Joseph E. Stiglitz -- "Intellectual Property Rights and Wrongs"
I've been thinking a lot about intellectual property for the other class I'm taking, Kip Currier's Legal Issues - Copyright class. So yes, I agree with Stiglitz's contention that sharing intellectual property is crucial for advances in medicine, science, technology, and other research. The author raises some of the key issues we've been considering about how abuses of legal power may impede innovation merely in order to benefit corporations or other legal institutions. As a prospective digital librarian, I of course tend to favor open access to research and information. But in the last few months I've become aware of many unfortunately thorny issues that librarians must face in attempting to provide information to the public.
Clifford Lynch -- "Where Do We Go from Here? The Next Decade for Digital Libraries"
Preservation concerns are also something I've been thinking about lately, with regard to both physical and digital materials. One angle of this article that I found interesting was the idea that long-term preservation of intellectual property is too important to allow only librarians to be entrusted with it, since they may be considered only "one group among a broad array of stakeholders." I'm glad to see that funding for digitization initiatives has increased over the last decade or so, thereby "validating" the mission and forming communities among diverse organizations, as the article points out. And indeed, the article reminds us that digital collection creation and management are essential to a huge range of industries and institutions, such as (just for example) engineering firms, homeland security, museums, personal archives, schools, laboratories, and historical societies.
I appreciate the author's effort to consider a "long time horizon perspective" in integrating digital information management technologies for multiple purposes across people's lifetimes. As a side note, this makes me think of the excellent book "The Clock of the Long Now" by Stewart Brand, which I read as an optional assignment for Dr. Richard Cox's class in archival ethics. The book was a fascinating meditation on ultra-long-term preservation. Highly recommended!
Showing posts with label digital libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital libraries. Show all posts
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Reading notes for Security and Economics
W. Y. Arms -- Implementing Policies for Access Management
This article addresses issues in access management of electronic documents. Many institutions wish to restrict access to online documents for reasons of privacy, security, or payment restrictions. The access model's framework places policies at the center, such that every user and collection has an associated policy. However, under this model any policy change would require altering every document, a time-consuming and error-prone prospect. Alternatively, another approach uses containers of information to encapsulate policies and more easily transmit/change/enforce them. The article's table in section two was helpful for illustrating a simple breakdown of users, attributes, and operations all comprising a policy.
Of course, digital materials' metadata allows for many attributes to be associated with every item, and users' logins may easily demarcate different populations. However, interoperability is still a challenge when dealing with multiple libraries' collections. The article shows why it's best to keep attributes, policies, operations, etc. separate for easy management.
Lesk Chapter Nine
The chapter begins by pointing out that traditional libraries have often been financially extravagant, and questioning whether digital libraries offer a more economically reasonable alternative.
Funding models for digital libraries include:
* institutional support
* charging users
* advertisers
* other, such as pledge drives for donations
Of course, the traditional library has not been monetized, so users may be resistant to paying for digital library services. Although costs for digital copying are low to nil, if consumers expect instant and unlimited copies, publishers stand to lose money.
Costs of academic texts and journals are particularly high, causing many libraries to reduce their offerings -- a loss to scholars. Sometimes libraries switch to on-demand acquisition only. I was interested in the notion of libraries as "buyers' clubs," wherein people pool their money to buy a single copy of something, but the article mentions many problems (and even paradoxes) with this approach.
Subscription libraries are one option, with parallels both in history and in organizations such as video lending services. A per-item or a per-month/year fee model may be used.
One problem libraries may face with digital materials is revocation of priorly owned materials. When a library cancels a subscription to a print journal, it still owns the titles it has already bought; in the digital realm, all access to back issues may be denied with the cancellation of a subscription.
Yet another issue is the difficulty of obtaining access to copyrighted work in order to digitize it. This process can consume far too much time and money to be worthwhile.
This article addresses issues in access management of electronic documents. Many institutions wish to restrict access to online documents for reasons of privacy, security, or payment restrictions. The access model's framework places policies at the center, such that every user and collection has an associated policy. However, under this model any policy change would require altering every document, a time-consuming and error-prone prospect. Alternatively, another approach uses containers of information to encapsulate policies and more easily transmit/change/enforce them. The article's table in section two was helpful for illustrating a simple breakdown of users, attributes, and operations all comprising a policy.
Of course, digital materials' metadata allows for many attributes to be associated with every item, and users' logins may easily demarcate different populations. However, interoperability is still a challenge when dealing with multiple libraries' collections. The article shows why it's best to keep attributes, policies, operations, etc. separate for easy management.
