Making and Using AI in the Library: Creating a BERT Model at the National Library of Sweden

How can novel AI techniques be made and put to use in the library? Combining methods from data and library science, this article focuses on Natural Language Processing technologies in especially national libraries. It explains how the National Library of Sweden’s collections enabled the development of a new BERT language model for Swedish. It also outlines specific use cases for the model in the context of academic libraries, detailing strategies for how such a model could make digital collections available for new forms of research: from automated classification to enhanced searchability and improved OCR cohesion. Highlighting the potential for cross-fertilizing AI with libraries, the conclusion suggests that while AI may transform the workings of the library, libraries can also have a key role to play in the future development of AI.

Organisation and Maintenance of Library Authority Files in Russia and Abroad

The article provides review of foreign and domestic publications on the problems of creation, development and use of authority files (AF) of names of persons, names of organizations, geographical names and other objects both at the international, national and regional levels. The paper presents analysis of the foreign experience of AF maintenance. The authors note that, due to the availability of universal collections and qualified specialists, AF formation abroad is usually carried out by national libraries. A substantive analysis of foreign publications has shown that national AFs (NAF) are characterized by data variability and diversity of approaches. The authors studied the experience of successful combination of NAF created according to different methods within the framework of the international corporate project — Virtual International Authority File (VIAF). The article notes that most of the Russian libraries do not use AF, since AF, created in republican and regional scientific libraries, as a rule, are not publicly available. At the same time, creation by a separate library of its own AF leads to high labour and material costs, and the formation of a large number of AF leads to the variability of the AFs created for the same objects. The authors conclude that for efficient use of AFs within the country, it is necessary to apply unified methods and rules for creation of authority records. Another way out is the application of the Semantic Web technology, which allows linking AFs created according to different methods. It is necessary to make maximum use of existing dictionaries or create dictionaries based on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Resource Description Framework (RDF), RDF Schema (RDFS) and Web Ontology Language (OWL) standards.

Quality Assessment for National Libraries

National libraries as well as any other progressive institutions have to assess the results of their performance. Depending on the type, functions, structure, areas of activities, organizational and financial methods, any national library can test wide sets of performance indicators consistent with its mission. Those indicators may differ from the indicators being tested by other national libraries. Quite often national libraries can also use additional indicators if financial/sponsoring organizations or target user groups etc. require this.The paper considers the methods and procedures for measuring quantitative indicators of national libraries’ performance according to the new international standard ISO 21248:2019 “Information and documentation: Quality assessment for national libraries”, which is partially based upon the ISO 11620:2008 standard “Information and documentation. Library performance indicators”. The author presents specific examples for calculating indicators using formulas and detailed description of steps for calculation of indicators depending on the library mission and goals. Along with qualitative indicators, the new standard recommends to use qualitative indicators to assess the impact of national libraries not only on their users, but also on society as a whole. In recent years, libraries have developed and probated methods to justify their importance. One of those methods is user surveying by means of special questionnaires made on the basis of ISO 16439:2014 standard “Information and documentation. Methods and procedures for assessing the impact of libraries” and circulated by libraries among their users to educe and differentiate interests of different user groups to provide them with subsequent target service.

Web Archiving as a Task of National and Local History Bibliography

The foreign experience of forming the majority of national web archives (in national libraries) and many accessible local history archives of public and university libraries has been analyzed due to the development of a model and methodology for electronic local history archives for Russian libraries.It is shown that the global activity on preserving network content is divided into national and regional segments and is national and local history in both contents. Its goals and structure fully fit into the classical forms and directions of national/local history bibliography, which turns out to be the key in all processes of selection and bibliographic processing of a new class of sources. For selection, all the criteria of connection with the country/region/territory, the place of production of the resource, its national language and content, characteristic of the national/local history bibliography; the selection itself is carried out by library specialists. The analysis has revealed the reasons why the preparation of the archived online content for use, regardless of the capabilities of automated technologies, in practice also requires the involvement of specialist in bibliography, the use of classical tools and methods of bibliographic description and indexing of content. The issue of choosing objects for archiving (sites, subdirectories, individual documents) is specially considered. The special significance, advantages and problems of treating individual documents are shown. The necessity of forming such web archiving strategies is substantiated, in which “starting points” are separate documents, and sites are evaluated and selected for productivity as their “containers”. Taking into account the global trends and the conditions of Russian libraries, a model of web archiving is proposed, the implementation of which, in the absence of a national repository and modern tools, will allow the beginning of accumulating some necessary experience and valuable network content.

Future uncertainties for preserving tweets: Peoples’ perceptions in Japan

Social media content includes an unprecedented number of personal documents reflecting our time. Few countries or regions have established legal grounds for securing long-term access to these documents, while paper-based publications have been exhaustively accumulated under legal deposit systems. However, archiving social media through national libraries, as a sort of state intervention, could bring about chilling effects on free speech in unexpected ways. The article aims to present empirical data of public concerns concerning social media content, focusing on Twitter’s public tweets archived by third parties, through two questionnaire surveys involving university students (Research I) and the public (Research II). The surveys were designed based on three settings: researchers, organisations to which the respondents belong and the National Diet Library in Japan. Consequently, approximately 30% and 47% of the respondents in Research I ( n = 197) and II ( n = 728), respectively, disagreed with any hypothetical scenario. An ordered logistic analysis to reveal the inter-relations of variables suggests the existence of other factors; thus, neither variables related to Twitter/Internet use nor demographic variables influenced people’s perceptions of the archival issue. While protecting privacy rights and copyrights was the primary reason for disagreements regarding third-party archival of tweets, many respondents intuitively displayed a negative reaction without any specific reason. Those who question its value and feel uncomfortable with an authoritative intervention were also identified. To nurture acceptant attitudes, advocating the archival of personal documents and adopting more restrictive archival procedures like taking down posts and anonymisation, public debates on the intervention of public bodies and demonstration of archival values should be considered.

Electronic resources of the national libraries of the Russian Federation constituents to promote cultural heritage of titular ethnic groups

Information activities of national regional libraries in promoting original traditional cultures, including that of Russian native minorities, are discussed. Cultural resources as presented at the websites of national libraries of RF constituents were examined, and 70 resources were identified, including 12 in national languages. The National Library of Chuvash Republic holds the largest number of independent digital resources. Digital publications, websites and portals are among the most popular library resources. The national regional libraries have been also developing and maintaining their databases, however their rate is rather insignificant. Many library Internet projects are characterized by their multilayer structure, which enables users to access various information resources in culture and arts via single access point. Ill-conceived navigation, lack of distinctstructural hierarchy, information mix-up when some resources, including those in regional studies are present in several website sections, are on the downside of representing resources on the libraries’ websites. According to the data obtained, virtual exhibitions make the largest share of individual digital resources. The libraries of Volga Federal District appear to be the most centered on designing and promoting resources on the culture of titular ethnic groups.

Electronic Legal Deposit in the United Kingdom: Successes and Challenges of Transfer and Transformation

The introduction of electronic legal deposit is arguably the greatest transformation which national libraries have undergone in our professional lifetimes. This article argues that many institutions have successfully implemented technical, structural, and cultural transformative change, while there is more to do, and challenges remain. When it comes to transfer however, the ability to give users meaningful access to the legal deposit collections, the picture is rather different: much good work is being done, but the transformative potential of electronic legal deposit has not been realised for our users. The article explores the broader cultural background specifically in the United Kingdom against which the relevant legislation was shaped to understand better what steps could be taken in the future to redress this imbalance.