SEMINAR AND INDEPENDENCE STUDIES (GNS 207)

PROJECT ON
DIGITAL LIBRARY IN AN ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT

BY

UDOH FAITHFUL ITORO

COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENT
2002021022

ESTAM UNIVERSIRY
 ABSTRACT

During the past recent years, there has been tremendous development reaming the
concept of digital libraries-a knowledge base that can be stored and retrieved
through on-line networks. Digital libraries are the most complex form of information
systems that support digital document preservation, distributed database
management, hypertext, filtering, information retrieval and selective dissemination of
information. This has really overcome geographical barrier offering wide range of
academic, research and cultural resources with multimedia effects which can be
accessed around the world over the distributed networks. The paper examines the
concept of Digital library, the technology that has enabled its emergence &
architecture of digital library system. It also highlights the digital library projects
undertaken in USA, UK and India. Here the authors explored the unique feature of
digital library and possible challenges ahead for library and information professionals in
the digital environment

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 INTRODUCTION

Rapid advances in information technologies have revolutionized the role of libraries.

As a result, libraries face new challenges, competitors, demands, and expectations. Libraries
are redesigning services and information products to add value to their services and to satisfy
the changing information needs of the user community. Traditional libraries are still handling
largely printed materials that are expensive and bulky. Information seekers are no longer
satisfied with only printed materials. They want to supplement the printed information with
more dynamic electronic resources. Demands for digital information are increasing.
Definition
A Digital library is a focused collection of digital objects that can include text, visual
material, audio material, video material, stored as electronic media formats (as opposed to
print, micro form, or other media), along with means for organizing, storing, and retrieving
the files and media contained in the library collection. Digital libraries can vary immensely
in size and scope, and can be maintained by individuals, organizations, or affiliated with
established physical library buildings or institutions, or with academic institutions. The
electronic content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks.
The first published use of the term may have been in a 1988 report to the Corporation
for National Research Initiatives. The term was first populariz\ed by the
NSF/DARPA/NASA Digital Libraries Initiative in 1994. Bush (1945) created a vision based
on experience (“Digital library.”)
The Digital Library Federation defines digital libraries as:
Organizations that provide the resources, including the specialized staff, to select,
structure, offer intellectual access to, interpret, distribute, preserve the integrity of, and
ensure the persistence over time of collections of digital works so that they are readily
available for use by a defined community or set of communities. (Shiri 2003)
Lynch (1994) says that, “digital Libraries ... [provide] users with coherent sccess to a very
large, organized repository of information and knowledge.” According to Berkeley Digital
Library Project, University of California, the digital library will be a collection of distributed
information sources. The contrast between traditional and digital libraries is presented below

In the digital library, information is stored as "digital objects". A primitive idea of a digital
object is that it is just a set of bits, but this idea is too simple. The content of even the most

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basic digital object has some structure, and information, such as intellectual property rights,
must be associated with the digital object.

To enable the content to represent useful information, its type must be known. Thus part of
the content may be of type text (perhaps encoded in a mark-up language), while another part
may be of type audio. A single digital object may contain many types of content. It turns out
that arbitrarily complex data types can be constructed from a few basic types, notably bit
sequences, handles and other digital objects. By combining these in various combinations,
any digital content can be represented.
To manage valuable intellectual property, certain metadata is required. This is shown in the
figure. It always includes a unique identifier (the handle). It may also include properties such
as rights and access methods. One property states whether a digital object is mutable, in that
it may be altered after being placed in a repository. Another is a digital signature or other
method of validating that an object has not been changed. Frequently, it is useful to keep a
log of all transactions associated with each digital object.

