IRCDL 2009

Post-proceedings of the 5th Italian Research Conference on Digital Libraries - IRCDL 2009 : A Conference of the DELOS Association and the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova. Padova, Italy, 29-30 January 2009. Revised Selected Papers / Maristella Agosti, Floriana Esposito, Costantino Thanos (Editors).

Sito Web :  http://ircdl.cab.unipd.it/conference/ircdl-2009/ircdl-2009

Anno di edizione: 2009  ISBN 978-88-903541-7-5

   Preface

This volume contains the revised accepted papers presented at the 5th Italian Research Conference on Digital Libraries (IRCDL 2009), which was held in the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova, Italy, from the 29th to the 30th January 2009.
The well-established aim of IRCDL is to bring together the Italian researchers interested in the different methods and techniques that allow to build and operate Digital Libraries and to present ongoing research projects.  A national ProgrammeCommittee was set up composed of 12 members, with representatives of  the most active Italian research groups on digital libraries.  Among the papers presented at the conference, 12 were accepted for inclusion in these proceedings together with 9 project presentations.
The IRCDL series of national conferences was originally conceived and organized in the context of the activities of DELOS, the Network of Excellence on Digital Libraries (http://www.delos.info/), partially funded by the European Union under the Sixth Framework Program from 2004 to 2007. The first IRCDL conference took place in 2005, as an opportunity for the Italian researchers to present recent results on their research activities related to the wide world of Digital Libraries. In particular, young researcherswere (and still are) invited to submit the results of their on going research, to be presented in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere, to facilitate constructive discussions and exchange of opinions.
Thanks to the initial support of DELOS, and later on thanks to the support of both the DELOS Association and the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padua, IRCDL has continued in the subsequent years and is confirming itself as a yearly meeting point for the Italian researchers on digital libraries and related topics. Detailed information about IRCDL can be found at the conference home page (http://ims.dei.unipd.it/ircdl/home.html), which contains links to the past editions, and also at the DBLP web site, which contains information on proceedings and presented papers(http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/ircdl/).
We should like here to thank those institutions and individuals who have made this conference possible: the Programme Committee members, the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova, the members of the same department who have contributed to  the organization of the event,namely Maria Bernini, Emanuele Di Buccio, Marco Dussin, Riccardo Miotto, and Gianmaria Silvello, and the members of the University of Padova Library Centre who have contributed to the organization of the registration and management of the on-line presentations and publications, namely Yuri Carrer, and Ornella Volpato. Finally, we take this opportunity to thank also the additional reviewers who have helped in the revision of the final papers, and who have contributed to the improvement of the papers presented in this volume.
To conclude, we would like to point out that, in addition to the enthusiastic participation of the young researchers and the good will of the members of the various committees, much of the credit for having today the IRCDL series of conferences goes to DELOS. As a matter of fact, DELOS started its activities more than ten years ago as a working group under the ESPRIT Program, then continued as a Thematic Network under the 5th Framework Program and after that went on as a Network of Excellence under the 6th Framework Program. It is generally recognized that during these years DELOS has given a substantial contribution to the establishment in Europe of a research community on Digital Libraries. At the end of 2007 the funding of the DELOS Network of Excellence has come to an end. In order to keep the "DELOS spirit" alive, a DELOS Association has been established as a not-for-profit organization, with the main aim of continuing as much as possible the DELOS activities by promoting research activities in the field of digital libraries. In this vein, there is also the commitment of supporting the new edition of IRCDL, which, as customary, will be held in Padova in January 2010. A Call for Participation will be circulated, but meanwhile we invite all researchers (Italian or non Italian, young or not so young), having research interests in Digital Libraries, to start thinking about possible contributions to the next year conference.


Maristella Agosti, Floriana Esposito and Costantino Thanos Editors of the Proceedings of the 5th IRCDL July 2009