Lesk Chapter Nine
The chapter begins by pointing out that traditional libraries have often been financially extravagant, and questioning whether digital libraries offer a more economically reasonable alternative.
Funding models for digital libraries include:
* institutional support
* charging users
* advertisers
* other, such as pledge drives for donations
Of course, the traditional library has not been monetized, so users may be resistant to paying for digital library services. Although costs for digital copying are low to nil, if consumers expect instant and unlimited copies, publishers stand to lose money.
Costs of academic texts and journals are particularly high, causing many libraries to reduce their offerings -- a loss to scholars. Sometimes libraries switch to on-demand acquisition only. I was interested in the notion of libraries as "buyers' clubs," wherein people pool their money to buy a single copy of something, but the article mentions many problems (and even paradoxes) with this approach.
Subscription libraries are one option, with parallels both in history and in organizations such as video lending services. A per-item or a per-month/year fee model may be used.
One problem libraries may face with digital materials is revocation of priorly owned materials. When a library cancels a subscription to a print journal, it still owns the titles it has already bought; in the digital realm, all access to back issues may be denied with the cancellation of a subscription.
Yet another issue is the difficulty of obtaining access to copyrighted work in order to digitize it. This process can consume far too much time and money to be worthwhile.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Reading notes for Evaluation
The link to Arms' chapter didn't work, so I looked it up elsewhere and found a 1999 version at the following web address: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/wya/DigLib/MS1999/Chapter8.html
I assume it's not too outdated!
It gives a good basic introduction to the principles of a user interface, and the ways that an interface should change along with technology over time. The conceptual model that this chapter proposed was pretty straightforward, as was its review of browser technology. Most of the chapter's points are ones I was already familiar with, e.g. that a web designer must balance effective use of advanced or sophisticated features with the ability to offer simplicity and speed for less well-equipped users. I was also already familiar with mirroring and caching -- and was interested to see that when this article was written (presumably in 1999) video skimming was mostly merely an idea for future development. What I found most interesting were the chapter's brief references to the writer's own experiences, such as the fact that his online magazine redesigned its interface yearly.
Kling and Elliott's article brings a focus to usability concerns in designing an interface; they recognize that ease of use improves users' performance. They break ease of use down into four components:
Learnability - which also concerns the speed with which a user can begin using the software
Efficiency - how productively a user can make use of the system
Memorability - whether the user can easily return to using the system after an absence
Low error rate - no catastrophic errors and easy recovery from the minor ones
Clearly an intuitive system organization that works well on a server will lead to the best results. Given that users of digital libraries will have all sorts of different goals and intentions, it's probably best for system developers to survey users frequently to determine the areas in need of improvement.
For organizations, the authors break down concerns as follows:
Accessibility - the ease with which people can locate specific systems and content, both physically and administratively
Compatibility - of file transfers between systems
Integrability into work practices - how smoothly the system fits existing practices
Social-organizational expertise - how well people can obtain training and consulting to learn to use systems and troubleshoot
Unsurprisingly, many of the authors' recommendations for digital libraries involve testing systems, surveying users, exploring multiple design alternatives, etc. They implore us to pay attention to cultural models of user bases, reminding us that a system appropriate for elementary schoolchildren will not be as appropriate for graduate-level science laboratories.
Finally, Tefko Saracevic's article evaluates evaluation: analyzing the methods and contexts of the (relatively rare) evaluation of several different digital libraries. The article goes into details about the evaluative methods that were used, and highlights the variety of approaches possible: usability-centered (as with the article above), ethnographic, anthropological, sociological, and economic. The article highlights many distinct matrices of assessment, and briefly acknowledges that despite many factual criteria there is also the role of human judgment in certain evaluations. Digital libraries are fairly new, so it is understandable that not much evaluation has been done on them, but one of the take-home messages of this article is that despite apparent lack of interest and definite lack of funding, evaluation is important and should become a bigger part of digital library culture.
I assume it's not too outdated!
It gives a good basic introduction to the principles of a user interface, and the ways that an interface should change along with technology over time. The conceptual model that this chapter proposed was pretty straightforward, as was its review of browser technology. Most of the chapter's points are ones I was already familiar with, e.g. that a web designer must balance effective use of advanced or sophisticated features with the ability to offer simplicity and speed for less well-equipped users. I was also already familiar with mirroring and caching -- and was interested to see that when this article was written (presumably in 1999) video skimming was mostly merely an idea for future development. What I found most interesting were the chapter's brief references to the writer's own experiences, such as the fact that his online magazine redesigned its interface yearly.
