I appreciated that this reading was rather relaxed and approachable, especially after finishing the DELOS article which was quite technical. I have entered my written notes, hopefully this is not too informal.
-- 1994: NSF launches DLI
*3 interested parties: librarians, comp scientists, publishers
*spawned google & other developments
-- DLI has changed work & private activities for nearly everyone
-- For scientists: exciting new work informed by librarianship
*resolution of tension between novel research & valuable products
-- For librarians: increased funding opportunities, improved impact of services
*OPACs were all most lib's had. expertise was needed
-- Advent of web: changed plans & got in the way
*blurred distinction b/t consumers & producers
-- Problem for CS: bound by perproject agreements & compyright. Web removed restrictions.
* broadening of relevance
-- Web threatened pillar of lib'ship...left w/out connection to recognizable, traditional library fx's
* Both valued predicatbility & repeatability - web led to laissez faire attitude toward info retrieval (did not particularly upset public)
-- Librarians feel they haven't gotten adequate funding for coll. dev.
-- CS's couldn't understand vast amounts of time devoted to structures like metadata
-- Core fx of lib'ship remains despite new, technical infrastructure
*importance of collections re-emerging
-- Direct connection b/t lib's & scholarly authors
-- Broadened opportunities in lib sci as a result of DLI
Showing posts with label week 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label week 1. Show all posts
Monday, September 1, 2008
Setting the Foundations of Digital Libraries: the DELOS Manifesto
This reading lacked the depth of explanation that the other readings have had, probably owing to its purpose as an overview to a larger work. Some of the terminology was a bit confusing to me, especially the distinction between a Digital Library System and a Digital Library Management System.
I don't have as many thoughts/reflections on this article, as it was fairly practical and informative without raising questions or topics that are up for debate. I have left below the notes that I cut/pasted from the reading, as well as a few of my own notes (designated with a "--"). I hope this is sufficient...
*****
"Generally accepted conceptions have shifted from a content-centric system that merely supports the organization and provision of access to particular collections of data and information, to a person-centric system that delivers innovative, evolving, and personalized services to users."
"expectations of the capabilities of Digital Libraries have evolved from handling mostly centrally located text to synthesizing distributed multimedia document collections, sensor data, mobile information, and pervasive computing services"
-- point out that definition and expectations of DL's change even as we try to define them.
"three types of relevant "systems" in this area: Digital Library, Digital Library System, and Digital Library Management System."
I don't have as many thoughts/reflections on this article, as it was fairly practical and informative without raising questions or topics that are up for debate. I have left below the notes that I cut/pasted from the reading, as well as a few of my own notes (designated with a "--"). I hope this is sufficient...
*****
"Generally accepted conceptions have shifted from a content-centric system that merely supports the organization and provision of access to particular collections of data and information, to a person-centric system that delivers innovative, evolving, and personalized services to users."
"expectations of the capabilities of Digital Libraries have evolved from handling mostly centrally located text to synthesizing distributed multimedia document collections, sensor data, mobile information, and pervasive computing services"
-- point out that definition and expectations of DL's change even as we try to define them.
"three types of relevant "systems" in this area: Digital Library, Digital Library System, and Digital Library Management System."
"Digital Library (DL)
A possibly virtual organization that comprehensively collects, manages, and preserves for the long term rich digital content, and offers to its user communities specialized functionality on that content, of measurable quality and according to codified policies.
"Digital Library System (DLS)
A software system that is based on a defined (possibly distributed) architecture and provides all functionality required by a particular Digital Library. Users interact with a Digital Library through the corresponding Digital Library System.
"Digital Library Management System (DLMS) A generic software system that provides the appropriate software infrastructure both (i) to produce and administer a Digital Library System incorporating the suite of functionality considered foundational for Digital Libraries and (ii) to integrate additional software offering more refined, specialized, or advanced functionality."
"Six core concepts provide a foundation for Digital Libraries. Five of them appear in the definition of Digital Library: Content, User, Functionality, Quality, and Policy; the sixth one emerges in the definition of Digital Library System: Architecture."
