Søren Chr. Hansen, Deputy Manager, Silkeborg Public Library

Silkeborg has a population of 50,000. The library is popular and had more than 500,000 visitors in 1996. It has a stock of more than 300,000 books and other materials. In 1996 the annual loan per inhabitant exceeded the national average by more than 30%. The library has 64 full time staff of whom 27 are professionally qualified.

At Silkeborg Public Library we have for several years worked determined and methodically with information technological development projects:

1991 : Automation of the library working processes

1991 : Data transmission between the main library and the mobile library

1991 : CD–ROM service for the public

1992 : Digitalization of the local history photo collection

1992 : The first pilot project: Graphic User Interface for OPACs

1993 : Graphic User Interface for the local library system

1994 : Graphic User Interface for children

1995 : The Electronic Reading Room for children

1995/6 : A Trivial Pursuit computer game for children and young ones

1996/7 : Multimedia workshop for children and young ones

1997 : Local developed Intranet for internal information and communication

1997 : Developing a Metadata-catalogue

1998 : The Netnavigater. Building an online Internet based reference service.

1998 : Use and development of Intelligent Agents

1995/- : The Internet project: The Virtual Library, our most important project until now.

The aim of the Internet project is to establish the library as a local centre for on-line information and communication. Since April 1995 our users have access to the Internet. We estimate that access to the net means 25,000-30,000 new library visits per year. The citizens of Silkeborg have access to local conferences. These conferences are called "The Electronic Community Centre". Library staff and volunteers are attending the conferences, which enable the citizens to participate in discussions about local policy, football and participate in an on-line flea market . The WWW-based library catalogue is available at our site with a reservation system and with the possibility of forwarding the search to other Web based library systems.

In Silkeborg, the library has taken on the role as Internet Service Provider (ISP) s ells Internet connections to the public at £10 for the initial connection and then £50 per year. At present the library has 500 subscribers to this service and it can handle 30 people dialing in at one time. The library is also being used as an ISP by the local council and a number of schools and institutions.

At the same time the library sells e-mail accounts to its users. The mail can then be accessed either through a home PC or through the computers in the library.

"Silkeborg - Digital City": The aim of this part of the project is to provide information from Silkeborg and surrounding area to citizens and to the Internet users:

presented

• local industry, trade and company homepages

• museums, e.g. The Asger Jorn Art Museum with examples of his work

• The History of Silkeborg, based on a book published to mark the 150th anni-

versary of the city

• local educational institutions

• local news

"The Electronic Town Hall". The library is responsible for the Town Hall’s Homepage and the Internet connection:

• information from local and state authorities

• filling in forms

• e-mail to the Town Hall

• e-mail to the city counsellors

• From the collection-oriented to access to The virtual and electronic library

• The information technology will be the all-dominant innovation factor

• From orientation towards the materials collection to orientation towards

the user

• From appearance to distance access

• From the traditional to the electronic materials collection

• From the traditional materials to net-based materials

• From the electronic card catalogue to virtual catalogues and resource retrieval systems

• The web-user interface becomes the standard user interface

• The service to the public is supplemented with education of the users

• At least 33% of the staff resources will be occupied with new task areas

• At least 33% of the traditional materials must be superseded by new equipment and new ways of promotion

• Cultural activities are given a higher priority

• Constant budget and staff reductions

• Focus on other forms of financing and revenue possibilities

The vision about Silkeborg Public Library as a virtual library is the vision about a library, that through network facilitate access to digitize materials and media. This development, where we have taken the first steps, will imply new possibilities of communication, application of new tools and changes in the organisation of the library. This development will also change the media we use today.

The library as a centre for network facilities and with access to comprehensive data transmission capacity is prerequisite for the development of a virtual library. The library will be seen as transparent, intelligent and without walls.

Users can use the library as a physical or as a virtual room, in which you have distance access to the library. Users can collect information, e.g. digitized text, pictures, graphics and computer programs - or get access to information, independent of time and place.

The staff finds, selects, adjusts and interprets virtual materials and use intelligent search techniques, intelligent agents, expert systems, simulation techniques, Internet servers and electronic mail as tools.

