Making publications available in digital formats. A new grant for National Library of Poland
In early September this year, the National Library took over operational management of Priority 4 – Making publications available in digital formats, part of the government's National Programme for the Development of Reading in Poland.
The aim of the programme is to provide the widest possible access to library collections via the Internet during the COVID-19 epidemic. Priority 4, which is new, seeks to ensure that schoolchildren, students, teachers, lecturers and academics have online access to the publications they need for learning, teaching and carrying out their research.
This includes: creating audio books for online access; digitising collections of subject-based supporting materials for schools and making them available via the POLONA digital library so that classes can be conducted online; digitising recent academic publications and making them available via the Academica digital interlibrary loan system; buying licences for copyright publications, digitising said publications and making them available in appropriate formats for online use; maintaining and further developing POLONA so that it can distribute electronic publications in various formats. Materials digitised as part of these efforts will be available free of charge via POLONA and Academica.