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CONTENTS:
Digital libraries - what are they? | Digital library research register | DLs in Europe | DLs in the US | DLs worldwide | DL research | DLs and multimedia courseware | Cultural heritage R & D | JISC National Electronic Resource | Resources | General | Imaging | Papers and articles
Digital libraries (DLs) aim to provide: "digital delivery of multimedia information in a distributed communications environment". They are complex information systems which augment their physical counterparts by extending the potential use and exploitation of the information resource.
Technologies and techniques required for building, maintaining and using digital libraries span all the subjects that are encompassed in Information Engineering, and hence this website (see: the topic page for a list of technologies).
It was apparent that there is a strong correlation between various "domains" in the electronic publishing sphere. For example whilst digital libraries and cultural heritage (digital museums, art galleries) are often seen as separate domains, the general technical requirements and constraints for building usable systems are very similar. The differences in approach to developing systems for each tends to lie in the detail relating to the information mix. Art galleries, for example, are image intensive and will place far greater emphasis on the very considerable problems associated with image processing. Libraries on the other hand, being document intensive, will place emphasis on text-based applications. Many of the common problems relating to the various domains eg. metadata, IPR and economic issues could be tackled collectively, across domains.
Digital libraries specifically demand a distributed system architecture, structured digital documents, collaboration support, human-computer interaction, information filtering and presentation. These are supported by the full range of generic technologies that make up electronic publishing, and include many non-technical issues such as intellectual property rights (IPR).
The complexity of digital libraries arises due the potential demands made on the digital resources by users. Users are not simply defined, as they often fall into a number of groups with very different information requirements. For example, access to the digital information resource (or library) may be required by administrators, professional researchers and end users (often characterised as the general public). It is easy to see that the information requirements, and hence the tools and systems required for each of these groups, to maximise the potential of a digital resource, are very different. It seems apparent from current research that the option of providing a single digital system to meet the requirements of all these groups is neither possible, or probably, desirable. It seems appropriate therefore, when considering developments in the "digital libraries" domain that account is taken of the user of the system, as they should be the strongest influence in the specific technologies and techniques implemented.
Currently, the the demand for systems is strongest from the professional scientific research community, with a particular emphasis on international collaboration, but these systems will not provide the infrastructure for other user groups.
Digital libraries will provide some of the infrastructure for the distributed environment required by the Information Society. The techniques and tools under development, particularly in the area of information retrieval, will be of benefit to a number of the domains making up the information society including education, cultural (museums), healthcare, and public administration.
Recent developments in establishing digital libraries are demonstrated by The California Digital Library (CDL) which has recently opened its web site, providing access to the browseable and searchable Directory of Collections and Services. It provides unified access to electronic journals, databases, and to finding aids in the Online Archive of California. In addition, it provides links to many abstracting and indexing databases, directing users to lists of resources or directly to electronic journals.
Are you currently working on some research or a project? Would you like to tell your colleagues in the library community about it? Whether your work is a demonstrator project, action research, organisation-based or more fundamental, peers would benefit from your experiences; and you could benefit from theirs.
MCB University Press is offering the unique opportunity to register your research on their Library and Information Services Internet Research Register. MCB are hoping that the register will build up into an invaluable resource, enabling the history of research in a particular field to be tracked. The register focuses on bottom-line research-into-practice and aims to allow the user to:
- check on research already underway;
- identify research methodologies, possible collaborators and sources of funding;
- identify types of research, and areas where further research is required.
Further information from the site below. 22/12/00
UKOLN provides a wealth of resources and articles on current R&D in the area of DLs.
The UK's Library and Information Commission (LIC) have launched a new National Information Policy document. The preamble to the report claims that Britain is closer to becoming an information society, but still lacks the overall policy and coordination that will add value to the various initiatives that are taking place. The full text of the document: "Keystone or the Information Age: a National Information Policy for the UK" is available on the web.
Public and educational libraries should break down the barriers between them and work together to improve services to users according to "Empowering the Learning Community", the LIC Education & Libraries Task Group report, which was launched by LIC Chair Mark Wood at the LIC's conference "Keystone for the Information Age"' on March 16, 2000.
Hard copies of both reports are also available from Henry Girling at LIC. 21/03/00
URL: "Keystone or the Information Age" http://www.lic.gov.uk/publications/policyreports/keystone.html
URL: "Empowering the Learning Community" http://www.lic.gov.uk/publications/policyreports/empower/index.html
URL: Henry Girling mailto:henry.girling@lic.gov.uk
There is a short "unofficial report" on the Russian-British Digital Libraries Workshop, held in Moscow on June 16-17, 1999 which, according to the author, could form the foundations of a new bilateral programme. The report is on the web where there is also a link to the official event site, and the "official" proceedings.
