“Old Style” Libraries, Digital Libraries: Convergences, Divergences, And the Troubles in Between

Physical Libraries : Bound to the medium of the book Embodiment of the “sedimented” values & practices of print culture, including –Fixity of the print artifact / manufactured object –Finite set of well-known paths to items –Built-in structures of legitimation & authority –Importance of local repositories

“Library Function” Identify, acquire, organize, support, and preserve cultural and intellectual expression in its recorded forms Core values: –Unfettered availability of all materials to meet educational, cultural, intellectual, civic, and personal needs –Commitment to standard methods & practices in service of resource sharing & open access –Preserve the collection, i.e. keep it permanently accessible

“Library Function,” cont’d Libraries as cultural heritage institutions Libraries as embedded in larger social systems: –Communities (cities, towns) –Colleges & universities –Corporations & similar organizations Library as social / physical / virtual nexus for the cultural & intellectual record

Repository & Service Roles All true libraries are defined by coherent and carefully assembled collections keyed to specific domains, with services supporting associated user needs. For example: –Public Libraries – general readers –College Libraries – undergraduate learning –University Libraries – advanced learning & research –Special Libraries – corporate or organizational research

Browsing & Serendipity Physical libraries, through their classified grouping of related items in open book- stacks, have long supported two key aspects of learning & intellectual inquiry: –Browsing of related items –Serendipitous encounters with unexpected or previously unknown ideas & materials

“Deep Access” Indexical and Research Aids Libraries incorporate structured tools for analytical access to “buried” information, including indexes & abstracts, reference compendia, bibliographies & finding aids, and experienced intelligent human agents, also known as “reference librarians.”

Libraries as Filtering Systems Libraries are (medium independent) complex and layered filtering and access systems –for aggregating cultural and intellectual materials –for providing efficient routes into the specific content of those materials

Current issues “Mass digitization” – including Google Books Intellectual property barriers Tools & functionality Collections & communities (how the virtual world meets the “life world”) Fragmentation of discourse (blogs, etc.) Resource discovery New kinds of collections (collaboration)

Personal Projects Digital Bridges Irish Press Pennsylvania Digital Library of Illuminated ManuscriptsPennsylvania Digital Library of Illuminated Manuscripts Villanova Digital Library

Technical Architecture – Villanova Digital Library Back-end is a Native XML database (NXD) Btree index for searching Items stored in a structured directory tree Collection Entity (i.e. digital object) Elements (individual book pages in raw files – TIFF, JPEG etc.) Digitized entities embedded in XML framework XML file for each object (e.g. book, manuscript, etc.) Built around Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS), a Library of Congress XML schemaMetadata Encoding & Transmission Standard

Technical Architecture, 2 Uses Xquery, a subset of XPath (W3c standard) for search & retrieval of XML elements Uses Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) for presentation of items in a multipicity of potential formats Interaction with XML database is via Representational State Transfer (REST) syntax, with “nouns” I.e. complex objects to “get”) embedded in URLS PHP used a development environment for unpacking & handing off URLs to Web server application

Design Simplicity Every collection is a directory Every file is a Digital Object Searchable using simple standard syntax Display using standard transformation tool in any XML schema: HTML OAI-PMH PDF ???

Building VUDL 90% or VUDL project development work (programming) has focused on “ingest” side – input & processing Templates & processes for importing digitized items Automated upload of complex interlinked entities Automated creation of METS XML, including: Dublin Core metadata File data (name, path, etc.) RIghtsd data (copyright, access) Provenance (how digitized, format, etc. Structure (chapters, sections, etc.

Why not DSPACE? Not designed a full-function “digital library” DSPACE is an academic document management system using a limited object model Hard to modify Not suited to automatic insertion of large, complex entities No integrated publication management model Therefore, not an extensible full-servce repository framework

Questions?