Library%20Collaboration%20and%20Digital%20Exploration

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Library Collaboration and Digital Exploration
JUCC 35th Anniversary IT Conference on Campus
Informatization Challenges and
Opportunities November 16-18, 2005, Hong Kong

• Presented by
• Ki Tat LAM, Head of Library Systems
• and
• Edward Spodick, IT Manager
• The Hong Kong University of Science and
  Technology Library
• lblkt,lbspodic_at_ust.hk

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Table of Contents

• Introduction
• HKUST Librarys IT Background
• Digital Libraries
• Library Collaboration
• Digital Libraries Explorations at HKUST
• Examples of Library Collaboration
• HKIUG Unicode Initiatives
• Resource Pool Web Site Towards JULAC Software
  Sharing
• Future Ideas

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About HKUST Library

• HKUST is a young institution having its first
  student intake in 1991

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About HKUST Library

• HKUST Library Mission
• To support the University's teaching and research
  programs
• To provide for and to promote the general
  education of HKUST Students
• To contribute to Hong Kong and its regional
  development in information sharing and exchange

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IT at HKUST Library

• The Library has been embracing new technologies
  since its founding
• 1991 rolled out a fully Chinese-capable
  multilingual integrated library system
• 1991 set up a large-scale campus-wide CD-ROM
  network
• 1992 mounted a large-scale networked full text
  image jukebox system
• 1993 helped design and implement a Course
  Reserve Image System

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IT at HKUST Library 2

• 1995 established the Library Web Server
• 1997 managed a regional mirror site for the
  Ovid database system
• 1997 participated in a consultancy service for
  the Open University of Hong Kongs Electronic
  Library Project
• 1998 began digital library projects and
  developed the following database systems Digital
  University Archives, HKUST Electronic Theses and
  HKUST News Clippings

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IT at HKUST Library 3

• 2000 conducted Wade-Giles to Pinyin Conversion
• 2001 implemented XML-based information
  infrastructure for future digital library
  projects
• 2002 developed an XML Name Access Control
  Repository System as a global prototype
• 2003 collaborated with HKIUG libraries to
  improve the Unicode support in the library
  catalog

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IT at HKUST Library 4

• 2003 implemented DSpace for Institutional
  Repository
• 2004 implemented DSpace for Digital University
  Archives
• 2005 developed the open source JURO Journal
  Usage Report Online software
• 2005 created a resource pool web site to host
  software developed by HKUST Library for open
  downloading

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Digital Libraries

• Drastic IT advancement in the past few decades
• Increasing availability of technology for
  information processing
• Cheaper and faster hardware
• More capable software
• Readily accessible network
• Allowing smaller and less well funded libraries
  to participate in digital exploration

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Digital Libraries 2

• Similar terms digital, electronic, virtual
  libraries

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Digital Libraries 3

• Three meanings of digital libraries
• 1. Libraries providing
• Access to digital information using a variety of
  networks, including the Internet and
• Services in an automated environment
• 2. The result of projects to digitize library
  materials for network access
• 3. A discipline which refers to research on the
  theories and technologies for the building of
  digital libraries
• extracted from the authors ICADL 2005
  presentation

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Digital Libraries 4

• Digital Library reflects a fundamental shift in
  how libraries do what they do, rather than in
  what they do
• Basic mission of a library to support its user
  community through enhanced access and services
  remains the same
• Improvements in IT allow greater flexibility in
  all stages of these processes

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Library Collaboration

• With the increase in digital capabilities, more
  projects which previously relied on large
  regional or global entities can now be
  accomplished through local collaboration
• Through the adoption of open-source software,
  libraries have become empowered with the tools
  needed to build the infrastructure for these
  collaborations

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Library Collaboration 2

• Why collaboration?
• Progressive budget cuts reduce the ability of a
  library to efficiently respond to new IT
  developments
• Reductions in salary and positions make a library
  less competitive with the private sector for
  skilled staff
• Growing need for resource-intensive activities in
  contrast to a librarys stagnant ability to
  perform them

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Library Collaboration 3

• Librarians have a strong tradition of resource
  sharing
• JULAC Libraries Collaboration
• JULAC White Paper on collaboration to HUCOM early
  this year
• HKALL System for joint universities book
  borrowing
• Activities from various JULAC committees and task
  forces CDC (Collaborative Development Committee)
  being the most active one.

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Digital Library Exploration

• 1994 - potential capability for the Web to become
  primary gateway to information
• Once the web infrastructure and technology were
  in place, a progression of digital library
  projects began to take place
• The HKUST Library was suddenly able to provide
  much more accessible information about its
  collections, programs and services for our users.