The Visual Arts Data Service which provides, preserves and promotes digital resources for the visual arts community has announced the launch of a redesigned web site. The site offers:
- The VADS first Guide to Good Practice: "Creating Digital Resources for the Visual Arts - Standards & Good Practice", co-authored with the Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI), University of Bristol, UK - the Guide highlights examples of current practice in the creation of digital information in the visual arts domain, and makes recommendations for good practice in data creation, collection, description, delivery and preservation. It also covers technical issues such as choice of data format.
- A number of web-based collections focussing on the visual arts.
Planned future additions to the site include: on-line feedback forms, news pages , data creators checklist, VADS PICTIVA (Promoting the Use of On-line Image Collections in Learning & Teaching in the Visual Arts) Project, and new collections including: 10 collections from the JISC Image Digitisation Initiative (JIDI), totalling around 25,000 images.
URL: VADS http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/
URL: Guide to Good Practice http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/guides/creating_guide.html
URL: TASI http://www.tasi.ac.uk/
URL: JIDI http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/jidi/
The Archaeology Data Service in the UK has announced the opening of its Digital Library. Already on the shelves you will find:
- the first 22 volumes in the Council for British Archaeology's Research Report series, held in PDF format;
- the first 15 volumes in the CBA's Occasional Papers series, again as PDF files.
The service is requesting parties that work in the archaeology sector: to archive digital copies at the library; and also to provide feedback on the digital library as it is currently implemented. 21/03/00
In 1995, the IEEE Computer Society established the Task Force on digital libraries as a first step leading to a full-fledged Technical Committee. The task force was established to promote research in the theory and practice of all aspects of digital libraries. The task force sponsors activities that benefit its members and the profession. Such activities include sponsoring and co-sponsoring symposia, sessions in large conferences, tutorials, and a newsletter.
Information on the development of digital libraries in the US can be found at the digital libraries R&D home page. Information is also available on the IBM digital library site, which also points to some examples of digital libraries.
URL: digital libraries R&D http://www.dlib.org/dlib.html
URL: IBM digital libraries http://www.ibm.park.org/digital.html
A report on Australian views is entitled: "Electronic publishing: Library and archival issues".
MCB University Press is offering research projects, with particular application in the library sector, with the opportunity to register their research on their Library and Information Services Internet Research Register. MCM plan to build up the register to provide a resource, enabling the history of research in a particular field to be tracked.
MCB is looking for contributions from projects ranging from demonstrators, action research, organisation-based and fundamental - enabling the register to provide bottom-line research-into-practice. It will allow the user to:
- check on research already underway
- identify research methodologies, possible collaborators and sources of funding
- identify types of research, and areas where further research is required.
For further details of the register and its editorial objectives, visit the site below. Research can be registered on the site by completing an online questionnaire. 26/09/00
The Renardus project is being funded under the EU's User-friendly Information Society programme. Its aim is to build a single service allowing users to search and browse existing Internet-accessible resource collections distributed across Europe.
Between January 2000 and June 2002, the project will investigate technical, information and organisational issues, build a pilot system and develop a fully-operational service. The partners believe that Renardus will be of interest to those involved in the development and running of subject gateway initiatives, interoperability issues and related standards and technologies.
The project web site includes details of work in progress, and you can also sign-up to receive a copy of an email newsletter issued every two months. The site also provides details of, and individual links to, each of the participating European subject gateways and many other related projects, services and events. Partners in Renardus are drawn from national libraries, university research and technology centres and subject gateways Europe-wide. 18/04/00
The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and the Oxford University Press (OUP) are involved in a joint project to study digital book use and its impact on teaching, learning, and book sales. The project plans to examine and evaluate:
- the interaction of students and faculty with a certain corpus of books online;
- the cost and mechanics of digital book production and distribution;
- the impact of digital book availability on the demand and market for print materials, and possible new publisher services, such as print on demand;
- the potential of full-text monographs to advance scholarship, at least within history and related areas of the humanities.
Further, more detailed information, is available on the project web site. 14/04/00
The Scout Report newsletter of April 7, 2000 has a new item that may be of particular interest to El.pub readers. The newsletter is a free e-zine published by the Internet Scout Project run by the University of Wisconsin Department of Computer Sciences.
The Scout Project provides a wide ranging abstracting service of web resources which includes useful pointers to technologies, techniques and market/product developments in the interactive publishing arena. The item below, is typical of the type and style of items published:
"Directory of Digitized Collections .... provides a catalog of major digitized heritage collections and on-going international digitization projects. Although the database only contains 72 collections at present, its potential as a central point for information on digitized collections worldwide is considerable. From the main page, users can conduct a keyword search or browse the database by new or all records. Entries for collections include country, collection name, URL for the collection and institution, a description of varying length, type of material, and language. The site also includes a form to add a record, which potential participants can use to nominate their collection". 11/04/00
URL: Directory of Digitized Collections http://thoth.bl.uk/
URL: Internet Scout Project http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
A new mailbase list has been started especially for those involved in developing electronic collections of information in the UK (and beyond). The organisers are looking for archivists, librarians, museum professionals, or other types of educational service providers to join and share experiences/information about ongoing e-collection development activities.
