CLSC 555 Information Systems Webliography: Digital Libraries
by
Kathryn Blackwell
| Digital Libraries | Resources | About Digital Libraries |
Digital Libraries
- American Memory
by the Library of Congress
American Memory gathers materials the Library of Congress and other institutions to provide users with a wide variety of library materials. These resources include manuscripts, photographs, video and sound recordings. This experiment began in the 1990’s as a way to make the resources of the Library of Congress, “the nation’s memory,” available on the internet. American Memory has many wonderful collections and exhibits online and is a very rich resource, but can be hard to navigate and can cause confusion for the user as to where the original items actually are.
- California Digital Library
by the University of California
This website claims that the California Digital Library is one of the largest digital libraries in the world. They have over 32 million items in the University of California Libraries, and the California Digital Library provides access to research materials as well as collections. A strength is the overall appearance of the site, as it is one of the more attractive sites I have visited. Searching is easy, as that is one of the first things that a visitor to the site notices. A weakness may be the sheer volume of materials that is potentially hard to navigate.
- Natinal Science Digital Library
by the National Science Foundation
This online resource is strictly related to science resources for all levels of education. Three hundred eighty-six collections are available online, and contributions are accepted. While attractive in appearance, the “NDSL collections by subject” at first seems not as user friendly as a straight-forward text search. This interactive feature may deter some users.
- International Children's Library
by the University of Maryland and the Internet Archive
The International Children’s Library is a joint project intended to make over 10,000 books available in over 100 languages, free to anyone over the internet. It offers a very wide search selection to choose from when searching for materials, and is appealing in its appearance towards children. Simple graphics in addition to words are used for the links on the pages. Its weaknesses are that it is only funded for 5 years, and has so far only collected 545 free children’s books.
- PictureAustralia
by PictureAustralia
PictureAustralia is a resource for images relating to Australia, provided by many different participating groups. It aids the user with suggestions for finding images, if the user is unsure of what they are looking for, and allows for the ordering of copies. A weakness may be the sheer volume that is included in the collections, and this may be difficult for some users to find what they are looking for.
- Perseus Digital Library
by Tufts University, Gregory Crane, Editor-in-chief
This vast online resource offers resources for humanities researchers. The resources are gathered from all over the world, and from what seems to be every time period. I found that while the content seemed to appeal to me, I had a hard time navigating the website. However, the sheer volume of materials may limit the casual browser, who has no specific topic in mind.
Resources
- Digital Library Federation
by the Digital Library Federation
This is a group of libraries who have come together, and the website offers “information about developing digital collections and managing networked information for the benefit of scholarship, education, and cultural progress”. A strength is that this is dedicated to digital libraries and it lists a wide range of topics relating to the digital library, but it appears that the sources for the information is limited and not as many resources as one would think are actually available on this site.
- Cataloging and Digitizing Toolbox
by the Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress
This is a group of libraries who have come together, and the website offers “information about developing digital collections and managing networked information for the benefit of scholarship, education, and cultural progress”. A strength is that this is dedicated to digital libraries and it lists a wide range of topics relating to the digital library, but it appears that the sources for the information is limited and not as many resources as one would think are actually available on this site.
- International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Digital Libraries : Resources and Projects
by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
This particular section of the IFLA website deals with Digital Libraries. The list of digital library resource and projects has an extensive bibliography, but links only to one collection.
- The Internet Archive
by Alexa
The Internet Archive is intended to preserve materials in a “library” in digital form. It uses a crawler that finds websites and then preserves them. One may insert a file in their homepage if they do not wish to have their website preserved on the Internet Archive. Strengths are that it is attempting to save materials that may one day become important, but are born digital. Weaknesses are that it attempts to save so many materials, and has a hard to navigate website.
- Preservation of electronic information : a bibliography
by Michael Day
The author became interested in the preservation of digital materials while writing his dissertation in the 1980’s. He then compiled a list of what he thought to be relevant works and brought it together in this bibliography. Strengths are there are many, many resources listed, but the weakness is, who is this guy?
- The Online Books Page
by John Mark Ockerbloom
This page caught my eye, not because of the 20,000 free books on the internet, but because of their “Banned Books Online” page. These are books available in their entirety and are readable online. A weakness is the currency of the books may be limited, as he has strict criteria as to what he will include on his webpage. Many of the books are listed as “Gutenberg text” or “Virginia” after the entry, and these are generally old works that are no longer under copyright.
- Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia
by The University of Virginia Library
This site offers an archive of materials online, many manuscripts and other text materials, as well as images. A weakness is that some materials may not be in the public domain.
About Digital Libraries
- D-LIB Magazine
by Corporation for National Research Initiatives
This digital resource focuses on the issues relating to digital library research and development. This free magazine is published 11 times a year, and all back issues are also available free of charge.
- ALA Association of College and Research Libraries
by the American Library Association
I listed this website because a search on the ALA website for resources for or about digital libraries kept leading me here. However, one must have a membership to access the articles about digital libraries. This would definitely be a weakness of the site.
©Kathryn Blackwell 2004
Created for CLSC555 IS webliography