Digital Libraries

This fully revised and updated second edition of Understanding Digital Libraries focuses on the challenges faced by both librarians and computer scientists in a field that has been dramatically altered by the growth of the Web. At every turn, the goal is practical: to show you how things you might need to do are already being done, or how they can be done. The first part of the book is devoted to technology and examines issues such as varying media requirements, indexing and classification, networks and distribution, and presentation. The second part of the book is concerned with the human contexts in which digital libraries function. Here you’ll find specific and useful information on usability, preservation, scientific applications, and thorny legal and economic questions. Thoroughly updated and expanded from original edition to include recent research, case studies and new technologies For librarians and technologists alike, this book provides a thorough introduction to the interdisciplinary science of digital libraries Written by Michael Lesk, a legend in computer science and a leading figure in the digital library field Provides insights into the integration of both the technical and non-technical aspects of digital libraries

Digital library is commonly seen as a type of information retrieval system which stores and accesses digital content remotely via computer networks. However, the vision of digital libraries is not limited to technology or management, but user experience. This book is an attempt to share the practical experiences of solutions to the operation of digital libraries. To indicate interdisciplinary routes towards successful applications, the chapters in this book explore the implication of digital libraries from the perspectives of design, operation, and promotion. Without common agreement on a broadly accepted model of digital libraries, authors from diverse fields seek to develop theories and empirical investigations that to advance our understanding of digital libraries.

Whether you’re embarking on the challenge of building a digital collection from scratch, or simply need to understand the conceptual and technical challenges of constructing a digital library, this top-to-bottom resource is the ideal guidebook to keep at your side, especially in this thoroughly updated and reworked edition. Demonstrating how resources are created, distributed, and accessed, and how librarians can keep up with the latest technologies for successfully completing these tasks, its chapters walk you step-by-step through every stage. Demystifying core technologies and workflows, this book comprehensively covers needs assessment and planning for a digital repository;choosing a platform;acquiring, processing, classifying, and describing digital content;storing and managing resources in a digital repository;digital preservation;technologies and standards useful to digital repositories, including XML, the Portland Common Data Model, metadata schema such as Dublin Core, scripting using JSON and REST, linked open data, and automated metadata assignment;sharing data and metadata;understanding information-access issues, including digital rights management; andanalyzing repository use, planning for the future, migrating to new platforms, and accommodating new types of data. This book will thoroughly orient LIS students and others new to the world of digital libraries, and also ensure that current professionals have the knowledge and guidance necessary to construct a digital repository from its inception.

Equally valuable for LIS students just learning about the digital landscape, information professionals taking their first steps to create digital content, and organizations who already have well-established digital credentials, Purcell’s book outlines methods applicable and scalable to many different types and sizes of libraries and archives.

Digital libraries are now a reality and yet their implementation and use is still not at an optimum. This text examines the various options for setting up digital libraries from digitising information in the first place to providing the interface to access the information held by the digital global library.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, ECDL 2007, held in Budapest, Hungary. The papers are organized in topical sections on ontologies, digital libraries and the web, models, multimedia and multilingual DLs, grid and peer-to-peer, preservation, user interfaces, document linking, information retrieval, personal information management, new DL applications, and user studies.

This authoritative and accessible guide for librarians and computer scientists explores the technologies behind digital libraries, the choices to be made in building them, and the economic and policy structures that affect them.

Digital library is commonly seen as a type of information retrieval system which stores and accesses digital content remotely via computer networks. However, the vision of digital libraries is not limited to technology or management, but user experience. This book is an attempt to share the practical experiences of solutions to the operation of digital libraries. To indicate interdisciplinary routes towards successful applications, the chapters in this book explore the implication of digital libraries from the perspectives of design, operation, and promotion. Without common agreement on a broadly accepted model of digital libraries, authors from diverse fields seek to develop theories and empirical investigations that to advance our understanding of digital libraries.