1. T.Sharon-A.Frank 1 Internet Resources Discovery (IRD) Definition of Digital Libraries

2. 2 T.Sharon-A.Frank So What is a Digital Library? There are scores of definitions. Most are very general and verbose  A managed collection of information, with associated services, where the information is stored in digital formats and accessible over a network. Arms, William, Y., Digital Libraries, MIT press, Cambridge, 2000.

3. 3 T.Sharon-A.Frank Definition - A Digital Library is: 1. Collection of digital objects 2. Collection of knowledge structures 3. Collection of library services 4. Domain/Focus/Topic 5. Quality Control 6. Preservation/Persistence

4. 4 T.Sharon-A.Frank 1. Collection of Digital Objects Documents (e.g., texts, HTML pages) Books Journals Multimedia (images, audio, video, etc…) Charts/Maps  Data objects available directly or indirectly

5. 5 T.Sharon-A.Frank 2. Collection of Knowledge Structures Metadata: Standards, Markup Indices, Catalogs, Guides Taxonomies, Ontologies, Thesauri Dictionaries, Glossaries, Concordances Gazetteers Abstracts/Summaries

6. 6 T.Sharon-A.Frank 3. Collection of Library Services Management (computerization, communication) Search (query formulation) and Browse interfaces Multi-access/use for varied users Online Help, Reference, Consultation Logging, statistics and Performance Measurement Evaluation (PME) SDI: Selective Dissemination of Information (Push mode)

7. 7 T.Sharon-A.Frank 4. Domain/Focus/Topic Domain: belongs to an area (DNS TLDs). –edu, com, org, gov, us, il, ac.il, co.il, … Focus: created to serve a certain community of users. –Academic, Public, National, School, … Topic: the subject of the collection, relatively finely grained. –Law, Medicine, Music, Science, Mathematics, …

8. 8 T.Sharon-A.Frank 5. Quality Control All material is assessed and authorized (“certified”). Integrity enforced (proven quality). Use of filtering. Support for profiling/stereotyping. Adhere to licensing and copyrights. Digital Rights Management (DRM).

9. 9 T.Sharon-A.Frank 6. Preservation/Persistence Access/Usage is long term Quality reproduction of material Material Persistency –paper vs. digital media –digital formats (software tools) Serves as an archive

10. 10 T.Sharon-A.Frank Expected Media Lifetime

11. 11 T.Sharon-A.Frank This table shows the word processing programs advertised in a 1985 issue of Byte compared with those advertised in 1995 For sale in 1985For sale in 1995 Expected Software Lifetime

12. 12 T.Sharon-A.Frank Need a delicate balance

13. 13 T.Sharon-A.Frank Analog vs. Digital Library (1)

14. 14 T.Sharon-A.Frank Analog vs. Digital Library (2)

15. 15 T.Sharon-A.Frank AL to DL Migration Predictions Wired magazine, 1995.