1. Knowledge Lost in Information
Report of the NSF Workshop on Digital Library Research Directions
An Addendum on Digital Library Management Issues

2. Centrality of Management Issues
Grand challenges:
Embedding Socio-Economic Values
Research Program:
Increase the scope and scale of information resources and services
Improve availability, accessibility, and productivity
Infrastructure Program:
Assured stewardship over humanity’s scholarly and cultural legacy
Efficient and accountable management of systems, services, and resources
9/14/2019
Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop

3. Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop
Focus on Management
Grand challenges:
Embedding Socio-Economic Values
Research Program
Increase the scope and scale of information resources and services
Improve availability, accessibility, and productivity
Infrastructure Program
Assured stewardship over humanity’s scholarly and cultural legacy
Efficient and accountable management of systems, services, and resources
12/9/2003
Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop

4. Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop
Focus on Management
Stewardship requires attention to mission, marketplaces, business practices, and management to specific goals and objectives
At Mellon Foundation, single area of failure is management issues: leadership, organization, and business practice
Need for explicit and ambitious attention to organizational design and other management issues
12/9/2003
Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop

5. Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop
Need for attention: 1
Research agendas typically take privacy, security, and usability as exogenous variables
But these vary at least in part by the type, purpose, and structure of the organizations in which information and technology users are embedded
More careful investigation is needed of these organizational assumptions, including those about business models and modes of operation
9/14/2019
Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop

6. Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop
Need for attention: 2
The economies of scale of “going digital” implies the need for collaboration and centers of digital library research, development, and operations
These centers must be designed in such a way that they operate in a business-like fashion and can sustain themselves independently of NSF support
The design should be informed by research on how certain types of mission, leadership, governance, organizational structure, legal arrangements for intellectual property, and financing, especially in the context of public goods economics, affect organizational success
9/14/2019
Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop

7. Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop
Need for attention: 3
Substantial databases of content are often created in research projects without thought to how they will be sustained after the project is completed
Attention is needed so that content is developed and curated from the beginning by designated leaders of specific organizations, charged with data management, responsible for safeguarding property, use, and users, and fully accountable in a clearly defined governance structure
9/14/2019
Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop

8. Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop
Research program
Objectives:
Define organizational variation in scientific communities
Explore the effects of different mixes of organizational features on various scenarios for research, development, and operation.
Funded work could employ a mix of empirical case studies and theoretical approaches, and it could be embedded as part of a larger project or conducted as a standalone initiative
9/14/2019
Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop

9. Research program: key variables
Types of mission such as commercial and non-profit;
Types of governance, including membership, board, and partnership models
Leadership qualities
Structural dimensions, such as size
Policy issues, such as privacy, security, and risk management approaches to the ownership and use of intellectual property
Financing options, taking account of the importance of common or public good economics
9/14/2019
Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop

10. Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop
Operational program
New centers and content-management organizations should have access to a highly specialized organization—or set of organizations—that can provide expert advice on questions of mission, leadership, governance, and general business practices
To economize on the costly duplication of services, the supporting organization(s) might also take direct responsibility for providing a set of common services, such as accounting, human resources, board governance, and legal advice, thereby helping to create a family (or families) of efficiently run organizations
9/14/2019
Chatham Digital Libraries Workshop