This is our third journey into the realm of digital libraries in the form of special sections devoted to defining, designing, and delivering network-based information systems for distributing a world of knowledge to a global community of information-seekers. When we began this coverage in 1995, the technical challenges centered on creating a digital replica of […]
May 2001 - Vol. 44 No. 5
Features
The number of European households connected to the Internet increased by 55% between March and October of 2000, and Europe now has more users than the U.S., the European Commission reported. The findings, published in "Impact and Priorities of the eEurope 2002 Initiative," cite the increasingly liberalized European telecom market for the sharp rise in […]
Forum: Evolving Commitment to the Profession of Computer Science
Peter Denning’s new column "The Profession of IT" (Feb. 2001, p. 15) takes an important tack in the evolution of computer science, IT, and informatics. As an educator, I emphasize to my students the need for developing professionalism. This has broad meaning, including membership and contribution to their professional society, a positive attitude about their […]
From Washington: The Unhappy but Beneficial Coexistence of the FBI and the Tech Elite
With goals too divergent and world views too far apart, the feds and the tech sector remain married, for better or worse.
Digital Village: Caustic Cookies
They can be beneficial aids in e-commerce, but cookies are the corrosive ingredient when it comes to invading personal privacy.
On Site: Software Engineering Project Management
Software engineers may have the right technical skills for your project, but have they got the right personality?
Viewpoint: One More Revolution to Make: Free Scientific Publishing
Computer scientists are in the position to create new, free high-quality journals. So what would it take?
Digital Libraries: Introduction
Digital libraries have evolved rapidly over the past decade and are now as varied as physical libraries. Although digital libraries have been driven mainly by developments in technology, progress has also been made in addressing the intellectual and social issues involved in sharing knowledge in digital forms. Building digital libraries involves the integration of complex […]
Perseus and other digital libraries for the humanities let you, as well as the specialist scholar, explore humanity's cultural heritage in extraordinary new ways.
The Biological Digital Library
If the human genome is the book of life, then the data necessary to make sense of it is the library of life. Rather than a traditional library of books, it is a library of microbial, plant, and animal genomes, of 3D protein models, of experimental data, and literature. This information is digital by necessity; […]
A Digital Strategy For the Library of Congress
Digital libraries challenge the core practices of libraries and archives in many respects, not only in terms of accommodating digital information and technology, but also through the need to develop new economic and organizational models. As the world’s largest library, the Library of Congress (LC)1 perhaps faces the most profound questions of how to collect, […]
Open(source)ing the Doors For Contributor-Run Digital Libraries
Opening the doors of digital libraries to contributors may not be as scary as we may have been led to believe.
Greenstone: Open-Source Dl Software
Greenstone is a comprehensive system for constructing and presenting collections of thousands or millions of documents, including text, images, audio, and video. Greenstone libraries contain many collections, individually organized, though they bear a strong family resemblance. Easily maintained, collections can be augmented and rebuilt automatically. Greenstone constructs full-text indexes from the document text and from […]
Principles For Digital Library Development
Want a library's content to persist and be accessible no matter which computer, browser, or digital format is used? Follow these principles and practices, as well as their implied promises.
Digital Libraries and Mobility
Digital libraries offer the promise of anywhere, anytime access to vast online holdings. But what does this promise really mean? If we draw on studies of digital libraries in use, coupled with our development experience with the XLibris analytic reading software [9] on mobile pen-tablet hardware (shown in the accompanying figure), four potential advantages of […]
Building Large-Format Displays For Digital Libraries
Imagine visiting a museum and being asked to view the latest exhibit through a 20-inch window. Museum curators will gladly maneuver items to any position you ask, but visualization is always limited to the window. Such is the current state of digital libraries. Digital libraries house media of ever-increasing complexity, from models of statues to […]
Buckets: Smart Objects For Digital Libraries
Information content is more important than the systems used for its storage and retrieval. While this seems obvious enough, digital library discussions often mire on the merits of specific databases, search engines, and other implementation details. This is because digital library services (for example, searching, browsing, document access) are often vertically integrated with the content […]
Authorization Management For Digital Libraries
University information services need unobtrusive but effective means of providing different members different levels of service, partly to offer similar controls traditionally available and partly for graceful administration of limitations that digital publishers will demand in licensing content. The ease with which computers are connected by the Internet and their ability to keep track of […]
Where Is the Librarian in the Digital Library?
