When is a digital library not a digital library?

R. John Robertson,Digital Libraries4th May 2006

Overview

Digital Libraries Digital Asset Management

The MANDATE project Designing an asset management system

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).

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

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?

Digital Libraries

  Purpose Type Access

Alexandria Digital Library      

NSDL      

ACM      

Perseus Digital Library      

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

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

Digital Libraries: metadata schemas

Title Creator

Subject Description

Publisher Contributor

Date Type

Format Identifier

Source Language

Relation Coverage

Rights

"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

METS header

descriptive metadata

administrative metadata

file section

structural map

structural links

behaviour

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

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

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

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

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).

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)?

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?

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?

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

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

Further Reading/ Questions

Digital Library Definitions LIS 462 – Definitions http://web.simmons.edu/~schwartz/462-defs.html

Toolkithttp://mandate.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/

QuestionsJohn Robertson Rm 12:12

rr@cis.strath.ac.uk