Handbook of Research on Digital Libraries: Design, Development and Impact

Citation

Myhill, M. (2009), "Handbook of Research on Digital Libraries: Design, Development and Impact", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 43 No. 3, pp. 342-343. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330910978626

I do not propose to offer a review of the contents of this book – nor do I claim to have scrutinised in detail all 58 chapters comprising 649 pages of often highly‐technical text. The scale of this work is very considerable, not just in length and content but also in its truly global authorship involving nearly 130 contributors from almost every part of the planet. Its academic contribution is also not in doubt being the subject of considerable peer review prior to publication.

Instead I pose a number of questions, and give my views on the answers.

Is this work accessible? Clearly it is not meant as a cover‐to‐cover read and the editors have marshalled the content imaginatively and helpfully into five sections, presumably with its gargantuan proportions in mind, by producing a brief summary of each chapter at the start of the work. The list of reviewers and contributors is very clear although, for the extent and nature of this work, the index is surprisingly short – just eight pages. I would forgive the compilers for this as it is clear that a few recurring terms such as “content”, “digital libraries”, “Dublin Core”, “Greenstone” (so good it appears twice!), “information retrieval”, “metadata” and “world wide web” occupy a significant proportion of the index and therefore the contents. You can learn a lot about a book of this kind by studying the index! Probably just as well that it is also available as an e‐book in perpetuity.

Is it up‐to‐date? The first Digital Library Conference is attributed in the preface to an event in 1994. Therefore, this is a mature work but also one which recognises that the concept of the Digital Library is evolutionary rather than created. The Digital Library continues to adapt and where many works of this type fail to future proof their contents, this is one where a good number of the chapters, particularly the case studies in section four, will remain helpful and informative for years to come – not just those in the “future trends” element of the final section. This is evident in the time that has clearly elapsed between its conception and publication and the editors are still able to claim with justification that it provides “access to the latest knowledge relating to digital libraries”.

Is it useful? This volume offers a comprehensive series of global case studies and commentary on all aspects of the digital library. The largest section, “Information processing and content management” took my own, comparatively “earthly” understanding of operational issues relating to content management systems into a universe of aspects ranging from audio‐based information retrieval to word‐segmentation in Indo‐China languages. I may not need that additional knowledge on a daily basis but it is certainly informative and left me rather wiser.

Is it relevant? The first section considers the design of digital libraries and provides a range of case studies to explain both the breadth of the concept and the multitude of possible solutions. The third section, as if to offer the reader a mid‐volume pick‐me‐up, covers “users, interactions and experiences” – a timely reality check if you have the intellectual stamina to read from cover to cover.

So, this is a pragmatic, well‐grounded, carefully marshalled and deeply erudite work. It arrived for review on my birthday – it was the most expensive present I received (by far) and on the scale of things, a gift with a variety of values. Like Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it will look good on my shelves for years to come. Like the Oxford English Dictionary, I will be very pleased to dip into it from time to time. I have no excuse, with its 50‐page bibliography, for not following up further reading as appropriate, nor for not being aware of many of the key players in the evolution of the digital library. It may also gather some dust.