Digital Libraries: Integrating Content and Systems

Citation

Barker, P. (2007), "Digital Libraries: Integrating Content and Systems", The Electronic Library, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 376-378. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470710754904

Within most library systems, there is an increasing volume of electronic resources becoming available for users. Of course, one of the tremendous advantages of having data, information and knowledge available in (digital) electronic form is the fact that they can easily be made available at locations other than where they are stored. In this context, a computer‐based software artefact that is able to store, organise, manage and make available digital resources to users is often “loosely” referred to as a digital library (DL). Essentially, of course, such a library often “mimics” the characteristics and behaviour of a conventional library. In principle, anyone who knows how to set up a web server (that has appropriate network connectivity) can make available a digital library facility ‐ either for personal use or for sharing with others. Naturally, a “would‐be” creator of a digital library would need to have appropriate skills, knowledge and resources. This book identifies what is needed and provides a useful overview of the essential skills and resources that would be required.

The book is written by three North‐American authors who, together, have had substantial experience in the area of digital library design and development. They have put together an interesting collection of ten very useful chapters that take the reader through a comprehensive range of topics relevant to the creation of a digital library system. The material presented in the book spans issues ranging in scope from system design and creation through enabling technologies, standards, authentication of users, integrated library systems, electronic resource management and the use of portals. A glossary and a bibliography are also provided.

Following an introductory chapter that outlines the challenges involved and the motivation and rationale for digital libraries, the second chapter presents an overview of the “enabling technologies” that are involved in building them. These include the use of standards, network operating systems, web design, relational databases and the use of dynamic HTML. Chapter 3 goes on to describe the role of standards in greater depth. Examples of the ones covered include: MARC, XML, Z39.50, SRU/W, OpenSearch and OpenURL. Some of the other topics considered in this chapter include digital object identifiers (DOIs), LDAP (for authentication) and Shibboleth. Currently emerging standards are also briefly discussed. Controlling access to electronic resources is an important issue for digital libraries; Chapter 4 discusses this topic in some detail. The other important issues covered in this section relate to privacy and security aspects of digital libraries. These deal with the problem of preventing the intrusion of unwanted elements such as viruses and hackers. Relevant topics that are therefore discussed include antivirus protection, firewalls and encryption techniques.

Within many organisations it is likely that a library will employ a vendor‐specific “integrated library system” (ILS) to coordinate its activities. Chapter 5 deals with the problems of interfacing a digital library facility with an ILS. Three major topics are considered: the current and future role of an ILS within a DL environment; accessing, manipulating and re‐purposing ILS data; and connecting an ILS with other digital library systems. The authors describe a range of different techniques for realising these tasks and illustrate their use with a case study involving the development of an online audiovisual resource catalogue. The following two chapters deal with management topics arising from the use of digital artefacts within library systems. Chapter 6 covers electronic resource management ‐ that is, the management of licensed digital content – while Chapter 7 deals with digital asset management (DAM). This latter activity is concerned with looking after digital content that is actually created by and/or owned by the library or its parent institution. These chapters raise two very important possible future scenarios for libraries. First, one that sees the trend towards the greater use of (external) data‐centric services having a significant impact on future library services and systems (p. 110); and second, one that anticipates the increasing use of in‐house digital assets generating a growing need for centralised library‐based DAM services (p. 115).

The last three chapters in the book (Chapters 8 through 10) are devoted to exploring matters relating to integration with content providers, the use of portals and the authors' concluding remarks, respectively. Chapter 8 discusses four important theme areas: technologies for identifying and retrieving known items (OpenURL and DOIs); technologies to support information discovery (federated searching); the influence of search engines on digital libraries; and techniques for developing local integration. As is discussed in Chapter 9, if a library portal is to succeed, “it must combine a wide variety of information and services into a single user interface” (p. 153). This chapter discusses how this can be achieved ‐ and the skills needed to do it. In their final chapter, the authors discuss how digital libraries fit into the infrastructure provided by a broader organisational context. Role changes, cross‐functional teams, training and qualifications and strategic planning are amongst the topics that are considered in this chapter.

Overall, I found this to be a very informative and interesting book. It provides a useful overview of the current status of digital library systems and it outlines the skills, knowledge and techniques that are needed in order to develop them and promote their wider use within conventional library environments.