Digital Collection and Development Initiatives in Engineering College Libraries: An Analytical Survey

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.

Engineering college libraries in India are facing challenges due to budget cut, in-sufficient staff, depreciation of rupee, abrupt hike in conversion of foreign currencies, and growth in the cost of publication. Due to many aspects mentioned above, engineering libraries are facing difficulties to acquire necessary books and periodicals as per the AICTE norms. Electronic resources are making a revolution in engineering college libraries. Many librarians consider that these resources are the best option to support major role in satisfying the user needs of research and development in the field of engineering. This paper discusses about the engineering college libraries, importance and impact of E-Resources on engineering colleges. The paper also explains about E-Resources and the role of E-Journals provided by the INDEST – AICTE consortium.

The current analytical survey investigates the utilization and effectiveness of digital libraries in 51 self-financed engineering colleges affiliated to the VTU in the Karnataka, India. The research paper is based on survey of final year BE students and faculty members have been chosen for the study. Questionnaire tool was used to gather data. Findings shows that the Utilization of digital information resources for overall purposes is found to a large extent among respondents with mean value of 2.28±0.89. An impressive 88.9% of respondents are of the opinion that digital library services are superior to conventional library services. The digital library utilization and its purpose are correlated using Pearson correlation and its significant value r=0.489, p=0.000<0.01 proves that user dependency on digital information resources is positively increasing in the respondents’ activities and has an impact on their academic pursuits.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore whether university librarians should spend limited financial resources on library building programmes to house expanding print collections, or give priority to supporting digital collections and services – even if this forces them to dispose of little used print stock in consequence.Design/methodology/approachAn exploration of opposed concepts by an analytic comparison of two books which take different sides of this argument.FindingsThe impact of digital information culture on librarians should be to free them from concerns about disposing of stock in order to release library space to be used for better digital communication facilities, and to avoid diverting resources into expensive building programmes designed to retain all the print items purchased by libraries over the last 50 years. Resources that in the past would have been spent on warehousing expanding collections should nowadays be spent on buying more intensively used digital content and redesigning libraries as open spaces with digital technologies which can facilitate the new learning activities associated with the electronic campus.Research limitations/implicationsThe underlying concepts examined in this paper are complex and could be subject to further examination and challenge through rigorous research.Practical implicationsThis paper offers a realistic way of dealing with everyday problems in contemporary library management.Originality/valueA practical solution to a common dilemma of contemporary librarianship is examined against a background of scholarly investigation and abstract thought.

The South Asia sub-region is now in the forefront of the Open Access movement within developing countries in the world, with India being the most prominent partner in terms of its successful Open Access and Digital Library initiatives. Institutional and policy frameworks in India also facilitate innovative solutions for increasing international visibility and accessibility of scholarly literature and documentary heritage in this country. \nThis publication has its genesis in the recommendations and proceedings of UNESCO-supported international conferences and workshops including the 4th International Conference of Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL2001, Bangalore); the International Conferences on Digital Libraries (ICDL2004 & ICDL2006, New Delhi); and the International Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software (2006, Kozhikode), where many information professionals of this sub-region demonstrated their Digital Library and Open Access initiatives. This book describes successful digital library and open access initiatives in the South Asia sub-region that are available in the forms of open courseware, open access journals, metadata harvesting services, national-level open access repositories and institutional repositories. This book may be considered an authoritative Source-book on Open Access development in this sub-region.

We have learned from the debate on diversity and inclusion that archiving is not neutral or unbiased even though it is presented in this way. Seen from the perspective of cultural humility, we need to keep learning and challenge power imbalances from both the individual and the organizational level. This article discusses what this means for digital preservation concepts.

The purpose of this article is to examine the information and communication technology infrastructure in 38 engineering college libraries in north Karnataka by investigating the library resources, ICT infrastructure and current status of library automation and attitudes towards the use of ICT. Were data tools used questionnaire and observation method with engineering college librarians. Study Fund that the Application of ICT in engineering college libraries has user average. Majority the engineering colleges have library automation, digital library management software and library network using in the engineering college libraries.

PurposeA significant amount of digital repository research and development activity is taking place worldwide, which calls for the investigation of issues identified as critical to the development, management and sustainability of these repositories. The purpose of this paper is to establish a comprehensive set of critical success factors (CSFs) that would enable successful digital libraries implementation.Design/methodology/approachThe design of this study is exploratory in nature due to lack of previous research about CSFs in digital library projects. The paper builds the research framework to find CSFs for digital libraries initiatives by collecting possible factors from literature on CSFs of information systems; and feedback from ten experts who have had experience in digital library research and development as well as implementation, through e‐mail interviews. Six dimensions in the enterprise architecture framework (namely motivation, resource, people, process, location and time) needed to create the environment in which digital delivery can be effective and sustained, are mapped with the CSF established from the literature.FindingsThe results revealed six dimensions of CSFs and 36 potential success factor statements contributed by the study participants. Based on these findings, this paper postulates that successful deployment of a digital library implementation may depend on this set of success factors. The identification of these factors has important implications on digital library development.Originality/valueThere has been no comprehensive study on the success factors of digital libraries in the library and information science context, as such, no investigation of the factors in some real‐life contexts of digital library activities. It may help digital library start‐ups to understand what sources and services they need to develop to make their applications successful in an already very populated network. Both researchers and practitioners in the field of digital libraries may value the novelty and results of this study.

