Cavan McCarthy, Ph.D., Visiting Professor
School of Library and Information Science
The University of Iowa

CREATING DIGITAL LIBRARIES:
selecting materials for digital library projects
in academic environments

CLICK HERE FOR A SUMMARY OF THIS PRESENTATION

WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT FROM A DIGITAL LIBRARY?
 

BASIC PRINCIPLES

CONTENT

ACCESS

NO DIRECT CHARGES

COMMUNITY / SOCIAL ORIENTATION

SELECTION

ORGANIZATION

SUPPORT SERVICES

GROWTH / CHANGE

TEXT and MULTIMEDIA
 
 

TRADITIONAL LIBRARY: FIXED physical location,

DIGITAL LIBRARY: INTERNET access.
 
 

DEFINITION:

A Digital Library permits, via Internet / WWW:
easy, open access, without direct charges,
to high-value, quality electronic content
which has been professionally selected
and organized to facilitate use;
services are normally backed up by
quality information, support and referral services.
The electronic content should be dynamic in nature;
it may reflect the traditional textual orientation of many libraries
or take advantage of WWW's facility to deliver graphics and multimedia.
 

FURTHER DEFINITIONS:
http://mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/mccarthy/diglib01introductionSAMPLENOTES.html
 
 

ALSO NOTE:

HYBRID LIBRARIES

POINTER SITES
 
 
 

ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL LIBRARIES

NETWORKED ACCESS

TIME

SIMULTANEOUS ACCESS

ACCESS VIA BROWSER

DIGITAL TEXTS

FREE

INDEXING

LINKS

RELIABILITY

REDUCED COST PER USER

SERVICE / SOCIAL IMPACT

PRESERVATION
 
 
 

LIMITATIONS OF DIGITAL LIBRARIES
 

COMPUTER, INTERNET ESSENTIAL

READING FROM SCREEN

PRINTER

LIMITED COLLECTIONS

FINANCING

PERSONNEL

DEFINITION

CATALOGING

SCRIPTS
 
 

BASIC PROCESSES IN THE CREATION OF DIGITAL LIBRARIES:
 

SELECTION

IDENTIFICATION OF RIGHTS HOLDERS

NEGOTIATION OF RIGHTS

GENERATION OF ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS

INDEXING

SUPPORT

SERVER

PRESERVATION OF ORIGINAL
 
 

SELECTION

First phase
All subsequent stages depend on selection

EXAMINATION OF EIGHT RECENT CRITERIA:
 
 

CRITERIA FOR COLLECTING / DIGITIZING MATERIALS:
Cleveland, 1998
http://www.ifla.org/udt/op/udtop8/udtop8.htm

COLLECTION STRENGTHS

UNIQUE COLLECTIONS

COMMUNITY PRIORITIES

MANAGEABLE PORTIONS

TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE

STAFF SKILLS
 
 
 
 

AMERICAN MEMORY HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/helpdesk/amfaq.html#8

CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL VALUE

EXPECTED DEMAND

INPUT FROM THE NDL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

ABILITY OF CURRENT TECHNOLOGY TO CAPTURE CONTENT
 
 
 

MAKING OF AMERICA
University of Michigan
Bonn, Maria S. Building a digital library, 1999

Antebellum period through reconstruction, 1850-1877
chosen for:

HIGH INTEREST

MATERIALS DETERIORATING

MANAGEABLE SIZE

OUT OF COPYRIGHT
 
 

SELECTION GUIDELINES FOR PRESERVATION
Janet Gertz, Director for Preservation, Columbia University
1998 US / UK conference on preservation
Gertz, 1998
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/joint/gertz.html

SHOULD WE DIGITIZE?

CAN WE DIGITIZE?
 

SELECTING RESEARCH COLLECTIONS FOR DIGITIZATION
Hazen, Horrell and Merrill-Oldham, 1998
 

COPYRIGHT

INTELLECTUAL NATURE OF SOURCE MATERIALS

CURRENT AND POTENTIAL USERS

ACTUAL AND ANTICIPATED NATURE OF USE

FORMAT AND NATURE OF THE DIGITAL PRODUCT

DESCRIBING, DELIVERING AND RETAINING THE DIGITAL PRODUCT

RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER DIGITAL EFFORTS

COSTS AND BENEFITS
 
 

DIGITAL LIBRARY WORK:
IN COMPLEX DESIGN SPACE
SHAPED BY FOUR DIMENSIONS:
Marchionini, 1999

COMMUNITY

TECHNOLOGY

SERVICES

CONTENT
 
 
 

SELECTION FOR DIGITAL CONVERSION
Stefano, 2000
 

COPYRIGHT

ACCESS

CONTENT

PRESERVATION
 
 
 
 

ANALYSIS OF TERMINOLOGY
USED IN EXAMPLES GIVEN ABOVE
 

CONTENT, VALUE, COLLECTION STRENGTH: cited 8 times

COMMUNITY, DEMAND, USERS, USE: cited 8 times

COPYRIGHT: 4 times

TECHNOLOGY: 4 times

PRESERVATION, DETERIORATION: 3 times

QUANTITY OF MATERIALS: 2

COST: 2
 

Details:
http://mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/mccarthy/creatingdigitallibrariesanalysisofterminology.html
 
