The seventh EOD Open Meeting was fortunately able to take place again in Presence and this time in the very northeastern part of Germany. Over the two days of September 7 and 8, 2022, nearly 50 participants from 17 institutions from 12 different European countries came to the Hanseatic city to follow up on the previous meeting in Lisbon in May, where approaches and practices for digitizing various library collections and making scanned works digitally available were shared.

The goal was to share ideas not only internally in working groups, but also across groups, to learn about progress made to date, to confer regarding upcoming steps in the process, and to remind each other of agreed-upon project goals and discuss how best to achieve them. In particular, the guest lectures by copyright and media law experts Karol Kościński, Jerker Rydén and Dr. Konstantin Herrmann, who explained the complicated copyright and data protection situation, which is mostly opaque to specialist legal laypersons, helped to identify important parameters for the technical implementation of the digital network, the joint Citizen Science portal, which plays a central role in providing access for the general public to knowledge.

After the warm opening speeches by the Prorector of the University of Greifswald, Prof. Dr. Konstanze Marx as well as the new Director of the University Library, Mr. Christian Winterhalter in the conference hall of the Central University Library, all participating members of the EOD open project were informed in plenary about the current work status of the seven working groups by the respective group leader before they got together in dedicated individual groups in the different working areas and held respective seminars.

After a break, all participants met in the early evening at the Greifswald harbor for a barbecue, to which the team of the old university library had invited, in order to let the work-intensive day end comfortably and sociably.

On Thursday, the second day of the EOD open meeting began with the presentations of the results of the previous day of the respective working groups. A general conclusion of all group leaders was that the cooperation in presence is much more effective and efficient and therefore seems to be more profitable than - due to the pandemic - meeting virtually.

And yet, the technical opportunity was subsequently taken to digitally connect the Polish lawyer and expert in copyright and media law Karol Kościński for his lecture 'DSM Articles and Effects on Cultural Heritage Institutions'. This topic was also linked to by the Senior Legal Advisor of the National Library of Sweden Jerker Rydén, who also entered into discussion with the participants afterwards. After a short break, Dr. Konstantin Herrmann from the SLUB Dresden presented himself and the GLAM pilot project for the digitization and provision of (still) rights-protected objects. Finally, there was a summary discussion in small groups regarding the meeting: What was achieved, which questions are still open, which input was particularly valuable, and what the participants would like to see at the eighth EOD open meeting next spring in Olomouc, Czech Republic.

The meeting ended with appreciative words from the Austrian project leader Silvia Gstrein. Those participants who were able to stay in Greifswald beyond the conference event were invited by the old university library to visit the renovated as well as the historical rooms, to get an insight into the digitization process on site and to stroll together through the old town of Greifswald to the harbor, from where a Bodden cruise on a historical steamer, the 'MS Stubnitz', ended the conference unofficially and for a second time.

We would like to thank the whole team of the old Greifswald University Library, the Central University Library as well as the new library director Mr. Winterhalter for their extensive support in hosting and participating in the seventh international meeting of the EOD open project.

September 22, 2022