Digital libraries offer immense opportunities to provide more information to more people in more ways in more places in more time zones. Individuals can search, use, and create new information resources from their homes, offices, or hotel rooms, and soon may be able to do so from planes, trains, automobiles, and beaches. However, questions arise […]
-Uniform Resource Names: Handles, PURLs, and Digital Object Identifiers
Identifying objects in digital libraries seems simple but proves to be surprisingly complex.
Archival Perspectives on the Emerging Digital Library
Although archives are often housed in libraries, the archival and library communities and institutions have long been distinct entities with related, but independent missions, perspectives, and self images. Libraries mainly acquire, preserve, arrange, describe, and make available published information. Archival repositories conduct all these functions, albeit in very different ways, with unpublished and unique materials […]
The Ariadne Knowledge Pool System
This European-based distributed digital library of educational resources delivers reusable components to hundreds of multicultural/multilingual teachers and learners.
Toward a Sharable Digital Library of Reusable Teaching Resources
iLumina is a digital library of undergraduate teaching materials for science, mathematics, engineering, technology, and education, now being developed by Eduprise, The University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW), Georgia State University, Grand Valley State, and Virginia Tech.1 Our experience suggests that faculty across the country have created a wealth of digital resources for teaching […]
The Digital Library For Earth System Education: Building Community, Building the Library
Science educators have called repeatedly for an information system that can effectively deliver quality educational materials in readily accessible formats, with a high degree of confidence in their usefulness, interest, and effectiveness [4]. In the past 18 months, the Earth system education community has begun development of the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE). […]
The Promise of Digital Libraries in Developing Countries
Although knowledge is critical for development, few developing countries are participating in the information revolution. Just as industrialization and globalization have increased the gulf between the haves and have-nots, so information and communications technology is creating a chasm between the knows and know-nots [5]. For dissemination of humanitarian information, traditional publishing and distribution mechanisms have […]
The NSF National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library Program
The National Science Foundation's NSDL Program aims to establish a national digital library that will constitute an online network of learning environments and resources for science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education at all levels.
Niupepa: a Historical Newspaper Collection
Niupepa is a collection of 42 newspaper titles published in New Zealand from 18421933, comprising a total of 21,000 pages in 1,750 issues. This collection forms a unique historical record of the language of the indigenous Mãori people, the evolution of the written form of this language, and of events and developments during the formative […]
Vidyanidhi: Indian Digital Library of Electronic Theses
The Vidyanidhi project based at the University of Mysore and sponsored by India’s National Information System for Science and Technology (NISSAT) is emerging as a national effort to create, maintain, and provide network access to a digital library of Indian theses. Vidyanidhi—a Sanskrit term meaning treasure of knowledge—has a two-fold objective: to provide network access […]
Socioeconomic issues associated with the delivery of online content and services are as critical to success as sound technological implementation, if indeed not more so. ACM distinguished itself in its advanced planning for its digital library by paying close attention to three such issues: changing patterns in scholarly behavior; the functioning of copyright law in […]
Business Components: a Case Study of Bankers Trust Australia Limited
Bridging the gap between technology specialists and business users.
Customizable Middleware For Modular Distributed Software
Simplifying the development and maintenance of complex distributed software.
Toward Improving Female Retention in the Computer Science Major
What causes women to discontinue pursuing the undergraduate computer science major at higher rates than men?
You get up to the turnstile at a sporting event and learn that you won’t be permitted inside unless you provide a blood sample for instant DNA analysis, so that you can be compared against a wanted-criminal database. Thinking of that long overdue library book, you slink away rather than risk exposure. Farfetched? Sure, today. […]
