What Is A Digital Library Anymore, Anyway ? http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november05/lagoze/11lagoze.html

In total we have 4 quotes from this source:

 A graph information model for a digital library

This paper describes an information model for digital libraries that intentionally moves "beyond search and access", without ignoring those basic functions, and facilitates the creation of collaborative and contextual knowledge environments. This model is an information network overlay that represents a digital library as a graph of typed nodes, corresponding to the information units (documents, data, services, agents) within the library, and semantic edges representing the contextual relationships among those units. The information model integrates local and distributed information integrated with web services, allowing the creation of rich documents (e.g., learning objects, publications for e-science, etc.). It expresses the complex relationships among information objects, agents, services, and meta-information (such as ontologies), and thereby represents information resources in context, rather than as the result of stand-alone web access. It facilitates collaborative activities, closing the loop between users as consumers and users as contributors.

#digital-libraries  #information-model  #users  #library  #services  #web-services 
 Digital libraries need to distinguish themselves from search engines

In the age of Google, what is a digital library anymore, anyway? Just asking the question is bound to raise passions. Despite our zealous defense of the successful work of the digital library community over the past decade, the amazing success of commercial web search engines has changed the playing field. Search and access over a set of resources, while important to any digital library, are not sufficient. Digital libraries need to distinguish themselves from web search engines in the manner that they add value to web resources. This added value consists of establishing context around those resources, enriching them with new information and relationships that express the usage patterns and knowledge of the library community. The digital library then becomes a context for information collaboration and accumulation – much more than just a place to find information and access it

#digital-libraries  #search-engines  #library  #engine 
 Limitation of a traditional, record-oriented metadata model for digital libraries

The basic record-oriented data and metadata model employed by most digital (and traditional) libraries has a limited ability to fully model this multi-dimensional information context.

First, metadata records, and metadata repositories, primarily represent individual item properties. They often fail to completely model contextual relationships [43] that surround resources and do not distinguish among the multiple entities – resources, metadata, agents, ontologies – that are part of that relationship structure. Furthermore, because they are frequently based on fixed schema or models, they are difficult to adapt to evolving information needs. The NSDL metadata repository, for example, only distinguishes between collections and items and represents only the membership relationship between them. Because the MR is stored in a relational database, each new relationship requires schema redefinition. This lack of flexibility has proven problematic due to the changing requirements over the span of the NSDL activity.

Second, the static nature of metadata records, which are generally created once by resource creators or catalogers, is also problematic. Resource context is dynamic, expressing changing patterns of use, preference, and the shifting cultural environment. Recker and Wiley write "a learning object is part of a complex web of social relations and values regarding learning and practice. We thus question whether such contextual and fluid notions can be represented and bundled up within one, unchanging metadata record" [48].

Third, an information model that is metadata-centric inevitably runs against the problematic fuzziness of the "data or metadata" distinction14 [19]. For example, we have noted above that one of the useful forms of contextual information is annotations. Are these metadata (about something) or data in their own right? There is no one answer, but an architecture that imprints the distinction between data and metadata makes it difficult to deal with such ambiguities.

Finally, we have also noted the importance of information reuse – the ability to take primary resources and combine them into aggregate learning objects or lesson plans [46] and recursively reuse and re-factor new objects. Because the physically-bound information units in the traditional library were not amenable to such reuse, a metadata – centric approach – managing descriptive records – was possible. However, a digital library needs to be resource-centric, providing the framework for managing, manipulating, and processing content and metadata and the seamless line between them.

#metadata  #digital-libraries 
 Purpose of a digital library: much more than search engine portals

As suggested by Borgman [14-16], digital libraries should match and indeed dramatically extend traditional libraries. As such, they should be much more than search engine portals. Like any library they should feature a high degree of selection of resources that meet criteria relevant to their mission, and they should provide services, including search, that facilitate use of the resources by their target community. But, freed of the constraints of physical space and media, digital libraries can be more adaptive and reflective of the communities they serve. They should be collaborative, allowing users to contribute knowledge to the library, either actively through annotations, reviews, and the like, or passively through their patterns of resource use. In addition, they should be contextual, expressing the expanding web of inter-relationships and layers of knowledge that extend among selected primary resources. In this manner, the core of the digital library should be an evolving information base, weaving together professional selection and the "wisdom of crowds"

#digital-libraries  #library  #resources