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Digital Library Development

• Web technologies
• Web-enabled content and services
• Mark-up options
• Searching and harvesting
• XML and its related technologies

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Digital Library Development 2
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Content Digitization

• In 1998, after more than four years of experience
  digitizing materials using the TIFF format for
  access from dedicated PCs, it was decided to base
  newer digitization projects on Adobes PDF
  document format with a Web interface.
• HKUST Theses
• Digital University Archives
• HKUST-related News Clippings

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Content Digitization 2

• PDF was more portable created smaller files than
  TIFF, and a freely available multi-platform
  viewer could be used as a Web browser plug-in.
• Documents were digitized and hyperlinked to the
  bibliographic metadata.
• Text was extracted from the PDF documents using
  Acrobat Capture and some Chinese OCR software.

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XML Metadata

• The Library Catalog contains bibliographic
  metadata for all print, multimedia and electronic
  resources
• Metadata is exported from the Catalog to the
  database for indexing and display
• The HTML format is limited by its lack of
  metadata options
• eXtensible Markup Language (XML)

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XML Metadata 2

• 2001 - An Electronic Journals database system was
  developed, using XML technologies to automate the
  process of metadata extraction from the Catalog
• Real-time XML extraction was later available
  using a special vendor-provided URL
• XSL style sheets were developed to transform the
  metadata into a format suitable for the Librarys
  applications

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XML

• Partially fulfills the old promise of having
  computers doing more of the work, through the
  development of more compatible database
  connectivity, SOAP-based and other Web Services
  and native XML database systems
• A current example is RSS, used by libraries for
  everything from announcing current service hours
  to distributing podcasts

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XML 2

• 2003 - HKUST Librarys first RSS feeds for new
  book and media acquisitions
• A set of standards which greatly simplified
  collaboration efforts

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Name Access Control

• In cataloging, the use of names is governed by
  Authority Control, which authorizes one form of
  a name as an access point
• Access Control provides a central place for
  looking up various forms of a name, allowing the
  linking of variant forms without declaring any of
  them to be the authorized form

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Name Access Control 2

• 2002 - An XML Name Access Control Repository was
  developed to address the problems identifying
  personal authors whose names are in non-Latin
  scripts
• http//library.ust.hk/info/nac/
• Global prototype
• Great collaborative potential, but only if the
  concept is widely adopted and becomes an actual
  or defacto standard

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Journal Usage Report Online

• Software to acquire electronic resource usage
  statistics from vendors, and allow online
  querying and generation of usage reports
• Using COUNTER-compliant vendor usage data
• Consolidates multiple partially duplicative
  efforts by different Library units

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Journal Usage Report Online 2

• Meets a clearly defined need not yet being met by
  available software
• Permits much more accurate analysis for
  Collection Development and Acquisitions efforts
• Semi-integrated with the Library Catalog
• http//library.ust.hk/cgi/db/juro.pl

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Journal Usage Report Online 3

• Enhancements
• Local usage statistics for products from vendors
  who do not provide usage data
• Periodic surveys of manually compiled print
  journal usage data

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives

• HKIUG Hong Kong Innovative Users Group
• Originally founded in 1996 by JULAC as a users
  group to facilitate communication among local
  libraries in using the INNOPAC library system,
  which is developed by Innovative Interface Inc.
• Became an independent body in 2001, with
  membership expanded to include all INNOPAC
  libraries in Hong Kong and Macau

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 2

• HKIUG Unicode Initiatives - one of the many
  successful library collaboration projects in
  which HKUST Library participated
• Results
• Improved Unicode support in members library
  catalog
• Vendor gaining better understanding of issues in
  Chinese information processing

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 3

• INNOPAC CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
  background in 2003
• Local libraries were heavily using the BIG5
  legacy Chinese character encoding system
• INNOPAC adopted EACC (East Asian Character Code)
  for storing and indexing CJK data and used an
  unreliable mapping table to display and search
  Chinese characters in BIG5

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 4

• INNOPAC was in the transition towards Unicode
  support, with the development of the Millennium
  software
• CJK support in the Millennium software was
  immature and buggy
• Vendor did not understand the actual CJK needs
  and requirements
• The EACC to Unicode mapping table was inaccurate
  and failed to handle multi-mappings, resulting in
  incorrect display, retrieval and storage of CJK
  data.

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 5

• An example of multi-mappings

EACC Unicode
27462A ? (Simplified form of ?) U5386 ?
274349 ? (Simplified form of ?) U5386 ?
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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 6

• Multi-mapping causing failure of round-trip
  cross-walk

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 7

• TSVCC Linking Problem
• Linking Traditional, Simplified and Variant
  Chinese Characters
• For example, when searching ? as the simplified
  form of ? , it is desirable to retrieve both, but
  not ?.

