LIS 462 - Definitions

65 different definitions of digital libraries were collected by students in the course, in the Fall 1999 semester. After examining all 65, the following elements were found to be common among many of them:

Digital libraries, which tend to have lofty goals, ideally

serve a defined community or set of communities
may not be a single entity
are underpinned by a unified and logical organizational structure
incorporate learning as well as access
make the most of human ("librarian") as well as technological resources
provide fast and efficient access, with multiple access modes
provide free access (perhaps just to the specified community)
own and control their resources (some of which may be purchased)
have collections which
- are large, and persist over time
- are well organized and managed
- contain many formats
- contain objects, not just representations
- contain objects which may be otherwise unobtainable
- contain some objects which are digital ab origine

In voting for the top five, students (10) chose the following:

Digital Library Federation. (1999, April 21). A working definition of digital library. Retrieved August 24, 2006, from http://www.clir.org/diglib/dldefinition.htm.

"Digital libraries are organizations that provide the resources, including the specialized staff, to select, structure, offer intellectual access to, interpret, distribute, preserve the integrity of, and ensure the persistence over time of collections of digital works so that they are readily and economically available for use by a defined community or set of communities".
Borgman, Christine L. (1999). What are digital libraries, who is building them, and why? In T. Aparac (Ed.), Digital libraries: Interdisciplinary concepts, challenges and opportunities (pp. 29). Zagreb: Benja.

"1. Digital libraries are a set of electronic resources and associated technical capabilities for creating, searching and using information. In this sense they are an extension and enhancement of information storage and retrieval systems that manipulate digital data in any medium (text, images, sounds; static or dynamic images) and exist in distributed networks. The content of digital libraries includes data, metadata that describe various aspects of the data (e.g., representation, creator, owner, reproduction rights), and metadata that consist of links or relationships to other data or metadata, whether internal or external to the digital library.

2. Digital libraries are constructed - collected and organized - by [and for] a community of users, and their functional capabilities support the information needs and uses of that community. They are a component of communities in which individuals and groups interact with each other, using data, information, and knowledge resources and systems. In this sense they are an extension, enhancement, and integration of a variety of information institutions as physical places where resources are selected, collected, organized, preserved, and accessed in support of a user community. These information institutions include, among others, libraries, museums, archives, and schools, but digital libraries also extend and serve other community settings, including classrooms, offices, laboratories, homes, and public spaces".
Lynch, Clifford & Garcia-Molina, Hector. (1995, August). Interoperability, scaling, and the digital libraries research agenda: A report on the May 18-19, 1995 IITA Digital Libraries Workshop. Retrieved September 14, 1999 from the World Wide Web: http://diglib.stanford.edu/diglib/pub/reports/iita-dlw/main.html#2.

"Digital libraries were viewed as systems providing a community of users with coherent access to a large, organized repository of information and knowledge...The ability of the user to access, reorganize, and utilize this repository is enriched by the capabilities of digital technology;...

...digital libraries would, for the foreseeable future need to span both print and digital materials and that the central issue was to provide a coherent view of a very large collection of information. In this sense, an emphasis on content solely in digital format is too limiting. Really, the objective is to develop information systems providing access to a coherent collection of material, more and more of which will be in digital format as time goes on, and to fully exploit the opportunities that are offered by the materials that are in digital formats. Additionally, the comprehensiveness and value of the collection accessible through a digital library system can be strengthened by the ability to integrate materials in digital formats that have not been well-represented, easy to access, or effectively usable in traditional library collections, such as multimedia, geospatial data, or numerical datasets. There is, in reality, a very strong continuity between traditional library roles and missions and the objectives of digital library systems".
Cleveland, Gary. (1998, March). Digital libraries: Definitions, issues and challenges. (UDT Occasional Paper #8). Retrieved September 13, 1999 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ifla.org/VI/5/op/udtop8/udtop8.htm
- "digital libraries are the digital face of traditional libraries that include both digital collections and traditional, fixed media collections. So they encompass both electronic and paper materials.
- digital libraries will also include digital materials that exist outside the physical and administrative bounds of any one digital library.
- digital libraries will include all the processes and services that are the backbone and nervous system of libraries. However, such traditional processes, though forming the basis digital library work, will have to be revised and enhanced to accommodate the differences between new digital media and traditional fixed media.
- digital libraries ideally provide a coherent view of all of the information contained within a library, no matter its form or format.
- digital libraries will serve particular communities or constituencies, as traditional libraries do now, though those communities may be widely dispersed throughout the network.
- digital libraries will require both the skills of librarians and well as those of computer scientists to be viable.
One thing digital libraries will not be is a single, completely digital system that provides instant access to all information, for all sectors of society, from anywhere in the world. This is simply unrealistic. This concept comes from the early days when people were unaware of the complexities of building digital libraries. Instead, they will most likely be a collection of disparate resources and disparate systems, catering to specific communities and user groups, created for specific purposes. They also will include, perhaps indefinitely, paper-based collections. Further, interoperability across digital libraries-of technical architectures, metadata, and document formats-will also only likely be possible within relatively bounded systems developed for those specific purposes and communities".
Seamans, Nan, & McMilan, Gail. (1998, June 16). Digital library definition for DL12. Retrieved September 23, 1999 from the World Wide Web: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/DLI2/defineDL.html.

"The 'digital library' is not merely equivalent to a digitized collection with information management tools. It is also a series of activities that brings together collections, services, and people in support of the full life cycle of creation, dissemination, use, and preservation of data, information, and knowledge. The challenges and opportunities that motivate an advanced digital library research initiative are associated with this broad view of digital library environment.

A digital library should be a seamless extension of the library that provides scholars with access to information in any format that has been evaluated, organized, archived, and preserved. Access to this evolving collection of digital information is provided through personalized systems as well as through the services of information professionals. The digital library adds value and saves time while shifting the times of access. It reduces need for proximity to information resources, but still emphasizes the quality of those resources. It is a library that can be individually customized and, ultimately, will be easy to use".

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