Topics include collection development strategies, identifying/assessing/acquiring content, collaborative collecting at local/regional/national levels, and other topical aspects of electronic collection management.
To join, send a message to: mailto:mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk which says: join e-collections Your Name stop [Note - replace 'Your' with your first name and 'Name' with your last name]. You will then receive a confirmation message from mailbase. Just cut the code it sends you out of this message, and email it back to mailbase to confirm that your address has been recorded correctly. For additional information about this new list, please contact Stuart Lee or Alicia Wise.
URL: electronic collections mail list mailto:e-collection@mailbase.ac.uk
URL: Stuart Lee mailto:stuart.lee@computing-services.oxford.ac.uk
URL: Alicia Wise mailto:alicia.wise@kcl.ac.uk
The Open Archives Initiative is providing a framework for the extensive interoperability of archives of scholarly research literature (and potentially other digital materials too). For this initiative to become a widespread reality, the participation of large numbers of individuals and institutions is required. In order to be able to participate, what institutions need is working, interoperable, configurable software that is freely available and easy to set up.
It is this need that the EPrints software was developed to fulfill. EPrints open archive software system apparently runs right "out of the box" with a comprehensive default setup that should serve most people's needs. However, it has also been designed to make it extensively and flexibly re-configurable for customized needs; almost any aspect of the archive's operation can be adapted to suit a particular requirement.
Further details and links to an archive running the software are available via the URLs below. 15/09/00
URL: E-prints http://www.eprints.org/
URL: archive running E-prints http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/
URL: Open Archives Initiative http://www.openarchives.org/
The forthcoming National Electronic Library Health (NeLH) is planning to include an ePrints server in order to promote the idea of open archiving. The operational release of ePrints should be available around now also.
A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum via the URL below. 08/11/00
URL: ePrints http://www.eprints.org/
URL: Forum http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html
The launch of the BUILDER Institutional Search Engine Demonstrator has been announced. This new product provides searches covering the UK's University of Birmingham Information Services Web Guide, The University of Birmingham campus and the whole Internet through a seamless interface. The aim has been to demonstrate the potential for developing a centralised institutional web search facility.
This product, follows directly on from the launch of the Hybrid Library Projects Search Engine in August and is based upon the same technologies. Information concerning the technology underlying both these products is available at the web site below.
The mission statement for BUILDER states that it "aims to develop a working model of the hybrid library within both a teaching and research context, seamlessly integrating access to a wide range of printed and electronic information sources, local and remote, using a web-based interface, and in a way which will be universally applicable". BUILDER is supported as part of the UK's Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) which is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils.
The project publishes a newsletter (in HTML and PDF), the October 1999 issue has just been released, covering key areas of project activity from July - September 1999.
URL: BUILDER demo http://www.builder.bham.ac.uk/newsearch/
URL: Hybrid Library Projects Search Engine http://www.builder.bham.ac.uk/hls/
URL: underlying technology info. http://builder.bham.ac.uk/documentation/interconnectivity/html/hlpsespec.asp
URL: newsletter http://builder.bham.ac.uk/newsletter/html/Oct1999News.asp
URL: newsletter PDF version http://builder.bham.ac.uk/newsletter/pdf/oct1999news.pdf
The Open Source Digital Library System (OSDLS) is a project: "designed to build a freely available, next-generation digital library system". The project's website includes comprehensive and updated information on the project, as well as the project's listserv and listserv archives. Involvement in the project, either through discussion or aiding with development, "is welcome".
The introduction to a report entitled: "Building the New Library Network", states: "A UK-wide information network made available through libraries and implemented on the basis of a high-specification central core could do more to broaden and encourage the spread of information and communication technology skills among the population... than any other measure the government could introduce".
The report takes this statement as its core and proposes an action plan based on developing a new broadband library network; a framework for defining, creating and managing the resources available on the Network; a training programme to based on new skills to handle information and communication technology, access databases and online information. The report is available in both HTML and PDF formats.
URL: http://www.lic.gov.uk/publications/policyreports/building/index.html
The UK's Netwoked Services Policy Taskgroup runs a site which aims to be a gateway to information and resources concerned with public library networking issues.
The D-Lib program supports the community of people with research interests in digital libraries and electronic publishing. D-Lib Magazine is a monthly electronic magazine which includes contributed stories, commentary, and briefings. Direct support for digital libraries research includes the D-Lib Metrics Working Group, which addresses the thorny problem of developing appropriate metrics, and the D-Lib Test Suite, which makes large testbeds available for serious research. Additionally, this site acts as host to other research activities. Ready Reference is a convenient clearinghouse of pointers to other sites on the web of interest to researchers and users of digital libraries.
