Digital Libraries: a Reference Model

1
Digital Librariesa Reference Model
Vittore CasarosaISTI-CNR, Pisa and University
of Parma, Italy

• LIDA 200929 May 2009, Zadar, Croatia

2
The traditional role of libraries

• Mediators between information and users
• Selection
• Definition of collections
• Acquisition
• Physical objects
• Description
• Catalogs
• Access
• Shelves
• Preservation
• Controlled enviroment

3
Libraries some figures

• Volumes (in millions)
• Journals
• From 10.000 in 1950 to 150.000 in 2002
• Alexandria principle beginning to fade

4
Evolution of technology

• Computer technology
• CPU and integrated chips
• Random Access Memories
• RAM from KB to GB
• External memories
• Tapes, hard disks, floppy disks
• Memory sticks
• CDs
• DVDs
• from MB to GB to TB to PB to EB
• Communication technology (networks)
• (Telephone) line speed
• Point to point (leased lines)
• Local Area Networks
• Inter-networking (TCP/IP)

5
The World Wide Web

• Combination of computer technology and
  communication technology
• It all started with the hyperlink
• Then came the browser (Mosaic)
• Then came the first wave
• Then came the dot come, dot gone
• Then came the second wave
• Finally came the information explosion
• An estimate of 110 to 560 million hosts
• An estimate of 15 to 30 billion pages on line
• And now we have Web 2.0 (with Web 3.0 just around
  the corner)

6
DELOS main objective

• To define and conduct a joint program of
  activities in order to integrate and coordinate
  the on-going research activities of the major
  European research teams in the field of digital
  libraries for the purpose of developing the next
  generation digital library technologies

7
Digital Libraries in the Information Space
High
Databases/IR
Structure of User Behavior
Digital Libraries
Web
High
Low
Structure of Data
8
Definition of Digital Library
9
What is a Digital Library ?

• A DL is the combination of content and
  services
• A DL is an entity providing the functionality
  to mediate between information objects and
  information users in the context of distributed
  collections of information objects. This
  (external) functionality includes access,
  publish, delivery, preservation, personalization,
  etc.
• A Digital Library is a tool at the centre of
  intellectual activity having no logical,
  conceptual, physical, temporal, or personal
  borders or barriers on information
• A Digital Library is an institution in charge
  of providing at least the functionality of a
  traditional library in the context of distributed
  and networked collections of information objects

10
DELOS - Grand 10610-Year Vision 1

• Digital libraries should enable any citizen
• to access all human knowledge anytime and
  anywhere,in a friendly, multi-modal, efficient,
  and effective way, by overcoming barriers of
  distance, language, and culture and by using
  multiple Internet-connected devices

11
DELOS - Grand 10-Year Vision 2

• The potential exists for digital libraries to
  become the universal knowledge repositories and
  communication conduits for the future, a common
  vehicle by which everyone will access, discuss,
  evaluate, and enhance information of all forms

12
Conceptual Framework
Usage
Management
Contents
Digital Library System
13
Building a Digital Library
14
Research Directions in DLs
15
Foundations Research Issues
Reference Model for DLS

• Formalize a conceptual framework for Digital
  Library systems
• to serve as a yardstick of quality and richness
• to specify features and properties of generic
  DLMS
• to clarify relationships among
• digital libraries, digital repositories, digital
  archives,
• search engines, information infrastructures,
• knowledge commons

16
System-related Research Issues
Architectures

• Peer-to-peer architectures
• Grid middleware
• Service-oriented architectures

Information Access

• Indexing for complex and novel data
• Query routing in complex distributed Digital
  Libraries

17
System-related Research Issues
Audio/Visual

• Automatic metadata extraction
• Context-aware content-based retrieval
• Audio/visual interfaces

Semantic Interop.

