• The Reference Model (V1.0) with Yannis Ioannidis, Professor at the University of Athens and DL.org partner explaining why modelling makes our lives in the Digital Library space easier and pinpoints the core concepts on which our Ref model is grounded.
• The Cookbook (Ready for Comment version) with Leonardo Candela from the National Research Council of Italy offering insights into best practices and current solutions proposed for Digital Library interoperability, which is key to taking DLs to the next level.

Athens Workshop, 13 December 2010

Perspectives from Veria Central Library, a new DL.org Strategic Alliance, are brought by Yannis Trohopoulos &  Vaggelis Banos, taking the floor to discuss heterogeneity in European Digital Libraries with the spotlight on the EC’s Europeana initiative to ensure Europe’s cultural heritage is not only accessible to all citizens but also preserved for new generations in the years to come. One of our experts in our Quality Working Group, Sarantos Kapidakis, a professor at the Laboratory on Digital Libraries and Electronic Publishing, Ionian University, looks at interoperability approaches for metadata. Participants will get the chance to debate all of these topics throughout the morning session before the networking lunch.

The rest of the Workshop focuses on demos illustrating a diverse set of Digital Library functionalities from a European perspective:

• Europeana
• TEL & TELplus
• Access-IT
• DRIVER & OpenAIRE
• D4Science.

The event wraps up with an interactive discussion, demonstrating how concerted efforts can ensure  a better understanding of both the role of Reference Models  and of how interoperability challenges are being addressed by DL.org. By doing so, DL.org aims to help narrow the gap between theory and practice so practioners and researchers alike are in a much stronger position to tackle the challenges that lie ahead.