Through the net the library also will give access to artistic experiences and the digitized part of the cultural heritage.

However, the hard copy media such as CD-ROM, videos and CD’s, on which the contents is digitized, is likely to disappear and in the future the contents is to be ordered through the net.

E.g. you will download music recordings on to a harddisk and play them back on the compressed

PC-television. Nowadays there are examples of CD-ROM, that contain bibliographical and factual information to be fetched on the net. So the CD-ROM becomes the first media, that disappears again.

The vision of The Virtual Library is not carried out for many years. The publication of literary materials will continue for many years and literary materials will for many years be the dominant media of the library.

The present and future development on Silkeborg Public Library is therefore steps towards The Virtual Library.

Mentioned below is a number of the new media, new developments, new possibilities for communication and new tools which we are very likely to engage in on Silkeborg Public Library during the next 1 to 10 years.

On today’s public library the accession takes place on weekly collection meetings including purchase of books, periodicals, music materials etc. The selection of the materials typically takes place by means of newspaper reviews etc.

• In the future following changes will take place:

• The materials selections will change into an individualized process and will take place based on electronically stored reviews, if possible supplied with samples of the contents, and placing an order will happen electronically immediately after a decision to buy.

• The electronic sources of materials selection is supplied with suggestions from Internet-based information sources, e.g. international publishing houses and library suppliers.

• The materials will cover traditional media, new media as well as Internet-based resources, e.g. on-line journals and net-services.

• Electronic documents will be a part of the library accession. The accession can be done by arrangements with publishers, authors etc. to fetch documents through network for the library or directly for the borrower. In cases where the access requires fees, models with payment for consumption or payment for access will be the most usual. Some electronic documents are distinctive by being dynamic, that means they can be changed, they exist in various versions and often they only exist in a limited period.

Now, electronic net-based materials must be registered too. The registration can take place directly in the library catalogue, in which they are catalogued as a record. Since necessary continuous supervision only can be made manual for the time being, perhaps we will only catalogue electronic materials, we ourselves have the supervision of, or materials, which are estimated to be both essential and permanent.

The majority of the registrations will for that reason take place on the library Internet server. The challenge will be to create a technical solid and well-arranged summary, which caters for both staff and borrowers. The summary describes and gives access directly to the resources, the library wishes to point at or to the information-suppliers, the library has made subscription agreements with. Such a summary will in course of time be of considerable dimensions, and must for that reason have search arguments as they are known from the existing catalogue.

Our challenge for the moment is to create a metadata-catalogue, a fusion of the existing catalogue and new electronic resources. The metadata-catalogue will consist of traditional catalogings, links to local and global resources and also downloaded bibliographic information and headers. The catalogue will also contain texts, pictures and multimedia.

When the libraries catalogues are provided with a web-user interface, the users can prepare the library visit from home via modem, check if certain materials are in circulation, place orders and reservations and get confirmation from the library via electronic mail. Searches or enquiries on definite titles can be broadcaster to other libraries web-servers via own web-catalogue. An increasing number of interurban circulation’s will be the result. By this we take a step towards The open day and night Library. As both research and public libraries make their catalogues available with web-user interface, it will mean the creation of The Virtual National Catalogue, which in time will render superfluous central bibliographic bases.

The library’s communication with the borrowers will increasingly take place via electronic mail. Overdue and reservation messages are examples of messages, that with advantage can be distributed electronically.

In time with reductions and changing the order of priorities of staff to new tasks, the self-service of the public must be increased, e.g. by self-serviced circulation and delivery and by developments of courses and workshops, that increasingly aim at self-reliant borrowers.

In the Libraries’ service areas a number of tasks are carried out entirely by staff. That is circulation and receipt of materials, information about stock enquiries, renewals, sorting and putting materials in place. In the future the borrowers will note issue and delivery themselves, they will search for stock information and renew circulation. Bar code labels are replaced by chips, that are more flexible relating to self-service and materials will be sorted by robots. In time the registration of material circulation and demagnetisation of anti-theft protection will happen by passage of a gate. Fines and reservation charges are handled by payment cards.