• Methods for the integration of heterogeneous
  ontologies and domain-specific knowledge
  organization systems
• Interoperability with e-Learning applications

18
User-related Research Issues
User Interfaces

• Framework for new digital library interfaces
• Task-oriented user interfaces
• Cooperation/collaboration tools, e.g.,
  annotations

Visualization

• Self-adaptability to small screens
• Visual analysis and exploration of query results

Personalization

• Modeling foundations for user preferences and
  context
• Personalization of user interactions
• Peer-similarity-based query routing decisions
• User log analysis for profiling

19
Horizontal Research Issues
Curation/Preservation

• Integration of preservation functionality
• Establishment of a testbed and evaluation
  framework for preservation techniques
• Automating selection and ingest processes

Evaluation Methodologies

• Standard frameworks for comparative evaluation of
  DL Systems
• Definition of standard events in a DL environment
• Identification of appropriate metrics
• Establishment of information repositories

20
Applications Research Issues
e-Health

• Virtual electronic health records
• Integration of multiple medical information
  streams

e-Learning

• Interoperability of e-Learning applications

e-Culture

• Integration of upper-level ontologies
• Mapping of core ontologies to schemas and KOS

21
New name for Digital Libraries ?
Digital REALM
Digital REsources for Archives,Libraries and
Museums

• ltadjectivegtltcontent abstractiongtltcreated entitygt
• adjective Digital
• content abstraction
• created entity Library

22
Alternatives for new name
23
Whats in a name ?
DIGITAL LIBRARIES
... what's in a name? that which we call a rose,
by any other name would smell as sweet...
24
Need for a Reference Model

• A reference model is an abstract framework for
  understanding significant relationships among the
  entities of some environment, and for the
  development of consistent standards or
  specifications supporting that environment
• A reference model is based on a small number of
  unifying concepts and may be used as a basis for
  education and explaining standards to a
  non-specialist
• A reference model is not directly tied to any
  standards, technologies or other concrete
  implementation details, but it does seek to
  provide a common semantics that can be used
  unambiguously across and between different
  implementations

25
A Three-Entity Framework
26
The three Entities

• Digital Library
• An organization, which might be virtual, that
  comprehensively collects, manages, and preserves
  for the long term rich digital content, and
  offers to its user communities specialized
  functionality on that content, of measurable
  quality and according to codified policies
• Digital Library System
• A software system that is based on a defined
  (possibly distributed) architecture and provides
  all functionality required by a particular
  Digital Library. Users interact with a Digital
  Library through the corresponding Digital Library
  System
• Digital Library Management System
• A generic software system that provides the
  appropriate software infrastructure both (i) to
  produce and administer a Digital Library System
  incorporating the suite of functionality
  considered foundational for Digital Libraries and
  (ii) to integrate additional software offering
  more refined, specialized, or advanced
  functionality

27
Different types of DLMS

• Extensible Digital Library System
• A complete Digital Library System that is fully
  operational with respect to basic/ foundational
  functionality required. It is based on an open
  software architecture, so that further software
  components can be incorporated on top of the ones
  already there with ease (DelosDLMS, GreenStone)
• Digital Library System Warehouse
• A collection of software components that
  encapsulate the core suite of DL functionality
  and a set of tools that can be used to combine
  these components in a variety of ways (in
  Lego-like fashion) to create Digital Library
  Systems offering a tailored integration of
  functionalities. New software components can
  easily be incorporated into the Warehouse for
  subsequent combination with those already there
  (BRICKS, DILIGENT)
• Digital Library System Generator
• A highly parameterized software system that
  encapsulates templates covering a broad range of
  functionalities, including a defined core suite
  of DL functionality as well as any advanced
  functionality that has been deemed appropriate to
  meet the needs of the specific application domain
  Through an initialization session, the
  appropriate parameters are set and configured at
  the end of that session, an application is
  automatically generated, and this constitutes the
  Digital Library System ready for installation and
  deployment (MARIAN)

28
DELOS DLMS
29
Containment of models
30
Actors in the Digital Library
31
Main roles of Actors (1)

• DL End-Users
• They exploit the DL functionality for providing,
  consuming, and managing the DL Content as well as
  some of its other constituents They perceive the
  DL as a stateful entity that serves their
  functional needs The behaviour and output of the
  DL depend on its state at the time a particular
  part of its functionality is activated. DL
  end-users may be further partitioned into
• Content Creators
• Content Consumers
• Librarians (end user)
• DL Designers (Digital Librarian)
• They exploit their knowledge of the semantic of
  the application domain to define, customize, and
  maintain the Digital Library so that it is
  aligned with the information and functional needs
  of its end-users To perform this task, they
  interact with the DLMS providing functional and
  content configuration parameters The values of
  these parameters, which can be modified during
  the DL lifetime, configure the specific DL
  perceived by the end-users because they determine
  the particular Digital Library System instance
  serving the Digital Library

