Christiane Dorff reports on one of the deliverables of EXPLOIT which is to supplement the work of the National Focal Points in EU member states as well as the FEMIRCs in CEE countries by providing readily available access to information on Telematics for Libraries and national LIS research results.
The EXPLOIT Portal is a search engine providing access to vital project information. For more detailed project information it provides links to the Website of the European Commission and individual project homepages.
The results of approximately 100 projects and actions funded under the EU Telematics for Libraries Programme [1] are now ripening. Exploitation and the encouragement of take-up among libraries within the member states is becoming a key issue. The existing and potential users include: libraries, publishers, book trade, industry, research associations and policy makers all over Europe.
A number of challenges are apparent: although projects are responsible for the exploitation of their results, it has proven difficult for many project consortia to take a wider market perspective; awareness of and access to information on project results is not adequate at present; and there is no multi-project forum available to discuss (rather than just present) these results. The projects launched have been of a relatively small scale and the libraries scene in Europe is in general somewhat fragmented. There is a need for additional mechanisms which can increase the impact of the activities under the Telematics for Libraries Programme and the forthcoming IST Programme. The development of effective mechanisms for the exploitation of emerging results from these programmes across the EU has to become a major priority if the programme is to have the envisaged impact. Similarly, the transfer of know-how in this area to those CEE countries which have applied for accession to the EU is important if organisations in this sector are to catch up and apply European standards. The EXPLOIT Accompanying Measure will provide integrated pan-European activities designed to meet this need, building in features which are sustainable after the completion of the measure.
For more information on EXPLOIT see the EXPLOIT website [2].
One of the objectives of EXPLOIT is to supplement the work of the National Focal Points in EU member states as well as the FEMIRCs in CEE countries by providing readily available access to information on Telematics for Libraries and national LIS research results.
An extensive amount of project information is held at the European Commission on the Cordis website [3] and also at individual project homepages. However, these sites are not searchable. EXPLOIT Portal is a search engine providing access to vital project information. For more detailed project information it provides links to the Website of the Commission and individual project homepages.
 Figure 1: EXPLOIT Portal Home Page |
Mini-SQL - a light weight relational database management system - has been used. Its script language "lite" offers the necessary possibilities of programming a self-registration system as well as retrieval and update functions.
A user interface for both a basic search (see Figure 2) and an advanced search option (see Figure 3) has been installed and is accessible using standard Web browsers. The search result is a list of projects which match the search criteria. The result page again leads to more detailed project information kept on the EDBI [4] server as well as to the Cordis homepage [5] and the project homepages.
With the basic search function the user can either view all projects by ticking "show all projects" or use the search box applying the Boolean Operators.
 Figure 2: The Basic Search Site |
For a more sophisticated search the user might want to use the advanced search function. It allows him to narrow the search down by clicking specific search terms from scrolling lists. All search fields are combined with an "and" function, meaning the more search terms are clicked the narrower will be the search result.
 Figure 3: The Advanced Search Site |
Next to the keyword (from the project name) a number of additional data entries are searchable: project acronym, theme area, subject heading, participating institutions, type of institution, involved countries, target group as well as project start and project end.
Standard terminology has been used where possible. The terms under theme area are the result of a clustering process which was also part of the EXPLOIT project. These clusters are well suited to classify projects into homogeneous groups. This classification has also been used for another task of EXPLOIT: the development of presentation toolkits for different fields of research work. The subject heading is a scroll-down list of about 165 terms from the "keyword index" from the European Commission. This index has been used widely in the Telematics for Libraries sector.
Participating institutions is a scroll-down list of all institutions that have participated in Telematics for Libraries projects. Where possible the English version of an institution name has been entered. However, many institutions do not have official English names. In these cases names have been entered in the original language.
The type of institution might be a valuable information for users searching for potential project partners. The scroll-down list consists of 10 terms also including the new sectors of the IST-Programme museums, archives and art galleries.
The target group of projects can help prospective project participants to define a market for their product. It might also be interesting for organisations who are working in a certain field to find out what projects there are providing the product or service they need.
The content comprises all projects under the Telematics for Libraries Programme and shall be extended to "Multimedia Content and Tools" projects of the new IST Programme. National projects of the library and information sector are also welcome.
Original data has been entered by EDBI staff so far. However, in the future projects shall enter their project data themselves. In order to avoid any "trash data" project co-ordinators have to contact EDBI staff to obtain a password and become a registered contributor. With the password the co-ordinator has access to the functions new entry and update or delete project. EDBI staff will perform the maintenance of the gateway in regular intervals.
Of course the EXPLOIT Portal home page contains a couple of other functions such as general information on EXPLOIT, a feed-back function and a help-function. It also offers some additional services such as information on upcoming EXPLOIT workshops and a link to Exploit Interactive.
Christiane Dorff
Ehemaliges Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut
Kurt-Schumacher-Damm 12 - 16
13405 Berlin
URL <http://dbi-berlin.de>
Email: dorff@dbi-berlin.de
Tel. ++49-30-41034165
Christiane graduated from Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge and Fachhochschule für Wirtschaft Berlin in 1995 with an BA in European Business Administration. Since 1998 she has been working on the EXPLOIT Project.
For citation purposes:
Christiane Dorff, "EXPLOIT Portal - a Gateway to Project Information",
Exploit Interactive, issue 6, 26th June 2000
URL: <http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue6/exploit/>
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