 
 
 

TRIPLE PARADOXES
THREE PAIRED CONSIDERATIONS
FOR DIGITAL LIBRARY SELECTION CRITERIA
(McCarthy)

CONTENT / CONSTRAINTS
COMMUNITY / INSTITUTION
MATERIALS / TECHNOLOGY
 
 
 

CONTENT

VALUABLE / RELEVANT CONTENT

Women Writers Resource Project:
http://chaucer.library.emory.edu/wwrp/index.html

American Indians of the Pacific Northwest (U. Washington):
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/wauhtml/aipnhome.html

The Emma Goldman Papers:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/

Louisiana State University Digital Library (Amistad Research Center):
http://www.lsu.edu/diglib/

Documenting the American South
http://docsouth.unc.edu/index.html

American Environmental Photographs (U. Chicago):
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/icuhtml/aephome.html

Fragment of the fourth gospel:
http://rylibweb.man.ac.uk/data1/dg/text/fragment.htm

Florida Center for Instructional Technology:
A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust:
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/Holocaust/
Nazi Book Burning:
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/Holocaust/gallery/01622.htm
 

RADIO HOMEMAKERS

RADIO EVANGELISTS
 

TRAVEL ARTIFACTS

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

LOCAL GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

B-MOVIE PHOTOGRAPHS
 
 

CONSTRAINTS

COPYRIGHT

OLDER MATERIALS

Classical studies:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/

Emblem Book Project:
http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/emblems/

University of Michigan: Humanities Text Initiative
http://www.hti.umich.edu/

Pioneering the Upper Midwest:
Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/umhtml/umhome.html

Early ephemera: catalogs from watchmakers, bicycle makers from beginning of century
 

GOVERNMENTAL OR INSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTATION
University of Iowa: Virtual Hospital projects:
Virtual Hospital:
http://www.vh.org/
Virtual Children's Hospital:
http://www.vh.org/VCH/
Virtual Naval Hospital:
http://www.vnh.org/
 
 

TRIBUTE-STYLE SITES

A Tribute to Kay Kyser:
http://www.ibiblio.org/kaykyser/
Note link to multimedia copyright guidelines

Jeanne Russell Janish Sketches and Watercolors
http://library.nevada.edu/gallery/janish/index.html

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS: Christmas cards
 

(PRIVACY)
 
 

COMMUNITY

LOCAL MATERIALS

California heritage:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CalHeritage/

The South Texas Border, 1900-1920 (U. Texas):
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/txuhtml/runyhome.html

Champaign County Cultural Memory Project:
http://images.grainger.uiuc.edu/gcm/ccm/ccm.html

Aerial Photography Online Flights:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/AerialPhotos/
 

ACADEMIC RESEARCH AREAS

The Victorian Women Writers Project:
http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/index.html

Books on Africa: Texas A&M University
http://library.tamu.edu/cushing/onlinex/africa/intro.html

The Jack London Collection:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/

Core Historical Literature of Agriculture:
http://chla.library.cornell.edu/

Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 (Duke Univ.)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ncdhtml/hasmhome.html
 
 

INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

Celebrating the 150 years of Coe College:
http://jade.coe.edu/~rroeder/opener.htm
 
 
 

INSTITUTION

COST

ADDING CONTEXT TO CONTENT:
INDEXING / METADATA / XML

ADDITIONAL RESEARCH

John Wilkes Booth playbills

Locomotive photographs

B-Movie photographs
 

STAFF SKILLS
 

SPECIALIZED STAFF
Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library:
http://www.eevl.ac.uk

MISSION OF MOTHER INSTITUTION

RELATION TO OTHER INSTITUTIONS

REFERENCE SUPPORT

Internet Public Library: question-answering service:
http://www.ipl.org/ref/QUE

Earlweb: question-answering service: Ask a librarian (UK):
http://www.earl.org.uk/ask/index.html

MAINTENANCE
Develope, maintain, update site
 

MATERIALS

QUANTITY

MAJOR COLLECTIONS

The University of Virginia Electronic Text Center:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu

Chatauqua collection (U. Iowa)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/iauhtml/tccchome.html

FSA Photographs: 112,000 images
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html

Mary Noble Postcard Collection: Iowa Women's Archives
http://mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/Mary_Noble/

Catholic University of America: Karl Shapiro:
http://slis.cua.edu/dkb/874/shapiro/
 

SELECTION OF SAMPLE FROM LARGE COLLECTION
 

PRESERVATION OF ORIGINAL
QUALITY OF ORIGINAL

PAPYRUS / OTHER FRAGILE ITEMS:
The Tebtunis Papyri Collection
and the Advanced Papyrological Information System:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/APIS/

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/APIS/Images/index.html

VELLUM / MANUSCRIPTS
Digital Scriptorium: images of Renaissance literature:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Scriptorium

HANDWRITTEN TEXTS
Mother Jones
http://slis.cua.edu/dkb/874/jones/
(letters from Mother Jones)