The library system operates as the electronic cataloque. The system also carries out a number of administrative actions such as circulation supervision including overdue, fine and reservation actions. The accession of new materials and budget control is managed by the system too. There is access to the catalogue through a web-based user interface as well.

The library system of the future must also be able to:

An expert system is usually a system developed by experts to general users. The system pass on the experts knowledge through letting the user answer a number of questions and in the end, present the user with a result that immediately can be used and be understood. The interpretation of laws is an example of an expert system, where the user, as a result of a problem identification, gets answers. From the answer is referred to relevant sections in laws and departmental orders. For one thing we must promote such systems and for another develop interactive expert systems ourselves if possible, e.g. for training of users and staff in net-based information search.

Simulation applications are, like expert systems, a library suitable media. Sim City and Civilisation are examples of simulation-based computer games, that train the user in urban and social planning and in understanding the contexts, that characterise a community.

An intelligent agent is a piece of software, that assists the user and performs independent jobs on behalf of the users. It can track down relevant information and screen out the "noise". It adjusts the users conduct and acts and communicates on behalf of the users. An intelligent agent will become a tool for the librarians of the future.

Virtual Reality is an artificial computer created reality, that by means of sense impression and interacting produces a virtual room or an artificial world.

Virtual Reality is still the most spread in connection with computer games. The equipment is still complex and the demands on computer capacity are large. In time with the solution of these problems, Virtual Reality will be involved as a new media on the library. The programs will be games as well as training and education programs.

The futures demands on lifelong learning and on information technology opens up possibilities for development of training and new ways of offering education; an education, that can be fit into family and working life. The information technology opens up possibilities to offer differentiated education, that does not require present at an education institution but participation in a virtual classroom.

The library can offer different support functions in the form of equipment, e.g. places to work, communication and videophone equipment and also prepare Homepages, that supply the individual course and contain bibliography and links to relevant net-based information.

In house developed education programs can be offered as net-based interactive programs. First of all the topics must take starting point in qualifying of users and staff in the utilisation of the offers from the library and the tools, that are connected to these.

Finally the library can promote access to or loan suitable education packages, that are developed and published by education institutions and publishing house.

The workshop must be the creative computer lab for the local community and a be show window to new technology and software. The workshop must offer programs for picture processing , HTML-editing, drawing, 3D, text recognition, desktop publishing, multimedia production, data bases, music editing, CAD/CAM and equipment like scanner, colour printer and keyboard.

The workshop must offer both courses of short and long duration as well as workshop and by participation in the workshop’s instructions one must be able to participate spontaneously as well as anonymously.

Consecutively to the fact that the library’s offers are differentiated and the tools becomes more comprehensive and complicated, a constant training and qualification of both staff and users must take place. During the last few years we have seen several examples of progress in training sequences and courses, developed by staff and for staff and users. Training of the staff in the use of the library system has been completed, later in the use of PC’s, new media, new projects, the use of the Internet and in the use of electronic mail. In the case of the users, in the use of search systems, information about and training in the use of the Internet, training of children and young’s in the use of the equipment and programs etc. in the multimedia workshop.

In the future it will become an important task for the staff to gain new knowledge and new skills and to disseminate this knowledge to colleagues and users.

The qualifications, that the library has achieved in the information technology field, has by now had the result that the library renders a comprehensive guidance and consultancy. The activity has not arisen as the result of an actual priority, but is a follow on calls from private persons, institutions, municipalities, associations, other libraries and a few private firms, and is an acknowledgement of the knowledge level, the library has achieved within the information technology. In the majority of the cases the guidance is given free of charge.

The library has concluded an agreement with the municipality concerning the operation of the Town Halls Internet services. We shall programme web-sites with municipal information, which are too be placed on the library’s Internet-server and the Town Hall’s use of electronic mail shall take place via the library’s mail-server.

A marketing as an actual consultancy will not solely be able to create an commercial business, but will also be able to contribute to profile and professionalize the library’s services. At length this service will also strengthen the library’s role as a local resource centre.