by Stella Vourou
The first ERCIM Librarians Meeting took place in Budapest on the 6th of November 1995. During the meeting, librarians from CCLRC, CNR, CWI, FORTH, INRIA, SICS, SZTAKI and VTT presented the status and activities of their libraries, while they had the opportunity to be informed of the ERCIM Digital Library Initiative (SAMOS I).
In particular, Christos Nikolau (FORTH) gave an overview of SAMOS I, Tom Baker (GMD) presented the Networked Computer Science Technical Reports Library (NCSTRL) in the context of the US digital library research initiative, Jacques Ducloy (INRIA) presented the DIENST protocol and the main results of the first experimentation in the framework of SAMOS I, Katherine Willis from University of Michigan gave a presentation on the changing roles of scientists and librarians and the opportunities for new information services as a result of digital technologies. A DIENST demo was also presented.
The most important outcome of this meeting was the agreement for a close cooperation between the ERCIM libraries. Such a cooperation would lead to the integration of the ERCIM libraries catalogues and the mutual exchange of material (interlibrary loan) but also to the creation of a group of librarians which would contribute to the development of SAMOS I.
As a first step towards integration, the participant ERCIM librarians agreed on the development of an ERCIM Libraries WWW home page under the main ERCIM web page, which would contain information on the activities of the libraries and direct links to their online catalogues as well.