Introduction to Digital Libraries

Citation

Tedd, L.A. (2003), "Introduction to Digital Libraries", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 211-212. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330310484404

The aim of this book, as stated by the authors in the preface, is to provide a comprehensive view of digital libraries. They note that the design, development and management of digital libraries involve a number of skills which range from ICT to library and information management skills. They also note that digital libraries are bringing about significant changes to the information and library profession and that information professionals need to acquire a number of new skills. The authors both work, as teachers and researchers, in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and must be congratulated for the wealth of their writing output in the last few years (e.g. Chowdhury and Chowdhury, 2001a, b).

The phrase “digital libraries” can be interpreted differently by different people. Therefore, it is not surprising that the first chapter of this book covers definitions and characteristics that have been developed by a number of authors and researchers. The authors state that: “… perhaps the most comprehensive definition of a digital library, which emphasises both the technical and service aspects is … A digital library is an assemblage of digital computing, storage and communications machinery together with the content and software needed to reproduce, emulate and extend the services provided by conventional libraries based on paper and other material means of collecting, cataloguing, finding, and disseminating information. A full service digital library must accomplish all essential services of traditional libraries and also exploit the well‐known advantages of digital storage, searching and communication.”

A number of digital libraries have been developed around the world and some 20 of these are described in chapter 2. These range from the digital libraries of institutional publications (e.g. the ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) portal), to digital library developments at national libraries (e.g. British Library, National Library of Canada), digital libraries at universities (e.g. Oxford, Queensland, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (where Gobinda Chowdhury worked prior to the move to Scotland)), to digital libraries of special materials (e.g. Grainger Engineering Library Information Center at the University of Illinois) and to digital libraries as research projects (e.g. Greenstone Digital Library in New Zealand). Further reference is made to many of these digital libraries in subsequent chapters. There has been a lot of research carried out related to the development of digital libraries and an overview of this is provided in chapter 3 which includes projects in the UK’s eLib (Electronic Libraries Programme), the US Digital Library Initiative and the European Union’s Fifth Framework Programme.

The models for the design of digital libraries are covered in chapter 4 as well as issues of interoperability and integration. Collection management is as important in digital libraries as in traditional libraries and developments of e‐journals, e‐books and so on are discussed in chapter 5. Developers of digital libraries need to digitise material that is not “born digital” and an overview of this process is given in chapter 6. Cataloguing and classification have been important aspects of organising information in traditional libraries over the millennia and these concepts apply equally in the digital world. Chapter 7 covers the classification of digital resources, metadata issues and the development of markup languages such as XML. No library can serve its users well if there is no appropriate access to its sources, and chapter 8 (which is also at the time of writing this review available as a sample chapter on the Facet Publishing Web site at www.facetpublishing.co.uk/459.pdf) provides an overview of information access and user interfaces. The basic concepts of information retrieval and how these are applied in digital libraries are explained in chapter 9.

The final six chapters of the book cover: digital archiving and preservation; digital library services (including Web‐based reference services); social, economic and legal issues; evaluation; and finally, the impact on the information profession.

The authors are very knowledgeable in this field and this is evident in their writing of this book. There are numerous examples to digital library developments in different parts of the world. References to the literature on digital libraries abound – and there are over 500 references included in the bibliography at the end of the book. The text is clearly written and the authors are again to be congratulated for producing such a clear overview to an ever‐changing and sometimes complex situation. Each chapter has clearly defined sections and subsections and there is a concise outline at the start and a summary of what has been discussed at the end of each chapter. The text is interspersed with a fair number of tables and figures, although these are not listed at any point. I only noticed one, fairly minor, typo (Andrew Hampson appears as Hamson in both the text (p. 117) and the bibliography). There is an index.

Overall this is a very useful addition to the literature on digital libraries. I am sure that many who are currently working in this area will glean some new information, while for information and library professionals new to the area and to students this book will provide very suitable introductory information.