URL: http://www.dlib.org/
European and United States scientists are engaged in large-scale digital library research and development. However, although digital libraries are inherently global, these researchers have not had an opportunity to work together. Both the US and European Union groups understand that there are technical, social and economic issues that require joint exploration and that they must have the opportunity to meet regularly to coordinate research; to share research results; and where possible, to consider the different national, technical, and social expectations about digital libraries (DLs).
A panel session at the 2nd European Conf. on Digital Libraries (ECDL), held in Heraklion in Crete in September 1998, entitled: "European Union and the National Science Foundation (US) Cooperation on Digital Libraries" reported on a joint study carried out by five working groups to define cooperative research actions.
The official web page for the working groups includes details of group members and rationales. The final reports of the groups should be issued in December 1998. These groups identified research directions under the following headings:
Metadata
- models for metadata resource comparisons
- metadata for service-mediated information
- metadata for resource creation and management
- integration with information architecture standards eg. the Resource Description Framework being developed by the W3C
- building registry systems
- core metadata sets, ie. the Dublin Core and PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection)
- interoperability and complexity
- metadata for complex digital resources
- evaluation and metrics
- policy issues
Resource Indexing and Discovery in a Globally Distributed DL
- organisation
- system requirements
- content control
- human computer interaction (HCI)
- evaluation and metrics
Interoperability
- information model which provides for global interoperability
- universal service provision provided by coordinating middleware solutions
- query processing facilities
- implementation mechanisms
- evaluation and metrics
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) & Economic Issues
- DLs to provide part of the Information Society infrastructure
- globally acceptable/enforceable copyright laws are desirable
- protection of privacy
- architectures and mechanisms to support social and policy issues
- content and services, changing business models and understanding the evolving digital economy
Multilingual Access
- query processing (query translation)
- query expression
- document processing and presentation of information
- resources required include, more: corpora, lexicons, thesauri, ontologies, marked-up collections
- evaluation and metrics
- presentation and user defined interfaces.
URL: ECDL http://www.csi.forth.gr/2EuroDL
URL: EU and the NSF working group http://www.si.umich.edu/UMDL/EU_Grant/
The CULTIVATE web site, is funded under the European Commission's Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme as an accompanying measure in the area of cultural heritage - libraries, archives and museums. The web site includes:
- information on the project, partners, aims, objectives and activities;
- links to the other CULTIVATE services;
- monthly news update;
- information on the IST Programme;
- information on Calls for Proposals in the digital heritage and cultural content area;
- information on project results;
- links to related sites. 21/07/00
The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries is the strategic agency working with and on behalf of museums, archives and libraries across the UK. The Council provides information through its Resource initiative and has set-up a new e-mail list, Resourcenews, to enable professionals across all three sectors to receive regular news, press releases and updates on current initiatives.
Resourcenews membership is open to museum, library and archive professionals as well as interested parties, related organisations and the Higher and Further Education sectors. To join the list, visit the URL below and follow the links. 22/09/00
URL: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/resourcenews/
URL: Resource http://www.resource.gov.uk/
Ed Fox of Virgina Tech, who is well known for work on digital libraries, gave a full day tutorial on digital libraries at the ACM MM '98 conference, held in Bristol (UK) on September 13-16, 1998. For the tutorial he has created a major self-study course on digital libraries that is available at the Virginia Tech web site. The course has an introduction to digital libraries with definitions, foundations and scenarios, and more detailed information on topics, resources and references.
A related project that Ed is concerned with is Curriculum Resources in Interactive Multimedia (CRIM). CRIM is a new NSF funded project to promote the training of people working in multimedia through curriculum development and the creation of a digital library of multimedia courseware and resources.
URL: self study course http://fox.cs.vt.edu/%7Efox/dlib
URL: CRIM http://ei.cs.vt.edu/%7Ecrim/
The goal of the project "Creating a WAVE" is the conceptual organisation of a community's information space on the web. The project will develop an advanced Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (NIDR) system called WAVE, which fuses the current NIDR system technology with a mechanism for "dynamic distributed classification". Since the intranet for a commercial company is such a web community, the WAVE system applies directly to the conceptual organisation of intranets.
The project (funded by Intel) seeks to address the following research question: "What is the appropriate architecture for a digital library?" The research goal of the project is to demonstrate in the distributed context of the web that the WAVE system, using both the technique of automatic classification and the notion of conceptual space, provides the kernel architecture for a digital library.
The HeadLine (Hybrid Electronic Access and Delivery in the Library Networked Environment) Project's Spring '99 newsletter entitled: "What do users want from the hybrid library?" is available on the HeadLine web site in .pdf format. The document summarises the results of research into common information desk enquiries received at the HeadLine partner sites and user expectations of a hybrid library service. Paper copies of the newsletter along with details about the project, which is partly funded by the UK's Electronic Libraries programme (eLib), are available from the email below.
