Digital Libraries

SynchronousScholarly Communication

Same time, Same or different place

Asynchronous, Digital Library Mediated Scholarly Communication

Different time and/or place

Digital LibrariesShorten the Chain from

Editor

Publisher

A&I

Library

Reviewer

DLs Shorten the Chain to

Author

Reader

Digital

LibraryEditor

Reviewer

Teacher

Learner

Librarian

DL OverviewWhy of Global Interest?

• National projects can preserve antiquities and heritage: cultural, historical, linguistic, scholarly

• Knowledge and information are essential to economic and technological growth, education

• DL - a domain for international collaboration– wherein all can contribute and benefit– which leverages investment in networking– which provides useful content on Internet & WWW– which will tie nations and peoples together more

strongly and through deeper understanding

Digital Libraries --- Objectives

• World Lit.: 24hr / 7day / from desktop• Integrated “super” information systems: 5S:

Table of related areas and their coverage• Ubiquitous, Higher Quality, Lower Cost • Education, Knowledge Sharing, Discovery• Disintermediation -> Collaboration • Universities Reclaim Property• Interactive Courseware, Student Works• Scalable, Sustainable, Usable, Useful

How is a DL different from a database?

• A traditional SQL database has as its basic element data items in a relation:– select name– from employee, project– where employee.deptnumber = “25” AND– project.number = “100”

• databases exploit known structures and relations

• DBMS retrieval is not probabilistic (Frakes, Baeza-Yates, p. 3)

How is a DL different from the WWW?

• The keyword is managed– The WWW is not managed

• Some meta searchers (Yahoo, Lycos) attempt to add an organizational framework to their web holdings– However, most are focused on keyword

searching (i.e., Google)

How is a DL different from the WWW?

• Another key difference is who controls the input into the system– most meta searchers hunt down their holdings

• Lycos is short for Lycosidae lycosa (the “wolf spider”), which pursues its prey and does not build a web (Mauldin, IEEE Expert, 1/97)

– some (Yahoo) have humans in the loop for review and classification

• To date, DLs are generally more tightly controlled, and have a targeted customer set

DL = Content + Services

“Why not just use the WWW” ?– WWW by itself has low archival

& management characteristics

• “Why not use a RDBMS?”– In the same way that a card

catalog is not a TL, a RDBMS is candidate technology for use in DLs

• DL is the union of the content and services defined on the content

WWW (http) Access

(most common)

non-WWWAccess

(now uncommon)

OtherTechnologies

Digital Library Services

(searching, browsing, citation anlaysisusage analysis, alerts)

Vectorand/or

BooleanSearchEngines

(traditional IR)

RDBMSFile

Systems

Content

How is a DL Different from a Traditional Library?

• TL has as its focus physical objects– even if the card catalog (metadata) is electronic, the

purpose is to point you to a physical location– trafficking in physical objects has both obvious and

subtle implications• object can exist only in 1 place• if you have it, I can’t have it (zero-sum distribution)• I have to go to the object, or wait for it to come to me

TLs vs. DLs

• DLs clearly better than TLs at:– Dissemination, storing information variety

• However, TL objects are more survivable– Who will archive the research information?

• the publishers?• the institutions?• the authors?

– Will the average DL object still be accessible in 10 years?

• take my digital preservation seminar in the spring!

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

image from: http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html

• Digital Library– removing the physical restriction has obvious

benefits• multiple access, multiple listings, electronic transmission

– also complicates many other issues...• intellectual property, terms and conditions, etc.

• Note that a TL offers additional social and educational benefits– Most TLs also offer hybrid services too.

How is a DL Different from a Traditional Library?

from Lesk,http://community.bellcore.com/lesk/columbia/session1/

TLs vs. DLs

• Where does publishing stop, and libraries begin?– there has always been tensions between TLs

and traditional publishers, but the roles were fairly well defined

– DLs can muddle the separation of these responsibilities

• result: conflict, and/or new models

DL Definitions - 1

• “A digital library is an organized and focused collection of digital objects, including text, images, video, and audio, along with methods of access and retrieval, and for selection, creation, organization, maintenance, and sharing of the collection.”

• Witten & Bainbridge – “How to Build a Digital Library” – Morgan Kaufmann 2003

DL Definitions - 2

• “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”

• Waters,D.J. CLIR Issues, July/August 1998• www.clir.org/pubs/issues/issues04.html

Informal 5S & DL Definitions

DLs are complex systems that

• help satisfy info needs of users (societies)

• provide info services (scenarios)

• organize info in usable ways (structures)

• present info in usable ways (spaces)

• communicate info with users (streams)

5Ss

Ss Examples Objectives

Streams Text; video; audio; image Describes properties of the DL content such as encoding and language for textual material or particular forms of multimedia data

Structures Collection; catalog; hypertext; document; metadata

Specifies organizational aspects of the DL content

Spaces Measure; measurable, topological, vector, probabilistic

Defines logical and presentational views of several DL components

Scenarios Searching, browsing, recommending

Details the behavior of DL services

Societies Service managers, learners, teachers, etc.

Defines managers, responsible for running DL services; actors, that use those services; and relationships among them

D ig ita l L ib ra r y C o n te n t

A rtic le s ,R e p o rts,

B o o ks

T e xtD o cum e n ts

S p ee ch ,M u s ic

V id eoA u d io

(A e ria l)P h o tos

G e og rap h icIn fo rm ation

M o d e lsS im u la tio ns

S o ftw a re ,P ro g ra m s

G e no m eH u m a n,a n im a l,

p la n t

B ioIn fo rm ation

2 D , 3 D ,V R ,C A T

Im ag es a ndG ra p h ics

C o nte n tT yp e s

ETANA-DL

• Archaeological DL• Integrated DL

– Heterogeneous data handling

• Applies and extends the OAI-PMH– Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata

Handling

• Design considerations– Componentized– Extensible– Portable

Map courtesy: www.enchantedlearning.com

Initial ETANA-DL Member Locations

Virginia Tech

Mississippi State University

Vanderbilt University

Canadian University College

Walla Walla College

Andrews University

CWRU

Willamette University

Lahav Website

Megiddo Opening Screen

Locus Screen: Pictures

View all

Area Screen

ETANA-DL Approach• Applying and extending Digital Library (DL)

techniques to solve key problems: making primary data available, data preservation, and interoperability

• Modeling archaeological information systems using 5S to better understand the domain and design the system and the supporting services

• Rapidly prototyping DLs that handle heterogeneous archaeological data using componentized frameworks:– eliciting requirements– refining metamodel and union schema– modeling sites– mapping– harvesting– providing useful services

ETANA-DL Website

Marking – writingnotes for

a specific user

Marking Items

Marked Items Display

Sender, Date,Object OAI ID

SenderComments

Options:View Record,

Add record to Items Of Interest,Re-mark item (Redirect),

Unmark item (Remove item from list)

Discussions Page

Discussions about an

object

View/Post messages, create new

threads

Recommendations

Items recommendedon the basis of

similar interests

ETANA-DL Searching ServiceSearch

ETANA-DL Multi-dimensional Browsing

3 new sites

2 new types of artifacts

ETANA-DL Visual Browsing Service

Visual BrowseBy site

Visual Browsing Nimrin: Topographical Drawings

Full site North west quadrant

Square:N40/W20

Visual Browsing Nimrin : Square information

Square:N40/W20

Locus: 86

Loci layout

Visual Browsing Nimrin : locus sheet

Visual Browsing Bab edh-Dhra'

Cemetery

Pottery # 25

Visual Browsing Bab edh-Dhra'

Cemetery

Pottery # 25