D igital L ibraries Digital Dreams, or Digital Realities?

On Digital Libraries Outline of Presentation of Notes:  Historical Perspectives  What is a “Digital Library”?  Philosophical foundations  Functional foundations  Categories of DL Developments  Overview of current research  Sources of Funding for DLs  Opportunities for professional involvement  Challenges and opportunities  Problems with DLs

Historical Perspectives: Libraries as private collectionsLibraries as private collections Libraries as Public InstitutionsLibraries as Public Institutions Libraries as “place”Libraries as “place”

“Libraries as place have grown to be increasingly expensive, more costly than even government can afford to maintain” Paul Evan Peters in a speech to MU-ITG

On the Origins of the Terms Digital Library Why take the time and trouble to define things? Digital Libraries: What’s in a Name?

Leading up to things digital  H.G. Wells  Vannevar Bush  JCR Licklider  Douglas Engelbart  Theodore Nelson

Some Efforts Leading to DLs  Project INTREX; CWRU Documents Center  OBAR at Mead Data  Project Gutenburg  LC’s Optical Disk Pilot Project  LC’s National Digital Library Program (1994)  NSF, NASA, ARPA Digital Library Initiative I (1994)  DLI round II (1999)

What is a “Digital Library”? A broad pair of terms open to wide interpretation depending on motives and perspective. Here are some expert opinions from the research oriented perspective:

Dr. Edward A. Fox Department of Computer Science and Director, Project Envision Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University “An assemblage of digital computers, storage, and communications machinery together with the content and software needed to produce, emulate, and extend those services provided by conventional libraries based on paper and other material means of collecting, cataloging, finding and disseminating information.”

From William Arms Digital Libraries (2000, p.2) "An informal definition of a digital library is a managed collection of information, with associated services, where the information is stored in digital formats and accessible over a network. A crucial part of this definition is that the information is managed... Digital libraries contain diverse collections of information for use by many different users. Digital libraries range in size from tiny to huge. They can use any type of computing equipment and any suitable software. The unifying theme is that information is organized on computers and available over a network, with procedures to select the materials in the collections, to organize it, to make it available to users, and to archive it."

Henry M Gladney, etal Digital Library: Gross Structure and Requirements (report from a workshop) “Notwithstanding our enthusiasm for what digital library services promise, we feel that the glib calls to replace conventional publication entirely must be regarded skeptically. Preserving the cultural heritage … has been better served by paper than digital means currently promise, and there is little funded work towards remedying this.” Preserving the cultural heritage … has been better served by paper than digital means currently promise, and there is little funded work towards remedying this.”

Dr. Colin McCarthy of LSU from The Internet Encyclopedia: A DL is “a system which permits, via Internet and the World Wide Web, easy access to a collection of high-value, quality digital content, which has been selected and organized to facilitate use. The digital content may reflect the traditional textual orientation of many libraries or take advantage of WWW's facility to deliver graphics and multimedia. The term digital library is also used to refer to quality information and referral services whose organization reflects the traditional structure of library services. “

Philosophical foundations Philosophical foundations Two basic assumptions: 1. Knowledge is power 2. Access to recorded knowledge has always been the key to the advancement of society (V. Bush; JCR Licklider, T. Nelson)

In addition: Information today is often simultaneously everywhere and No place in particular... This differs from the notion of “library as place”

Functional Foundations of the Digital Library Functional Foundations of the Digital Library Create and capture Storage and management Search and access Distribution Rights management

Categories of DL Developments Multiformat DLs (American Memory; Berkeley DL) Book oriented DLs (Project Gutenberg; Making of America ( Image oriented DLs (Farm Security Administration photographs ( Manuscripts (60,000 George Washington papers at the Library of Congress ( Audio and motion picture files (History and Politics Out Loud ( E-journals (Elsevier, which maintains Science Direct ( Pointer or Sign Post sites (Internet Public Library; Project i-DLR) Commercially oriented DLs (NetLibrary (

Overview of current research in DL:  NSF/ARPA/NASA Digital Library Initiatives (1994 and 1998)  The National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress (The “American Memory” project)  IBM/CWRU Collaborative Project  Development of Intranets – controllable corporate network structures

Sources of Funding for DLs The digital library field is often financed by special government grants. Major U.S. programs include the National Science Foundation's Digital Libraries Initiative. Phase one projects, , are at phase two projects at An important current source of finance in the U.S. is the Institute of Museum and Library Services - IMLS ( For examples of IMLS support for digitization projects, see

Opportunities for professional involvement:  Collection development  Organizing principles  Universal points of access  Research in retrieval  User studies  End user training  Standards participation  Cost recovery

Challenges and opportunities: How to deal with the enormous archive of previously published works now in print  Continued deployment of a global information technology infrastructure  Development of tools in support of networked information retrieval  Dealing with copyright issues  Adherence to (and development of) standards for interoperability  Inclusion of user-centered design principles  Administrative commitment  Continued sources of funds for research, development, implementation, and testing of digital library prototypes or projects

Problems with DLs:  Content is distributed  Content is often unregulated (quality control)  Digital content is highly variable (dynamic)  Digital content is often difficult to track in terms of location  Content lacking context has less meaning/value  Notion of “collection” is absent  Ownership/copyright considerations  Archival role – who is responsible?  Lack of preceding economic models

Personal Digital Libraries The way things are moving?

The Progression of End User Needs Just in case Just in time Just for me.