“old style” libraries, digital libraries: convergences, divergences, and the troubles in between
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“Old Style” Libraries,Digital Libraries:
Convergences,
Divergences,
And the Troubles in Between
Physical Libraries :
• Bound to the medium of the book
• Embodiment of the “sedimented” values & practices of print culture, including– Fixity of the print artifact / manufactured
object– Finite set of well-known paths to items– Built-in structures of legitimation & authority– Importance of local repositories
“Library Function”
• Identify, acquire, organize, support, and preserve cultural and intellectual expression in its recorded forms
• Core values:– Unfettered availability of all materials to meet
educational, cultural, intellectual, civic, and personal needs
– Commitment to standard methods & practices in service of resource sharing & open access
– Preserve the collection, i.e. keep it permanently accessible
“Library Function,” cont’d
• Libraries as cultural heritage institutions• Libraries as embedded in larger social
systems:– Communities (cities, towns)– Colleges & universities– Corporations & similar organizations
• Library as social / physical / virtual nexus for the cultural & intellectual record
Repository & Service Roles
• All true libraries are defined by coherent and carefully assembled collections keyed to specific domains, with services supporting associated user needs. For example:– Public Libraries – general readers– College Libraries – undergraduate learning– University Libraries – advanced learning & research– Special Libraries – corporate or organizational
research
Browsing & Serendipity
• Physical libraries, through their classified grouping of related items in open book-stacks, have long supported two key aspects of learning & intellectual inquiry:– Browsing of related items– Serendipitous encounters with unexpected or
previously unknown ideas & materials
“Deep Access”Indexical and Research Aids
• Libraries incorporate structured tools for analytical access to “buried” information, including indexes & abstracts, reference compendia, bibliographies & finding aids, and experienced intelligent human agents, also known as “reference librarians.”
Libraries as Filtering Systems
• Libraries are (medium independent) complex and layered filtering and access systems – for aggregating cultural and intellectual
materials– for providing efficient routes into the specific
content of those materials
Current issues
• “Mass digitization” – including Google Books• Intellectual property barriers• Tools & functionality• Collections & communities (how the virtual world
meets the “life world”)• Fragmentation of discourse (blogs, etc.)• Resource discovery• New kinds of collections (collaboration)
Personal Projects
• Digital Bridges
• Irish Press
• Pennsylvania Digital Library of Illuminated Manuscripts
• Villanova Digital Library
Technical Architecture –Villanova Digital Library
• Back-end is a Native XML database (NXD)• Btree index for searching• Items stored in a structured directory tree
• Collection• Entity (i.e. digital object)• Elements (individual book pages in raw files – TIFF, JPEG etc.)
• Digitized entities embedded in XML framework• XML file for each object (e.g. book, manuscript, etc.)• Built around
Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS), a Library of Congress XML schema
Technical Architecture, 2
• Uses Xquery, a subset of XPath (W3c standard) for search & retrieval of XML elements
• Uses Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) for presentation of items in a multipicity of potential formats
• Interaction with XML database is via Representational State Transfer (REST) syntax, with “nouns” I.e. complex objects to “get”) embedded in URLS
• PHP used a development environment for unpacking & handing off URLs to Web server application
Design Simplicity
• Every collection is a directory• Every file is a Digital Object• Searchable using simple standard syntax• Display using standard transformation tool
in any XML schema:• HTML• OAI-PMH• PDF• ???
Building VUDL
• 90% or VUDL project development work (programming) has focused on “ingest” side – input & processing
• Templates & processes for importing digitized items• Automated upload of complex interlinked entities• Automated creation of METS XML, including:
• Dublin Core metadata• File data (name, path, etc.)• RIghtsd data (copyright, access)• Provenance (how digitized, format, etc.• Structure (chapters, sections, etc.
Why not DSPACE?
• Not designed a full-function “digital library”• DSPACE is an academic document
management system using a limited object model
• Hard to modify• Not suited to automatic insertion of large,
complex entities• No integrated publication management model• Therefore, not an extensible full-servce
repository framework
Questions?