MetaGrey
Schöpfel, J.
Bionote: Joachim Schöpfel graduated from the
Contact address: Dr. Joachim Schöpfel, INIST-CNRS, 2 allée du Parc
de Brabois, 54514 Vandoeuvre Cedex, France. E-Mail schopfel@inist.fr
Abstract
In the aftermath of
EAGLE, the objective of the MetaGrey Europe project is to organize a new
network of European leading organisations for the collection and dissemination
of grey research literature, to facilitate the access to European grey
literature through a unique web-interface (metasearch engine), to increase its
international visibility and to safeguard the former SIGLE records and
integrate them in the new network in an OAI-PMH compliant format. The
communication describes the project scope, assesses the resources, contains a
risk analysis and an outline of costs and benefits and provides information
about project management, communication strategy and planning.
Introduction
2005 is a crucial year for the European grey
literature*. The EAGLE* concept doesn’t work any longer. The input to the
SIGLE* database definitely stopped in April, and the EAGLE association is to be
liquidated.
EAGLE was a co-operative network for
identification, location and supply of grey
research literature. A non-profit association formed by the national centres participating
in SIGLE, it produced and provided access to the bibliographic database SIGLE.
All documents referred to could (and still can) be obtained through the
national SIGLE
centres
(see Wood & Smith 1993).
The decline of the EAGLE concept has four
reasons:
(1) Internet: The 1985 concept of the SIGLE
database has not been able to keep up with the rapid development with the
Internet and the online resources. Even if FIZ Karlsruhe* developed a
web-version of SIGLE, the database production didn’t adjust to the
possibilities offered by the new technologies of information:
§
No
direct online cataloguing in a shared database,
§
no
metadata harvesting,
§
very
few records of e-documents[1],
§
few
direct access to full text,
§
few
links to other resources.
(2) Organisational
structure: The
EAGLE structure (national input centres, a central operating agent) was unable
to open the network easily to new and/or important producers of grey literature
on the national or international level. Furthermore, it was not adapted to the
need of flexible and rapid decision taking and marketing.
(3) Coverage: For most of the EAGLE countries,
the national input became less and less representative. Often, even for the
national input centres input criteria and workload excluded a significant part
of their grey collections (dissertations, reports, conference proceedings)[2].
(4) Economic model: The EAGLE model was based on flat
membership fees and revenues from servers. Access to the database remained
“traditional” with an annual subscription to the host or else a pay-per-view
for each record with a credit card. With important members retiring from input
and membership and the success of open access based initiatives, the economic
model came to an end and needed revision. Investment for the development of the
database was not provided.
The EAGLE members started a strategic debate on
the future of the concept in 2001. The result is the present project: instead
of a further development of the 20-year-old concept, the German and French
EAGLE members propose a radical change that integrates the latest web-based
technologies and the economic environment of open access to scientific and
technical literature (for the open access trends in Europe and France, see
Grüttemeier & Mahon 2003 and Grüttemeier 2005).
The following communication is an updated and
augmented version of the project brief discussed at the 2005 General Assembly
of EAGLE in
Projects aims and objectives
The main objective of the MetaGrey Europe
project is to translate the key ideas of EAGLE in terms of 21st
century information technology:
1.
To
organize a network of European leading organisations for the collection and
dissemination of grey research literature.
2.
To
facilitate searchability of European grey literature through a unique
web-interface.
3.
To
increase its international visibility.
4.
To
enhance online access to the full-text of European research grey literature
whenever possible.
5.
A
complementary objective is to safeguard the SIGLE records (file data: 856,610
records) and integrate them in the new network.
The target group of MetaGrey Europe are
scientists, academics, students, and library and information professionals.
Project scope
The MetaGrey Europe project’s objectives are
declined into three rationales:
1. Development of a metasearch engine for grey literature (“MetaGrey”).
The MetaGrey search engine is hosted on a
central server and maintained by a designed member of the network. It provides
a simple and intuitive search interface adapted to the bibliographic and
metadata of the main types of grey literature. The metasearch engine technology
developed since about 10 years has arrived at a stage of maturity that allows
specific developments as for this project[3].
2. Transformation of the SIGLE database in an open archive (“OpenSIGLE”)
hosted on an open archive server and OAI-PMH* compliant.
The OpenSIGLE database is hosted on an OAI
server and maintained by a designed member of the new network.
