Overview of Digital Library Components and Developments

Digital libraries are being built upon a firm foundation of prior work as the high-end information systems of the future. A component architecture approach is becoming popular, with well established support for key components like the repository, especially through the Open Archives Initiative. We consider digital objects, metadata, harvesting, indexing, searching, browsing, rights management, linking, and powerful interfaces. Flexible interaction will be possible through a variety of architectures, using buses, agents, and other technologies. The field as a whole is undergoing rapid growth, supported by advances in storage, processing, networking, algorithms, and interaction. There are many initiatives and developments, including those supporting education, and these will certainly be of benefit in Latin America

Beyond Harvesting: Digital Library Components as OAI Extensions

Reusability always has been a controversial topic in Digital Library (DL) design. While componentization has gained momentum in software engineering in general, there has not yet been broad DL standardization in component interfaces. Recently, the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) has begun to address this by creating a standard protocol for accessing metadata archives. It is proposed that this protocol be extended to act as the glue that binds together various components of a typical DL. In order to test the feasibility of this approach, a set of protocol extensions was created, implemented, and integrated as components of production and research DLs. The performance of these components was analyzed from the perspective of execution speed, network traffic, and data consistency. On the whole, this work has simultaneously revealed the feasibility of such OAI extensions for component interaction, and has identified aspects of the OAI protocol that constrain such extensions

The application of intelligent agents in libraries: a survey

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive literature review on the utilisation of intelligent agent technology in the library environment. Design/methodology/approach - Research papers since 1990 on the use of various intelligent agent technologies in libraries are divided into two main application areas: digital library (DL), including agent-based DL projects, multi-agent architecture for DLs, intelligent agents for distributed heterogeneous information retrieval and agent support to information search process in DLs; and services in traditional libraries, including user interface for library information systems, automatic reference services and multi-agent architecture for library services. For each paper on the topic, its new ideas or models, referred work, analyses, experiments, findings and conclusions are addressed. Findings - The majority of the literature covers DLs and there have been fewer studies about services in traditional libraries. A variety of architecture, framework and models integrating agent technology in library systems or services are proposed, but only a few have been implemented in the practical environment. The application of agent technology is still at the research and experimentation stage. Agent technology has great potential in many areas in the library context; however it presents challenges to libraries that want to be involved in its adoption. Practical implications - The survey has practical implications for libraries, librarians and computer professionals in developing projects that employ intelligent agent technology to meet end-users\u27 expectations as well as to improve information services within limited resources in library settings. Originality/value - The paper provides a comprehensive survey on the development and research of intelligent agents in libraries in literature

Scalable Storage for Digital Libraries

I propose a storage system optimised for digital libraries. Its key features are its heterogeneous scalability; its integration and exploitation of rich semantic metadata associated with digital objects; its use of a name space; and its aggressive performance optimisation in the digital library domain

A Scalable Architecture for Harvest-Based Digital Libraries

This article discusses the requirements of current and emerging applications based on the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and emphasizes the need for a common infrastructure to support them. Inspired by HTTP proxy, cache, gateway and web service concepts, a design for a scalable and reliable infrastructure that aims at satisfying these requirements is presented. Moreover, it is shown how various applications can exploit the services included in the proposed infrastructure. The article concludes by discussing the current status of several prototype implementations

Design Architecture: An Introduction and Overview

Digital libraries evolved in response to the need to manage the vast quantities of electronic information that we produce, collect, and consume. Architects of such systems have adopted a variety of design approaches, which are summarized and illustrated in this chapter. We also introduce the following three chapters, and provide suitable background. From a historical perspective, we note that early systems were designed independently to afford services to specific communities. Since then, systems that store and mediate access to information have become commonplace and are scattered all over the Internet. Consequently, information retrieval also has to contend with distributed/networked systems, in a transparent and scalable fashion. In this context, digital library architects have adopted various interoperability standards and practices to provide users with seamless access to highly distributed information sources. This chapter looks at current research and emerging best practices adopted in designing digital libraries, whether individual or distributed