32
Main roles of Actors (2)

• DL System Administrators (System Librarian)
• They select the software components necessary to
  create the Digital Library System needed to serve
  the required DL (as specified by the DL Designer)
  and decide where and how to deploy them They
  interact with the DLMS by providing architectural
  configuration parameters, such as the selected
  software components, the hosting nodes, and the
  components allocation. The value of the
  architectural configuration parameters can be
  changed over the DL lifetime Any change of these
  parameters may result in the provision of
  different DL functionality and/or different
  quality
• DL Application Developers
• They develop the software components of DLMSs and
  DLSs, implementing the necessary functionality

33
Hierarchy of Actors Views
34
Main concepts (1)
35
Main concepts (2)

• Content
• The Content concept encompasses the data and
  information that the Digital Library handles and
  makes available to its users Content is an
  umbrella concept used to aggregate all forms of
  information objects that a Digital Library
  collects, manages, and delivers It encompasses
  the diverse range of information objects,
  including such resources as objects, annotations,
  and metadata
• User
• The User concept covers the various actors
  (whether human or machine) entitled to interact
  with Digital Libraries. Digital Libraries
  connect actors with information and support them
  in their ability to consume and make creative use
  of it to generate new information User is an
  umbrella concept including all notions related to
  the representation and management of actor
  entities within a Digital Library. It
  encompasses such elements as the rights that
  actors have within the system and the profiles of
  the actors with characteristics that personalize
  the systems behaviour or represent these actors
  in collaborations
• Functionality
• The Functionality concept encapsulates the
  services that a Digital Library offers to its
  different users, whether classes of users or
  individual users While the general expectation
  is that DLs will be rich in capabilities and
  services, the bare minimum of functions would
  include such aspects as new information object
  registration, search, and browse Beyond that,
  the system seeks to manage the functions of the
  Digital Library to ensure that the functions
  reflect the particular needs of the digital
  librarys community of users and/or the specific
  requirements relating to the Content it contains

36
Main concepts (3)

• Policy
• The Policy concept represents the set (or sets)
  of conditions, rules, terms and regulations
  governing interaction between the Digital Library
  and users, whether virtual or real. Examples of
  policies include acceptable user behaviour,
  digital rights management, privacy and
  confidentiality, charges to users, and collection
  delivery
• Quality
• The Quality concept represents the parameters
  that can be used to characterize and evaluate the
  content and behaviour of a Digital Library.
  Quality can be associated not only with each
  class of content or functionality but also with
  specific information objects or services Some of
  these parameters are objective in nature and can
  be automatically measured, whereas others are
  subjective in nature and can only be measured
  through user evaluations
• Architecture
• The Architecture concept refers to the Digital
  Library System entity and represents a mapping of
  the functionality and content offered by a
  Digital Library onto hardware and software
  components There are two primary reasons for
  having Architecture as a core concept (i)
  Digital Libraries are often assumed to be among
  the most complex and advanced forms of
  information systems and (ii) interoperability
  across Digital Libraries is recognized as a
  substantial research challenge A clear
  architectural framework for the Digital Library
  System offers ammunition in addressing both these
  issues effectively

37
The main concepts in perspective
38
The Digital Library Development Framework
39
The Reference Model
40
Concept Maps
41
Digital Library Domains
42
The Resource Domain
43
The Content Domain
44
The User Domain
45
The Functionality Domain
46
Main functions

• C32 Access Resource
• C33 Discover
• C34 Browse
• C35 Search
• C36 Acquire
• C37 Visualize
• C38 Manage Resource
• C39 Create
• C40 Submit
• C41 Withdraw
• C42 Update
• C43 Validate
• C44 Annotate
• C45 Manage Inform Object
• C64 Manage Actor
• C71 Manage Function
• C72 Manage Policy
• C73 Manage Quality Parameter

• C74 Collaborate
• C75 Exchange Information
• C76 Converse
• C77 Find Collaborator
• C78 Author Collaboratively
• C79 Manage DL
• C80 Manage Content
• C85 Manage User
• C90 Manage Functionality
• C92 Manage Quality
• C93 Manage Policy Domain
• C94 Manage Configure DLS
• C95 Manage DLS
• C104 Configure DLS