3. Connexion of the most representative and important collections of
European grey literature and of the “OpenSIGLE” archive to this metasearch
engine.
Grey literature key collections (databases,
catalogues, archives) and other search engines are connected to the MetaGrey
search engine by their institutions, with assistance by one or more members of
the new network. There is no need for secondary or complementary cataloguing as
for the SIGLE records.
The quality of the search engine and the
overall projects depends also on the careful selection of important grey
collections and reliable partner organisations that guarantee the quality of
data and documents. The criteria of selection need thorough discussion. Special
attention should be paid to the grey collections of the National and State
Libraries. Conditions of access to and dissemination of grey literature are
maintained by and remain under responsibility of the participating
institutions. The overall structure of MetaGrey is decentralized.
The project rationale can be compared to the
GrayLit portal of US Federal Agencies’ grey literature.
Other projects in the MetaGrey environment are:
§
The
gateway “Science.gov” to authoritative selected science information provided by U.S. Government
agencies, including research and development results.
§
The
new Google portal “Scholar” (access to scholarly literature from academic publishers,
learned societies, universities and institutional repositories).
§
The
technology and concepts developed by the Hannover Search Engine Lab (with the
leading German metasearch engine “MetaGer.de” and the German ResearchPortal
“forschungsportal.net”).
http://meta.rrzn.uni-hannover.de
§
The
metasearch engine “Virtueller Katalog Kunstgeschichte” funded by the DFG* and
developed with the MPG* (History of Art, 14 organisations).
http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/vk_kunst.html
§
Different
open access initiatives: the LARA* project of INIST-CNRS (Stock et al. 2005),
the former MAGiC* project of the British Library and
Whenever possible, the European projects should
be included in theMetaGrey project.
Stakeholders
The project distinguishes three levels of
participants:
1.
A
small group of core stakeholders for the project management, the communication
strategy, the initial development of the “MetaGrey” software and the
“OpenSIGLE” archive and the connexion of the most important grey collections.
Today, three institutions are part of this core group: the TIB Hannover,
INIST-CNRS and to a lesser degree, the FIZ-Karlsruhe.
2.
A
limited group of European national and special libraries and documentation
centres with important grey collections. The following institutions have
already been contacted and have shown interest for a participation in this
project: the British Library and the
3.
An
unlimited number of potential participants with significant grey collections
and databases. For instance, the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical
Information, the Spanish CINDOC-CSIC*, the Portuguese Fundacao para a Ciencia e
a Tecnologia (FCT) Serviço de Informação e Documentação or the French ABES*,
CCSD-CNRS, and Cyberthèses*. Actually, contacts exist with organisations
located in 16 EU countries. Special attention should be paid to CORDIS ( EU
research reports).
Resource assessment
A preliminary resource assessment of the
preparation, development and realisation of the MetaGrey project identified
four domains with specific funding, staff and technical needs:
(1) Development of a
metasearch engine for grey literature (“MetaGrey”):
1.
Definition
of content (searchable data, classification schema) and connexion interfaces.
2.
Development
of the software (with access to document delivery services).
3.
Implementation
on a server.
(2) Transformation of
the SIGLE database in an open archive (“OpenSIGLE”) hosted on an open archive
server and OAI-PMH compliant:
1.
Downloading
of the SIGLE records and transformation into a harvestable structure.
2.
Uploading
of the OpenSIGLE data on an OAI server.
(3) Connexion of
collections of European grey literature and of the “OpenSIGLE” archive to this
metasearch engine:
1.
Selection
of collections and institutions (limited group).
2.
Connexion
of databases and catalogues (limited group).
3.
Connexion
of other collections (unlimited number).
(4) Functioning of
MetaGrey
1.
User
assistance (helpdesk, connexion of new collections).
2.
Search
engine maintenance.
3.
OpenSIGLE
maintenance.
Up to now, a more detailed funding estimation
exists only for the 2nd domain, the transformation of the SIGLE
database. The INIST-CNRS information systems department made the following
proposal (cf. communication to all former EAGLE member of July 5, 2005):
“This project scope is the transformation of the
existing SIGLE database into an open archive hosted on an open archive server
and OAI-PMH compliant. The idea is to convert the SIGLE records following the
international metadata standards (Dublin Core mapping) and to load these
metadata on an open archive that would be freely available to all users, with
metadata harvesting via the OAI-PMH.
The INIST proposal is to realize the open archive
OpenSIGLE with the DSpace software, to convert the SIGLE records, to load these
data in the open archive, and to host the archive on a local INIST server.
