Library System projects
Digitization projects
Important digitalised collections related to a wide range of disciplines, following in the footsteps of the scientific and experimental traditions, are preserved and available on Phaidra, the University of Padua digital asset management system with long-term archiving functions.
Find out more about digitisation projects
FAIR-IMPACT
FAIR-enabling and trustworthy data repositories are central in making and keeping data FAIR over time. While there is ongoing debate on what constitutes trustworthiness, there is broad agreement that transparency and evidence are essential to enable end users to make informed decisions about the repository services they use.
The Digital Library Office of the University of Padua Library Centre, in collaboration with the International Research Office of the University of Padua, was awarded the grant for the support action Testing the trustworthy and FAIR-enabling repositories prototype funded by the European Union project FAIR-IMPACT. This support action aims to test the prototype developed by FAIR-IMPACT to enhance the metadata exposure capacity by improving the Trustworthiness, FAIRness, and Findability of data repositories, with a particular focus on supporting the institutional data repository Research Data Unipd (RDU).
Through participation in the Testing the trustworthy and FAIR-enabling repositories prototype support action, Research Data Unipd has seen a significant improvement in terms of Trustworthiness, FAIRness, and Findability, increasing its compliance with the Horizon Europe framework and Open Science requirements, particularly concerning:
- Metadata standards through the integration of DCAT and Schema.org metadata (via Signposting), enhancing semantic interoperability and alignment with Linked Data
- Transparency through a structured review of the repository documentation, aimed at strengthening the level of reliability and trust from users, while also laying the foundation for obtaining the CoreTrustSeal certification
- Adherence to both the RDA Common Descriptive Attributes of Research Data Repositories and the Transparency Guidelines developed by FAIR-IMPACT
Project duration: January 2025 - April 2025.
Find out more about FAIR-IMPACT
A FAIR-enabling citation model for Cultural Heritage Objects
The Digital Library Office of the Library System turned out to be one of the winners of the “RDA Open Call for cross-disciplinary science adoption grants”, funded by the European project EOSC Future and sponsored by the Research Data Alliance (RDA), with the project proposal entitled A FAIR-enabling citation model for Cultural Heritage Objects.
The project aims to answer guiding questions such as:
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What is a digital cultural object/Cultural Heritage Object (CHO)?
- What are the basic citation requirements that can identify the citationability of the digital representation of the cultural artefact and ensure derivation from the adopted data model to certify its trustworthiness in the terms proper to the FAIR guiding principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reusability?
Project duration: December 2022 – September 2023.
Find out more about "A FAIR-enabling citation model for Cultural Heritage Objects"
FAIRsFAIR
Starting in 2020, Phaidra has been called to participate in FAIRsFAIR, "Fostering Fair Data Practices in Europe," a Horizon 2020 project funded by the European Union that aims to provide practical solutions for using FAIR principles throughout the lifecycle of research data, promote a culture of FAIR data, and adopt good practices for achieving full trustworthiness of digital archives.
A tangible consequence of this collaboration is the increased interoperability and FAIRness of Phaidra, achieved by exposing its data in a way that machines and search engines can interpret. Specifically, on each Phaidra object landing page, the object's data are also exposed as Dublin Core qualified metadata schema elements and Typed Links encoded in HTML code. In addition, the same data are also exposed as Schema.org structured data.
COAR
Since May 2016, the Library System has been a member of COAR, the Confederation of Open Access Repositories. With members from Latin America, North America, Europe, China, and Japan, COAR supports the Open Access movement and the networking of repositories worldwide.
CLOCKSS
CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) is a nonprofit organization that ensures the long-term preservation of scholarly journals when resources are no longer available from the publisher. CLOCKSS is based on the digital preservation best practices achievable with the open-source LOCKSS technology. CLOCKSS is funded by fees from member institutions and foundations, including the University of Padua through the University Library Centre.
Linked Heritage
Linked Heritage - Coordination of Standards and Technology for the Enrichment of Europeana is a project funded by the European Union as part of its Competitiveness And Innovation Framework Programme (CIP, 2007 – 2013). The project started on the 1st of April 2011 and ended on the 30th of September 2013. It involves 38 partners from 20 countries, including EU member states, Israel and Russia. University of Padua Library system was the WP leader for the activity of dissemination and training and coordinator of the e-learning Working Group. Read more about the project.
Find out more about Linked Heritage
Phaidra
In 2010 the University of Padua Library Centre signed a 5-years agreement including acquisition, sharing and collaboration in the software development of “Phaidra” (Permanent Hosting and Archiving of Digital Assets and Resources), a Digital Asset Management System developed by the University of Vienna; Phaidra, interoperable with Europeana, is used as a long-term preservation system through the assignment of persistent identifiers (permanent links) to manage and store any kind of multimedia digital object (digital-born and analogue). Since 2015, Phaidra has also been hosting the Venice Ca' Foscari and IUAV universities' digital collections. Currently, the platform contains about 400,000 digital objects: pictures, documents, books, and educational resources.
Read the Phaidra leaflet (PDF).
Go to Phaidra
MapFly
MapFly is a WebGIS catalogue that allows searching on a geographical basis of 30,000 geothematic and historical maps preserved by the University of Padua, to retrieve the copy in the library, or to view and download the reproduction when allowed by copyright.
The project was developed in collaboration between the following structures of the University of Padua, thanks also to funding from the University's 2019 Research Intangible Infrastructures Call for Proposals: Department of Geosciences, Department of Historical, Geographical and Ancient Sciences, Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering, Department of Cultural Heritage, University Centre for Libraries.
Get more information on the MapFly project.
Go to MapFly
Laguna di Venezia Digital Library
Laguna di Venezia Digital Library is a digital thematic archive created for multidisciplinary documentation arising from scientific studies on the Venice Lagoon. LVDL stands out for the originality of its thematic content and, thanks to a threefold level of semantic descriptors (free keywords, thesaurus ASFA, LC classification), can satisfy information search and retrieval by different kinds of users, more or less specialised in biological and naturalistic topics.
Go to Laguna di Venezia Digital Library
Biblioteca Accessibile
A feasibility study, plan and implementation of a national Virtual Library for Readers with Print Disabilities aimed at the implementation of a federated search service for access to books, journals, etc. for the visually impaired and other disabilities (Agreement with the Italian Ministry of Culture MiBAC, 2007-).
Discover the publications of the University Library System in the field of Digital Library (ITA)