Kling and Elliott's article brings a focus to usability concerns in designing an interface; they recognize that ease of use improves users' performance. They break ease of use down into four components:
Learnability - which also concerns the speed with which a user can begin using the software
Efficiency - how productively a user can make use of the system
Memorability - whether the user can easily return to using the system after an absence
Low error rate - no catastrophic errors and easy recovery from the minor ones
Clearly an intuitive system organization that works well on a server will lead to the best results. Given that users of digital libraries will have all sorts of different goals and intentions, it's probably best for system developers to survey users frequently to determine the areas in need of improvement.
For organizations, the authors break down concerns as follows:
Accessibility - the ease with which people can locate specific systems and content, both physically and administratively
Compatibility - of file transfers between systems
Integrability into work practices - how smoothly the system fits existing practices
Social-organizational expertise - how well people can obtain training and consulting to learn to use systems and troubleshoot
Unsurprisingly, many of the authors' recommendations for digital libraries involve testing systems, surveying users, exploring multiple design alternatives, etc. They implore us to pay attention to cultural models of user bases, reminding us that a system appropriate for elementary schoolchildren will not be as appropriate for graduate-level science laboratories.
Finally, Tefko Saracevic's article evaluates evaluation: analyzing the methods and contexts of the (relatively rare) evaluation of several different digital libraries. The article goes into details about the evaluative methods that were used, and highlights the variety of approaches possible: usability-centered (as with the article above), ethnographic, anthropological, sociological, and economic. The article highlights many distinct matrices of assessment, and briefly acknowledges that despite many factual criteria there is also the role of human judgment in certain evaluations. Digital libraries are fairly new, so it is understandable that not much evaluation has been done on them, but one of the take-home messages of this article is that despite apparent lack of interest and definite lack of funding, evaluation is important and should become a bigger part of digital library culture.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Reading notes for Access in Digital Libraries II
Chapter 1. Definition and Origins of OAI-PMH --
Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH): a relatively simple protocol for sharing descriptive data, broadly useful (esp. for digital libraries)
-Created to aid the development of services across similar items (e.g. journal articles, video clips, etc.)
-Allows transfer of metadata online
-It's important not to assume a context that would be obvious within an institution but not to outsiders, for when this collection is shared, there will be no metadata to indicate what would have been obvious only within the institution
-The OAI technical committee worked throughout 2001 to establish the metadata issues most in need of consideration
-While OAI-PMH enables searches across repositories, it is not itself a protocol for searching
Todd Miller -- Federated Searching: Put It in Its Place --
This article posits the idea that "only librarians like to search; everyone else likes to find." (This may be an oversimplification; just for example, surely many users benefit from playing around with search terms, or find interesting new materials within a search for other items...) It points out that library searches limited to cataloged metadata pertaining to books is insufficient for the twenty-first century, when searchability should extend within the full text of a broader range of materials (especially digital documents). Thus, the article draws a distinction between catalog searches of books (relying on metadata) and Google searches, which can more thoroughly index a text's entire content. The article argues for simplicity and access, claiming that efforts to make information more secure usually make it less accessible. This would seem to be an obvious point.
The Truth About Federated Searching--
The article debunks the five most common myths about federated searching. In doing so, it highlights the importance for libraries of using their own authentication when possible in order to keep authentication problems from preventing effective searches for remote users. The article also helped me see that federated searching is not just software, but a service that constantly updates itself and helps a library avoid the need to update translators for its search terms (which can result in disruption of service).
The Z39.50 Information Retrieval Standard--
This article gives a helpful overview and history of Z39.50. I was most interested in the section about the role of content semantics, which allow for more abstract associations in searching. There are endless classes of information mapping, and I'm wondering how consensus is reached regarding the structure of content semantics. Also, this is a fairly old article; I'm wondering what may have changed in the last twelve years?
Search Engine Technology and Digital Libraries-
One of the interesting things this article pointed out was that libraries still see themselves as repositories of collections, rather than "gateways" to information that already exists online. The article highlights the importance of libraries' awareness of existing digital resources, and argues for their role evolving to include serving as portals to the academic web. It claims that the younger generations express a strong preference for "Google-like" access to information over traditional catalogs, and examines libraries' resistance to commercial search engines while suggesting ways in which such search technologies could be integrated into sustainable system architecture for library collections and digital materials. Are more libraries indeed creating their own local search engine infrastructures in order to build further indexes? And if so, is interoperability a great concern?
Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH): a relatively simple protocol for sharing descriptive data, broadly useful (esp. for digital libraries)
-Created to aid the development of services across similar items (e.g. journal articles, video clips, etc.)
-Allows transfer of metadata online
-It's important not to assume a context that would be obvious within an institution but not to outsiders, for when this collection is shared, there will be no metadata to indicate what would have been obvious only within the institution
-The OAI technical committee worked throughout 2001 to establish the metadata issues most in need of consideration
-While OAI-PMH enables searches across repositories, it is not itself a protocol for searching
Todd Miller -- Federated Searching: Put It in Its Place --
This article posits the idea that "only librarians like to search; everyone else likes to find." (This may be an oversimplification; just for example, surely many users benefit from playing around with search terms, or find interesting new materials within a search for other items...) It points out that library searches limited to cataloged metadata pertaining to books is insufficient for the twenty-first century, when searchability should extend within the full text of a broader range of materials (especially digital documents). Thus, the article draws a distinction between catalog searches of books (relying on metadata) and Google searches, which can more thoroughly index a text's entire content. The article argues for simplicity and access, claiming that efforts to make information more secure usually make it less accessible. This would seem to be an obvious point.
The Truth About Federated Searching--
The article debunks the five most common myths about federated searching. In doing so, it highlights the importance for libraries of using their own authentication when possible in order to keep authentication problems from preventing effective searches for remote users. The article also helped me see that federated searching is not just software, but a service that constantly updates itself and helps a library avoid the need to update translators for its search terms (which can result in disruption of service).
The Z39.50 Information Retrieval Standard--
This article gives a helpful overview and history of Z39.50. I was most interested in the section about the role of content semantics, which allow for more abstract associations in searching. There are endless classes of information mapping, and I'm wondering how consensus is reached regarding the structure of content semantics. Also, this is a fairly old article; I'm wondering what may have changed in the last twelve years?
Search Engine Technology and Digital Libraries-
One of the interesting things this article pointed out was that libraries still see themselves as repositories of collections, rather than "gateways" to information that already exists online. The article highlights the importance of libraries' awareness of existing digital resources, and argues for their role evolving to include serving as portals to the academic web. It claims that the younger generations express a strong preference for "Google-like" access to information over traditional catalogs, and examines libraries' resistance to commercial search engines while suggesting ways in which such search technologies could be integrated into sustainable system architecture for library collections and digital materials. Are more libraries indeed creating their own local search engine infrastructures in order to build further indexes? And if so, is interoperability a great concern?
Friday, September 18, 2009
Week 3 reading notes
Michael Lesk, Understanding Digital Libraries - sections 2.1, 2.2, 2.7, and Chapter 3
2.1 Computer Typesetting
The history of text standards for both software and printing... WYSIWYG formats developed in the 1970s led to more user-friendly transparency between screen and page...Postscript & SGML both important developments for computer typesetting
2.2 Text Formats
Discussion of tags and searches within the three most notable standards (MARC, SGML, and HTML).... Difficulty of entering SGML labels in a WYSIWYG document... HTML, of course, supports hypertext links. Certain questions and issues arise when information professionals try to describe content, deduce keywords, rank search terms, etc.
2.7 Document Conversion
There are two primary strategies for text: scanning w/ Optical Character Recognition, and keying in materials (original or transcribed, with original errors usually included in transcriptions).
I was struck by the number of errors in certain scans of the newspaper text, but I see that progress is being made in OCR systems and software. This is clearly very important for digital archiving of older materials.
Chapter 3: Images of Pages
There are sizable differences among the quality of scanned images (depending on equipment) and the costs for such efforts (keying vs. machine scanning). Review of specific equipment, etc...
Various image formats (compression algorithms, etc.)
Display requirements should allow for easy legibility on a variety of computer equipment
PDFs help retain the author's originally intended format & appearance.
Postscript --> Adobe Acrobat, PDFs
Indexing: thumbnails are helpful for users, but not machine-readable
Print indexes can be based on other standards
Again, OCR helps for searchability
For old newspapers' digitization, sometimes clipping story-by-story as image files works best
Some files share texts & images, tables, other formats, etc. -- a page can be broken into separate regions
There are three library storage options: scanning, on-campus storage, and an off-site depository, each w/ pros & cons (off-site for rarer stuff)
ARMS. Chapters 9. http://www.cs.cornell.edu/wya/DigLib/MS1999/Chapter9.html.
