ASSOCIATES (vol. 7 no. 2, November 2000) - associates.ucr.edu

Info From The Superhighway:

Library Resources In A Changing World

Pt. 2: Digital Libraries

 

by

Linda Rae Putnam
Documents Department
Florida State University
lputnam@mailer.fsu.edu

Will libraries as we know them cease to exist? Will the children of the future wonder what a public library is, just as many of the children of today wonder what a rotary telephone is?

I don't think so...

I think the advent of the digital library is more exciting than that. It is a new format for librarians and researchers to use for finding and distributing information. I see it as another form of resource sharing, a tool which can be used to augment the physical collection in libraries during this time of budget cuts and tight revenues. The digital library is, in other words, a way to enhance the library and preserve the institution.

One of the better descriptions of digital libraries comes from the Santa Fe Workshop on Distributed Knowledge Work Environments. "[T]he concept of a "digital library" is not merely equivalent to a digitized collection with information management tools. It is rather an environment to bring together collections, services, and people in support of the full life cycle of creation, dissemination, use, and preservation of data, information, and knowledge."

The web pages which I have selected for this column were chosen for their ability to add to any collection. They offer a wide variety of topics and reference materials and they are easy to use. This is not an exhaustive list, but these are some of the best sites on the web.

http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/ndlf/digital.html
Digital Library Resources - A Library of Congress Internet Resources Page.

http://www.canis.uiuc.edu/%7Ebgross/dl/
Digital Library Information and Resources

http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/
Digital Libraries initiatives - a multiagency initiative which seeks to provide leadership in research fundamental to the development of the next generation of digital libraries, to advance the use and usability of globally distributed, networked information resources, and to encourage existing and new communities to focus on innovative applications areas.

http://www.ifla.org/II/metadata.htm
DIGITAL LIBRARIES: Metadata Resources.

http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/DL95/contents.html
Digital Libraries '95 The Second Annual Conference on the Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries June 11-13, 1995 Austin, Texas, USA .

http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/
Center for the Study of Digital Libraries Texas A&M College Station, Texas, USA

http://fox.cs.vt.edu/DL96/
Digital Libraries 1996 - First ACM International Conference on Digital Libraries.

http://cimic.rutgers.edu/~ijodl/
International Journal on Digital Libraries.

http://www.cordis.lu/libraries/
Creating a European Library Space - This site provides core information on the work carried out by the European Commission in the libraries field under the Third and Fourth Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, Telematics for Libraries, from 1990 to 1998.

http://www.dlib.org/
Digital Library magazine - D-Library. A monthly magazine about innovations and research in digital libraries.

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Info/
The Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE builds digital collections and services while providing information and support to digital library developers worldwide.

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
The UK Office for Library and Information Networking - UKOLN is a national focus of expertise in network information management. It provides policy, research and awareness services to the UK library, information and cultural heritage communities. UKOLN is based at the University of Bath.

http://www.library.ualberta.ca/library_html/libraries/law/digit2.html
Digitization: Technical Processes, Applications and Issues. A Select Annotated Bibliography.

http://robotics.stanford.edu/users/ketchpel/annbib.html
Annotated Bibliography of Digital Library Related Sources.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/prjplan.html
NDLP Project Planning Checklist Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program. This document outlines the production process for historical collections at the Library of Congress and reflects that institution's administrative structure and procedures. Not every collection requires all of the steps listed; some collections require additional steps not listed. In practice, many of the operations are carried out in parallel and not sequentially.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ipirpt.html
American memory - Library of Congress - Recommendations for the Evaluation of Digital Images Produced from Photographic, Microphotographic, and Various Paper Formats.

http://fox.cs.vt.edu/DLSB.html
Digital Library Source Book, 1993, ed. E. Fox.

http://www.ifla.org/II/lists/diglib.htm
DIGLIB - A discussion list for digital libraries researchers and librarians

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/7933/inet2000.html
Internet 2000 The Hampton Roads Central Library.

http://lcweb.loc.gov/ndl/per.html
The Library of Congress National Digital Library Periodic Reports.

http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/
National Digital Library Program Learning Page

http://www.netlibrary.com/
NetLibrary - repository of free public domain and for fee proprietary ebooks. Etexts can be viewed online or downloaded.

http://www.interact.nsf.gov/CISE/descriptions.nsf/PD/spiis?
OpenDocument This program supports research activities exploring new relationships between computing, communication and digital content from human centered perspectives in order to support communities of users in scholarly, social and work contexts. The program promotes interdisciplinarity and topical fusion. In particular, it manages the Digital Libraries Initiative, a multiagency research program to create large knowledge bases, the technology needed to access them, and the means for improving their usability in a wide range of contexts.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/itsp/
ITSP & SiliconBase The Information Technology & Society Project (ITSP) is a forum where scholars, students, professionals and corporations explore the history, sociology, politics, economics and culture of the digital age.

http://www.digitallibrary.net/
This site hosts links relating to digital libraries and related technologies like information retrieval and metadata.

http://www.benton.org/Library/Kellogg/buildings.html
Buildings, Books and Bytes. Libraries and communities in the Digital Age.




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