A framework for transient objects in Digital Libraries

Content-Based Indexing of Spatial Objects in Digital Libraries

This paper presents an approach of two-way data exchange between the citation content analysis, provided by the Cirtec project, and the big research digital library Socionet. Many papers in Socionet have citation relationships with other papers and also linkages with authors’ personal profiles and through them with other information objects. It allows making an enrichment of data for the citation content analysis by different additional information and, as well, linking results of such analysis with objects in a digital library, like papers, their authors, affiliation organizations, etc. We discuss what numeric and qualitative indicators can be built by citation content analysis based on the Cirtec open citation data. Since these indicators have IDs related with digital library objects, they can be integrated and visualized as computer-generated annotations to papers’ full texts in PDF.

“What is a good digital library?” – A quality model for digital libraries

Digital libraries are distributed software infrastructures that aim at collecting, managing, preserving, and using digital objects (or resources) for the long term, and providing specialized services on such resources to its users. Service provision should be of measurable quality and performed according to codified policies. Currently, modern digital libraries include a wide range of conventional digital objects: text document, image, audio, video, software, etc. In the emerging domain of the Internet of Things (IoT), cyberphysical smart objects (or simply smart objects) will play a central role in providing new (smart) services to both humans and machines. It is therefore challenging to include smart objects, the newest type of digital objects, into digital libraries as novel first-class objects to be collected, managed, and preserved. However, their inclusion poses critical issues to address and many research challenges to deal with. This paper aims at paving the way towards such a novel inclusion that will enable effective discovery, management and querying of smart objects, so establishing cyberphysical digital libraries. In particular, our approach is based on a metadata model purposely defined to describe all the cyberphysical characteristics (geophysical, functional, and non-functional) of smart objects. The metadata model is then used for a seamless integration of smart objects into digital libraries compliant with the digital library reference model proposed by the DL.org community. The proposed approach is also exemplified through a simple yet effective case study.

Information seekers are generally on their own to discover and use a research library's growing array of digital collections, and coordination of these collections' development and maintenance is often not optimal. The frequent lack of a conscious design for how collections fit together is of equal concern because it means that research libraries are not making the most of the substantial investments they are making in digital initiatives. This paper proposes a framework for a research library's digital collections that offers integrated discovery and a set of best practices to underpin collection building, federated access, and sustainability. The framework's purpose is to give information seekers a powerful and easy way to search across existing and future collections and to retrieve integrated sets of results. The paper and its recommendations are based upon research undertaken by the author and a team of librarians and technologists at Cornell University Library. The team conducted structured interviews of forty-five library staff members involved in digital collection building at Cornell, studied an inventory of the library's more than fifty digital collections, and evaluated seven existing Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and federated search production or prototype systems. The author will discuss her team's research and the rationale for their recommendations to: present a cohesive view of the library's digital collections for both browsing and searching at the object level; take a programmatic (rather than project-based) approach to digital collection building; require that all new digital collections conform to library-developed and agreed-upon OAI best practices for data providers; and implement organizational structures to sustain the library's digital collections over the long term.

Information seekers are generally on their own to discover and use a research library's growing array of digital collections, and coordination of these collections' development and maintenance is often not optimal. The frequent lack of a conscious design for how collections fit together is of equal concern because it means that research libraries are not making the most of the substantial investments they are making in digital initiatives. This paper proposes a framework for a research library's digital collections that offers integrated discovery and a set of best practices to underpin collection building, federated access, and sustainability. The framework's purpose is to give information seekers a powerful and easy way to search across existing and future collections and to retrieve integrated sets of results. The paper and its recommendations are based upon research undertaken by the author and a team of librarians and technologists at Cornell University Library. The team conducted structured interviews of forty-five library staff members involved in digital collection building at Cornell, studied an inventory of the library's more than fifty digital collections, and evaluated seven existing Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and federated search production or prototype systems. The author will discuss her team's research and the rationale for their recommendations to: present a cohesive view of the library's digital collections for both browsing and searching at the object level; take a programmatic (rather than project-based) approach to digital collection building; require that all new digital collections conform to library-developed and agreed-upon OAI best practices for data providers; and implement organizational structures to sustain the library's digital collections over the long term.

Purpose This study aims to understand the technical and operational challenges encountered by multilingual digital libraries and their strategies to solve problems in sustaining multilinguality services for digital libraries. Design/methodology/approach Using the multiple-case method, this study investigated two digital libraries that have sustained multilinguality for over a decade: the World Digital Library and the Digital Library of the Caribbean. Findings This study identified eight factors that contributed to the success of the two multilingual digital libraries and eight technical and operational challenges they have faced. A framework for digital libraries to sustain multilinguality is proposed. This framework illustrates the challenges and strategies to address the challenges in 11 aspects: creation, leadership, collaboration, content, metadata, translation, funding, technology, preservation, staffing and copyright. Research limitations/implications This study focused on two multilingual digital libraries administered in the USA, though they do not fully represent multilingual digital libraries in the USA. Therefore, the findings from the study may not apply to multilingual digital libraries the USA or other countries. As on-site interviews of both digital libraries were conducted at the beginning of 2019, the timeframe of this study is up to that date. Practical implications With more users worldwide seeking information online, more digital libraries will be providing multilingual services. This study provides guidelines to digital library developers and archivists for building and sustaining their digital libraries or archives. The experience and lessons learned from these two digital libraries may also help to better understand challenges and use effective strategies in building and sustaining multilinguality. Social implications The users and communities of digital libraries will be able to learn the benefits and challenges as related to building and sustaining digital library services. These services always need support to better serve their users and communities. Originality/value As the first multiple-case research that investigates in-depth challenges and approaches of digital libraries in sustaining multilinguality, this study presents a general picture of how the two digital libraries have succeeded in sustaining multilinguality. Theoretically, the study enriches the literature by providing a more comprehensive sustainability framework for multilinguality. This framework specifies possible aspects to consider for gaining sustainability of multilingual digital libraries and offers useful guidelines and insights for the digital library community to build multilingual services.

