Libraries, digital libraries and digital library research

Lorcan DempseyOCLC

Keynote presentation at

European Conference on Digital Libraries 2004

University of BathSeptember 12 – 17 2004

Overview

‘There was once a man who aspired to be the author of the general theory of holes.

When asked “What kind of hole – holes dug by children in the sand for amusement, holes dug by gardeners to plant lettuce seedlings, tank traps, holes made by roadmakers?” he would reply indignantly that he wished for a general theory that would explain all of these.

This man’s achievement has passed totally unnoticed except by me.’

Holes

Digital libraries and holes …

‘Digital library’ has no precise or agreed referent

Different communities of practice

Different incentives• Serve• Build• Research

Compare ‘archive’• Archival institution• Archival materials• OAI• A promise of

preservation?

Digital library

Research

Digital libraries

Library

Digital library

Digital library

Research

Digital libraries

‘Business’

Digital library

Internet archive

Anthropology/ethnography/social science

Economics

Libraries …

Inst Rep

Industrial R&D

Amazon

HCI

Library and Information science

Computer science

Grid

Semantic web

Library

arXiv

BBC archive

E-research

E-learning

Cultural heritage

Banks

Entertainment Jorum

W3C

Artstor

Digital library

Research

Digital libraries

Library

Digital library

Emphasis:

Library

A library as institution

Libraries

‘So why have I written this? I can’t show it if it’s going to contradict or undermine my case.

There are a number of reasons. First and foremost, I am a librarian. I live for records and documents.’

A library as institution

Because the purpose and result of absorbing information is always finally to produce further information, i.e., to continue the conversation,

the function of the library must be understood as one that assists members of the community both in taking particular positions and in recognizing and assessing the positions taken by others.

Ross Atkinson. Contingency and contradiction: The place(s) of the library at the dawn of the new millenniumJournal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Volume 52, Issue 1, Pages 3-11. Published Online: 2001.

Ross Atkinson. Contingency and contradiction: The place(s) of the library at the dawn of the new millenniumJournal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Volume 52, Issue 1, Pages 3-11. Published Online: 2001.

A library as institution

We often hear it said that libraries (and librarians) select, organize, retrieve, and transmit information or knowledge. That is true.

But those are the activities, not the mission, of the library.

… the important question is: "To what purpose?" We do not do those things by and for themselves.

We do them in order to address an important and continuing need of the society we seek to serve. In short, we do it to support learning.

Robert Martin. Libraries and Learners in the Twenty-first Century. http://www.imls.gov/scripts/text.cgi?/whatsnew/current/sp040503.htm

Robert Martin. Libraries and Learners in the Twenty-first Century. http://www.imls.gov/scripts/text.cgi?/whatsnew/current/sp040503.htm

Libraries and digital libraries

Support research and learning. Discover position of others and form one’s own position.

In order to uphold their mission and values… … they must renovate their practices.

“Search engine mindshare” John Regazzi

Scientists:• Google• Yahoo• PubMed

Librarians:• Science Direct• ISI Web of Science• MedLine

Source: John Regazzi, The Battle for Mindshare: A battle beyond access and retrieval http://www.nfais.org/publications/mc_lecture_2004.htm

“In a survey for this lecture, librarians and scientists were asked to name the top scientific and medical search resources that they use or are aware of.  The difference is startling.”

Pattern recognition – libraries now

The ‘Amazoogle’ effect Value

User behavior opaque

Uncertainty about digital directions

‘The future is here. It's justnot evenly distributed yet’

William Gibson

The difficulty in creating a digital management strategy stems in part from the bewildering convergence of technological developments.  Developing a digital management strategy is further complicated by the fact that there are no recognized patterns or models for managing digital assets.

Some managers seek to develop fully distributed institutional repositories but still must choose between open-source solutions or commercial providers. Others prefer to place their material in one of a limited number of dedicated storage institutions. While best practices may exist for given technical processes, library managers do not have a single paradigm to use as the basis for developing operational plans and policies to capture, store, index, preserve, and redistribute the intellectual output in digital formats.

Managing Digital Assets, CLIR primer program, 2005

Managing Digital Assets, CLIR primer program, 2005

Impact of digital library research?

User studies• How much do we know about changing patterns of research,

learning and engagement? Federation and metasearch

• FDI, IndexData, Cheshire, iPort, …• OAI/OpenURL• NISO metasearch – issues still to be addressed

Repositories/digital library systems• Multiple communities• Dspace, Fedora, CONTENTdm, DLXS, ..

Metadata• Growing acronymic density• Collections, rights, policies, services, …• Complex objects, relations

Identifiers/citation Preservation

Local successes …

… but we have many open questions.

Collections grid

high low

low

high

Stewardship

Uni

quen

ess

BooksJournals•Newspapers•Gov. docs•CD, DVD•Maps•Scores

Special collectionsArchives•Rare books•Local history materials•Archives & Manuscripts•Theses & dissertations

Freely-accessible web resources

Research and learning materials

•ePrints/tech reports•Learning objects•Courseware•E-portfolios•Research data

Untransferred records

Collections grid

high low

low

high

E-learningE-research

Publishing

Cultural heritage

disclosure

Reformatting

Digital assetmanagement

AmazoogleD2D

lab books

exhibitions

PDAs

learning management systems

campus portal

course materialtext book

personal collections

readinglists

Institutional repository

Digital collections

E-reserveCatalog Licensed

collections

Aggregations

Virtual reference

CatalogingILL

libraryuser environmentsresource environment

The world is changing …

Why is it difficult?

Scope, scale, diversity

Systemic issues• No single system is the sole focus of a user’s attention• How do systems and services work across the four

quadrants of the collections grid• How do they fit into wider enterprise systems

Structure of costs does not reflect users’ value perception• Reallocation of resources difficult• Little substitution – ‘and’ not ‘or’

A new world

Co-evolution with research and learning behaviors which are themselves changing

Unsure about appropriate “economy of presence”• Place, network hub, channel, …• Web services, portlets, channels, …• Ambience, diffusion, ubiquity, recombinance, …

E.g. Trajectory of search• Search system• Search system, machine interface, metasearch• Provide data, externalize search

• Google, OAI

Webulation …

Monolithic applications resistant to• Webulation• Service oriented architectures

Massive legacy investment in knowledge structure unconnected to the web• How to release its value in a network environment

Content does not easily flow into user space for manipulation, packaging, aggregation

Vendor environment

Many libraries have outsourced development effort Library vendors do not have large R&D budgets Poor out-of-the-box support for ‘below-the-line’ materials in

digital form Interesting tension between commodity (standards) and

added value OSS environment very unsophisticated Limited support for logistics/supply chain/integration

services

Limited application platforms

Consider• Google• Amazon• E-bay• MapQuest

Massively central applications platforms working in loosely coupled webby world

Software as a service• APIs• GMAIL• Paypal• search

Library world• Fragmented systems and

development effort• Does not benefit from

scale• Unsustainable local

development agendas Organizational rearticulation

difficult. Application platforms?

• CDL• JISC• DEF• OCLC/RLG

Architecture? Theory?

Do we need a big picture? Allows the articulation of technical and business discussion? An unnecessary constraint?

Without it we are susceptible to ….

Marchitecture Techeology Portal envy Gratuitous acronym requests in RFPs Beauty contests

• Dspace, Fedora, ….

A history of consumption means that we are unprepared for contribution

Standards Open source software Common services

Limited structures to capture contribution and support.

And finally ..

Libraries need to think about libraries not digital libraries And they need help from wherever they can get it!