SPECIAL TREATMENT
Small-Town America: Stereoscopic Views:
http://digital.nypl.org/stereoviews/
 

FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Accents / Indexing
 
 

TECHNOLOGY

PRESENTATION / IMPACT

NEW TECHNOLOGIES

History and Politics Out Loud: a searchable archive of politically
significant audio materials; National Endowment for the Humanities
and Michigan State University
http://www.hpol.org/

National Gallery of the Spoken Word
(Michigan State University with NorthWestern)
http://ngsw.org/

Quicktime video of Cleveland Union Terminal
electric engines underway:
http://www.csuohio.edu/CUT/video.htm

Radio Homemakers

SCALABILITY

Mary Noble Postcard Collection: Iowa Women's Archives
http://mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/Mary_Noble/

MULTIPLE FORMATS

The English server
Formerly Carnegie Mellon University
Now University of Washington
http://eserver.org/

EASE OF PROCESSING

The Visual Front: posters of the Spanish Civil War
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/posters/table.html

John Wilkes Booth playbills

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM MAGAZINES ETC
Illustrated Book Study: Digital Conversion Requirements: Printed Illustrations:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/preserv/rt/illbk/ibs.htm
 
 
 

RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

Identify and characterize digital libraries in academic institutions

Rank problems faced in creating those libraries

Use six categories above to organize questionnaire / data

Evaluate impact of DL on use of library / materials

Determine attitudes of librarians towards DLs:

positive / negative; cost-effective etc.
 
 
 

FUTURE OF DIGITAL LIBRARIES

HYBRID LIBRARIES
Working environment for next generation of librarians

SATISFACTORY PORTABLE READING DEVICE

MAKE AVAILABLE CULTURAL HERITAGE
TO SOCIETY AS A WHOLE

SYNTHESIS / AGGREGATION
CONTENT / CONTEXT
LIBRARY MOUNTED MATERIALS
COMMERCIAL MATERIALS / E-BOOKS
E-JOURNALS
DIGITAL AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS
 

FIVE NEW LAWS OF LIBRARIANSHIP

Libraries serve humanity

Respect all forms by which knowledge is communicated

Use technology intelligently to enhance services

Protect free access to knowledge

Honor the past and create the future

Gorman, 1995













REFERENCES

Bonn, Maria S. Building a digital library: the stories of the making of America: University of Michigan Making of America project. Saunders, Laverna M., editor. The evolving virtual library II: practical and philosophical perspectives. Medford, NJ: Information Today; 1999; pp. 25-38. Z6789 .E88 1999.

Cleveland, Gary. Digital libraries: definition, issues and challenges. IFLA: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions; 1998. (UDT (Universal Dataflow and Telecommunications Core Program) Occasional Paper; 8).
http://www.ifla.org/udt/op/udtop8/udtop8.htm

Gertz, Janet. Selection Guidelines for Preservation. In: Guidelines for Digital Imaging Conference, Warwick, England. 1998 Sep. Joint RLG (Research Libraries Group) and NPO (National Preservation Office) Preservation Conference
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/joint/gertz.html

Gorman, Michael. Five new laws of librarianship. American Libraries. 1995 Sep; 26(8):784-785.

Hazen, Dan; Horrell, Jeffrey, and Merrill-Oldham, Jan. Selecting research collections for digitization. Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources; 1998. 18 p.

Library of Congress. American Memory Historical Collections. Frequently Asked Questions about the American Memory Historical Collections and the National Digital Library Program.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/helpdesk/amfaq.html

Marchionini, Gary and Fox, Edward A. Progress towards digital libraries: augmentation through integration. Information Processing and Management. 1999; 35(1):219-226

Stefano, Paula de. Selection for digital conversion. In: Kenney, Anne R. and Rieger, Oya Y. Moving theory into practice : digital imaging for libraries and archives. Mountain View, CA: Research Libraries Group; 2000; pp. 11-23.

FULL BIBLIOGRAPHY:
http://mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/mccarthy/creatingdigitallibrariesbibliography.html
 
 
 

FURTHER RESOURCES

New York Public Library Digital Library Collection:
http://digital.nypl.org/

California Digital Library:
http://www.cdlib.org/

ibiblio: Center for the Public Domain and  U. North Carolina, Chapel Hill:
http://www.ibiblio.org/

Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/

Other digital sites (Sunsite, Berkeley):
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Collections/otherimage.html

Research and development in DL field:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/R+D/

National Science Foundation. Digital Libraries Initiative, available research:
http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/dlione/

http://mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/mccarthy/diglib02diglibraryprogramsSAMPLENOTES.html

Award winners:
LC/Ameritech National Digital Library competition:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/online.html#request

Digital Libraries Initiative, phase 2: Funded Projects:
http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/projects.html

List of Digital Library Federation partners:
http://www.clir.org/diglib/about.htm

Digital Library Net:
http://www.digitallibrary.net/

SOLINET: Links to Other Digital Library Resources:
http://www.solinet.net/monticello/links.htm
 
 

Updated:  2001 Mar. 30          Conditions of use
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