Project of development Digital Repository of Scientific
Institutes RCIN, is envisaged to be carried out in the years
2010-2014, and its financing is provided by the funds of the European Fund of
Regional Development under the framework of Operational Programme – Innovative
Economy, Priority Ax 2. Investment projects relating to development of
information infrastructure of science within the 2.3.2 sub-action – The
Projects in the area of development of information resources of science in a
digital form.
The project aims to develop the Repository of digitized, full-text, free to
the general public, scientific publications, which are multidisciplinary in
character, and available in easily searchable formats.
The detailed goals of the project are as follows:
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to modernize and consolidate the science-research and IT infrastructure of
16 scientific institutes;
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to increase digital resources/content of the Internet with valuable
scientific/research works published by the members of the Consortium;
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to preserve for future generations the current scientific publication
output through development of a digital Archive of the Consortium
Institutes;
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to extend the circle of recipients of Polish digital content;
- to promote Polish science, history, culture and
highly-valuable assets of natural environment as well as of the Polish literary
cultural heritage in the world through dissemination of the RCIN resources by
integrating them with the EU digital library network Europeana;
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to provide further support to education, including distance education/learning;
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to offer support for the young research/academic personnel by providing
employment possibilities to university graduates.
To effectively perform the Project, it has been necessary to further
improve the IT and technological infrastructure of the Consortium members to
such an extent as to allow them to jointly/cooperatively utilize the one
database, housed on a common server operating in one of the Consortium
Institutes. A number of digitalization laboratories have been established, with
specialist equipment – scanners (including Bookeye large-scale format scanners
that make it possible to scan antique materials), serving the needs of all the members
of the Consortium, as well as making it possible to open highly professional
digital Archives of the Institutes. To this end, a group of people have been
employed and trained, including scanning specialist and editors of digital
publications, as well creating a monitoring system controlling the progress of
work and effectiveness and accurateness of the implemented procedures.
The project is carried out in Warsaw, Cracow and Białowieża.
The establishment of Digital Repository RCIN was triggered by an assumption
that dissemination and popularization of science digital resources is of key
importance, especially across educational and scientific circles. Development
of Digital Repository RCIN fills in the gap – i.e., the lack of resources of
Scientific Institutes in the currently available Polish digital library network
on the Internet. The institutes forming the Consortium are dealing with
scientific disciplines that are stated, to a larger extent, as a high priority
in the state scientific policy, i.e., mathematical, technical, natural and
medical sciences. In the Digital Repository RCIN, also humanities and social
sciences are represented. The RCIN should play a significant part in enhancing
access to information, specialist knowledge, as well as in popularization of
Polish science.