FA09Q5ANS

Fall 2009 Question 5
The notion "digital libraries" is conceptualized in different ways by researchers, system developers, and users. • Define the term "digital library" from at least two perspectives • Compare a digital library with a traditional library • Discuss the challenges and opportunities that digital libraries bring to diverse users

Responses:


All of this information is coming from Dr. Allard's IS 565 (Digital Libraries) lectures.

Overview of definitions
 * Information collection that is stored and accessed electronically
 * Some definitions emphasize tha DLs should focus on just one topic
 * Some definitions extend focus to services rather than just content

__DL definition by Gary Cleveland, 1998__: "One thing digital libraries will not be is a single, completely digital system that provides instant access to all information, for all sectors of society, from anywhere in the world. This is simply unrealistic. This concept comes from the early days when people were unaware of the complexities of building digital libraries. Instead, they will most likely be a collection of disparate resources and disparate systems, catering to specific communities and user groups, created for specific purposes. They also will include, perhaps indefinitely, paper-based collections. Further, interoperability across digital libraries - of technical architectures, metadata, and document formats - will also only likely to be possible within relatively bounded systems developed for those specific purposes and communities."

__DL definition from the Digital Library Federation, 1999:__ "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 persistance 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."

__Very long DL definition by Borgman, 1999:__ "Digital libraries are a set of electronic resources and assosiated technical capabilities for creating, searching, and using information. In this sense they are an extension and enhancement of information storage and retreival systems that manipulate digial date in any medium (text, images, sounds; static or dynamic images) and exist in distributed networks. The content of digital libraries includes data, metadata that describe various aspects of the data (e.g., representation, creator, owner, reproduction rights), and metadata that consist of links or relationships to other data or metadata, whenter internal or external to the digial library." He goes on to say: "Digital libraries are constructed - collected and organized - by [and for] a community of users, and their functional capabilities support the information needs and uses of that community. They are a component of communities in which individuals and groups interact with each other, using data, information, and knowledge resources and systems. In this sense they are an extension, enhancement, and integration of a variey of information institutions as physical places where resourses are selected, collected, organized, preserved, and accessed in support of a user community. These information institutions include, among others, libraries, museums, archives, and schools, but digital libraries also extend and serve other community settings, including classrooms, offices, laboratories, ahomes, and public spaces." (1999)

Traditional libraries held physical objects (collections) and made access to scholarly resources available (subscription database) on cite; it was bound by the walls. A digital library goes beyond the boundries of the physical location.

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