Again, proof that OCR is vital to searchability of scanned texts.
2.1 Computer Typesetting
The history of text standards for both software and printing... WYSIWYG formats developed in the 1970s led to more user-friendly transparency between screen and page...Postscript & SGML both important developments for computer typesetting
2.2 Text Formats
Discussion of tags and searches within the three most notable standards (MARC, SGML, and HTML).... Difficulty of entering SGML labels in a WYSIWYG document... HTML, of course, supports hypertext links. Certain questions and issues arise when information professionals try to describe content, deduce keywords, rank search terms, etc.
2.7 Document Conversion
There are two primary strategies for text: scanning w/ Optical Character Recognition, and keying in materials (original or transcribed, with original errors usually included in transcriptions).
I was struck by the number of errors in certain scans of the newspaper text, but I see that progress is being made in OCR systems and software. This is clearly very important for digital archiving of older materials.
Chapter 3: Images of Pages
There are sizable differences among the quality of scanned images (depending on equipment) and the costs for such efforts (keying vs. machine scanning). Review of specific equipment, etc...
Various image formats (compression algorithms, etc.)
Display requirements should allow for easy legibility on a variety of computer equipment
PDFs help retain the author's originally intended format & appearance.
Postscript --> Adobe Acrobat, PDFs
Indexing: thumbnails are helpful for users, but not machine-readable
Print indexes can be based on other standards
Again, OCR helps for searchability
For old newspapers' digitization, sometimes clipping story-by-story as image files works best
Some files share texts & images, tables, other formats, etc. -- a page can be broken into separate regions
There are three library storage options: scanning, on-campus storage, and an off-site depository, each w/ pros & cons (off-site for rarer stuff)
ARMS. Chapters 9. http://www.cs.cornell.edu/wya/DigLib/MS1999/Chapter9.html.
Again, proof that OCR is vital to searchability of scanned texts.
Week 2 - the muddiest point from lecture
I wouldn't say any points from lecture were particularly "muddy," but certain things did surprise me. For example, I was disappointed to hear that there's not much funding these days for digital library development from the government; I would have hoped that such funding would be ongoing, given how very much printed material there is to put online.
In lecture we also heard a bit more about the aspect of "community" that I had questioned in the paper I wrote last week. It seems that community is considered a central starting-point for digital library development: you start with the society you want to serve, and develop everything according to that community's social, economic, and legal issues. The lecture helped me understand a few of the questions I raised about the necessity of developing a DL for a specific community, but I still wonder whether it's always essential.
In lecture we also heard a bit more about the aspect of "community" that I had questioned in the paper I wrote last week. It seems that community is considered a central starting-point for digital library development: you start with the society you want to serve, and develop everything according to that community's social, economic, and legal issues. The lecture helped me understand a few of the questions I raised about the necessity of developing a DL for a specific community, but I still wonder whether it's always essential.
Monday, September 14, 2009
A couple of odds and ends
The link within the syllabus to one of the Week 2 readings didn't work, so I had to get there through another route: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/wya/DigLib/MS1999/Chapter2.html. The article provided a brief introduction to the birth of the internet, which I had already read about, but it also clarified a few of the finer points regarding the particulars of the internet, such as the difference between IP and TCP and how these protocols work together to send packets. I was interested in the sidebar about the relatively early formation of the Los Alamos E-Print Archives, since it sounds like such a seamless way for researchers themselves to contribute to a digital library without having to make any adjustments for format, protocol, or tools. Its use of an open archive format, wherein the authors retain copyright of their materials, makes good sense and seems an interesting precursor to the World Wide Web as we now know it.
In other LIS 2670 news, I didn't see an assignment uploading tool within CourseWeb for this class, so I emailed my first brief essay to the professor, and I also hosted a copy of the file via Google Docs, just to be sure. It can be accessed at
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfddpdf6_2fhffsfcx.
In other LIS 2670 news, I didn't see an assignment uploading tool within CourseWeb for this class, so I emailed my first brief essay to the professor, and I also hosted a copy of the file via Google Docs, just to be sure. It can be accessed at
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfddpdf6_2fhffsfcx.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Week 2 Reading Notes
Just a few notes on the articles I read for this week...
A Framework for Building Open Digital Libraries
The technology behind Digital Libraries is evolving at a faster pace than the already well-established practices of library science, so standards such as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set and the Open Archives Initiative's Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) aim to make library and computer/data systems more interoperable.
