Collections Digitization Framework: A Service-oriented Approach to Digitization in Academic Libraries

With advances in information technologies, academic libraries are now in a position to offer collections digitization services beyond campus communities. By mobilizing digitization to off-campus communities, academic libraries can reposition themselves as responsive and relevant in the face of a changing digital services landscape. This will also help academic libraries create unique opportunities to access and share hidden knowledge embedded within local and remote communities with rich intellectual traditions. This article proposes a service-oriented framework for academic libraries to reimagine and mobilize collections digitization as part of broader library services. The proposed Collections Digitization Framework is based on the Service Framework for Digital Libraries developed by the Digital Library Federation, whereby digitization activities have been formalized into discrete processes and functions. The issues and challenges that academic libraries may face in mobilizing digitization services are also discussed in the context of a collaborative community digitization initiative undertaken by two Canadian academic libraries

Digital Repositories and the Australian Higher Education Sector: Where to Next?

In 2001 the Australian Government announced a raft of digital initiatives as part of ‘Backing Australia’s Ability – An Innovation Action Plan for the Future’. These were funded under the Systemic Infrastructure Initiative (SII) and have contributed significantly to building the capacity of information infrastructure in the Australian higher education sector. Coinciding with the SII, and specifically encouraged by programs funded by it, has been the arrival of digital (or institutional) repositories as key components of the higher education information landscape. Funding for the SII ends in December 2007, however, and no clear strategy has been proposed by the Government to build on its many achievements. Nevertheless, in December 2006, the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, Data for Science Working Group released a Report that strongly recommended that a “sustainable publicly funded national network of federated digital repositories” should be established for the purpose of managing and preserving research data. In this paper I argue why implementing the recommendations of the Data for Science Working Group provides the right strategy for moving forwards, and how refunding the SII program beyond 2007 will make it succeed

Supporting Digital Scholarship: Bibliographic Control, Library Cooperatives and Open Access Repositories

Research libraries have entered an era of discontinuous change—a time when the cumulated assets of the past do not guarantee future success. Bibliographic control, cooperative cataloguing systems and library catalogues have been key assets in the research library service framework for supporting scholarship. This chapter examines these assets in the context of changing library collections, new metadata sources and methods, open access repositories, digital scholarship and the purposes of research libraries. Advocating a fundamental rethinking of the research library service framework, the chapter concludes with a call for research libraries to collectively consider new approaches that could strengthen their roles as essential contributors to emergent, network-level scholarly research infrastructures

Operationalizing the BIG Collective Collection: A Case Study of Consolidation vs Autonomy

This is a discussion paper prepared in collaboration with the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Library Initiatives. It presents a framework for operationalizing the BTAA collective collection. A collective collection is a collection managed collaboratively across a network of libraries. We have a very specific focus in this paper on the ”purchased” or print collection, acknowledging that other areas of library collections are sometimes managed collectively, digitized collections for example. The BTAA justifiably claims to be the premier academic collaboration in the US. Once described as “the world\u27s greatest common market in education3,” it leverages the combined research and teaching capacity of major research universities to scale innovation, impact, and economies across its 14 members. Together, the BTAA members have a profound social and economic impact throughout a large part of the US. Libraries are a central part of the BTAA research, learning, and teaching endeavor. They collectively mobilize major expertise and resources. In fact, the BTAA collection represents more than a fifth of all titles in the North American print book collection. The BTAA libraries align with BTAA goals by collaborating at scale to increase both impact and efficiency. The character of library spaces, services, and collections is evolving with changing learning and research behaviors. It is widely recognized that continued autonomous development of large standalone collections does not meet needs and is not efficient. A library cannot collect all that its members would like to see, and much of what it does collect does not get used. At the same time, library space is being configured around engagement rather than around collections, the long-term stewardship costs of print materials are being recognized, and the role of books in research and learning is changing. Libraries are re-evaluating traditional approaches to building, managing, and sharing collections, and are increasingly looking to do this cooperatively. In this paper, we define and explore key attributes of collective collections and present a series of recommendations designed to advance the BTAA libraries toward a more purposeful coordination of their collections. Doing all that we propose would involve an extensive multi-year program. The approach we recommend here is broadly applicable in other consortium settings as well, which is why we characterize the paper as a case study

A Survey of Arctic Information Provision for the European Union

A part of the Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment of the Development of the Arctic and preparatory action for a European Union Arctic Information Centr

Core Infrastructure Considerations for Large Digital Libraries

This study examines basic functional aspects of large digital libraries and draws on examples of existing digital libraries to illustrate their varying approaches to storage and content delivery, metadata approaches and harvesting, search and discovery, services and applications, and system sustainability

System for retrieval of bibliographic records

Извршено је моделирање и имплементација система који омогућава претраживање и преузимање библиотечких записа по дефинисаним стандардима. Систем је базиран на сервис-оријенисаној архитектури и mediator/wrapper шаблону. Систем је имплементиран у програмском језику Java, а модел је приказан у UML 2.0 нотацији. У оквиру система развијени су сервиси који представљају серверске стране за протокол Z39.50 и SRU и развијена је посебна софтверска компонента која омогућава интеграцију тих сервиса са постојећим библиотечким системом. Верификација овог система извршена је интеграцијом у софтверски систем БИСИС верзије 4.  Такође, показано је да се упит формиран помоћу Z39.50 упитног језика може трансформисати у упит који је дефинисан SRU упитним језиком. Дата је и трансформација SRU упитног језика у Lucene упитни језик. Дат је предлог проширења SRU стандарда у циљу да се овај стандард користи и за комуникацију између клијента и сервера када је потребно снимање података у удаљену базу података.Izvršeno je modeliranje i implementacija sistema koji omogućava pretraživanje i preuzimanje bibliotečkih zapisa po definisanim standardima. Sistem je baziran na servis-orijenisanoj arhitekturi i mediator/wrapper šablonu. Sistem je implementiran u programskom jeziku Java, a model je prikazan u UML 2.0 notaciji. U okviru sistema razvijeni su servisi koji predstavljaju serverske strane za protokol Z39.50 i SRU i razvijena je posebna softverska komponenta koja omogućava integraciju tih servisa sa postojećim bibliotečkim sistemom. Verifikacija ovog sistema izvršena je integracijom u softverski sistem BISIS verzije 4.  Takođe, pokazano je da se upit formiran pomoću Z39.50 upitnog jezika može transformisati u upit koji je definisan SRU upitnim jezikom. Data je i transformacija SRU upitnog jezika u Lucene upitni jezik. Dat je predlog proširenja SRU standarda u cilju da se ovaj standard koristi i za komunikaciju između klijenta i servera kada je potrebno snimanje podataka u udaljenu bazu podataka.Modeling and implementation of software system for retrieval of bibliographic records using defined standard has been done. System is based on service – oriented architecture as well as on mediator/wrapper architecture. System implementation is realized in programming language Java and modelling of system is performed using UML 2.0. Also, services presenting server side of protocols Z39.50 and SRU have been developed. In addition, software component based on mediator approach used for connecting services for retrieval with legacy system is developed. Verification of described system is done by integration of that system into library system BISIS, version 4. Moreover, it is proved that transformations of Z39.50 query into SRU query are possible, and it has been made a suggestion how to transform SRU query into Lucene query. Also, it has been made suggestion how to extend existing SRU standard in order to use that extension when it is necessary to update bibliographic records on remote databases via Internet