The Future of Libraries is Digital

Automated Reference Assistant Initial funding from the McCune Foundation Further funding being sought from the Buhl Foundation Potential for technology transfer Reference interview designed by librarians. First referral to the digital collection. Second referral to guided use of the world wide web. Third referral to further library paper resources.

Sharing the work: A key to successful digital libraries Internet gives new opportunities for collaboration, resource sharing, e.g. –Coordinated cataloging, acquisition (some now, can be done more openly and broadly) –Sharing crucial metadata (Catalog of Copyright Entries) –Dealing with diverse data formats (TOM broker architecture) Big long-term payoff for designs, organizations that support collaborative collections –“giving it away” also enables amortizing cost of improvement & maintenance over wide constituency

TOM: An architecture for supporting diverse formats Type Broker ServerClient Server Type Broker Clients get info on formats, request operations (e.g. conversions) Servers implement operations Brokers maintain info on formats, invoke servers for operations Brokers can trade info, consult other brokers Clients can also register new formats, operations, server information... This type of mediated broker architecture also works for many other applications