Digital libraries are often custom-built, and therefore not designed to be interoperable with/within other systems. Program logic (which can be complex) varies according to community needs. As of the article date (Dec. 2001), few software tool kits existed for the express purpose of building digital libraries; in the absence of such unified starting-points, the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting treats multiple DLs as searchable Open Archives. The Open Digital Library design allows for interoperability at the functional level across physically separate collections. Various components of an ODL network allow users to browse by categories, combine metadata from multiple sources, search and filter search results, sort by date, and so on. Ultimately, the authors hope to influence the development of DLs starting from the design stage.
Interoperability for Digital Objects and Repositories
This article describes the Cornell/Corporation for National Research Initiatives' own efforts to develop and employ a design for interoperable digital repositories. The authors' own approach is a hybrid of some of the traditional approaches to achieving interoperability, such as standardization (e.g., schema definition, data models, protocols), distributed object request architectures (e.g., CORBA), remote procedure calls, mediation (e.g., gateways, wrappers), and mobile computing (e.g., Java applets).
The article mentions the authors' focus on the preservation of digital items, standardization of format, and attention to access issues. The article lists certain components of accessing digital objects: disseminator types (usually outside operations), servlets (executable programs), and the notion of extensibility (how easily the new digital object can be used with additional functionality).
The authors performed experiments to test extensibility, interoperability, functionality, and other access/compatibility issues. The tests were mostly successful, and will guide the authors' future research on the implementation of programs designed to increase interoperability.
An Architecture for Information in Digital Libraries
This article gives an overview of the structure of stored information in digital libraries. I aim to fill in details as soon as I get the chance!
A Framework for Building Open Digital Libraries
The technology behind Digital Libraries is evolving at a faster pace than the already well-established practices of library science, so standards such as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set and the Open Archives Initiative's Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) aim to make library and computer/data systems more interoperable.
Digital libraries are often custom-built, and therefore not designed to be interoperable with/within other systems. Program logic (which can be complex) varies according to community needs. As of the article date (Dec. 2001), few software tool kits existed for the express purpose of building digital libraries; in the absence of such unified starting-points, the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting treats multiple DLs as searchable Open Archives. The Open Digital Library design allows for interoperability at the functional level across physically separate collections. Various components of an ODL network allow users to browse by categories, combine metadata from multiple sources, search and filter search results, sort by date, and so on. Ultimately, the authors hope to influence the development of DLs starting from the design stage.
Interoperability for Digital Objects and Repositories
This article describes the Cornell/Corporation for National Research Initiatives' own efforts to develop and employ a design for interoperable digital repositories. The authors' own approach is a hybrid of some of the traditional approaches to achieving interoperability, such as standardization (e.g., schema definition, data models, protocols), distributed object request architectures (e.g., CORBA), remote procedure calls, mediation (e.g., gateways, wrappers), and mobile computing (e.g., Java applets).
The article mentions the authors' focus on the preservation of digital items, standardization of format, and attention to access issues. The article lists certain components of accessing digital objects: disseminator types (usually outside operations), servlets (executable programs), and the notion of extensibility (how easily the new digital object can be used with additional functionality).
The authors performed experiments to test extensibility, interoperability, functionality, and other access/compatibility issues. The tests were mostly successful, and will guide the authors' future research on the implementation of programs designed to increase interoperability.
An Architecture for Information in Digital Libraries
This article gives an overview of the structure of stored information in digital libraries. I aim to fill in details as soon as I get the chance!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
An Initial Post...
And so commences my blog for LIS 2670, Digital Libraries, at Pitt. Welcome!
We were asked to submit our "muddiest points" from lectures and/or readings. Most of the first week's readings were pretty straightforward, although in the Dewey Meets Turing article, I wasn't entirely clear about how or whether the grant money for the natural sciences translated into adequate funding for the digital library initiative. I assume that the natural sciences grants were stretched to fund the DLI, but that makes me wonder about funding for digital libraries in disciplines that don't traditionally receive as much grant money.
I'll post again soon with reactions to this week's readings.
We were asked to submit our "muddiest points" from lectures and/or readings. Most of the first week's readings were pretty straightforward, although in the Dewey Meets Turing article, I wasn't entirely clear about how or whether the grant money for the natural sciences translated into adequate funding for the digital library initiative. I assume that the natural sciences grants were stretched to fund the DLI, but that makes me wonder about funding for digital libraries in disciplines that don't traditionally receive as much grant money.
I'll post again soon with reactions to this week's readings.
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