How users meet infrastructure is a key practical, methodological challenge for digital library design. This article presents research conducted by the Social Science Team of the federally funded Digital Libraries Initiative (DLI) project at the University of Illinois. Data were collected from potential and actual users of the DLI testbed—containing the full text of journal articles—through focus groups, interviews and observations, usability testing, user registration and transaction logging, and user surveys. Basic results on nature and extent of testbed use are presented, followed by a discussion of three analytical foci relating to digital library use as a process of assemblage: document disaggregation and reaggregation; information convergence; and the manner in which users confront new genres and technical barriers in information systems. The article also highlights several important methodological and conceptual issues that frame research on social aspects of digital library use.

Co-authorship networks in the digital library research community

In March 2010 the Digital Library of the Wielkopolska Region, the largest and one of the oldest Polish digital libraries reached the level of 100 000 objects available on-line. Since its inauguration in 2002, the dynamics of the development of Polish digital libraries has increased significantly. The common effort of several hundreds of scientific and cultural institutions in Poland led to the present situation in which there are over 50 publicly available digital libraries and together they give access to around 425 000 digital objects. Such a big number of similar network services lead to the need of integration mechanisms allowing to achieve a synergy effect perceptible for end users as well as for digital library creators and international digital library initiatives. Such mechanism developed by PSNC and named PIONIER Network Digital Libraries Federation, has been available as a network service since June 22-nd, 2007 and can be reached at http://fbc.pionier.net.pl/. This paper shortly presents the history of development of Polish digital libraries, showing the factors that have influenced the initial form and advancement of the Federation. It also describes the Federation architecture, organizational aspects of its operation, and key challenges including the integration of Polish and European digital libraries infrastructures.

PurposeThis paper aims to provide information about various digital initiatives in libraries in Thailand and especially use of Dublin Core metadata in cataloguing digitized objects in academic and government digital databases. Design/methodology/approach – The author began researching metadata use in Thailand in 2003 and 2004 while on sabbatical from the University of Vermont. A small number of government libraries were in the process of building up their digital databases. These were identified from a survey conducted by the author at that time. The author continues to monitor the development of digital initiatives and has identified several new digital initiatives created by academic institutions since then. The digital initiatives operated by Thai government agencies and academic institutions that existed in 2007 are presented, along with one example of a metadata record randomly selected from each of these projects. These examples illustrate Dublin Core metadata use and cataloguing practice employed in these digital databases. The author's current research on the development of digital initiatives is included. Findings – This paper presents what the author feels are some significant technical and legal issues facing Thai digital initiatives. A major copyright issue in Thailand, the ineffective enforcement of intellectual property laws relating to access rights, is presented. Also discussed is the significant obstacle to record retrieval created by the structure and complexity of the Thai language. Originality/value – This paper identifies important issues and problems related to Thai digital initiatives and offers suggestions and comments aimed at enhancing the development and progress of digital initiatives both in the Thai library community and internationally.

The Digital Library – used here to connote a general category – aims to innovate the range of services offered to the public by ‘analogue libraries’ to a varied group of users. These services cross the multifaceted cases of public reading libraries (and a large and generalist pool of users), of university libraries (and an equally large pool of users made up of students, undergraduates, faculty, and researchers), and also extend to the world of conservation libraries, which attract a specialized niche audience, very often of international origin. The digitization of precious, ancient, books – both manuscript and printed – represents a great and complex challenge from many points of view (conceptual, design, implementation, logistics, economic, personnel management, etc.), but also the most intuitive way we have now to expand the services offered to users in digital form. In the (recent) past, many digital library initiatives have been carried out in this sense by individual library institutions, as well as by individual private programs or government projects, with variable results in terms of objectives actually achieved, sustainable permanence online, and their ability to effectively counteract the so-called ‘digital obsolescence’ by updating the entire technological infrastructure of the project itself, as well as the individual digital contents, to guarantee their survival. Nowadays, web- based technologies have evolved, increased, and standardized to such an extent that a new approach is possible for digital libraries in terms of usability, visualization, and multi-platform replication of digital content.

The paper describes an exploratory needs analysis for a digital library of Malay manuscripts. The manuscripts are facing several problems, including (a) the lack of trained manuscript librarians; (b) budgetary constraints in manual and digital preservation initiatives; (c) the problems in storage and maintenance of the collection; (d) restricted access for users, (e) the need to preserve the fragile manuscripts, (e) the difficulty of undertaking collaborative transliteration work because of the access problems; (f) the dispersal of titles at several repositories which exacerbates the access issue; and (g) a lack of detail in the description in the manuscript library catalogues. The objectives of this study are: (a) to find out the current state of manuscript collection management and practices in selected libraries; (b) to identify the problems faced by manuscript repositories; (c) to study the meta data schema used by repositories to describe their manuscript collections, and (d) to identify a suitable open source digital library software to support a digital library of manuscripts. The study gathers qualitative data from an open-ended questionnaire distributed to five manuscript librarians in Malaysia. Cataloguing practices in manuscript repositories were observed and the open-source digital library software Green stone was studied for its suitability. The information gathered and observed which helped determine the requirements of a digital library that empowers repositories in building, storing, preserving and disseminating information about manuscript collections is presented. The design and modules of the digital library are described.