When Is A Digital Library Not A Digital

Slide 1: When is a digital library not a digital library? R. John Robertson, Digital Libraries 4th May 2006

Slide 2: Overview  Digital Libraries  Digital Asset Management  The MANDATE project  Designing an asset management system

Slide 3: Digital Libraries  What is a digital library? "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 persistence 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“ (Digital Library Federation, 1999).

Slide 4: Digital Libraries  What is the purpose of a digital library?  to select,  structure,  offer intellectual access to,  interpret,  distribute,  preserve the integrity of, and ensure the persistence over time of

Slide 5: Digital Libraries  What can you tell about the purpose of the following digital libraries?  What type of materials do they hold?  What points of access do they offer to these materials?

Slide 6: Digital Libraries   Purpose Type Access Alexandria Digital Library       NSDL       ACM       Perseus Digital Library      

Slide 15: Digital Libraries: Implications  What information do you need to store to support each of these sorts of access?  Geospatial co-ordinates  Educational levels  Author/ publisher  Title

Slide 16: Digital Libraries: Metadata  “Metadata is data about data. The term refers to any data used to aid the identification, description and location of networked electronic resources.”  Variety of schemas design to meet local needs but be able to interoperate on some level with other digital libraries  Examples: MARC 21; DC; IEEE LOM

Slide 17: Digital Libraries: metadata schemas "SIGNPOSTS" DATA 100 1# $a Arnosky, Jim. 245 10 $a Raccoons and ripe corn / $c Jim Arnosky. 250 ## $a 1st ed. 260 ## $a New York : $b Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, $c c1987. 300 ## $a 25 p. : $b col. ill. ; $c 26 cm. 520 ## $a Hungry raccoons feast at night in a field of ripe corn. 650 #1 $a Raccoons. 900 ## $a 599.74 ARN 901 ## $a 8009 903 ## $a $15.00 Title Creator METS header Subject Description descriptive metadata Publisher Contributor administrative metadata Date Type Format Identifier file section Source Language structural map Relation Coverage structural links Rights behaviour

Slide 18: Digital Asset Management  Digital Libraries are one type of digital asset store; what are the others?  Loosely speaking two archetypes digital library and content management  Guideline differences between digital library and content management – structured intellectual access, priority of distribute,  Largely same skill set and issues

Slide 19: Digital Asset Management: Mandate  Introduction  Year–long project examining digital asset management in Further Education (Nov 04 –Nov 05)  Purpose  To inform the FE sector about good practice and preservation issues  Funding  JISC  Outcomes  a toolkit for digital asset management in FE and case study of its application at John Wheatley College

Slide 20: Digital Asset Management : Toolkit  Strategy  Purpose of an asset management strategy  Development of an asset management strategy  Managing the development of a strategy  Asset Types  Metadata  Metadata requirements  Metadata standards  Metadata quality  Workflow  Interoperability  Preservation  Legislation  Software  Training

Slide 21: Digital Asset Management : Strategy  Purpose of an asset management strategy  Who is it for?  Staff  Students  Public  What is it for?  Management  Access  Preservation  What is it going to manage?  College documents [y]  College learning materials [y]  External assets [y]  Research materials  Finance documents  Personnel documents

Slide 22: Digital Asset Management : Strategy  Development of an digital asset management strategy  What has to happen to achieve this strategy?  What issues are implicit in these purposes?  What issues are implicit in the selection of asset types?  What are the existing people, practices, and structures?  How are these assets managed currently?  How can existing structures be incorporated /used?  What data already exists electronically?  Why is being aware of this important?  The system supports the strategy not the other way around (if you build it without them, they will not come).

Slide 23: Digital Asset Management : Metadata  Metadata requirements  What points of access are required?  What other information is required? Bibliographic (e.g. "a picture of the Eiffel tower taken by Bob") Administrative (e.g. "taken on 19/04/2005") Legal (e.g. "all rights reserved") Preservation (e.g. "requirement to view as jpeg") Technical (e.g. "jpeg format" ; "85.8kb file") Educational (e.g. "an illustration of construction using cast iron"; "UK Education Level 11") Structural (e.g. "single file")  What of the above metadata is essential?  What of the above metadata is secondary (optional or removed)?

Slide 24: Digital Asset Management : Implementation  Who is the best agent to create each of these metadata elements?  What resources are available?  Do the available resource require compromises in the strategy or the metadata?

Slide 25: Digital Asset Management : Exercise  Within FE what do you think could be generalised about:  the purpose of a digital asset management strategies?  the asset types involved?  the key points of access?  the general context?

Slide 26: Digital Asset Management : context  Issues for digital asset management in FE (sample answers)  Purpose of institution  Teaching – strategy and system must support and not hinder teachers  Resources available  Limited - integration with existing practices vital; human overhead of using system must be minimal  Use of materials  Key points of access – tie into course, educational as well as bibliographic description  Shelf-life of materials  Course life; external determined typically < 3 years  Curation beyond this is in conflict with the purpose of the institution  Ownership of materials  Blanket policy – college’s property

Slide 27: Conclusions  Skills and issues in construction and operation of systems for digital asset management are generally similar to library and information science skills needed for digital libraries  Digital asset management / digital library design – revolves around key questions of context, resources, and needs

Slide 28: Further Reading/ Questions  Digital Library Definitions LIS 462 – Definitions http://web.simmons.edu/~schwartz/462-defs.htm  Toolkit http://mandate.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/ Questions John Robertson Rm 12:12 rr@cis.strath.ac.uk