On November 19, the kick-off meeting of the 4-year project EODOPEN, co-financed by the European Commission under the Culture Programme, took place at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. The aim of the project is to digitize 15,000 textual materials from the 20th and 21th century, taking into account the needs and requests of the defined target groups.

“EODOPEN expects to directly target more than 1 million people in Europe,” Silvia Gstrein, the leader of the project and the Head of the Digital Services Department at the Library of the University of Innsbruck, introduced the ambitious plans. “We have a team of more than 40 persons from 11 countries, so it will be a 4 years’ challenge for all of us. But the outcome, 15,000 digitized materials that will be available for everyone, is definitely motivating.”

EODOPEN aims at the engagement with the local and regional communities in the selection of materials. Also, one of the goals is to provide the digitized materials in different formats, so that they would be accessible for everyone (e.g. mobile users, blind users). At the same time, the second goal is to strengthen the capacity of library and other culture heritage institutions staff with regards to dealing adequately with rights clearance questions.

During the project, different events will be organized to get feedback from several target groups on the selection of textual materials to be digitized. Students, academics, researchers, teachers, but also the general public are expected to express their needs for digitization.

The digitized items will be made available to the broad European public on the project participants’ well-established digital libraries as well as on a common portal developed during the project lifetime, ensuring transnational circulation and access to cultural works as a result of the project.

EODOPEN or eBooks-On-Demand-Network Opening Publications for European Netizens is a 4 year project, co-funded by the European Commission under the Culture Programme, aiming at the direct engagement with national, regional and local communities in the selection of materials from the 20th and 21st century to be digitized. The project partner states are Austria, Estonia, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Portugal, Hungary, Sweden, Slovenia and Lithuania. The total project amount is approximately 4 million euros.

Nov 26, 2019