CLSC 555 Information Systems Webliography: Digital Libraries
by
Lisa Kroll

About | How To | Research | Notable Examples

ABOUT DIGITAL LIBRARIES

• Digital Library Initiative
  The Website of the official federal government project for collecting, organizing, and storaging digital information lacks an "about" section (though clicking on an icon for Phase 1 does give some sense of what's going on). The site does however present project and working group reports, information about participating agencies and ogranizations, and news in a well-illustrated but easy to understand format.
  
  
• DLI status in 2000
  This is a report on the status of Digital Library Initiative work in 2000; participating institutions, project goals, cost, etc. are given. This is a fairly-easy-to-comprehend illustrated document in Adombe Acrobat; no weaknesses noted.
  
  
• D-Lib Magazine
  This is a tool and an online-only journal for those creating, using, and/or interested in digital libraries. Strength: Good abstracts, links to good content. Weakness: possibly too much information; also, clicking on one item in a list under a heading such as "Pointers" turns all the items the color of "seen" links; and links to outside pages do not open new window.
  
  
• IEEE Digital Library Technical Committee
  This society of engineers, naturally, focuses it's discussion of digital libraries on the technical aspects: storage, retrieval, interface, delivery, etc. This site sums up pertinent issues well and gives a minimum of vital additional sources. It is not very current and would benefit from use of a slightly larger type size.
  
  
• Library of Congress
  The Library of Congress details, in a well-organized fashion, its digital library work, including: the National Digital Library Program, evaluation of digital resources, outreach, how-to's, and lists of their digitized American Memory collections. Here we find a better idea of what the Digital Library Inititative is; another very useful service is the provision of Technical Notes on techniques and standards. No weaknesses noted.
  
  
• Stanford University, "Interoperability, Scaling, and the Digital Libraries Research Agenda"
  Here, reports from a 1995 conference provide a good historical background on digital libraries. That it is not current information must be kept in mind.

HOW TO'S

• Library of Congress's "Guidelines for the Use of Field 856"
  Describes proper used of MARC 856 field for electronic holdings and access. This up-to-date, easy to navigate Website is indispensible for librarians constructing full digital libraries and for catalogers resposible for cataloging electronic resources. No weaknesses noted.
  
  
• Online Books: How to Put Books Online
  A very clear set of directions for beginners on how to post a book online: includes intellectual property and technical details; good links for further information and related topics. No weaknesses noted.
  
  
• Library of Congress's "Remote Access Electronic Serials"
  As well as access rules, this site, vital to catalogers and digital library builders, has a good gloassary. Unfortantely, a usability drawback -- the presentation of the document using Adobe Acrobat -- makes navigation of the 45 page document a little tedious.
  
  
• Open Archives Initiative and Construction of LC's American Memory
  Details technical decisions made since beginning of American Memory project. This document provides readable, technical background, but not necessarily a blueprint for others to follow.
  
  
• Introduction to Metadata Elements: Library of Congress
  This site provides "a core set of metadata elements to be used in the development, testing, and implementation of multiple repositories" -- valuable information since well-constructed metadata is needed to make digital library content accessible. This Website provides strong theoretical and technical background through narrative and examples. If a user strays "too deep" into examples, however, the designer(s) failed to provide a shortcut back to the text.
  
  
• Turning pages within a digital reproduction
  A possibly dated (1998) a sample of how to code digital images for a page-turning effect without relying on a special viewer. People with a good understanding of HTML will benefit from this clear "how-to" page.
  
  
• Steps in the Digitization Process
  Could be used as a model for other institutions.
  
  
• Dublin Core
  The website of the Dulbin Core Metadata Inititative (whose aim is the "development of interoperable online metadata standards. . .") uses pleasing colors, is easy to navigate, and has a great deal of information. The information is technical and advanced, presenting a challenge for some.
  
  
• High-Level Theasurus
  For searches across resources, a controlled vocabulary is necessary; this Website provides a pilot for one theasurus assembled by various groups in the U.K. It has a nice design,and presents reasonably techinical information. No weaknesses noted.
  