User interfaces
Both the pilot and the prototype have two user interfaces: one for the users of the library, the
other for the librarians and system administrators who manage the collections. Each user
interface is in two parts. A standard Internet browser is used for the actual interactions with
the user. This can be Netscape Navigator, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, or the Grail browser
developed by our colleagues at CNRI. The browser connects to client services, which
provide intermediary functions between the browser and the other parts of the system. The
client services allow the user to decide where to search and what to retrieve; they interpret
information structured as digital objects; they negotiate terms and conditions, manage
relationships between digital objects, remember the state of the interaction, and convert
among the protocols used by the various parts of the system. (William Y. Arms, 1997)
Repository
Repositories store and manage digital objects and other information. A large digital library
may have many repositories of various types, including modern repositories, legacy
databases, and Web servers. We have the pilot repository that we have implemented and
enhancements planned for the prototype. The interface to this repository is called the
repository access protocol (RAP). Features of RAP are explicit recognition of rights and
permissions that need to be satisfied before a client can access a digital object, support for a
very general range of disseminations of digital objects, and an open architecture with well -
defined interfaces. Repositories must look after the information they hold A repository stores
digital objects, both the content and the metadata.

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OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
The major objectives of these papers are as follows:
1) It will provide cutting-edges facilities and services to support research, teaching, learning,
and scholarly communication across disciplines.
2) To collect, organize and collate prints and digital information and disseminate at the point
of care and for future use.
3) To provide seamless access for information.
4) To act as a gateway to digital and electronic information. 5) To develop into a single
access point library.
6) To develop and conduct tutorials for the users to enable them to effectively utilize the
facilities and resources made available by the library.
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The relevance of this research is to attempt towards understanding the importance and
benefits of digital library as individuals, in our environment and also in the society. Thus the
significance are as follows:
1) To bring readers up-to-date on the progress, nature and impact of digital libraries,
bridging the gap since the publication of the best-known digital library texts.
2) To provides a global perspective and integrates material from many sources in one place.

SCOPE OF STUDY
The scope of this topic covers the Historical background of Digital library, advantages and
disadvantages of digital library, components of a digital library, how to use a digital library,
importance of digital library to the society, the internal diagram of a digital library,
characteristics of a digital library, types of digital libraries, function of a digital library,
purpose of a digital library, how to create a digital library, how to add and remove an article
on digital library, Types of digital libraries and examples, Software’s used for developing a
digital library and Hardware involved( If any).

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5 LIMITATION OF STUDY
This research work is limited by the facts that:
1) There is lack of screening or validation
2) There is lack of preservation of a fixed copy (for the record and for duplicating scientific
research)
3) There is difficulty in knowing and locating everything that is available, and differentiating
valuable from useless information.
4) There is job loss for traditional publishers and librarians.
5) Costs are spread and many become hidden.

ORGANIZATION OF WORK
This research is divided into 4 chapters, which are further subdivided into sections.
Chapter one is introduction which is further divided into sub sections, they include
overview, objectives of the study, significance of the study, limitation of the study, scope of
the study, organization of work. Chapter two is the literature review which is divided into
one section it include the historical background of the study.
Chapter three is findings. It is further divided into sub sections which include: Definition of a
digital library, internal architecture of the topic, components of the study, the features and
characteristics of digital libraries, advantages and disadvantages of digital library, how to
create a digital libraries, how to add and remove an article from a digital library, types of
digital libraries existing, Purpose and function of a digital library. Chapter four is the
summary, and it is sub divided into two sections which is the conclusion and the References.
DEFINITION OF SOME TERMS
Library: A library is a collection of sources of information and similar resources, made
accessible to a defined community for reference or borrowing.
Digital library: A Digital library is a focused collection of digital objects that can include
text, visual material, audio material, video material, stored as electronic media formats (as
opposed to print, micro form, or other media), along with means for organizing, storing, and
retrieving the files and media contained in the library collection.
Digital objects: A digital object is a character string used to uniquely identify an object such
as an electronic document.
Repository: Repositories store and manage digital objects and other information.