A case study on migrating large digital collections into a consolidated repository

The FRBR-model provided by the IFLA Study group on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records addresses the need for a more thorough model of bibliographic information. This paper describes a solution for applying the FRBR model to existing bibliographic catalogues. This is accomplished by augmenting the catalogue with an externally stored map that contains relationships and entities according to the model. The core of the system is the Digital Library LinkService developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology - a flexible and general purpose link service developed to support the structuring of information objects in digital libraries. A client application is developed to visualize the map and to enable users to interact with the map by navigating along the available paths.

Adaptability and interoperability in the field of highly interactive web-based courseware

Our notion of IT infrastructure is changing dramatically. We used to be happy with just a power plug for our desktops - today, many of us can hardly imagine a day without Internet access. Data centres provide storage and other dedicated services to large organizations - today, anybody can access such services in the cloud. Grid technologies offer a complex environment for compute-intense applications . . . however, we still lack a simple, yet trustworthy environment for curating, semantically modelling, and sharing file-based information. This thesis develops the foundational concepts for such an environment, and it builds on a class of systems stemming from scholarly communications called "digital repositories". Rather than building a new system, we analyse the interoperability channels between existing repositories, added-value services, and other agents. The Open Repository Environments emerging from these gateways are evolutionary in that repository components can change over time; anarchic to the point where they invite decentralised agents to participate; and a bridge between existing infrastructures. The infrastructures that were of particular influence to this thesis are e-Infrastructure for virtualising heterogeneous resources, as well as repository technologies for managing reference networks of file-based information, namely "digital objects". Like any software architecture, the design of Open Repository Environments is a creative process that may be inspired by existing models and experiences, and this thesis creates a framework for such models. Its repository reference architecture derives the minimum consensus on what repositories constitute from an extensive analysis of existing experiences, and specifies two interfaces through which interoperability channels can be established: the Open Storage Interface and the Federation Interface. Subsequently, we present results from a detailed analysis of the functionalities and design criteria for an Open Storage Interface. On the other hand, Federation is a continuum of attributes and techniques rather than a single interface. In our analysis of Federation, we describe this continuum, identify existing federation patterns, and develop a novel Notification-based federation mechanism - probably the first such attempt since the creation of the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting in 2001. This thesis builds on a number of linked activities that were mostly conducted between 2001 and 2009, and in participation of six national and international research projects in the field. These activities combine analysis and discussion, notably in a series of workshops we organised in Europe and the US to bridge the e-Infrastructure, preservation and repository communities, as well as the architectural design and prototyping of the e-Infrastructure initiatives TextGrid and Dariah based on the findings presented in this thesis.

In this chapter, I present the post-authentic framework, a theoretical framework for knowledge creation in the digital, and I introduce two concepts central to the framework, symbiosis and mutualism. In light of the considerations reasoned in Chap. 1, I discuss and question the relevance of notions of authenticity and completeness in relation to digital objects. I take the example of a digital cultural heritage object to highlight how ideas of authenticity and completeness have consequences not only for the production of digital heritage and with respect to heritage values and practices but, more widely, for our understanding of digital objects and knowledge production in a digital society. Finally, I rework such notions using the formation of the digital heritage collection ChroniclItaly 3.0 as an example of how the post-authentic framework can guide the fluid interactions between human and technological processes that are required in the contemporary context of digital knowledge creation.

Research in digital libraries has many applications in the field of biomedical information. Our current research into the areas of concept extraction, indexing and searching in digital libraries has led to novel applications in information retrieval and indexing. We present an overview of our work and discuss future applications in biomedicine.

Major factors related to the economic, social and environmental sustainability of digital libraries have been discussed. Some research in digital information systems and services in general, and digital libraries in particular, have been discussed to illustrate different issues of sustainability. Based on these discussions the paper, for the first time, proposes a conceptual model and a theoretical research framework for sustainable digital libraries. It shows that the sustainable business models to support digital libraries should also support equitable access supported by specific design and usability guidelines that facilitate easier, better and cheaper access, support the personal, institutional and social culture of users, and at the same time conform with the policy and regulatory frameworks of the respective regions, countries and institutions.

Digital access and preservation questions for cultural heritage institutions have focused primarily on primary repositories — that is, around collections of discrete digital objects and associated metadata. Much of the promise of the information age, however, lies in the ability to reuse, repurpose, combine and build complex digital objects[1-3]. Repositories need both to preserve and make accessible primary digital objects, and facilitate their use in a myriad of ways. Following the lead of other annotation projects, we argue for the development of secondary repositories where users can compose structured collections of complex digital objects. These complex digital objects point back to the primary digital objects from which they are produced (usually with URIs) and augment these pointers with user-generated annotations and metadata. This paper examines how this layered approach to user generated metadata can enable research communities to move forward into more complex questions surrounding digital archiving and preservation, addressing not only the fundamental challenges of preserving individual digital objects long term, but also the access and usability challenges faced by key stakeholders in primary digital repository collections—scholars, educators, and students. Specifically, this project will examine the role that secondary repositories can play in the preservation and access of digital historical and cultural heritage materials with particular emphasis on streaming media.