DELOS activities

DELOS activities fall into three major categories: research, integration and dissemination.
 
In research, the main goal is to promote and facilitate further development of Digital Library enabling technologies, to enable the building of the next generation digital library management systems. The DELOS research activities have been organized into seven major clusters. The activities of the research clusters are described under the “research button” in the navigation bar.
 

Integration aims at improving the integration of research throughout the Network, by favoring joint research activities by partners belonging to different clusters. Since most of the leading research groups in Europe are involved in DELOS, the ultimate goal is the establishment of a European closely knitted research community for digital libraries.

The dissemination and education activities are directed on one side towards the scientific community, to facilitate the integration of the many different technologies underlying digital libraries, and on the other side towards the content owners (libraries, archives, museums, etc) and the interested application communities in order to raise the awareness of the improved functionality and services that digital libraries could bring in a near future.
  

Scientific dissemination

• Thematic Workshops
  This series of workshops is intended to provide the opportunity to European researchers to present results of on-going research activities and to exchange opinions and experiences in an informal and friendly environment.
      
• Brainstorming Workshops
  This series of workshops is intended to bring together top researchers from all the parts of the world, with the objective of defining "future research direction" reports in the field of Digital Libraries and to provide input for the definition of future research programmes in the domain of Digital Libraries both for the EC and national research funding agencies.
    
• European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL)
  This conference has become the major European event on the subject of Digital Libraries, and DELOS is committed to maintaining its high scientific level, through the involvement of the most active research teams in Europe and in the rest of the world.

• Summer Schools
  This series of Summer Schools is intended to provide high-level courses on the domain of Digital Libraries and its underlying technologies. The schools are directed to members of the research community (in the wide sense): primarily graduate students, but also young researchers and professionals involved in R&D in Digital Library related areas.
    
• Awareness Events
  This series of events (courses, tutorials, demonstrations, etc) is organized in collaboration with application and industrial communities. These events will present Digital Library technologies and successful case studies in a customized manner to user communities (Electronic publishing, Libraries, Archives, Museums, Broadcasting, etc.) and to interested potential industry partners.
    
• National/Regional Technology Transfer Workshops
  This series of events is organized by Network members in cooperation with national application communities and industry, addressing themes of mutual interest. Particular attention will be given to the involvement of SMEs in each country.
    
• Researcher Exchange Program
  The exchange of researchers between organizations working on joint projects is one of the most effective ways to achieve integration of the working teams and exchange of skills and results. For "exchange of researcher" is meant the visit of a researcher from one DELOS member to another, for a period ranging from a few weeks to a few months. DELOS is providing some funding to cover the additional expenses that are required for those exchanges.
      
• DELOS Awards
  DELOS has established the “DELOS Research Exchange Award”, to be given each year to a young researcher who has authored a paper presented at the ECDL Conference. The award will recognise the achievement of the young researcher by offering the author a chance to spend a period of time (at least one month) at a DELOS European partner research organisation.