European Libraries and Electronic Resources
in Mathematical Sciences

Project Description

Exploitation or
Technology Implementation Plans

Exploitation or Technology Implementation Plans

Exploitation of project results will be one of the most important tasks of EULER. The services which are established in during the validation and demonstration phase of EULER are planned to continue as production services when EULER comes to an end. WP-4 will measure the cost effectiveness of EULER services. The whole WP-5 is devoted to exploitation issues and dissemination of results.

The partners Technische Universität Berlin, Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe and the European Mathematical Society can secure close contact to the needs and interests of all European mathematicians, and organise exploitation and cooperation. Contracts within the EULER consortium (and beyond) will ensure the continuation of the new services.

The main strengths of EULER are: integration of heterogeneous and decentralised information resources and the high quality of the system. The service will be developed for the mathematical community. The EULER methodology, to develop a broad, integrated, quality controlled Digital Library of Mathematics can serve as a model for other scientific disciplines. So, EULER results will be usable for horizontal exploitation. The market and necessity for integrated services will grow in the future. Since libraries play an important role in the EULER concept, their role in the area of electronic information supply will be strengthened.

Effective integration of heterogeneous information resources (also for-pay and not-for-pay services) is just at its beginning. EULER can provide a first large scale prototype. Results will be reusable, scaleable, and provide a basis for further development. New library partners and commercial information providers can be integrated. A task force will be formed during the project for the further development of integrated services. The main task of this group will be to develop models for financing of the new service. One idea would be to integrate information from commercial publishers into the EULER framework for a fee paid by the publishers.

The task force will also consider intellectual property rights. EULER services (user interface and search engine) will be freely available, but costs are associated to the use of single services (e.g. MATH Database). EULER's integration approach will be accepted by the user as an added value to the single services, with the consequence that the use and frequency of access of single services will grow.