Digital Music Libraries: Librarian Perspectives and the Challenges Ahead

This paper reports the results of a survey targeting current members of the Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (CAML) that investigated the extent to which the current designs and structures of digital music libraries meet the needs of librarians in collecting, preserving, organizing, and disseminating diverse types of music documents. The challenges and barriers experienced in hosting digital collections are discussed. The gap between the current and ideal functionalities, as well as the future possibilities, are explored.

Assessment of Library Resources and Services in Engineering Colleges in India: A Study

Digital library and digital services are important component of any library, as role of library has changed to great extent with the advancement of information technology, network technology and communication technology. This study aims to report the digital library facilities and services available at engineering college libraries in Karnataka. It showcases the perception/opinion of librarians about digital library and digital services. From study it is clear that librarians have provided digital library and digital services and have positive opinion on the renowned role of digital library in library and information centers

Chata Sia “I am Choctaw”. Using Images as a Methodology for Cultural and Technological Discourse

Unlike positivist quantitative designs, many qualitative researchers tend to dive right into data collection without benefit of an exploratory study or other pilot study. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to share an image-based methodology adapted from a community strategic planning process and applied to an exploratory study of one native American tribes reaction to cultural images and\ud ICT’s, and (2) to share the many benefits of a pilot study in advance of a larger qualitative research study, including opportunities for discourse around ICT’s in relation to local culture

Accessing humanities research in a digital environment

AbstractContract law co-exists with copyright law in the publishing world often blurring the lines between authors and publishers in the dissemination of scholarly research. Technology has further obscured the traditional publishing model creating complications for academics as uncertainties about access to their published research arise. The goal of authors in publishing their scholarly research is to make an impact, to contribute to the global discussion and to disseminate knowledge to others. Making research available through open access (OA) may assist with the increased circulation of research, thereby potentially increasing its impact. OA research is seemingly more accepted and developed as a publishing model in science, technology and medicine, but evidence suggests less so in the humanities. The development of digital humanities represents a potential means by which OA may become more widely accepted as a publishing model in the humanities in general. This paper explores the role of open access in scholarly publication, and its influence on publishing contracts and the copyright of authors

Libraries and Museums in the Flat World: Are They Becoming Virtual Destinations?

In his recent book, “TheWorld is Flat”, Thomas L. Friedman reviews the impact of networks on globalization. The emergence of the Internet, web browsers, computer applications talking to each other through the Internet, and the open source software, among others, made the world flatter and created an opportunity for individuals to collaborate and compete globally. Friedman predicts that “connecting all the knowledge centers on the planet together into a single global network…could usher in an amazing era of prosperity and innovation”. Networking also is changing the ways by which libraries and museums provide access to information sources and services. In the flat world, libraries and museums are no longer a physical “place” only: they are becoming “virtual destinations”. This paper discusses the implications of this transformation for the digitization and preservation of, and access to, cultural heritage resources

Evaluation of the New Jersey Digital Highway

The aim of this research is to study the usefulness of the New Jersey Digital Highway (NJDH, www.njdigitalhigh way.org) and its portal structure. The NJDH intends to provide an immersive and user-centered portal for New Jersey history and culture. The research recruited 145 participants and used a Web-based questionnaire that contained three sections: for everyone, for educators, and for curators. The feedback on the usefulness of the NJDH was positive and the portal structure was favorable. The research uncovered several reasons why some collections did not want to or could not participate. The findings also suggested priorities for further development. This study is one of the few on the evaluation of cultural heritage digital library

Conceptualizing worksets for non-consumptive research

The HathiTrust (HT) digital library comprises 4 billion pages (composing 11 million volumes). The HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) – a unique collaboration between University of Illinois and Indiana University – is developing tools to connect scholars to this large and diverse corpus. This poster discusses HTRC’s activities surrounding the discovery, formation and optimization of useful analytic subsets of the HT corpus (i.e., workset creation and use). As a part of this development we are prototyping a RDF-based triple-store designed to record and serialize metadata describing worksets and the bibliographic entities that are collected within them. At the heart of this work is the construction of a formal conceptual model that captures sufficient descriptive information about worksets, including provenance, curatorial intent, and other useful metadata, so that digital humanities scholars can more easily select, group, and cite their research data collections based upon HT and external corpora. The prototype’s data model is in being designed to be extensible and fit well within the Linked Open Data community.ye

Privileging information is inevitable

Libraries, archives and museums have long collected physical materials and other artefacts. In so doing they have established formal or informal policies defining what they will (and will not) collect. We argue that these activities by their very nature privilege some information over others and that the appraisal that underlies this privileging is itself socially constructed. We do not cast this in a post-modernist or negative light, but regard a clear understanding of it as fact and its consequences as crucial to understanding what collections are and what the implications are for the digital world. We will argue that in the digital world it is much easier for users to construct their own collections from a combination of resources, some privileged and curated by information professionals and some privileged by criteria that include the frequency with which other people link to and access them. We conclude that developing these ideas is an important part of placing the concept of a digital or hybrid paper/digital library on a firm foundation and that information professionals need to learn from each other, adopting elements of a variety of different approaches to describing and exposing information. A failure to do this will serve to push information professional towards the margins of the information seekers perspective

The Role of Information and Communication Technology in Preserving University Library Archives

Abstract : University libraries are essential repositories of knowledge, safeguarding invaluable archives crucial for academic research and intellectual progress. The emergence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has significantly transformed the management and preservation of library archives in recent years. This paper investigates the pivotal role ICT plays in enhancing accessibility and safeguarding university library archives. It scrutinizes a range of technological tools, strategies, and challenges pertinent to preserving these archives in the digital era. Keywords: University libraries, information and communication technology, archives preservation, digital age, accessibility enhancement