LIS 506 Information Technology

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LIS 506 Information Technology

• Week 11 Digital Libraries
• Institutional Repositories

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Overview

• Digital libraries what is what is not a
  Digital Library?
• Digital Objects and Repositories
• Logical Layers of Digital Libraries

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What Is a Library?

• A building or suite of rooms
• A collection of books or materials
• An institution
• An information system

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Purposes, Functions, and Goals of Libraries

• collection development and management
• subject analysis
• index creation
• provision of access
• reference work
• preservation

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Digital Libraries

• Mean different things to different people.
• Computer scientists
• Library professionals
• Scholars
• General users

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Definition 1

• A Digital Library is
• A service
• An architecture
• A set of information resources
• A set of tools and capabilities to locate,
  retrieve, and utilize the information resources
  available.
• (Fox, 1993).

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Definition 2

• A digital library is a collection of information
  which is both digitized and organized.
• Practical Digital Libraries Lesk (1997).

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Definition 3

• Digital Libraries are extension and enhancement
  of information storage and retrieval systems that
  manipulate digital data in any medium and exist
  in distributed networks.
• Digital libraries are a set of electronic
  resources and associated technical capabilities
  for creating, searching and using information.
  (Borgman, 1996).

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Definition 3

• Digital Libraries are an extension, enhancement
  and integration of a variety of institutions such
  as libraries, museums, schools, etc.
• Digital Libraries are constructed, collected and
  organized by (and for) a community of users, and
  their functional capabilities support the
  information needs and uses of that community.

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Definition 4

• Digital libraries are organizations that provide
  the resources, including the specialized staff,
  to select, structure, offer intellectual access
  to, interpret, distribute, preserve the integrity
  of, and ensure the persistence over time of
  collections of digital works so that they are
  readily and economically available for use by a
  defined community or set of communities".
• Digital Library Federation. (1999).

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Characteristics of DLs

• Full-text digital content
• Revised and enhanced library processes and
  services
• collection development and management
• subject analysis
• index creation
• provision of access
• reference work
• preservation
• Often beyond a single traditional library

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Are these Digital Libraries?

• DIALOG
• Web
• Amazon.com

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A single, completely world-wide digital system?

• One thing digital libraries will not be is a
  single, completely digital system that provides
  instant access to all information, for all
  sectors of society, from anywhere in the world.
  This is simply unrealistic.
• Cleveland, Gary. (1998)
• Emergence of a worldwide digital library in the
  form of a loosely coupled federation of DLs?

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DL-Related Issues

• Will the building disappear?
• Will the book go digital?
• Will the book still be the building block?
• How should information be organized in DLs?
• Who are DL professionals?
• What skills are needed for running a digital
  library?
• Will librarians, publishers, and computer
  centers go the way of switch board operators and
  chauffeurs?

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Logical Layers of DL

• Digital objects
• Digital repositories
• Collections
• Digital libraries
• Information space

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Digital Objects

• A fundamental unit of digital libraries
• Must be digital or digital representation
• Includes metadata
• A collection of packages consisting of a group of
  elements
• Definable
• Describable

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Digital Objects

• A document is a digital object.
• Is a figure in a document a digital object?
• If yes, does it need a separate metadata?
• If not, how do you search for the figure?
• In database design, we differentiate entities and
  weak entities.
• Should we call the figure weak object?

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Digital Repositories

• A repository must have its own collection of
  digital objects.
• Provide the mechanisms for the deposit, storage
  and access to digital objects
• Is a collection of links a repository?
• When can a repository claim having a collection?

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Digital Collections

• A collection is logically defined as a set of
  criteria for selecting resources from the broader
  information space.
• A collection must
• be accessible through its various indexing
  services
• have tools for indexing, management, and resource
  discovery.

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Digital Libraries

• Three levels of services
• Digital Libraries
• Digital Collections
• Digital Repositories
• How do we differentiate them?

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• Repositories
• Provide the mechanisms for the deposit, storage
  and access to digital objects
• Collections
• Provide the mechanisms for the aggregation of
  access
• Include various indexing services
• Digital Libraries
• Include user interface and user services

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Search Features of DL

• Basic features
• Boolean logic
• Full text searching
• Phrase searching
• Proximity searching
• Field searching
• Query refinement
• Relevance ranking
• Browse of indexes
• Controlled vocabulary
• Related items

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Browsing features of DL

• Browsing primary sources
• Following reference links
• Browsing nearby items?
• Browsing conceptual space
• Thesaurus
• Classification
• Visual concept space

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Institutional Repository

• What did Lynch say and what do you think about
• What it is
• Functions
• Information included
• Why important
• How to succeed
• Factors
• How to go about these aspects
• How is it related to DLs?