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Metadata: Metadata is “data about data” it is defined as the data providing information about
one or more aspects of the data such as: means of creation of the data, purpose of the data,
Time and date of creation, creator or author of the data, Location on a computer network
where the data were created.
Memex machine: Memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records and
communications which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and
flexibility.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The digital library concept can be traced back to the famous papers of foreseer scientists like
Vannevar Bush and J.C.R. Licklider identifying and pursuing the goal of innovative
technologies and approaches toward knowledge sharing as fundamental instruments for
progress. Bush (Bush, 1945) devised a device in which an individual stores all his books,
records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with
exceeding speed and flexibility...
In 1945, Vannevar Bush had a vision. In his article, "As We May Think," he describes a
technical fix for the information explosion that begun after World War II. Vannevar named
this technical fix the Memex. The Memex was described as "a device in which an individual
stores all his books, records and communications which is mechanized so that it may be
consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility" (Bush, 1945).
RELATED LITERATURES
In 1945, Vannevar Bush had a vision. In his article, "As We May Think," he describes a
technical fix for the information explosion that begun after World War II. Vannevar named
this technical fix the Memex. The Memex was described as "a device in which an individual
stores all his books, records and communications which is mechanized so that it may be
consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility" (Bush, 1945). Vannevar was most certainly a
visionary. His ideas were well before his time. His idea of the Memex can be considered the
basis for digital libraries and maybe even the World Wide Web.
In the 1980s, libraries card catalogs were being replaced by Online Public Access Catalogs
(OPACs). These were usually closed systems that could contain little more than
bibliographic data. Most OPACs were are done in Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC)
format. It generally represents an individually published item or "information product," and
describes the physical characteristics of the item itself (Brenner et al, 2006).

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 The archival community however, no longer employs the MARC format. They use the
Encoded Archival Description (EAD) format. The EAD format is better suited for encoding
the hierarchical relationships between the different parts of the collection and displaying
them to the user (Brenner et al, 2006). Recent trends have been capitalizing on the strengths
of both formats to improve access to digital collections (AlderMan, 1998).
In the 1990s and beyond, digital libraries changed the way we have thought about how we
retrieve information. What exactly is a digital library? According to Donald Waters, digital
libraries are "organizations that provide the resources, including the specialized staff, to
select, structure, offer intellectual access to, interpret, distribute, preserve the integrity of,
and ensure the persistence over time of collections of digital works so that they are readily
and economically available for use by a defined community or set of communities" (Waters,
1998). This definition allows for a great degree of interpretation. The concept of digital
library has multiple senses that one might invoke in various contexts. For example, the
concept may refer simply to the notion of collection without reference to organization,
intellectual accessibility or service attributes. This extended sense seems to be in play, for
example, when we hear the World Wide Web described as a digital library. The concept
might also refer to the organization underlying the collection, or even more specifically to
the computer-based system in which the collection resides (DLF, 1995). Digital libraries
represent the meeting point of a large number of disciplines and fields, i.e., data
management, information retrieval, library sciences, document management, information
systems, the Web, image processing, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and
others (Ioannidis, 2005). The Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts in one example of a digital
library.
The Digital Library Foundation (DLF) was founded in 1995 by some of the most prominent
institutions in the United States including Harvard University, Columbia University,
Princeton, Yale, and the Library of Congress. In the Digital Library Foundations charter
signed May 1, 1995, the foundation lists seven main goals (DLF, 1995). These seven goals
are a perfect example of the thinking required before, during, and after creating a digital
library. These seven goals are the implementation of an open digital library accessible across
the global internet filled with printed documents converted to digital form and incorporation
of holdings already in electronic form. The establishment of a collaborative management
structure for ongoing maintenance of the digital library. The development of a coordinated
funding strategy from both public and private sources. The formation of selection guidelines
that will ensure conformance to a theme and to ensure the digital library has a large corpus of
significant materials. The involvement of leaders in government, education, and the private
sector to address network issues and policy. Establishment of a comprehensive evaluation of
how clients make use of the digital library for research, how that usage compares to
traditional library research, and how digital libraries affect the mission, economy, and
staffing of organizations and library institutions (DLF, 1995).