The IS departement of INIST estimates the costs and
charges of this project as follows :
Development of the software (based on DSpace): 20
days.
Conversion of records: 5 days.
Design, customization: 5 days.
Tests, validation: 10 days.
We can't estimate today how much time it would take to
upload 800.000+ records in such an environment. For financial reasons, we would
upload the records on only one server, not on two.
The estimation of 40 days of development is a low
estimation. The economic minimum for this proposal is 25.000 euros: 20.000
euros for the development (software) and 5.000 euros for the server (hardware).
If the remaining funds left for this project are higher, we could use this sum
for instance to install a 2nd server, or for a more elaborated development.
Anyway, this would be discussed with those of the members who agree with this
proposal.”
The submission of a Specific Targeted Research
Project (STREP) to the European Commission (6th EU Framework
Programme for Research and Technology Development or 6th FP) for an
initial funding in 2005 was abandoned because of the too short delay after the
EAGLE GA (deadline March 2005).
Risk analysis
Initially, six potential risks for the project
had been identified. In italics, updated
commentaries:
(1) Initial
investment: No
initial funding by the European Commission. No or limited funding by the EAGLE
association. Restricted funding by the leading institutions. Effectively, no EU funding in 2005, no EAGLE
funding because of the unwillingness of the former members to spend “their”
money for this project. No engagement by the “core institutions” up to now.
Probably, there will be no funding demand for the 6th FP, and we
should prepare a proposal for the 7th FP (2007-2013).
(2) Language: Impossibility
to select collections and data with a core language (English). No real analysis of this topic up to now.
Probably, an important part of European grey collections (more than 50%?) are
not available and searchable in English.
(3) Bibliographic data: Too high complexity of data definition of the different types of
documents, records and collections. This
needs analysis; nevertheless, the former EAGLE members already faced this
problem – successfully. So why not now?
(4) Connexions:
Technical difficulties and limited motivations of institutions of the “limited
group”. May be a real problem for some
organisations.
(5) OpenSIGLE:
Technical and/or legal problems (intellectual property of SIGLE records) with
the transformation of the SIGLE database into an open archive. All former EAGLE members declared last
summer that “their” SIGLE records could be temporarily archived by the EAGLE
operating agent, the FIZ
(6) Liquidation of EAGLE: Delay. No solution for the intellectual property of the SIGLE records. The delay is caused by the liquidation of
the bank accounts and the suppression in the Luxemburg Register for Societies
and Commerce. Apparently, there are no major legal problems.
|
# |
Potential risk |
Likelihood |
Impact on project |
Evaluation |
Contingency |
|
1 |
Initial investment |
High |
Medium |
Most important risk |
Alternative
funding? Self-funding? |
|
2 |
Language |
Medium |
High |
Important risk |
Acceptance
of multilingual data |
|
3 |
Data |
Low |
High |
Low risk |
Reduction
of complexity |
|
4 |
Connexion |
Low |
High |
Low risk |
Communication,
adding other interfaces? |
|
5 |
OpenSIGLE |
Low |
Low |
Low risk |
No alternative |
|
6 |
EAGLE |
Low |
Medium |
Low risk |
Legal problems? |
Table 1: Risk analysis
To resume, two risks (# 5 and 6) no longer
exist. Two other risks (#2 and 3) should be analysed more thoroughly, based on
concrete data and not on abstract considerations; this may need some months and
could be done while prepare the funding demand. The risk #4 should also be
assessed during the initial phase of the project. The most important risk, the
need for financial resources (risk #1) today has no solution. For different
reasons, most of the former EAGLE members seem to be exposed to financial
shortcuts and a “fragile” budget situation. Without funding, no development.
But without project rationale and minimal consensus on what to do and with
whom, no needs analysis and no funding demand. So, where to start?
Another risk needs evaluation: the need of
ongoing and permanent funding of the metasearch engine (maintenance,
developments, helpdesk).
Two other risks have been excluded: (a) The
technology risk can be neglected because of the maturity of the used software
concept. (b) Actually, there seems to be no concurrent project with analogue
objectives or scope. Nevertheless, this situation can change very quickly.
