Digital content programmes: Wales
From Digipedia
This list of current projects has been submitted by University Library and Information Services.
National Library of Wales
Background information to be added here
Home page for NLW digital programmes
Culturenet Cymru
Culturenet Cymru collaborates with heritage bodies and community groups throughout Wales to develop a range of innovative projects. With a firm emphasis on lifelong learning and social inclusion, our aim is to produce high-quality online resources that explore and promote the heritage and culture of Wales. Various project websites linked, including Gathering the Jewels and Glaniad.
Archives Network Wales
Background information to be added here
Welsh Ballads
The Welsh Ballads project will fill the final gap in the network of digitized collections of printed ballads around Britain, the Bodleian, National Library of Scotland and Glasgow University having undertaken projects on English and Scottish ballads already; between them these three contain about 30,000 ballads. Cardiff University with the National Library of Wales and Bangor and Lampeter university libraries hold the main Welsh printed ballads collections (in both Welsh and English). A total of 5,000 ballads will be digitized, from the earliest 18th Century ballads to the final few published in the 20th Century. In total this will produce around 20,000 pages of digitized text images (all out of copyright).
A website portal will be developed from a pilot which already exists at Cardiff. This will provide a gateway and an academic resource for access and study of the ballad in Wales, Britain, and in its international context, and will link to the catalogue and ballad images. Outputs from the project will include: a) a detailed online catalogue of 5,000 ballads; b) 20,000 digitised page images of 5,000 ballads; c) an academic web portal to ballad studies; d) a joint seminar in Cardiff with colleagues from Oxford, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and possibly Ireland, to explore further developments of the cluster or network of ballad resources, and as an element in a wider dissemination programme on this topic.
Start date: 1 October 2008; end date: 30 September 2009
Lead institution: Cardiff University Library
Partner institutions: National Library of Wales, Bangor University, University of Wales Lampeter
Women’s Archive of Wales
Background information to be added here
Coalfield Web Materials
Background information to be added here
Welsh Repository Network
With the advent of the and http://whelf.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/launch-of-the-welsh-repository-network/ Welsh Repository Network, Wales becomes the first country in the UK where all higher education institutions have established online repositories. The formal launch took place at the National Library of Wales on 19 February 2009. Developed under the auspices of WHELF, the Welsh Repository Network is made up of 12 individual university research repositories. Dr Michael Hopkins, Director of Information Services at Aberystwyth University, said: “The repositories allow universities to archive and protect the intellectual output of their institutions, but also make available cutting-edge research to the world.”
It is acting as a crucial milestone along the way towards the creation of a platform for the development of specialist user-oriented resource discovery and search services that will open up international access to Welsh research and other digital content. It also addresses the Welsh Assembly Government Reaching Higher agenda in providing value for money and institutional efficiencies through collaborative provision and the shared use of expertise and experience.
European Sources Online launched
Mrs Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission, launched European Sources Online (ESO) in Cardiff on 31 January 2008. ESO is an online database which provides access to information on the institutions and activities of the European Union, the countries, regions and other international organisations of Europe, and on the issues of importance to European citizens, researchers and stakeholders. The editorial base of ESO is the South Wales Europe Direct Information Centre and European Documentation Centre at Cardiff University. Following a successful grant application to CyMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, a division of the Welsh Assembly Government, libraries in Wales have free access until March 2010.
KnowUK and NewsUK
Wales is the first country in the UK to jointly procure online newspaper and reference services for public and academic libraries. This joint procurement is co-ordinated by the National Library of Wales on behalf of Welsh libraries and helps reduce costs and deliver value for money. Libraries for Life: Delivering a Modern Library Service for Wales 2008-11 represents a major investment by the Welsh Assembly Government in a strategic development programme to improve library and information services in Wales. This funds provision of KnowUK and NewsUK until December 2009.
Procurement of health journals
In Wales, progress is being made towards joint procurement of health journals for NHS and HE libraries. Work is being taken forward by Informing Healthcare, the Welsh Assembly Government programme set up to improve health services in Wales by introducing new ways of accessing, using and storing information, and Cardiff University, facilitated by Value Wales, the public sector procurement organisation for Wales.
WHELF launches eBook service
In December 2007 WHELF launched a new collaborative eBook service. Under an agreement between WHELF and OCLC, NetLibrary will provide 85,000 Welsh students and National Library users with access to over 500 eBook titles in a broad range of subjects including law, political science, art, business, economics and management and history. Paul Riley, Head of Library Division, UWIC noted, "Libraries across Wales perceive the benefit to our users of being able to access books online. This collaboration has extended provision and ensured a greater number of eBooks are available for use in teaching, learning and research. It is an excellent example of how collaborative purchasing can enhance students' learning."
Access to e-resources
WHELF is reviewing work in Scotland and Ireland on common access to electronic resources. The Irish Research eLibrary (IReL) delivers quality peer-reviewed online research publications, journals, databases and index & abstracting services, as well as eBooks - direct to the desktop of researchers wherever they are located. Scotland’s university researchers are to benefit from an online shared initiative that makes key journals more widely available, thanks to an agreement negotiated by JISC Collections and led by SCURL. The Scottish Higher Education Digital Library (SHEDL) provides a possible model for Wales.
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