47
Manage Information Object

• C46 Disseminate
• C47 Publish
• C48 Author
• C49 Compose
• C50 Process
• C51 Analyze
• C52 Linguistic Analysis
• C53 Qualitative Analysis
• C54 Examine Preservation State
• C55 Statistical Analysis
• C56 Scientific Analysis
• C57 Create Structured Representation
• C58 Compare
• C59 Transform
• C60 Physically Convert
• C61 Translate
• C62 Convert to a Different Format
• C63 Extract

48
Manage Actor

• C65 Establish Actor
• C66 Register
• C67 Sign Up
• C68 Login
• C69 Personalise
• C70 Apply Profile

49
Manage DL

• C80 Manage Content
• C81 Manage Collection
• C82 Import Collection
• C83 Export Collection
• C84 Preserve
• C85 Manage User
• C86 Manage Membership
• C87 Manage Group
• C88 Manage Role
• C89 Manage Actor Profile
• C90 Manage Functionality
• C91 Monitor Usage
• C92 Manage Quality
• C93 Manage Policy Domain

50
Manage Configure DLS

• C95 Manage DLS
• C96 Create DLS
• C97 Withdraw DLS
• C98 Update DLS
• C99 Manage Architecture
• C100 Manage Architectural Component
• C101 Configure Architectural Componebnt
• C102 Deploy Architectural Component
• C103 Monitor Architectural Component
• C104 Configure DLS
• C105 Configure Resource Format
• C106 Configure Content
• C107 Configure User
• C108 Configure Functionality
• C109 Configure Policy
• C110 Configure Quality

51
Access Resource
52
Manage Resource (1)
53
Manage Resource (2)
54
Manage Information Object
55
Manage Actor
56
Collaborate
57
Manage DL
58
Manage Configure DLS
59
The Policy domain
60
Categorization of Policies
61
The Quality Domain
62
The Architecture Domain
63
DLS Reference architecture
64
DLS Concrete architecture

65
Conclusions
Before you think that now you know everything
about (the technical aspects of) Digital
Libraries, there is one (recurring) question
Will the Web become the ultimate Digital Library ?
66
The Web vs. Digital Libraries

• Opinion n. 1

67
Claim 1

• All the information needs of an IT Society
  (research, education, entertainment, business,
  etc.) will be provided by this huge heap of
  information called the Web

NO
NO
68
Claim 2

• For all those activities that require organized
  and controlled information, the actual
  institutions (notably libraries, archives and
  museums) will continue to have a significant role

NO
NO
(NOT ONLY THEM)
69
Digital Libraries in the Information Space
High
Databases
Info Retrieval
Structure of User Behavior
CMS/DAMS
Wikis/blogs
Digital Libraries

Web
High
Low
Structure of Data
70
Basic concepts of an Info Mgmt System
Policy
Quality
Functionality
Content
User
Architecture
71
Refuting Claim 1

• All the information needs of an IT Society
  (research, education, entertainment, business,
  etc.) will NOT be provided by this huge heap of
  information called the Web

72
The Web as an Info Mgmt System
Architecture
73
Three roads to Web Knowledge

• Handcrafted high-quality curated knowledge bases
  (ontologies, encyclopedias, etc.)
• Large-scale information extraction harvesting
  (pattern matching, NLP, statist. learning, etc.)
• Social wisdom from communities
  (social tagging, folksonomies, etc.)

74
Refuting Claim 2

• For all those activities that require organized
  and controlled information, the actual
  institutions (notably libraries, archives and
  museums) will continue to have a (much less)
  significant role

75
Libraries as Info Mgmt Systems
Policy
Quality
Functionality
Content
User
Architecture
76
No barriers to knowledge exchange

• More and more of the worlds info/knowledge lives
  in specialized digital libraries that
• Have content added/created by members of a
  community
• Are curated by specialists of that librarys
  topic
• Are maintained by (designated members of) the
  community
• No strict separation between producer, curator,
  and consumer roles wrt which actors plays which
• Advanced services annotation, personalization,
  contextualization, preservation, collaboration,
  etc.

