and quite convinced that we will overcome all the obstacles sooner or later. The electronic era will really benefit the higher education and research community.


REFERENCES:

Education, training and research in the information society. Ministry of Education (URL: http://www.minedu.fi/infostrategy.html)

Kulttuur inen tietoyhteiskunta. Strategiset perusteet ja lähtökohdat opetusministeriön toimintaohjelmalle vuosiksi 1997-2000 (URL: http://www.minedu.fi/kulttuurinen_tietoyhteiskunta/sisus.htm)

MUISTI - Kansallisaineiston digitointi ja verkkokäyttö. Yhteishanke opetusministeriön Suomi tietoyhteiskunnaksi -ohjelmaan. Projektisuunnitelma 15.8.1996

Salonharju, Inkeri, Elektra ja Muisti. Helsingin yliopiston kirjaston uudet kehittämishankkeet. Helsingin yliopiston kirjaston tiedotuslehti, 1993, n:o 3, pp. 79-81

Äyräs, Anneli & Jokitalo, Tuula, Libraries and electronic publishing in Finland. (URL: http://www.kaapeli.fi/tiedontalo/english/rome96.html)


ANGLO-NORDIC SEMINAR ON NETWORKING

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