URL: HeadLine http://www.headline.ac.uk
URL: contact mailto:headline@lse.ac.uk
This item forwarded to us by Jack Colbert a Public Services Librarian in the US, and was been posted on several library-related lists.
For the past few months I've been building virtual libraries on the WWW, these are fully navigable, 3-D libraries, with books (linked to web-based resources) shelves, ceilings, floors, etc.
My latest adventure is a world called "Librarea", located in the "activeworlds.com" universe, and purchased specifically to provide professional librarians with space to experiment with virtual library interfaces. This world has room for about 75 librarians to build, and each builder/librarian will completely control his/her building project. In Librarea, you can build functional, beautiful, information-rich environments, meet with other librarians from around the world, create a work of art, an aesthetic expression of your particular information specialty.
"Librarea" is a non-commercial project that is completely free and open to any professional librarian - all are welcome. You can visit this world by downloading the free AW browser, available at ActiveWorlds.com, then, click the "Worlds" tab, top left, and scroll down to "Librarea". If you are interested in participating in this project, please contact the project organiser at the email addresses below. 03/05/00
URL: mailto:colbertj@mail.spalding.public.lib.ga.us
URL: mailto:librarea@vei.net
The American Museum of the Moving Image, a US museum dedicated to the art, history, technique, and technology of the moving image is working with Organic, an Internet professional-services firm, to develope a prototype of a wireless artifact-information system.
To be called eDocent, the system will send information from a database at the Museum to mobile communications devices carried through the galleries by visitors. The information can be continuously updated, and may be experienced by the user either at that time, via the device, or at another time via a traditional web browser interface. The information can consist of text, audio, still, and possibly moving images.
Organic plans to integrate advanced networking and sensor technologies and develop a custom application platform that can meet the future needs of the Museum and other public institutions. This platform will be tested across a number of standard portable devices, from Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices to e-books to web tablets, and operating systems such as Palm and Symbian.
The Museum houses the one of the US's most important collections of motion picture and television artifacts. The eDocent project has the potential to make this resource, which comprises some 85,000 objects, more widely accessible to the public. 14/07/00
URL: American Museum of the Moving Image http://www.ammi.org/
URL: Organic http://www.organic.com/
The UK's JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) is being updated and includes:
- a guide to the resource;
- a request for comments concerning the DNER Collection and the separate Communication Strategy;
- an alphabetical list of all the DNER development projects;
- links to humanities archival collections held in UK universities;
- the Preservation Management of Digital Materials Guide. 03/01/01
For additional links to resources see the Information retrieval (which includes details of multimedia information retrieval) and Metadata topic sections on this site.
- The Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) in the US has published online the "Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation and Access". Aimed at museums, libraries, and archives digitising collections, the handbook covers: project management, copyright, technical issues, and guidelines. It can be downloaded in pdf format.12/01/01
URL: http://www.nedcc.org/digital/dighome.htm- A new email list concerned with digital preservation has been established on jismail (successor to the UK Mailbase service). This list will carry announcements and information on activities relevant to the preservation and management of digital materials in the UK. It will be used to disseminate information on the work of JISC Digital Preservation Focus, the Digital Preservation Coalition and related initiatives. Topics will include: digital archiving, management and preservation; electronic records management; emulation, migration, long-term access; research projects; national, international and institutional initiatives in relevant areas.The archive and a joining the list web-form is available at the URL below. 01/12/00
URL: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/digital-preservation.html- A pre-publication draft of the "Preservation Management of Digital Materials Workbook" is now available as a pdf file on the web. The workbook has been produced in the UK by Neil Beagrie (Joint Information Systems Committee) and Maggie Jones (Arts and Humanities Data Service) with research funding from the UK's Resource the Council for Museums Archives and Libraries. The workbook provides a comprehensive overview of digital preservation issues and practice and will be of interest to digitisation projects and curators in museums, libraries, archives, and the cultural heritage, research and publishing sectors. Comments on the pre-publication draft are welcomed and should be made by 8th December 2000. 03/11/00
URL: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/preservation/workbook/- The six articles in the September 2000 issue of D-Lib Magazine share the common theme of Collection Level Description. This special issue is the result of a collaboration between D-Lib Magazine and Paul Miller, Interoperability Focus, United Kingdom Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN). There are also a number of “In Brief” items, including a report entitled: "European Museums' Information Institute - European Standards Survey". 20/09/00
URL: D-Lib http://www.dlib.org/
URL: Sept. table of contents http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september00/09contents.html- EDINA, based at the UK's Edinburgh University Data Library, is a JISC-funded national datacentre. It offers the UK further and higher education and research community networked access to a library of data, information and research resources.
