Spr\u00e5kbanken – a language technology resource collection for Norwegian<\/p>\n\n
Spr\u00e5kbanken<\/i> offers digital language resources for use in research and in the development of language technology. The resources can be downloaded from Spr\u00e5kbanken\u2019s<\/i> website free of charge. The collection is expanding continuously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spr\u00e5kbanken is a service to that part of the ICT-industry which works with the development of language-based ICT-solutions, to researchers within language technology and linguistics, and to public enterprises which develop electronic solutions for public services. Among other things, Spr\u00e5kbanken contains corpora of written and spoken language, i.e. large collections of text and speech in machine-readable format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spr\u00e5kbanken is a national infra-structure initiative designed to ensure that language technology solutions based on the Norwegian language will be developed, and thereby prevent domain loss of Norwegian in technology-dependent areas (see the white paper M\u00e5l og meining<\/i> \u2013 \u00abLanguage and Meaning\u00bb).<\/p>\n\n\n\nCLARINO<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\nThe National Library of Norway participates in the Norwegian research infrastructure project CLARINO. CLARINO, a consortium of Norwegian universities and research institutions, is funded by the Research Council of Norway.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The goal of CLARINO is to realise the Norwegian part of the European CLARIN project. The ultimate goal is to make existing and future language resources readily accessible to researchers and to bring e-science to the humanities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Examples of such resources are text corpora (large collections of digital text), collections of collected speech, digital dictionaries and databases of various types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CLARIN is all about conservation, reuse, disclosure and sharing of research data within the humanities. The idea is that researchers at European research institutions simple possible will gain access to research resources in their own and other European countries via a joint search system; the institutions in the CLARIN network will set up services for searching their own resources, and based on the restrictions imposed on the individual resource (copyright, privacy etc.), the individual researcher will be given access to the resource by authenticating themselves via their home institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The primary task of The National Library in CLARINO is to act as the national coordinator for the harvesting and exchange of metadata between the Norwegian CLARINO institutions and to make these available to the total of institutions in the CLARIN network. The National Library also functions as a content provider of language resources, to the CLARIN network and others.<\/p>\n\n\n
In M\u00e5l og meining \u2013 ein heilskapleg norsk spr\u00e5kpolitikk* (White paper No. 35, 2007-2008), the Government signalled that Spr\u00e5kbanken be established<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On assignment from the Ministry of Culture, a working group appointed by the Language Council of Norway prepared a plan for the establishment of Spr\u00e5kbanken in 2008. In 2009, questions of organisation and affiliation were more closely examined, and the National Library was commissioned to realise Spr\u00e5kbanken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the abovementioned white paper, the overarching goals of Spr\u00e5kbanken are expressed. Spr\u00e5kbanken shall build up and secure the quality of digital language resources for Norwegian and ensure that these resources are easily accessible for the language technology industry, linguistic research and education, and for public administration. This way, the establishment of Spr\u00e5kbanken is a major language policy measure to ensure the development of language technology solutions based on the Norwegian language. Spr\u00e5kbanken is a high priority action to strengthen the use of Norwegian in an area that is typically dominated by the major world languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The need for establishing a publically available language resource collection was pointed out already in the 1990s. Preparatory reports have been presented earlier. One document available in English is the following report from 2002:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consolidating and increasing the availability of Norwegian human language technology resources (pdf) \u2013 The Language Council of Norway<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The white paper is available (in Norwegian only) at the Government\u2019s website:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To ensure that Spr\u00e5kbanken maintains a continuous contact and dialogue with stakeholders in the market and the research communities, the National Library has appointed an advisory council of professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Council is an areana which attends to the exchange of information between relevant institutions and stakeholders in the language technology market. The council will thus contribute to identifying user needs, help Spr\u00e5kbanken to prioritise between these needs, and it has a strategic and professional guiding function in the question of further development and expansion of Spr\u00e5kbanken. The Council shall also ensure that Spr\u00e5kbanken is developed in line with prevailing language policy guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The council consists of representatives from the Universities of Bergen, Oslo and Troms\u00f8, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim), the Research Council of Norway, The Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), Telenor, IBM Norway, Companybook, the Language Council of Norway and a representative from the National Library. As of August 2012, its members are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Council meets at least once a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n