77
Hopeful Conclusion DLs vs. the Web

• They are not going to fight or replace each
  other, but in the end they are going to
  complement each other.

Hm!
Yes!
Probably!
With lots ofnew technology help for both
78
The Web vs. Digital Libraries

• Opinion n. 2

79
Libraries Digital Libraries - Web

• Will the Web be the
• Digital Library ? Library ?
• Content
• Structure
• Use(fullness)

80
Libraries Digital Libraries - Web

• Use(fullness)
• Visits to libraries
• Approx 10 / year
• Of which private/touristic visits approx 10 /
  year
• Visits to Digital Libraries
• Several times per week
• Visits to the Web
• Several times per day
• Usually finding what is needed, specifically for
  professional purposes
• People increasingly use simple Google-style
  interfaces for search rather than more complex
  DL-like interfaces, not to mention library
  catalogues

81
Libraries Digital Libraries - Web

• Structure (Information and Metadata)
• Libraries
• very high, professional
• but inflexible one sorting, rest in (digital)
  cataloguessearching these is actually like a DL
  without content
• Digital Libraries
• Very high, manually cared for, sometimes
  community-driven
• Flexible ways of interaction
• Web
• None, but
• Increasingly created automatically CiteSeer,
  DBWorld, GoogleBooks, Genre Classification, Topic
  analysis, Named Entity Detection,

82
Libraries Digital Libraries - Web

• Content
• Libraries
• High-quality, selected content
• but increasingly not the content I need
  proceedings, papers are first/only in DL before
  they make it to the library catalogue
• Digital Libraries
• Sometimes the only place where I can find certain
  material (sufficiently easily)
• Increasingly also older content digitized
• Web
• Sometimes even more comprehensive than theDLs
• Whats not on-line does not exist (cf. CiteSeer)
• Increasing amounts of traditional, high-qualiyt
  content on the Web (or in a DL?) (e.g. Internet
  Archive)

83
Libraries Digital Libraries - Web

• So
• Looks like (parts of) the Web will turn into a
• Digital Library, which will eventually replace
  the
• Conventional Library
• Requiring only
• More content (will come)
• More structure (will be provided by better
  computer programs), which will lead to
• More users using this, assisted by better
  interfaces

84
The Web vs. Digital Libraries

• Opinion n. 3

85
Googles Mission

• Google's mission is to organize the world's
  information and make it universally accessible
  and useful.
• Organize
• By vertical/property Scholar, Book Search,
  Product Search, News, Maps, etc
• By search
• Worlds information
• What we can reach through the web
• What we license
• Universally accessible
• Via internet
• Internationalized and localized
• Useful focussing on and meeting our users needs

Is Google() the worlds Digital Library? put
here your favourite search engine
85
86
A Digital Librarys Mission

• A Digital Library 's mission is, for a selected
  user community, to organize that communitys
  information and make it universally accessible
  and useful to that community.
• Organize
• According to the needs of the user community
  (art, photographs, scientific data, ... )
• Communitys information
• Information (including data) generated by the
  community
• That can be reached through the web
• That can be licensed (or purchased)
• (Universally) accessible
• Via internet (including via web search)
• Internationalized and localized
• Useful focussing on and meeting users needs
  within the selected user community

86
87
Major Differences in Missions

• Scale
• Information broad versus deep coverage
• General versus specific communities (and
  therefore needs)
• Organizing principles (can be very different)
• Services provided how we add value to
  information/data
• Other considerations
• Profit
• Quality, conservation and preservation
• Authority

87
88
Conclusions (opinion 3)

• Web Search (Google) and Digital Libraries share
  similar but complementary missions
• Celebrate the diversity of missions, and
  concentrate on strengths whether as web search
  engine or digital library
• Search engines scale, universal delivery,
  universal services
• Digital libraries specialized collections,
  specialized services, library services
• Focus on delivering value to users through useful
  and relevant (web) services (Focus on the user
  and all else will follow)
• Web search is a service that Digital Libraries
  should exploit to ensure universal access to
  information and services

88
89
The evolution of libraries
paper, pictures, audio, video
digital surrogatesborn digital objects
Digital Library
digital librarians, digital curators, etc
???????
90
Final conclusion
The important thing is ....
Getting There