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The Center for the Study of Digital Libraries (CSDL) was established in 1995 at Texas
A&M. The center provides experience and expertise to help transfer all types of collections,
from books to biological specimens, into digital libraries. The center also provides a
leadership role in the online development and application of world-wide access to digital
library services (CSDL, 1995). According to the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries
mission statement, Digital libraries will be ubiquitous in the future and will provide the basis
for a very broad set of distributed living activities including computer supported cooperative
work, distance learning, electronic commerce and entertainment. The transition to an
electronic information workplace has already begun in full force. We believe that digital
libraries will significantly impact the quality of education and, indeed, the quality of life over
the next decade (CSDL, 1995). The CSDL has created a few notable digital library projects
including George Bush Digital Library, the Cervantes Project 2001, and the TAMU Herbaria
Project. One of their most interesting projects is called Walden's Paths. Walden's Paths is a
K-12 education project intended to help educators organize the web for their students
(Alderman, 1998).

MODE OF OPERATION OF A DIGITAL LIBRARY

1. Initial conversion of content from physical to digital form.

2. The extraction or creation of metadata or indexing information describing the content to
facilitate searching and discovery, as well as administrative and structural metadata to assist
in object viewing, management, and preservation.
3. Storage of digital content and metadata in an appropriate multimedia repository. The
repository will include rights management capabilities to enforce intellectual property rights,
if required. E-commerce functionality may also be present if needed to handle accounting
and billing.
4. Client services for the browser, including repository querying and workflow 5. Content
delivery via file transfer or streaming media 6. Patron access through a browser or dedicated
client
7. A private or public network.

TYPES OF DIGITAL LIBRARY AND EXAMPLES

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1 Stand-alone Digital Library (SDL)
This is the regular classical library implemented in a fully computerized fashion. SDL is
simply a library in which the holdings are digital (i.e., electronic –scanned or digitized). The
SDL is selfcontained –the material is localized and centralized. In fact, it is a computerized
instance of the classical library with the benefits of computerization. Examples of SDLs are
the Library of Congress (LC) and its National Digital Library (NDL) (http://www.loc.gov),
and the Israeli K12 Portal Snunit (http://www.snunit.k12.il).
Federated Digital Library (FDL)
This is a federation of several independent SDLs in the network, organized around a
common theme, and coupled together on the network. A FDL composes several autonomous
SDLs that form a networked library with a transparent user interface. The different SDLs are
hetero and are connected via communication networks. The major challenge in the
construction and maintenance of a FDL is interoperability (since the different repositories
use different metadata formats and standards). Examples of FDLs are the Networked
Computer Science Technical Reference Library (NCSTRL) (http://www.ncstrl.org) and
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) (http://www.ndltd.org).
Harvested Digital Library (HDL) This is a virtual library providing summarized access to
related material scattered over the network. A HDL holds only metadata with pointers to the
holdings that are “one click away” in Cyberspace. The material held in the libraries is
harvested (converted into summaries) according to the definition of an Information Specialist
(IS). However, a HDL has regular DL characteristics, it is finely grained and subject focused.
It has rich library services, and has high quality control preserved by the IS, who is also
responsible for annotating the objects in the library. The HDL harvesting model is further
detailed in section 3. Examples of HDLs are the Internet Public Library (IPL)
(http://www.ipl.org/) and the Virtual Library (http://www.vlib.org/).

SOFTWARES INVOLVED
There are different software’s used in digital library such as:
Alfresco (software):-Alfresco is a free/libre enterprise content management system for
Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. It is used for Enterprise content
management for documents, web, records, images, and collaborative content development.
Cambridge imaging system: - It was founded in 1996, is a software company based near
Cambridge, UK that specializes in enterprise video platforms. It has one subsidiary company,
Screenocean, based in London, UK, an online digital library containing program material and
related metadata from the Channel 4 archive.