Newsline is EDINA's quarterly newsletter, which is available on the web in HTML and PDF format. Newsline, is aimed at user support staff and interested users, carries information on EDINA services and developments. 21/07/00
URL: http://edina.ed.ac.uk/newsline/- A report on "A Digital Strategy For the Library of Congress" which takes a hard look at the problems posed by the explosion of digital content on the Library of Congress's traditional mission (and by implication, the mission of all US libraries) to collect, preserve, and make accessible the intellectual work of the American people. The points raised will find resonance with all those associated with collecting and preserving intellectual work.
URL: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309071445/html/- A book publicised by the American Library Association (ALA), the full text for which is available online, which is aimed at librarians (and others) interested in accessibility issues and electronic resources. The book is entitled: "Adaptive Technology for the Internet: Making Electronic Resources Available to All".
URL: http://www.ala.org/editions/openstacks/insidethecovers/mates/mates_toc.html- The May 2000 issue of D-Lib Magazine features an article: "Who Is Going to Mine Digital Library Resources? And How?"
URL: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may00/05contents.html- CIMI (the Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information) is committed to bringing museum information to the largest possible audience. CIMI is a group of institutions and organisations that encourages an open standards-based approach to the management and delivery of digital museum information. Since its formation in 1990, CIMI has made substantial progress in researching for the museum community standards for structuring its data and for enabling widespread search and retrieval capabilities. CIMI's work is largely carried out through collaborative demonstration projects which enables it to learn how information can be standardised and therefore made accessible electronically. Its web site includes a number of resources relating to standards such as Z39.50, the Dublin Core, SGML, XML, and RDF; and details of CIMI-sponsored seminars, workshops, courses. Membership is open to any institution, organisation, corporation or individual - whether for-profit or non-profit. 16/05/00
URL: http://www.cimi.org/- Museums are increasingly using interactive electronic publishing techniques. The European Collaborative for Science Industry and Technology Exhibitions (Ecsite) brings together 240 science museums and centres in over 35 countries worldwide. The network of members provides an area for the exchange of ideas and information, fostering cooperation. For information concerning the members of the network, visit the Ecsite web site. 05/05/00
URL: http://www.ecsite.net/- "Creating and Documenting Electronic Texts: A Guide to Good Practice", is one of a series of guides from the UK's Arts and Humanities Data Service. The completely online publication takes you from initial considerations (analysing the text) through digitization and markup to documentation and metadata. 11/04/00
URL: Museums and the Web http://www.archimuse.com/mw2000
URL: Creating and Documenting Electronic Texts http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/documents/creating/- CTI Textual Studies has recently published the Guide to Digital Resources for the Humanities. Over the years, CTI Textual Studies has supported academics from a wide range of arts and humanities subjects to locate and integrate electronic resources into their teaching. This latest edition of the Guide contains details of over 360 digital resources and a set of introductory essays, outlining the potential uses of the many texts, databases and programs now available on CD-ROM and the web. The Table of Contents, with links to an order form, the Preface and the Introduction to the printed version, which together provide a useful overview of the scope and background to the guide, are available on the web. 10/03/00
URL: http://info.ox.ac.uk/ctitext/resguide2000/contents.shtml- The December 1999 issue (Volume 5, Issue 2) of the Journal of Electronic Publishing, published by the University of Michigan Press includes:"Preservation of Scientific Serials: Three Current Examples" which analyses three approaches to archiving electronic texts - the ACM Digital Library, the Internet RFC series, and D-Lib Magazine and concludes by providing alternative approaches to the ones being used. The backlist of the Journals from the past two years, with links to the articles published in them, are also accessible from the site.
URL: http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/- The Art, Design, Architecture & Media Information Gateway (ADAM), is a searchable catalogue describing 2500 quality Internet resources in the creative arts. The resources have been carefully selected and catalogued by professional librarians for the benefit of the UK Higher Education community. ADAM describes Internet resources such as web sites or electronic mailing lists, in much the same way as a library catalogue describes bibliographic resources such as books and journals.
URL: http://adam.ac.uk/- The August 1999 issue of Research Libraries Group (RLG) DigiNews is now available on the web. In addition to announcements, a highlighted web site and a current calendar of events, the issue also includes articles entitled: "Illustrated Book Study: Digital Conversion Requirements of Printed Illustrations"; "Digitisation of Early Journals".
RLG DigiNews is a bimonthly web-based newsletter intended to: focus on issues of particular interest and value to managers of digital initiatives with a preservation component or rationale; provide filtered guidance and pointers to relevant projects to improve awareness of evolving practices in image conversion and digital archiving; announce publications (in any form) that promote a deeper understanding of digital issues.
URL: from UK Janet sites http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/
URL: European, North American, and other world sites http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/- The eLib FIDDO project team has produced a toolkit of the research methodologies used to evaluate electronic document delivery options in UK higher education. The FIDDO team considers that the toolkit of methods have wider potential, for those embarking on similar projects, and are requesting comments. eLib is the UK-funded electronic library research programme.
