Professional Documents
Culture Documents
BIBLIOTECI DIGITALE
Monica
Vladoiu
PG University of Ploiesti,
Digital Libraries (DLs)
2/38
Digital Libraries’ scope
DLs – have an immense range of applicability:
exploring popular music or movies
supporting instruction, education, and human development
providing support for scientific research or
topic-specific search
preserving traditional culture
helping propagate culture in a multimedia form
and many more …
3/38
Digital Libraries’ definition
5/38
Terms to work with
6/38
What to include in a collection?
8/38
WWW, and websites vs. DLs
WWW - marked by lack of plan, order, or selection and
organization; WWW - uncontrolled and uncontrollable
Web site – even one that offers a focused collection of well-
organized material and provides appropriate methods of access
and retrieval should not be considered a library
libraries are storehouses where material can easily be added
most well-organized web sites are created manually through
hand-crafted hypertext linkage structure
as adding new acquisitions to a physical library does not involve
making rewriting on existing books, so it should be possible for
new material to be included in a DL without any need for manual
updating of the structures used for access and retrieval
9/38
Metadata
what connects a new acquisition into the structure of a
physical library is partly where is placed on the shelves,
but more important is the information about it that is
included in the library catalog
this information is called metadata – data about data –
this is equally important for DLs as well
to be effective, metadata needs to conform to
standards so that
• interoperability between different computer apps can be achieved
• searchers can use a standard set of retrieval techniques to maximize
their chances of finding the resources via a search engine
10/38
Traditional libraries –the oldest
one which still exists!
Libraries are society’s repositories for knowledge
Libraries are temples of culture and wisdom
the oldest library is a collection of more than 2000
engraved stone slabs (steles), situated in Xi’an, an
ancient walled city in central China with a long and
distinguished history (established ca. 1100 A.D.)
each stele stands 2 or 3 meters high and is
engraved with a poem, story or historical record
for example, Confucius’s works are here
this collection gathers together the work of many
calligraphers over a period of 3 millennia!
13/38
Traditional libraries – evolution (1)
over the years have evolved beyond recognition
originally intended for storage and preservation,
libraries have refocused to place users at the
center, with increased emphasis on information
exchange
ancient libraries were only useful to the small
minority of people who could read
they were accessible within stringent limitations
imposed by social conditions
13/38
Traditional libraries – evolution (2)
the public library movement took hold in the 19th
century. Still, the libraries of the day had book
stacks that were closed to the public
the books were chosen from the catalog and then
handed out over the counter
in Europe, most libraries still operate this way
however 20th century librarians came to realize the
advantage of allowing readers to browse among the
shelves and make their own selections
open-access libraries became widely accepted in
English-speaking countries
13/38
Traditional libraries – evolution (3)
the famous library of Alexandria is widely
recognized as the world’s first great library
long before that, Chinese written records began,
having a history that extends to 18th century B.C.
created around 300 B.C. the Alexandrian Library
grew at a phenomenal rate and contained 200,000
volumes in 10 years
before being burned it had 700,000 volumes
more than 2,000 years would pass before any other
library would attain this size
the work of the acquisitions dept. was dramatic!
13/38
Traditional libraries – the largest
library today
The Library of Congress is the de facto national
library of the United States;
Its collections include more than 29 million
catalogued books and other print materials in 470
languages
more than 58 million manuscripts; the largest rare
book collection in North America, including a
Gutenberg bible
over 1 million issues of world newspapers spanning
the past three centuries, 33,000 bound newspaper
volumes, 500,000 microfilm reels,4.8 million maps,
and 2.7 million sound recordings 13/38
Virtual libraries to come
13/38
Legal aspects of DLs (1)
13/38
Legal aspects of DLs (2)
13/38
Legal aspects of DLs (4)
13/38
Legal aspects of DLs (6)
13/38
Legal aspects of DLs (9)
13/38
What could it happen inside DLs?
13/38
DLs push the society’s frontiers
13/38
Cultural sensitivity
13/38
Conclusion and discusions (1)
the information revolution supplies the
technological power that drives DLs and fuels and
unprecedented demand for storing, organizing and
accessing information
this demand is economically driven rather than
curiosity driven as in days gone by
if information is the currency of knowledge
economy, DLs will be the banks where it is in
indeed Goethe once said that visiting a library was
like entering the presence of great wealth which
was silently paying untold dividends
13/38
Conclusion and discussion (2)