Elsevier announced recently (6 Octobre 2005) a “landmark partnership” with the
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) to add the
extensive collection of theses and dissertations to the Elsevier free
science-specific search engine, Scirus. This partnership includes indexing the
NTLTD content on Scirus.com and powering the search service on the repository’s
site. If Scirus is to become a free search engine that indexes important grey
collections, is there a real need (and funding) to another initiative on the
same market sector?
Outline of costs and benefits
The economic model of MetaGrey Europe is a
sustainable, low-budget project, based on limited funding of the initial phase
(software development and server, marketing and communication strategy) and use
of existing resources (staff and budget of member organisations) for the
functioning of the metasearch engine (maintenance, assistance) and the
OpenSIGLE database (maintenance).
Apart from the connexion to the search engine,
the participating organisations will not assume any financial obligation.
Technical input may be necessary only in case the partners change their own
parameters (database format, cataloguing standards etc.).
The benefits for the participating
organisations are twofold: the metasearch engine increases the visibility and
searchability of their special grey collections through a new and dedicated
“access point”; and it potentially increases the use of their document supply
and ILL services through the link to their own online interfaces.
Project management approach
The proposed steering committee is composed of
four organisations, each of them with specific roles:
INIST-CNRS (
TIB Hannover (
FIZ
GreyNet* (
The cooperation between these organisations
could be facilitated by a listserv with restricted access and hosted by one of
these organisations.
Marketing and communication strategy
The marketing and communication strategy is
developed and coordinated by GreyNet. The multilevel strategy includes several
vectors of communication and information:
EAGLE network: Information and promotion through
the existing mailing list of former and actual EAGLE member organisations.
CNRS network: Information and promotion through
the recently created CNRS network of direct scientific communication
organisations.
GL conferences: Communications at the GreyNet
international conferences on grey literature 2005 (
Other conferences: Information and promotion at
selected national and international conferences and events on scientific information
and open access.
Listservs: Information and promotion through
selected national and international listservs of library and information
professionals and scientists (ADBS-Info, Biblio.fr, INETBIB, JISC listservs,
SPARC-Europe).
Publications: Information and communication in
selected LIS serials (for instance, Documentaliste,
Bibliotheksdienst, Interlending and Document Supply, The Grey Journal, Electronic Library, Aslib Proceedings: New Information
Perspectives, Library Hi Tech News,
Online Information Review etc.).
Timelines and milestones
Seven key stages had been identified. The
timelines mainly depend on the submission, evaluation and negotiation of the
initial funding demand. The following table contains the initial project agenda
(February 2005):
|
# |
Project phase |
Content |
Period |
Commentary |
|
1 |
Preparation (1) |
Concept,
project team, network |
2004
November – 2005 January |
|
|
2 |
Preparation (2) |
Elaboration
and submission of a funding proposal |
2005
January – 2005
March |
Depends
on FP6 calls for proposals |
|
3 |
EAGLE |
Liquidation
of association |
2005
January – 2005 June |
|
|
4 |
Development (1) |
MetaGrey |
2005
April – 2005
December |
Depends
on #2 |
|
5 |
Development (2) |
OpenSIGLE |
2005
April – 2005
December |
To be
specified, depends also on #3 |
|
6 |
Connexion (1) |
First
group |
2005
September – 2006 March |
During #4 |
|
7 |
Connexion (2) |
Unlimited
number |
2006
April – 2007
March |
Following
#4 and 6 |
Table 2: Timelines
One year after the first project draft, the
initial timelines are of course no longer realistic and need to be updated.
Nevertheless, the table shows clearly two “milestones”: first, the need to find
a minimal consensus on the concept (#1); second and based on this consensus,
the need to assure an initial funding (#2).
Concluding remarks, open questions
At the end of 2005, we can observe small
progress: the legal and financial liquidation of the European association is
nearly finished, and FIZ Karlsruhe guarantees the temporary safeguard of the
SIGLE records.
Unfortunately, once the SIGLE input stopped,
technical and strategical coordination between the former EAGLE centres ceased,
too. Our organisations seem preoccupied with their own problems, putting
priorities elsewhere, trying to redefine their objectives and activities in the
environment of the Open Access movement, the Google Print initiative and the EU
intellectual property rights.
In some way, we are facing a similar situation
as 20 years ago, before the creation of the EAGLE network. Will there be a
second chance for European grey literature? And if so, when? Will the European
projects for open institutional repositories and digital libraries attract too
many financial, human and technical resources without leaving space for a new
grey project? Do we need some more years to measure its real interest? Will
there be a concurrent project in the same sector (e.g. Elsevier)? Maybe the
Glossary
ABES: Agence Bibliographique de l’Enseignement
Supérieur (France), a public agency that hosts the French national academic
union catalogue.
