Network of Digital Libraries in Poland as a Model for National and International Cooperation

The Development of digital libraries in Poland started around 10 years ago. The first Polish digital librarywasthe Digital Library of Wielkopolska made available publicly in October 2002. It is now the largest Polish digital library,givingaccess to over 130,000 digital objects. One of the keys to the success of this initiative was its organizational model based on regional cooperation. Since 2005 this model has beenwidely adopted in other regions of Poland,whichresulted in a cooperating network of digital libraries. In this paper we provide a brief overview of the development of digital libraries in Poland, followed by a more detailed description of the current state of the digital libraries infrastructure, including the Digital Libraries Federation portal. It is presented with a focus on the cooperation on many levels, the automation of metadata aggregation and processing,and the wide promotion of resources from Polish digital libraries. The paper ends with an outline of future directions of development and possible synergies with the SYNAT national strategic research project.