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The indexing language of librarians is - compared to natural language communication - extraordinarily reduced. Because of this reduction the dialog between authors who have already published their documents and the library users, quite often other authors working on their publication, is critical. In the last 10 years libraries in the German and American speaking area therefore have extended the terminological space by major words extracted from publications. In this way semantically related terminology networks can dock at these words. They extend the query and can increase the recall in the retrieval process. With additional faceting technology human indexing terms can be used for reducing the retrieved collection. In this way “old” terminology of librarians is reused without the additional need for end user training.

In recent years services for digital information and e-publishing have become an elementary part in the provision of academic literature within the international library environment. Through technological change and the resulting user requirements it is to an increasing extent that archives and museums also claim to follow the principles of Open Access in publishing their unique collections and literature for research in digital formats - for online access independent of time and place. Key role players in this context are user focus, functionality and the efficiency of digitisation and indexing procedures, just as much as conservational considerations on the security and long-term preservation of cultural heritage. The Vienna City Library organised a conference on digitisation where this range of topics gave the platform for multi-faceted presentations and project reports from the user perspective of different information facilities in Austria, Switzerland and Germany.