URL: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/dis/fiddo/toolkit.htm- VINE is a quarterly journal published by Library & Information Technology Centre (LITC), at South Bank University, London covering all IT applications in libraries and information services.
URL: http://www.sbu.ac.uk/litc- The University of Sheffield, Department of Information Studies carries out research into aspects of information retrieval and the emergence of systems such as the web. It runs a web site which provides details of the department's research and publications along with links to further related resources available on the web. The Department also publishes the online, quarterly, "Information Research: an electronic journal", for which an email notification service is available at the site. The journal is published in association with Pennsylvania State University, USA; University of Tampere, Finland; and the University of Vilnius, Lithuania. The June issue featured the paper: "Digital libraries and World Wide Web sites and page persistence", noted in the news item below.
URL: Publications http://www.shef.ac.uk/~is/publications/index.html
URL: Information Research journal http://www.shef.ac.uk/~is/publications/infres/ircont.html
URL: Information Research journal, June 1999 issue http://www.shef.ac.uk/~is/publications/infres/infres44.html- The launch of a web site called Exploit Interactive is designed to "promote the results of EU library projects (both FP3 and FP4) and to facilitate their take-up by the market of library and information systems". A mailing list has been set up to promote involvement and encourage comments.
URL: http://www.exploit-lib.org/- A paper published in the online, quarterly, "Information Research: an electronic journal" entitled: "Digital libraries and World Wide Web sites and page persistence" explores the proposition that the World Wide Web constitutes a digital library. Whilst the paper concludes that the web is not a digital library, it examines how web documents can be efficiently and effectively incorporated into library collections, given, the often, transient nature of material published on the web. By focusing on web document lifecycles: persistence, attrition, and intermittence; it attempts to explain the dynamics of change that sets web libraries apart from both "traditional" libraries and many digital libraries.
URL: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~is/publications/infres/paper60.html- Computers in Libraries is a monthly print journal covering library information technology, with particular emphasis on the potential impact of emerging computer technologies on library systems and services, and on the library community itself. A number of the monthly features are also published on the web site, the May issue for example, has an article which discusses the utility of metasearch engines. Entitled, "Surviving the Storm: Using Metasearch Engines Effectively" the article, which includes a number of useful links, concludes that the capabilities of metasearch tools is continuing to improve and that they offer: "an excellent alternative for end-user searching"
URL: http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/ciltop.htm- The European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA) - work centres on the general issue of how information can be kept accessible for the long term in the face of threats to the carriers on which it is stored. ECPA works closely with the US Commission on Preservation and Access inaddition to other international agencies.
URL: http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa- The UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN) hosted "Interoperability Focus" will serve to channel knowledge and expertise related to the effective sharing of information, data, and process between a wide range of data providers and Gateways from sectors as diverse as libraries, museums and archives. Interoperability Focus is concerned with standards developments such as Dublin Core and Z39.50, as well as with procedural, structural and semantic issues related to the manner in which data might most usefully be made available in order to ensure widespread accessibility. Further information is available from the Interoperability Focus web site.
URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/- Digital Libraries Electronic Journal and Text Archives provides a list of resources that hold indices of electronic journals particularly concerned with electronic publishing. These lists provide a good starting point to promote your own electronic journal.
URL: http://www.ifla.org/II/etext.htm- Serials in Cyberspace includes links to sites with electronic journal collections and services in the US and worldwide. The links are categorised under academic/research and miscellaneous collections and resources.
URL: http://www.uvm.edu/~bmaclenn/- lis-european-programmes is a forum for sharing information on European programmes, projects and funding opportunities of interest to the UK library and information sector. To join the list send a message to: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk, leaving the subject line blank, and in the body of the message, type: Join lis-european-programmes FirstName LastName.
- UKOLN has published a number of support studies for the UK electronic libraries (eLib) programme. Recently completed reports, available on-line, include: "A survey of the content and characteristics of electronic abstracts" and "The publishing of electronic scholarly monographs and text books".
URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/supporting/#ukoln- The papers from the Digital Libraries '95 conference are available on-line and can also be ordered on paper.
URL: http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/DL95/- Digital Library News
URL: http://cimic.rutgers.edu/ieeedln/- International Journal of Digital Libraries, is a print publication from Springer Verlag.
URL: http://link.springer.de- NewJour, is a list of many of the available serial publications available via the Internet, it includes journals and newsletters.
URL: http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/NewJourWel.html- Link page for ACM Digital Libraries '97 tutorial, includes a list of useful links.
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~mm/cache/urls.htm
- In the US, the Digital Library Federation (DLF) and Research Libraries Group (RLG) have issued "Guides to Quality in Visual Resource Imaging". According to publicity, the guides "provide concrete guidelines as well as help in addressing rapidly changing aspects of technology and practice for project managers and technicians of digital imaging projects". Each guide is a module that can stand on its own; as a set, the guides provide comprehensive advice on how to find what an imaging team needs to accomplish stated goals with the available technology. The Guides will be updated periodically. 25/07/00
URL: http://www.rlg.org/visguides/
URL: http://www.rlg.ac.uk/visguides/. The guides are entitled:
- "Planning a Digital Imaging Project";
- "Selecting a Scanner";
- "Imaging Systems: the Range of Factors Affecting Image Quality";
- "Measuring Quality of Digital Masters, and File Formats for Digital Masters".
