The digital library: dos, don'ts and developments
| Pages | 435-437 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045407 |
| Date | 01 May 1995 |
| Published date | 01 May 1995 |
| Author | Colin Steele |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Guest Editorial
The digital
library:
dos, don'ts and
developments
Colin Steele
University
Librarian,
Australian National
University,
Canberra,
ACT 0200,
Australia
E-mail:
colin.steele@anu.edu.au
The term 'digital library' now seems to have become an encompassing term for
what was once known as the 'virtual' or the 'electronic' library. In a stimulating
essay
on
'Information Specialists of
the
Future',
given at the impressive (in
terms
of
contributions) Essen Symposium on the Information Superhighway: The Role of
Librarians, Information Scientists and Intermediaries (Essen, Universitatsbib-
liothek, 1995) Sheila Corrall wondered if
the
profession is 'suffering from some
sort of identity crisis' in definitional terms.
It's rather perhaps that we're trying
to realign our processes and roles to
the radical and significant changes in
information access. Paul Evans Peters,
the Director of the Coalition for Net-
worked Information in the
US,
sees
the
essential change as being from 'digit-
ised' to 'digital' in the future. He has
stated that in the context the 'informa-
tion objects' which will be managed
by digital libraries will be much more
'experiences' than 'things'. Digital li-
braries encompass the whole process
of scholarly communication, from
authorship to ultimate access to the in-
formation.
The Digital Library initiatives in
the United States have been acceler-
ated by the additional grants named at
the Spring 1995 Coalition for Net-
worked Information, meeting in
Washington, and the May 1995 an-
nouncement by sixteen signatories, in-
cluding major
US
research libraries, to
form a National Digital Library Fed-
eration which has as
a
primary goal the
implementation of a distributed open
digital library across the Internet. Dig-
itised materials 'will document the
building and dynamic of America's
heritage and cultures.' The inaugural
issue of the D-Lib magazine was re-
leased mid-year and is available at
http://www. cnri. res
ton.
va.
us/home/d
lib.
html.
This initiative is to be applauded
globally, for without the massive re-
sources of US libraries the move to
digital libraries will be that much
slower. The only proviso might be that
just as the global entertainment indus-
try is Americanised, so may the In-
ternet resources be. Arthur C. Clarke
once postulated the benefits of global
communication to Indian and Peru-
vian villages, but when Hollywood
soap operas supplant indigenous cul-
tures and rites there needs to be a bal-
ance,
otherwise the lowest common
denominator of mediocrity prevails.
Canada may provide a balance,
while still within the North American
orbit, with 'The Can-Linked Initia-
tive'
in which Canada's research li-
braries would also assume a leadership
role as regional network centres: they
would coordinate the planning of
a
na-
tional programme of electronic pub-
lishing and data conversion; they
would address pilot projects needed to
develop a depository of research
funded by the federal granting coun-
cils;
and they would address issues
unique to the preservation objectives
for original documents. The centres
would develop navigational tools col-
lectively to provide an integrated
means to access the distributed na-
tional repository, and coordinate the
delivery of new service, resources and
training of
users.
In the long run our libraries will be
restructured from the inevitable
changes in the nature of publishing:
i.e. the revolution that will occur by
new methods of delivery of informa-
tion, for example in article 'bites' and
as authors become their own publish-
ers.
Information will be accessed from
and delivered to the desktop directly,
with university libraries, for example,
having as their mission the integrated
seamless support of the research,
teaching and learning environment.
Stanford University Library has re-
cently described its role as providing
the 'glue' of the information process.
However, as several speakers men-
tioned at the Second Bath Interna-
tional Conference on Networking at
Bath University in April 1995, librar-
ies have to be careful not to turn them-
selves at the same time into PC or Mac
'sweatshops', where the presence of
huge banks of terminals — such as is
occurring in several European librar-
ies — 'deflect' research academics
from physically entering library doors.
One wonders in this context whether
this is inevitable or indeed a bad thing?
Researchers will increasingly also ac-
cess data from their desktop instead of
browsing in the serried ranks of little
used book and serial collections. Stu-
dents will need assistance in navigat-
ing
the
Net,
and what more likely place
The Electronic Library, Vol. 13, No. 5, October 1995 435
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