Current DAMS In 3D: Access, Storage, And Preservation

The digital asset management systems (DAMS) landscape is rapidly evolving, and many new products have become available in the past few years. DAMS tend to vary widely in terms of scope, technical specifications, functionality, usability, and price point – so DAMS evaluations can be somewhat complex. The Orbis Cascade Alliance appointed a Digital Services Team to evaluate DAMS and consider offering an affordable digital repository platform for members. DAMS can fulfill a range of needs. Typical goals for libraries and archives include enabling access to digital content and providing short or long-term storage for digital objects and data. More recently, digital preservation (practices that ensure continued access to digital objects over time) has also emerged as a critical concern of libraries and cultural heritage institutions. What do access, storage, and preservation mean for your institution? An awareness of institutional or collaborative goals is key to a successful DAMS implementation

Specification of digital libraries of digital complex objects

Orientador: Ricardo da Silva TorresDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: Bibliotecas digitais são avançados e complexos sistemas de informação que armazenam, agregam e gerenciam informações correlatas para que comunidades específicas possam ter acesso a objetos digitais de interesse. Grandes volumes de dados de diferentes tipos e formatos vêm sendo gerados. Muitos desses dados são organizados em objetos digitais que podem ser objetos complexos, ou seja, objetos compostos de outros objetos digitais. Como a especificação e a implementação de uma biblioteca digital são tarefas cruciais para um gerenciamento eficaz de documentos, ferramentas vêm sendo criadas para auxiliar na especificação e na implementação de bibliotecas digitais. Entretanto, poucas ferramentas existentes permitem a especificação de objetos complexos em bibliotecas digitais. Além disso, dificuldades são encontradas na especificação, na modelagem e no reuso desse tipo complexo de dado. O objetivo desta dissertação foi propor um metamodelo de bibliotecas digitais de objetos complexos para especificar instâncias de bibliotecas digitais que gerenciem objetos complexos. O novo metamodelo foi incluído na ferramenta 5SGraph, ferramenta gráfica baseada no formalismo 5S (Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios e Societies) que permite a especificação formal de bibliotecas digitais. A validação do novo metamodelo foi realizada por estudos de caso, por uma avaliação com usuários potenciais da ferramenta 5SGraph e pela implementação de um protótipo de uma biblioteca digital de documentos legais. Com os resultados obtidos, comprovou-se que a ferramenta 5SGraph estendida pode ser usada para especificar bibliotecas digitais de objetos complexos. As principais contribuições deste trabalho são: a caracterização de documentos legais como objetos complexos; a especificação de um metamodelo para especificação de bibliotecas digitais de objetos complexos; a implementação de um metamodelo para uso na ferramenta 5SGraph com o objetivo de especificar e instanciar bibliotecas digitais contendo objetos complexos; uma apresentação de estudos de casos para especificar objetos complexos de bibliotecas digitais na ferramenta 5SGraph; a validação do uso do novo metamodelo na ferramenta 5SGraph por usuários potenciais; e a especificação e a implementação de um protótipo de biblioteca digital de objetos complexos do tipo documento legalAbstract: Digital libraries are advanced and complex information systems that store, aggregate, and manage correlated information. These systems are used by specific communities to access digital objects of interest. Due to the creation of huge collections of heterogeneous data (in terms of type and format), some of these data are organized in digital complex objects, in the sense that they are composed by other digital objects. Since specification and implementation of digital libraries are decisive tasks to achieve an effective management of documents, specific software tools have been created to help and facilitate the specification and implementation of digital libraries. However, few existing tools used to model digital libraries allow the specification of complex objects. Besides, this kind of complex data make more difficult the tasks of specification, modeling, and reusing of complex objects. The objective of this dissertation was to propose a digital library metamodel in order to specify instances of digital libraries that manage complex objects. The new metamodel was included in the 5SGraph tool. 5SGraph is a software tool based on the 5S theory (Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios, and Societies) and provides a visual environment for the formal specification of digital libraries. The new metamodel was validated through: case studies, an evaluation with potential users, and the implementation of a digital library prototype containing legal documents. According to the results, the extended 5SGraph tool can be used to specify digital libraries of complex objects. The main contributions of this work are: the characterization of legal documents as complex objects; the specification of a metamodel to be used in the specification of digital libraries of complex objects; the implementation of a metamodel in the 5SGraph tool, making the tool capable of specifying digital libraries of complex objects; the presentation of some case studies using the 5SGraph tool to specify complex objects of digital libraries; validation of the new metamodel in the 5SGraph with potential users; and the specification and implementation of a digital library prototype containing complex objects related to legal documentsMestradoCiência da ComputaçãoMestre em Ciência da Computaçã

Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios, Societies (5S): A Formal Model for Digital Libraries

Digital libraries (DLs) are complex information systems and therefore demand formal foundations lest development efforts diverge and interoperability suffers. In this paper, we propose the fundamental abstractions of Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios, and Societies (5S), which allow us to define digital libraries rigorously and usefully. Streams are sequences of arbitrary items used to describe both static and dynamic (e.g., video) content. Structures can be viewed as labeled directed graphs, which impose organization. Spaces are sets with operations on those sets that obey certain constraints. Scenarios consist of sequences of events or actions that modify states of a computation in order to accomplish a functional requirement. Societies are sets of entities and activities and the relationships between and among them. Together these abstractions provide a formal foundation to define, relate, and unify concepts - among others, of digital objects, metadata, collections, and services - required to formalize and elucidate "digital libraries". The applicability, versatility and unifying power of the 5S model are demonstrated through its use in three distinct applications: building and interpretation of a DL taxonomy, informal and formal analysis of case studies of digital libraries (NDLTD and OAI), and utilization as a formal basis for a DL description language

Extending the 5S Framework of Digital Libraries to support Complex Objects, Superimposed Information, and Content-Based Image Retrieval Services

Advanced services in digital libraries (DLs) have been developed and widely used to address the required capabilities of an assortment of systems as DLs expand into diverse application domains. These systems may require support for images (e.g., Content-Based Image Retrieval), Complex (information) Objects, and use of content at fine grain (e.g., Superimposed Information). Due to the lack of consensus on precise theoretical definitions for those services, implementation efforts often involve ad hoc development, leading to duplication and interoperability problems. This article presents a methodology to address those problems by extending a precisely specified minimal digital library (in the 5S framework) with formal definitions of aforementioned services. The theoretical extensions of digital library functionality presented here are reinforced with practical case studies as well as scenarios for the individual and integrative use of services to balance theory and practice. This methodology has implications that other advanced services can be continuously integrated into our current extended framework whenever they are identified. The theoretical definitions and case study we present may impact future development efforts and a wide range of digital library researchers, designers, and developers

The Importance of Usability in Development of Digital Libraries

Digital libraries are among the most interesting electronic information resources of our time. They are the collection of services and the collection of information objects and services that support users in accessing information objects available on the Internet. They are complex information systems consisting of many components which depend on each other in their operation. To achieve the flawless operation of digital libraries their developers should evaluate their achievements during the phase of development as well as during the phase of use. As a result of their efforts, users should get usable and easy to use information systems which are adapted to their needs and preferences. Evaluation and usability are two important concepts which may help librarians and computer specialists to design better information systems and better services for them. Usability testing may include one (usually the user interface) or many components of an information system for evaluation. Evaluation also includes the research of user community. Information acquired in such a way may also significantly help in information system improvement. Since the goal of evaluation is to achieve quality and improvement, the final result should be a superior information system like digital library and satisfied users

ETD Plus: When Non-traditional is the New Normal, What\u27s the Norm for ETD Programs?

The 2014-2017 ETDplus project brought together a diverse range of national stakeholders in the ETD curation process (professors, libraries, and service providers) to improve ETD policies and practices around research data and complex digital object management. The project research pivoted on the question “How will institutions ensure the longevity and availability of ETD research data and complex digital objects (e.g., software, multimedia files) that comprise an integral component of student theses and dissertations?” The research conducted in the course of the project revealed many emerging trends regarding ETDs, illuminating a significantly changed landscape of ETD curation needs in the 21st century. This presentation will review project findings and discuss future directions for ETD programs

Universal access in digital libraries

Digital libraries are concerned with the creation and management of information sources, the movement of information across global networks and the effective use of this information by a wide range of users. A digital library is a vast collection of obj ects that are of multimedia nature, e.g., text, video, images, and audio. Users wishing to access the digital library objects may possess varying capabilities, preferences, domain expertise, and may use different information appliances. With the phenomenal growth of the Internet, the number of different information appliances will, if not already, increase substantially in the near future. Facilitating access to complex multimedia digital library obj ects that suits to the users\u27 requirements is known as universal access. The main objective of this thesis is to present our research work in the area of Universal Access within digital library environment. In this thesis, we will first present the current and future trend in information appliances, followed by discussion on the scope of our work. We propose an object manifestation approach in which digital library objects automatically manifest themselves to cater to the users\u27 capabilities and characteristics. We provide a formal framework, based on Petri nets, to represent the various components of the digital library objects, their modality and fidelity and the playback synchronization relationships among them. We develop methodologies for object delivery without any deadtime under network delays. We have implemented a working system prototype to realize our approach