CCSD-CNRS: Centre de Communication Scientifique Directe
of the French CNRS with a number of open archives (preprints, electronic theses
and dissertations, articles, proceedings).
CERN: European organisation for nuclear research (
CINDOC-CSIC: Centro de Informaçion y Documentaçion
Cientifica, Centre of Scientific Information and Documentation of the Spanish
Higher Council for Scientific Research.
CNRS: Centre National de
CNR: Consiglio
Nazionale delle Ricerche, public research organisation (Italy).
DFG: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, public
research agency under the authority of the German Ministry of Research (
EAGLE: European Association for Grey Literature
Exploitation (Luxemburg).
FIZ
Grey literature: “Information produced on all levels of
government, academics, business and industry in electronic and print formats
not controlled by commercial publishing” (GL’97 Luxemburg Convention).
GreyNet: Grey literature network service (
INIST-CNRS: Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique (France), the CNRS documentation centre for scientific and technical information.
LARA: Libre Accès aux Rapports Scientifiques et Techniques, an open archive of French reports under construction by INIST-CNRS (France).
MAGiC: A former
MPG: Max-Planck Gesellschaft, a public organisation
for scientific and technological research under the authority of the German
Ministry of Research (
OAI-PMH: Open Archive Initiative-Protocol of Metadata
Harvesting.
RRZN: Computer Centre of the Lower Saxony,
University of Hannover (
SEL: Search Engine Laboratory of the
SIGLE: System of Information for Grey Literature in
TIB
VNTIC: Scientific and Technical Information Centre (
References
Charnay, Daniel: “The
Centre for Direct Scientific Communication”. In: Grüttemeier & Mahon 2003,
133-137.
Grüttemeier, Herbert,
&
Grüttemeier, Herbert:
“The Way to Open Access – French Strategies to Move Forward”. Library and Information Service (Tushu
Qingbao Gongzuo) 2005 (to be published).
Stock, Christiane,
Rocklin, Emmanuelle, & Cordier, Aurélie: “LARA: Open Access to Scientific
and Technical Reports”. GL7 Conference.
Seventh International Conference on Grey Literature: Open Access to Grey
Resources.
Vesely, Martin,
Baron, Thomas, Le Meur, Jean-Yves, & Simko, Tibor: “CERN document server:
Document management system for Grey Litetarture in a networked environment”. Publishing Research Quaterly, 2004, 20,
1, 77-83.
Wood, David N., &
Smith, Andrew W.: “SIGLE: a model for international co-operation”. Interlending & Document Supply,
1993, 21,1 18-22.
[1] We could identify with certainty only 578
documents on CD-ROM (0.07%). It is impossible to determine by searching in the
database the number exact of online resources.
[2] Here the table with the coverage by member
countries of the SIGLE database from February 2005 (total 855,260
records) :
|
Country |
Records |
In % |
|
Belgium |
5,236 |
0,6 |
|
Czech Republic |
5,683 |
0,7 |
|
France |
72,752 |
8,5 |
|
Germany |
198,588 |
23,2 |
|
Hungary |
728 |
0,08 |
|
Ireland |
97 |
0,01 |
|
Italy |
30,758 |
3,6 |
|
Latvia |
3,916 |
0,45 |
|
Luxemburg |
33 |
0,0 |
|
Netherlands |
61,471 |
7,2 |
|
Poland |
87 |
0,01 |
|
Portugal |
1,780 |
0,2 |
|
Russian Federation |
19,524 |
2,3 |
|
Slovakia |
800 |
0,09 |
|
Spain |
11,256 |
1,3 |
|
Sweden |
14 |
0,0 |
|
United Kingdom |
434,007 |
50,7 |
|
Commission of the EC |
8,530 |
1,0 |
The
French example may illustrate the non representativity of the national input:
the INIST library contains about 150,000 theses, 70,000 conference proceedings,
and 70,000 scientific and technical reports - more than four times the number of French SIGLE records.
Even if all these documents are not grey, most of them are. Other important
“grey” producers never contributed to the national input (for instance, the
national Atomic Energy and Space Research Centres).
[3]See for instance the developments and
publications of the Hannover University Search Engine Lab (W. Sander-Beuermann)
at http://metager.de/suma-eng.html