- Virage video search engine
URL: http://www.virage.com/index.html- The Getty Information Institute's section on imaging, is very good but a little old (dated 1995).
URL: http://www.gii.getty.edu/- Paper entitled: "Comparing Images Using Joint Histograms".
URL: http://simon.cs.cornell.edu/home/rdz/refinement.html- A variety of papers concerned with image and colour.
URL: http://simon.cs.cornell.edu/home/rdz/
- 'Managing the digital future of libraries' was a conference held in Moscow in April 2000 to mark the final phase of the European Union – Russian State Library project: "To create an Information System for the Russian State Library". The conference was supported by the EU TACIS programme. The papers have now been published on the Internet. 30/08/00
URL: http://www.rsl.ru/tacis/conf.htm- The speaker's papers from the UK's Higher Education Digitisation Service conference, "Planning & Implementing a Digitisation Project", held on 29 June, 2000 are now available on the HEDS web site. The speakers are experts and practitioners from across HE and the public sector and the papers explore the evolution of a digitisation project; from planning, through implementation, to final presentation. 25/07/00
URL: http://heds.herts.ac.uk/conf/conf2000.html- The June 2000 issue of First Monday (volume 5, number 6) has been published. This edition includes a report on "Web-Wise: A Conference on Libraries and Museums in the Digital World" sponsored by the US Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and held in March 2000. This large issue includes 17 papers all of which cover the practical implementation of digitisation, broken-down under four headings:
Well worth a browse. 09/06/00
- "The Digital Landscape: Where the Good Stuff Lives";
- "Partnerships: Building Networked Infrastructures";
- "Friendly Users: Involving Users in Digital Libraries";
- "This Old Web: Developing Standards for Digital Library Management, Interoperability, and Preservation".
URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_6/- The Scout Report, from the Internet Scout Project (University of Wisconsin, Department of Computer Sciences) includes: "Building Digital Collections: Technical Information and Background Papers" which links to the technical documents describing how the collection was digitised and what technology was used. The site also contains descriptions of technical practices, workflow production, and a selection of background papers. 26/05/00
URL: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ftpfiles.html- The Library Link Newsletter provides news and resources concerned with digital libraries. Issue 2, Volume 5 of Library Information Management Online (LIMO) is entitled: "Delivering information and library services to distance learners" includes reprints of articles entitled: "Supporting open and distance learners: practice and policy across further and higher education libraries"; "Meeting the document supply needs of distance learners"; "Mixed mode education: implications for library user services". 21/04/00
URL: Library Link http://www.liblink.co.uk/
URL: LIMO http://www.liblink.co.uk/limo/
URL: LIMO Issue 2 http://www.liblink.co.uk/limo/iss52.html- Copies of papers presented at the 1999 IEEE Forum on Research and Technology Advances in Digital Libraries held in Baltimore on 19 - 21 May, 1999 are available for viewing and download as pdf files from the web. 22/02/00
URL: http://www.computer.org/conferen/proceed/adl/0219/0219toc.htm- The December 1999 issue of D-Lib Magazine includes an article entitled: "The ERCIM Technical Reference Digital Library: Meeting the Requirements of a European Community within an International Federation".
URL: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december99/12contents.html- The proceedings from the CoLIS 3 conference, entitled: "Digital libraries: Interdisciplinary concepts, challenges and opportunities" have been published. The general aim of CoLIS conferences is to critically explore and analyse library and information science as a discipline and as a field of research from historical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives. The printed proceedings can be ordered by e-mail for a price of US $75 which includes shipping from the email address below.
URL: ordering mailto:vturcin2@zg.tel.hr
URL: COLIS 3 conference http://www.colis3.hr/proceed.htm- "Collaborative Information Space Analysis Tools", paper based on the US DASHER Project which is exploring ways of building project teams through information analysis. They have developed information analysis tools that help make sense of sets of data sources in an intranet or internet: characterizing them, partitioning them, sorting and filtering them.
URL: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october98/dasher/10dasher.html- "Middleware for Digital Libraries", a paper describing how distributed applications are supported at present by middleware and the required extensions in the areas of asynchronous operation and security. The use of Digital Library services by universities provides an example of a domain that poses many of the problems the authors aim to solve.
URL: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october98/bacon/10bacon.html- "A National Digital Library for Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education", a paper which proposes central repositories of web based information along the lines of SMETE Digital Library (NSDL) model.
URL: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october98/wattenberg/10wattenberg.html
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