OU Digital Library development project

Liz Mallett – Project Manager

James Alexander – Project Developer

25 January 2012

Overview of session• What is a Digital Library?• What is the OUDL development project?• What have we done so far?• Next steps• Demo• Your suggestions and questions

What is a digital library? (and don’t we already have one?!)

“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.” – Digital Library Federation

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A Digital Library:• Stores or provides access to digital content• The content is usually owned by the organisation• Content is either “born digital” or has been digitised• May offer access to collections stored in various

locations• Preserves the content for future access and use• Provides pathways into the content, e.g. searching and

browsing• Provides special services

Isn’t that the Library website?

• The library website is a gateway to a number of library products and services

• Most of the content the website offers access to is third party e.g. full text journal articles, eBooks, databases, etc. all bought from publishers (or are freely available).

• The OUDL will include a set of OU owned content which can be searched via the EBSCO Discovery Service (eventually!)

• It will contain digital, archived copies of OU course material (print), eBooks, VLE material, images, audio and video.

Some examples of digital libraries

What is the OU Digital Library Development Project?

• A two year project running from August 2011 to July 2013• Goal is to build the foundations for the OU Digital Library• Build a repository for storage and preservation of OU content• Digitise selected content• Create an interface• Build the technical infrastructure (servers, storage etc.)• Cost out and propose digital library services.

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What have we done so far?• Built a first iteration of

the interface• Imported some content• Prepared content for

digitisation• Proposed the

infrastructure• Proposed some services

Content• Video (from AVA project)• 100 historical images from

OU cumulus database

Coming soon:• S100 foundation science

course from 1971• 40 radio programmes• Corresponding transcripts

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Services Model draft v1.00 December 2011

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Next StepsNext Steps• Lots more work to do on the interface and repository

architecture, e.g. accessibility testing• Building the system in PHP instead of Drupal• Negotiating born-digital content• More digitisation work• Linked data and the STELLAR project.• Thinking about how it fits with Integrated Learner Exp.

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