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 Digital Commons: - Digital Commons is a hosted open access institutional repository and
publishing solution, combining traditional institutional repository functionality with tools for
peer-reviewed journal publishing, conference management, and multimedia.
DSpace: - DSpace is an open source repository software package typically used for creating
open access repositories for scholarly and/or published digital content. While DSpace shares
some feature overlap with content management systems and document management systems,
the DSpace repository software serves a specific need as a digital archives system, focused
on the long-term storage, access and preservation of digital content.

HARDWARE INVOLVED

The hardware’s involved are as follows:

1) Computer, mobile phone or any device that can access the network.
2) Storage device or Database where data and information are kept and stored
3) Scanner that will be used to convert traditional object into Digitized objects.
4) Printer will be used to print out digitized object.
5) Internet Modem which will be used to access the network.
6) Traditional Materials Such as books, magazines e.tc.

IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL LIBRARY

1) Scholarly communication, education, research such asE-journals, e-books, and data sets,
e-learning.
2) Access to cultural collections such as Cultural heritage, historical & special collections,
museums, biodiversity.
3) E-governance such as Improved access to government policies, plans, procedures, rules
and regulations
4) Archiving and preservation.

ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL LIBRARY

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 1) No physical boundary. The user of a digital library need not to go to the library
physically; people from all over the world can gain access to the same information, as long
as an Internet connection is available.
2) Round the clock availability a major advantage of digital libraries is that people can gain
access 24/7 to the information.
3) Multiple access. The same resources can be used simultaneously by a number of
institutions and patrons. This may not be the case for copyrighted material: a library may
have a license for "lending out" only one copy at a time; this is achieved with a system of
digital rights management where a resource can become inaccessible after expiration of the
lending period or after the lender chooses to make it inaccessible (equivalent to returning the
resource).
4) Information retrieval. The user is able to use any search term (word, phrase, title, name,
and subject) to search the entire collection. Digital libraries can provide very user-friendly
interfaces, giving click able access to its resources.
5) Preservation and conservation. Digitization is not a long-term preservation solution for
physical collections, but does succeed in providing access copies for materials that would
otherwise fall to degradation from repeated use.
6) Space. Whereas traditional libraries are limited by storage space, digital libraries have the
potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very
little physical space to contain them and media storage technologies are more affordable than
ever before.
7) Added value. Certain characteristics of objects, primarily the quality of images, may be
improved. Digitization can enhance legibility and remove visible flaws such as stains and
discoloration
8) Easily accessible.

DISADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL LIBRARY

Digital libraries, or at least their digital collections, unfortunately also have brought their
own problems and challenges in areas such as:
1) Equity of access – the digital divide.
2) Interoperability between systems and software.
3) User authentication for access to collections.
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4) Information organization.

Characteristics of Digital Libraries

Recent developments in library technology and practices have helped bring some of
Lancaster 's paperless society to reality. The effects that digital technology has brought
include: (Jebaraj and Deivasigimani 2003) Digital library collections contain permanent
documents. The digital environment will enable quick handling and/or ephemeral
information. Digital libraries are based on digital technologies. The assumption that digital
libraries will contain only digital materials may be wrong. Digital libraries are often used by
individuals working alone. The physical boundaries of data have been eliminated. Support
for communications and collaboration is as important as information-seeking
Compression of data storage is enabling publication and storage of digital
information. Telecommunications is facilitating the storage, retrieval, use, and exchange of
digital resources.

CONCLUSION
There will be continuing expansion of digital library activities. Digital libraries will
build upon work being done in the information and data management area. Digital libraries
provide an effective means to distribute learning resources to students and other users.
Planning a digital library requires thoughtful analysis of the organization and its users, and
an acknowledgement of the cost and the need for infrastructure and ongoing maintenance
(Adams, Jansen, and Smith 1999)

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