An Overview of Digital Libraries: Issues and Trends

2005

This paper explains what a digital library is and how it is designed to support access to digital contents and services. In a broad sense a digital library is simply an on-line system providing access to a wide variety of contents and services. Contents include virtually any kind of electronic material such as various kinds of electronic media (text, images, video, etc.), licensed databases of journals, articles and abstracts and description of physical collections. Digital Libraries offer different types of reference and referral services, ...

Journal of Information Science, 2000

Recent proliferation of research in digital libraries has given rise to a number of working digital libraries around the world. These digital libraries have been defined, designed and developed differently, and therefore the experience that one might have from one particular digital library might not be the same with other digital libraries. Current status of twenty digital libraries around the world: twelve from the US, three from the UK, two from Australia, one from New Zealand, one from Singapore, and one from Canada, has been reviewed. Various features of these selected digital libraries were collected from their home pages, journal articles and the information published on the Web. The parameters used to study the chosen digital libraries include: contents, type of library, organization, user interface, access, information retrieval, search features, output format, and links to other Internet resources. While some of the chosen digital libraries cater for specific subject or document format, others play the role of digital as well as virtual libraries giving access to the local digital collection as well as remote collections accessible through the Web. While most of these digital libraries have been developed for use in-house or by authorised users, some digital libraries are globally accessible. The chosen digital libraries differ in terms of the information search and output facilities, and very few have the facility to store search histories. Only four digital libraries have books in electronic form -National library of Canada in general area, Gutenberg in subject-specific area, and SETIS and Carnegie Mellon University in special collection area.

Rapid development of information communication technologies (ICTs) has made an environment globally to the growth of digital libraries. Digital libraries (DL) are facilitating researchers, scholars, learners, information professionals to access their information in variety of formats and learning support at their desktops without any geographical barrier. They are providing electronic based (e-based) information delivery to its users crossing the boundaries of time, space and location. DL users can be reached remotest corners of the world to fill their thrust of information. It makes a gateway to the users for retrieving and browsing of desired information from its huge resources like one stop shopping of big shopping mall. It provides extra services of 24X7 hour uninterrupted access through Internet to the users at their desktop. . It supports teaching, learning and research while reaching unreachable without walls. Greater revolution has occurred in the libraries recent past converting paper-based libraries to electronic based ones. With the emergence of WWW and availability of national and global networks, libraries have turned their attention to digital collections rather than building printed-based collection. In this way, librarian's role dramatically changed and is responsible for what digital repositories available for their users and how users can access to the available information within the physical walls of the library or elsewhere.

The concept of digital library is not a new one, although it is only recently that digital library is gaining prominence all over the world. This article provides a holistic understanding of digital libraries including its present context and future directions. Various technical issues ingrained in the concept of digital library also has been analysed in the article. Issues like interoperability, information retrieval, property and access control and usability also has been discussed in detail. Although digital library is a technical phenomenon, it has wider social and economic implications. The article casts a critical glance at these implications as well. In the end, ongoing international efforts in the arena of digital libraries also has been discussed.

Digital Libraries as systems are converging with digital libraries as institutions, particularly as we consider the service aspects. They are enabling technologies for applications such as classroom instructions, information retrieval, and electronic commerce. Because usability depends heavily upon context, research on uses and users of digital libraries needs to be conducted in a wide array of environments. Interoperability and scaling continue to be major issues, but the problems are better understood. While technical work on interoperability and scaling continues, institutional collaboration is an emerging focus. Concerns for an information infrastructure to support digital libraries is moving toward the concept of ‘Cyberinfrastructure’, now that distributed networks are widely deployed and access is becoming ubiquitous. Appropriate evaluation methods and metrics are requirements for sustainable digital libraries that have received little attention until recently.

After a decade of research and development, digital libraries are becoming operational systems and services. This paper summarizes some of the challenges required for that transition. Digital libraries as systems are converging with digital libraries as institutions, particularly as we consider the service aspects. They are enabling technologies for applications such as classroom instruction, information retrieval, and electronic commerce. Because usability depends heavily upon context, research on uses and users of digital libraries needs to be conducted in a wide array of environments. Interoperability and scaling continue to be major issues, but the problems are better understood. While technical work on interoperability and scaling continues, institutional collaboration is an emerging focus. Concerns for an information infrastructure to support digital libraries are moving toward the concept of "cyber infrastructure," now that distributed networks are widely deployed and access is becoming ubiquitous. Appropriate evaluation methods and metrics are requirements for sustainable digital libraries that have received little attention until recently. We need to know what works and in what contexts. Evaluation has many aspects and can address a variety of goals, such as usability, maintainability, interoperability, scalability, and economic viability. Lastly, two areas that have received considerable discussion elsewhere are noted -digital preservation and the role of information institutions such as libraries and archives.

2003

Abstract: This column gives an overview of current trends in digital library research under the following headings: digital library architecture, systems, tools and technologies; digital content and collections; metadata; interoperability; standards; knowledge organisation systems; users and usability; legal, organisational, economic, and social issues in digital libraries.

Exploring Digital Libraries

This chapter provides a high-level view of the key themes, current position and challenges of digital libraries and their technologies, social aspects, collections and communities. It begins by identifying the key themes of the second decade (2002-2012) of progress in the diverse, multidisciplinary, international field of digital libraries. A concept map visualizes the results of an analysis of second-decade digital library literature. The map provides new insights into this complex field by exposing thematic connections between technologies, collections, social forces and online community building. The chapter concludes with a consideration of key challenges facing digital libraries: interoperability, community engagement, intellectual property rights, and sustainability. The key themes of digital library work Existing research to identify core topics Jeffrey Pomerantz and colleagues (2006) produced a curriculum for digital library education that was aligned with the "5S framework" for digital libraries discussed in chapter 1 (see also Yang et al. 2009). They validated their selection of curriculum module topics by manually classifying papers from 1996 to 2005 from two sources: (1) 543 papers in the proceedings of two renowned digital library conferences; and (2) 502 articles published in D-Lib Magazine. Their analysis revealed concentrations from both sources in digital library services; architecture and

2004

Digital Libraries have been the subject of more than a decade of attention by researchers and developers, and yet in all this time the implementations have not matched the promises. By far the majority of systems have concentrated on content and provided limited or basic functions for users. In this article we offer a new look at what can be expected from a digital library system based on contemporary developments in Information and Communications Systems and Technology. First, we sketch out the basic functions which are provided to support finding and accessing material by a reader. Next we explain some extended functions which support the use and re-use of documents-links and annotations-and the need to support learners in addition to readers and writers. Finally, we present our visions for a modern digital library and e-Learning portal system which includes for example intelligent and conceptual search support including results visualization, white lists, and adaptive user interfaces.

Programming and Computer Software, 2002

Digital Libraries Initiative declared in the USA in the autumn of 1993 aroused interest to information systems of this class in many countries all over the world. Today, numerous research teams are involved in activities related to such systems. A significant number of digital libraries for diverse purposes are already in operation, and various research prototypes have been created. This subject has been discussed at international conferences dedicated specifically to digital libraries and conferences on fundamental directions of information system technologies, such as database technologies, Web technologies, textual search, data mining, and knowledge discovery. Programming and Computer Software already addressed the problems arising in relation to digital libraries. This issue of the journal further explores the subject.