Digital Library Projects: Research, Funding, Management, Sustainability

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Digital Library Projects Research, Funding,
Management, Sustainability
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Digital Libraries Current and Future Research
Trends
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Chowdhury (1999)

• Collection development
• Development methodology and design issues
• User interfaces and user studies
• Information organization classification and
  indexing
• Resource discovery metadata
• Information retrieval
• Legal and social issues
• Evaluation of digital libraries
• Standards
• Preservation

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Shiri (2003)

• Distributed digital libraries and virtual
  learning environment
• New digital publishing and preservation
  environments
• Building digital subject libraries
• Development of digital libraries for particular
  types of media
• Federation of digital library systems and the use
  of advanced retrieval features such as term
  weighting, query modification and relevance
  feedback
• Utilization of knowledge organization systems
• Development of digital libraries for children,
  undergraduate students and researchers
• Retrospective digitization of historical
  collections and cultural heritage preservation
• Inter-institutional and international
  collaboration
• User- centred evaluation of digital libraries

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Future directions (DLI2)

• Human-centred research
• Content and collections-based research that
  focuses on better understanding of and advancing
  access to novel digital content and collections
• Systems-centred research that focuses on
  component technologies and integration to realize
  information environments that are dynamic and
  flexible

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Who pays for the digital library development and
research in Canada and the United States?
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US DL Funding
DLI 2
Universities Research Institutes
DLI 1
NSF, DARPA, NLM, LOC, NEH, NASA
NASA, NSF, DARPA
1999 -2004
1994-1998
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Industry Canada
LAC
Canadian DL Funding
Government of Canada
SSHRC
HE institutions
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Digital Library Project Management
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Key issues

• Setting goals
• Collections
• Key stakeholders
• Project staff
• Systems (Hardware software)
• Project steps and workflow
• Timeline and milestones
• Cost-benefit analysis of the project
• Ownership and management

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Successful transition from project to service?

• A requirement which is recognized as important by
  a significant part of the target audience
• The potential for cost savings in individual
  libraries
• Vision and enthusiasm on the part of those
  promoting the project/service, coupled with a
  strong existing profile in the target market.
• Significant new technological advances.

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Sustainability

• Sustainability is a broad term, referring to
  everything from technical issues about the
  digital preservation of materials, to the social
  questions surrounding the long-term accessibility
  of resources to the public at large.

McArthur et al. (2003)
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Sustainability, an integral part of any DL project

• Sustainability is not an issue that should be
  addressed following the completion of the
  project, rather it should be discussed and
  planned right at the project definition and
  planning stage.

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Abby Smith (2003)

• Ask not what wonderful things you can do for
  others, ask what others want from you. In other
  words, institutions should plan to make an
  enterprise user-focused, not collection focused.
• Sustainability implications?

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Hamilton (2004)

• Sustainability options
• Subscription fees
• Sponsorship/endowments
• Integration
• Combinations of any of the three may be
  appropriate.

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Example

• Example of a project plan
• http//ebooks.strath.ac.uk/eboni/documents/plan.h
  tml

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Open source project management applications

• OpenProj
• Open Workbench
• Tsakjuggler

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Greenstone digital library project

• Greenstone DL
• A project report

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Greenstone library

• Choose a topic (email it to me by Tuesday March
  31)
• 30 or more digital objects in a variety of
  formats PDF, HTML, image, audio, video etc.
• Needlework, hockey, history of herbs
  (medicine), Research And Information on
  Neurological Sciences (BRAINS) Digital Library,
  women's cycling, Banff, Chinese Canadian
  immigrants' experiences, astronomy, information
  behavior of avid online video gamers, digital
  objects  relating to wedding, my dog and her
  breed, personal family history

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Project report

• A project report should include
• Preliminary project proposal detailing your plan
  to develop the library
• Steps taken to build the library including choice
  of subject area, resource type, and target
  audience, rationale for the topic,, development
  process
• Any problems or issues encountered while creating
  the digital library
• Reflections
• The report should be around 6 to 8 pages

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Some general guidelines

• Metadata (Dublin Core)
• Subject LCSH (Access through Classification Web)
• Resource type DC http//library.princeton.edu/dep
  artments/tsd/katmandu/html/dctype.html
• Description A few sentences
• Greenstone http//www.greenstone.org/
• New Zealand Digital Library
• http//nzdl.sadl.uleth.ca/cgi-bin/library