The European digital information landscape: how can LIBER contribute?

This paper looks at a snapshot of the current state of digitisation in the information landscape. It then looks at what LIBER can contribute to that landscape through portal development, funding, identifying and documenting best practice, lobbying at a European level, and managing the transition from paper to digital delivery, including the issue of digital preservation. The paper ends by trying to identify how the user will use the digitised resources which are increasingly being made available by libraries

Warriors, allies or spectators: a look at stakeholders’ perception of the role of libraries and librarians in the fake news phenomenon

The recent debate on fake news and critical thinking is invading the national and international scene. Strategies to counterfeit the phenomenon are issued everywhere: IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) built a campaign around its infographic tool; at the same time, the Internet giants are beginning to change their attitude and position with respect to fake news as a result of public pressure – e.g. Facebook and the scandal of Cambridge Analytica. Libraries and librarians think they could play an important role, being their job about knowledge and information management, but does anyone else think along the same lines? An article published on Science with the explicit goal of starting a "science of fake news", advocated an interdisciplinary approach, yet hardly any reference was made to Library and Information studies. The same happened in the recent EU Public consultation on fake news and online disinformation - neither libraries nor schools were counted among the stakeholders. Someone may argue that news is outside the scope of the library mission; yet preserving documentation and helping people to find and evaluate information effectively definitely is: the actions undertaken by EBLIDA (European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation) advocate for a role for libraries. Based on this scenario, the present paper will reflect on the concept of fake news in the light of library and information science – thus defining the field and its limits. Subsequently, it will analyse policy documents addressing the issue, to verify whether libraries and library studies are considered stakeholders by external observers. Method: documents on Fake News will be scanned looking for mentions of libraries on the websites of European Union, USA, Canada, Great Britain and Italy. An overall scan will also be carried out on the role of libraries in relation to fake news in research articles

LIBER-EBLIDA digitisation workshop

95 participants from 23 countries attended a Workshop on the Digitisation of Library Material in Europe, from 24 to 26 October 2007 in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark. The Workshop was jointly organised by LIBER and EBLIDA. In a full report on the Workshop on the JISC website, the JISC highlighted that ‘high on the agenda were moves towards a European Digital Library – the delivery of integrated access to the digitised collections of libraries, archives and museums across the EU.’ At a global level, this was indeed one of the main aims of the Workshop. As the Chair of the breakout groups, and the final session of the Workshop, I gave an interview for the JISC immediately after the final session where I looked at what I thought were some of the issues to be identified by the Workshop. The purpose of this paper is to describe some of these issues in a little more detail and outline what work LIBER and EBLIDA have undertaken in the wake of the significant momentum which the Workshop has engendered for European digitisation activity

Déclaration de Vienne

Au congrès organisé par EBLIDA et le forum NAPLE à Vienne (Autriche) en mai 2009, il a été décidé de renforcer le rôle et les capacités des services des bibliothèques dans le développement de la société de la connaissance en Europe.A cet effet, EBLIDA et le Forum NAPLE ont demandé à la Commission européenne de parfaire son action en soutenant un certain nombre de recommandations