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 8

• Individual efforts to resolve these problems
  not working
• Individual libraries communicated with the vendor
  fixes were in piece-meal fashion
• Some libraries conducted their own CJK/Unicode
  study with attempts to propose to the vendor how
  to tackle these problems again without much
  progress
• HKUST (April 2003)
• City University of Hong Kong (July 2003)

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 9

• Collaborative effort at HKIUG followed
• 20 June 2003 HKIUG Standing Committee met and
  agreed that a joint proposal was essential for
  gaining acceptance from the vendor
• 11 July 2003 A seminar was organized by CUHK to
  solicit ideas and comments from HKIUG colleagues

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 10

• June-September 2003 established a working group
  to study and develop a joint proposal to the
  vendor. Members consisted of catalogers and
  systems librarians from CITYU, CUHK, HKUST and
  HKU.
• 16 September 2003 working group completed the
  study and submitted the proposal to the vendor
  together with a HKIUG version of the EACC/Unicode
  Mapping Table
• October 2003 vendor accepted the proposal

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 11

• November 2003 the HKIUG code table was first
  implemented at HKUST as a pilot test and
  subsequently at other HKIUG libraries
• 27-28 January 2004 K.T. Lam of HKUST was
  invited to the vendors Headquarters to work with
  its staff on resolving outstanding CJK issues a
  face-to-face opportunity to express HKIUG
  libraries concerns and to make them
  understanding the issues. Results
• Multi-mapping problem in Editor fixed
• TSVCC Linking began development

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 12

• 23 October 2004 HKUST created the TSVCC linking
  tables and submitted to the vendor for testing
• 30 November 2004 - the TSVCC tables were endorsed
  by HKIUG with more enhancements
• 25 February 2005 established HKIUG Unicode Task
  Force to maintain the Unicode and TSVCC code
  tables and to assist the vendor on Unicode
  migration members from CUHK, CITYU, HKUST and
  HKU.

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HKIUG Unicode Initiatives 13

• Lessons learnt
• Vendors are more comfortable and responsive to
  work with collaborative groups than individuals
• Joint effort increases productivity and reduces
  redundancy
• Deliverables produced in collaborative effort are
  more authoritative and attractive for adoption by
  others

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Shared Resource Pool

• HKUST Library is organizing a Website to host
  software packages developed and/or modified by
  the Library
• http//library.ust.hk/software/
• They are freely available for downloading by any
  interested parties
• Open source codes are provided wherever possible

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Shared Resource Pool 2

• We believe that it is highly beneficial that
  libraries which develop non-commercial software
  tools which might prove useful to other
  institutions make their efforts available to the
  larger Community of Libraries.

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Shared Resource Pool 3

• The Open Source Software Movement
• What is open source software?
• The basic idea behind open source is very
  simple When programmers can read, redistribute,
  and modify the source code for a piece of
  software, the software evolves. People improve
  it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this
  can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the
  slow pace of conventional software development,
  seems astonishing.
• http//www.opensource.org/
• Free Redistribution
• Source Code
• Derived Works

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Shared Resource Pool 4

• The Open Source Software Movement
• Customize, inspect, secure, repurpose, etc.
• Required customization would not have been
  possible with closed-source software
• Example adding the ability to search and display
  only authorized documents in the Digital
  University Archives based on each individual
  users identity

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Shared Resource Pool 5

• The Open Source Software Movement
• We use open source software extensively, such as
• LAMP GNU/Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP
• Two of our digital library projects use DSpace
• Meeting Room Booking System (MRBS)
• Statistics programs (Analog, AWstats, etc.)
• Sleepycat Berkeley DB XML
• we could keep going for several screens ?

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Shared Resource Pool 6

• Available packages on the Resource Pool website
• Pinyin Conversion Project
• University Archives EAD XSLT
• Room Booking System
• Library Catalog Print2Mail Project
• JURO Journal Usage Report Online

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Shared Resource Pool 7

• Wade-Giles -gt Pinyin Conversion Project
• Example of indirect collaboration
• Feedback
• When using the Text2Marc programme to turn
  the reviewed files back to MARC format, we found
  that if the 008 tag ended in a blank, it was
  truncated to the last non-blank character. This
  would generally be the end of the language code
  in 008/35-37, resulting in some 008 tags that
  were 2 bytes too short
• McGill University

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Future Ideas

• Expanding the Shared Resource Pool to host JULAC
  downloadable software
• Site-specific customization
• Reducing redundant efforts
• Distributed input yields improved software
  quality
• A good project for JULAC Libraries Collaboration

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Future Ideas 2

• Joint LDAP attribute definitions for
  cross-institutional authorization tokens
• Example cross-institutional students needing
  access to resources assigned by their Professor -
  so authorizations are needed for required
  resources from both institutions
• Possibly in collaboration with JUCC via the
  Internet2 Project

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Conclusion

• Expansions in information technology have opened
  up many new vistas of information and service
  provision.
• Possibilities continue to be enormous, limited
  more by the inability to find time to explore
  them than by fiscal constraints.
• These are exciting times to be a Librarian!

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Closing Thoughts

• Set aside some time to simply think about new
  options and technologies, and ponder how to
  relate them to solving identified local needs
• Collaborate for the traditional library roles
• providing access to needed information
• providing services to support that access
• improving users ability to utilize the
  information obtained

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Questions Answers