OZwRCIN project (2018-2021)

Since August 2018, the Institute Library has been implementing another project within the OZwRCIN Consortium (Open Resources in the Digital Repository of Scientific Institutes), co-created by 16 scientific institutes from all over the country. The implementation is planned for a period of three years.

The leader of the OZwRCIN Project is the Mathematical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.

The project has received funding and will be implemented under the Operational Programme Digital Poland, eGovernment and Open Government, Measure 2.3 Digital accessibility and usability of public sector information, 2.3.1 Digital accessibility of public sector information from administrative sources and resources of science (project type: digital accessibility of science resources)”.

Agreement no. POPC.02.03.01-00-0029/17-00.

Project implementation

From the Institute’s library collection, further books and periodicals have been selected. These items are scanned, and then after appropriate graphic processing, transformed into pdf files, and placed in dLibra (a program supporting RCIN, located on the Repository server at Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center). Publications used in this project have free access status.

Participants of the OZwRCIN Project:

• Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology PAS
• Institute of Literary Research PAS
• Institute of Systems Research PAS
• Forest Research Institute
• Marceli Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS
• Władysław Szafer Institute of Botany PAS
• Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry PAS
• Institute of Dendrology PAS
• Institute of Philosophy and Sociology PAS
• Institute of Geography and Spatial Management PAS
• Mirosław Mossakowski Institute of Experimental and Clinical Medicine PAS
• Institute of Nature Conservation PAS
• Institute of Fundamental Technological Research PAS
• Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals PAS
• Museum and Institute of Zoology PAS

As part of the OZwRCIN project, the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences intends to make part of its library collection available.

The library resources to be made available in the project will consist of books, scientific journals and articles from scientific magazines, as well as a collection of scientific publications authored by an outstanding Polish biochemist, patron of the Institute, Marceli Nencki, and his collaborators. The resources included in the library collection are currently available only in the form of on-site presentations. They are completely catalogued in the traditional card catalog and, in large part, in the “Horizon” computer catalog.

The materials planned to be made available in the project are largely unique. Among the library collections to be digitized, there are practically no titles available in other Polish digital libraries (the analysis was based on the search engine of the Digital Libraries Federation http://fbc.pionier.net.pl/. Making them available in digitalized form will significantly enrich Polish digital resources. These are books and periodicals from 19th and 20th century, both Polish and foreign, in several languages (Russian, English, German, French, Spanish etc.), often unique in the country (no descriptions in NUKAT). Their subject matter covers widely understood biological sciences (botany, experimental and developmental biology, biochemistry, neurophysiology, zoology, etc.). The library collections to be digitized in the project are all holdings that we can currently make available under free licenses. In the case of these resources we have to take into account a very laborious OCR process connected with untypical typefaces and types of fonts (Cyrillic, Gothic, etc.)

Part of the library collection of the liquidated Center for Ecological Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, taken over in 2017, was also assigned for digitalization, and making it available within the Project. Among others, an absolutely unique collection of several hundred separates from the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, containing the results of national and world research, and observations in the fields of: entomology, hydrobiology, zoology, ecology, systematics, limnology and related fields.

A collection of seized prints may prove extremely valuable for comparative research on a national and international scale. The reviews and descriptions of fauna and flora of Polish and foreign natural environments from a century ago may become the basis for ecological analyses and studies on nature protection and species preservation. The collection contains the results of research and observations published in many languages: Polish, German, English, French, Czech, Spanish, along with others, concerning the flora and fauna of the time in a wide area of Poland, Europe (including Lithuania, Belarus, the Balkans, Finland, Belgium, etc.), and the world (Argentina, India, Indochina, Asia, Russia, the Andes, Africa, etc.). Making these works available to a worldwide audience, together with metadata prepared in Polish and English, may result in important comparative research almost all over the world. The circle of recipients is almost unlimited here, and ecological research, extremely important in the 21st century all over the world, undertaken everywhere on a large scale – cannot be overestimated. Such publications can also be very important for entrepreneurs, municipalities, and companies involved in the remediation of soils and lakes, restoration of the biosphere on land destroyed by industry or pollution. The only condition that needs to be met, in order for these materials to resonate in the right environments and be put to good use, is that they are carefully edited and provided with rich metadata, so that they are accurately searchable by global search engines and data aggregators.

The Digital Repository of the Scientific Institutes will be an open-access platform for digital collections, both for the community of scientists, economy workers, scientific information workers, but also for pupils, students and other interested parties.

Scanning laboratory

Preparing for the implementation of the OZwRCIN Project, the Library of the Nencki Institute has taken a number of actions:

• modernization of the Library premises was carried out, and necessary equipment was purchased
• a new arrangement to the scanning room was made, adjusted to the work of two scanning staff, and additional equipment was purchased
• the assumptions of work progress and correctness of Project implementation were created
• employees were hired and trained
• IT equipment was purchased:
  • A2 Bookeye4 V2 Archive work scanner with control computer and Scangate software.
  • A3 flatbed scanner with feeder and duplex AVision – set with dedicated computer and software
  • laser printer OKI C823dn.
  • three DELL computer sets with monitor and office software and software for creating presentation versions of digital library objects
  • a DELL Vostro 3470 laptop with office software and software for creating presentation versions of digital library objects
  • five portable disks for intermediate archiving of digitized collections.

OZwRCIN team

Promo

The OZwRCIN project was promoted through:

• Creation of a new Nencki Library website with a separate Digital Repository tab, describing both EU repository projects: RCIN and OZwRCIN and promoting the activities of scientific institutes in this area.
• Publishing advertisements of the OZwRCIN project in scientific and popular science magazines:
• Świat Nauki, Wiedza i życie, Postępy Biochemii, Kosmos, Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis, Acta Biochimica Polonica, Bibliotekarz, Poradnik Bibliotekarza, Przegląd Biblioteczny.
• Making library cards with accessories for the users of the Nencki Library, promoting the OZwRCIN project by placing the logotypes of the Project and the European Union
• Production of tripartite wall calendars for the year 2021, with the logotypes of the OZwRCIN repository project and the European Union.

Bookbinding works

In mid-October 2020, we returned 19 volumes of books published in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries for repair. We entrusted the bookbinding work to a company operating in Warsaw since 1977. Andrzej and Grzegorz Strusiński Bindery is the third and fourth generation of craftsmen, who for years, have been associated with the Warsaw Bookbinders Guild and the Arts and Crafts Guild.

Facebook, Instagram

September 9 2020. The Scientific Repository of the Research Institutes has made its debut on Facebook. Each month, each institute provides content and images prepared to be made public in social media. The administrator and coordinator of the activities is Barbara Kubiatowska-Maciejewska from the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

During the campaign period, from September 2020, until the end of the OZwRCIN project in 2021, there will be posts on Facebook and Instagram. These will be posts promoting the collections (single publications/objects, collections, collective publications, institutes’ objects), about digitization, experts’ statements, information about events, etc.

After the end of the project, it is envisaged that the social media activities will continue, individually by each institute.