  
• Penn's Standards
  The University of Pennsylvania here presents standards and tools for university members contributing to thier digital library project. The good definitions and explanations provided are useful to anyone. No weaknesses noted.
  
  
• NextBirck
  Some institutions may prefer skipping "how-to's" and will hire a company such as NextBrick for Web-based access and similar services. This business's Website is jargon-filled and sales-pitchy; nonetheless, it is attractive and effective.

RESEARCH

• Alexandria Digital Library Project
  Both a research institute and a gateway to collections that are "geographically-referenced." While nicely designed, this site is jargon-laden and would not be suited to the searcher with general interests.
  
  
• The Center for the Study of Digital Libraries.
  The homepage for a department at Texas A&M University that "foster[s] pioneering reserach on the theory and application of digital libraries." With its own library of publications and conferences, this site provides good content. A curious flaw is the lack of dating (in the form of copyright or "last updated on": the courses are listed without an academic year, and the last conference listed was in 2001, giving an odd feeling that the academic program is defunct.
  
  
• Centre for Digital Library Research
  The Website of a research unit of the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow). It is attractive, readable, with good links to past projects and to services: this would be a great starting point for librarians in the U.K. (and others) needing more information on digital libraries. No weaknesses noted.
  
  
• Digital Library Research Laboratory
  This Virginia Tech interdepartmental project works on information retrieval projects and products. This site is easy to read and features a colorful title banner. It does not seem to have been updated recently.
  
  

NOTABLE EXAMPLES

• Bartleby
  A slick site, complete with graphics and advertisements, Bartleby's creater describes it as "the most comprehensive reference publisher on the web, meeting the needs of students, educators, and the intellectually curious." The quantity of book selections is a strength, while the advertisements detract from the site and the texts.
  
  
• British Library
  Bright, readable, inuitive design combines with outsanding digitization of collections to make this a must-see Website. Users can to compare two version of Gutenberg Bibles, flip the pages of an illuminated Qur'an or Leonardo's notebook (breath-takingly good use of Macromedia Flash). The drawback, of course, of using such tools is that many users will not have the connection or memory capabilties to access the featured treasures.
  
  
• Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative
  A visually pleasing, seemingly user friendly collection of maps that may be manipulated by the user. This site may suffer from the curse of the information age: too many cool things to try, do, and see; an expert surely gets a lot out of it, though.
  
  
• IFLA's "DIGITAL LIBRARIES: Electronic Journal and Text Archives" serves as a portal for those seeking electronic publications. While its pared-down design makes it easy to read, some users would appreciate a line or two beyond each site's title.
  
  
• At Library of Congress, click on "list of collections" to access LC digitized collections. This site also provides technical information and rights restrictions. If there is a weakness it is finding this good starting point -- a weakness that lies in metadata, search engines, and/or searchers. Many reference libraries should bookmark this site or have a link to it on their library's directory.
  
  
• Library and Archives Canada
  Access to Canada's national collections. This good design, with a heirarchical illustration of pages visited and nice images, is marred by very small font size.
  
  
• The Online Books Page
  Principly an index to books posted online, this easy to navigate website also promotes the development of online books. No weaknesses noted.
  
  
• Penn State University's Electronic Classics Series Site
  After a little surfing, I found this site to be the collection of books online that presented texts in the most readable format: the texts themselves are in a font that is easy to read and they fit into the Adobe Acrobat screen (no need to scroll). Alas, the collection is very small: 60 titles in April 2004.
  
  
• The Universal Library Hosted by Carnegie Mellon University
  The Universal Library's site looks nice, and is easy to navigates. However, I absolutely disagree with the vision statement that digital "preservation" is the only way to provide "future generations" with "all the significant literary, artistic, and scientific works of mankind." While it does address need to use high standards during scanning, I saw no consideration given to hardware and software changes and other migration challenges. (For example, documents open as pop up windows. The site builders had not forseen this change in Internet navigation: once I realized the problem, I had to disable the "block pop up ads" function.) Getting to a text took too many clicks; it's retyped into a skinny column; the colors aren't hard on the eye, but they are not great.
  
  

© Lisa Kroll, April 2004