"We envisage actors interacting with Digital Library Systems playing four different and complementary roles: DL End-Users, DL Designers, DL System Administrators, and DL Application Developers. "
"Digital libraries need to obtain a corresponding Reference Model in order to consolidate the diversity of existing approaches into a cohesive and consistent whole, to offer a mechanism for enabling the comparison of different DLs, to provide a common basis for communication within the DL community, and to help focus further advancement"
"Reference Architecture is an architectural design pattern indicating an abstract solution to implementing the concepts and relationships identified in the Reference Model."
"Concrete Architecture - At this level, the Reference Architecture is actualised by replacing the mechanisms envisaged in the Reference Architecture with concrete standards and specifications."
LESK, ch. 1
Right from the start, I found this reading a bit more practical and informative than Borgman.
I found the extended definition on pp. 2-3 quite helpful, with the following four main points:
1. DL must have content
2. Content needs to be stored and retrieved.
3. Content must be made accessible.
4. Content must be delivered to user.
Followed by the introduction of the new costs and legal issues surrounding digital collections.
Section 1.2 seemed quite straightforward to me with some good points, especially that "For more than a decade, nearly every word printed and typed has been prepared on a computer. Paradoxically, until very recently most reading has been from paper." The focus on the interplay between technology, economics, and user-driven information usage felt like a good overview of the challenges facing digital libraries, and digital information sources generally.
I particularly enjoyed the in-depth (albeit lengthy) discussion in section 1.4 of changing prices and capacities for different info storage and retrieval technologies. The level of detail really drove home the challenges of storing and maintaining such vast quantities of information, even as our resources improve.
It feels like I have been hearing about Vannevar Bush in every single class I've had this week, so section 1.3 of the chapter was interesting more in the contrast depicted between Bush and Warren Weaver. Reading about the different emphases of their research reminded me of events in the history of Psychology, specifically the emphasis throughout much of the early twentieth century on behaviorist theories until the so-called "cognitive revolution" in the 60s. And in fact, the chapter later alluded to that same revolution on p.24 (section 1.5), with references to scientists such as Chomsky and Oettinger.
I have a BA in Lingustics (full disclosure, ha), so section 1.5 was highly interesting to me. However, I did feel that it understated the real challenges and shortcomings of attempts to capture the intricacies of natural human language with computers and other machines, perhaps for necessary reasons of length.
The background info on the history of the internet and the programs/interfaces that are commonly used today was quite informative and clear, in particular the discussion of Google's groundbreaking method of ranking search results to provide better information, and not just a lot of it. On a side note, I was talking to my mother on the phone last night and she told me that for the first time ever she successfully used google to find information that she was looking for (a substitution for self-rising flour in a recipe). That this is the first time she has managed to do so only now, after nearly six years of regular computer usage (yes, she was a late adopter) really drove this point home to me, of the very really challenges involved in making digital information an effective tool for retreiving high-quality information.
As stated in section 1.7, I felt that the two most important questions lingering over the development of DL's are:
1. What do people want to do with available technologies?
2. What content should be provided? And specifically, which content can be provided entirely digitally, and which types will never be as effective/adequate in a digital form?
I found the extended definition on pp. 2-3 quite helpful, with the following four main points:
1. DL must have content
2. Content needs to be stored and retrieved.
3. Content must be made accessible.
4. Content must be delivered to user.
Followed by the introduction of the new costs and legal issues surrounding digital collections.
Section 1.2 seemed quite straightforward to me with some good points, especially that "For more than a decade, nearly every word printed and typed has been prepared on a computer. Paradoxically, until very recently most reading has been from paper." The focus on the interplay between technology, economics, and user-driven information usage felt like a good overview of the challenges facing digital libraries, and digital information sources generally.
I particularly enjoyed the in-depth (albeit lengthy) discussion in section 1.4 of changing prices and capacities for different info storage and retrieval technologies. The level of detail really drove home the challenges of storing and maintaining such vast quantities of information, even as our resources improve.
It feels like I have been hearing about Vannevar Bush in every single class I've had this week, so section 1.3 of the chapter was interesting more in the contrast depicted between Bush and Warren Weaver. Reading about the different emphases of their research reminded me of events in the history of Psychology, specifically the emphasis throughout much of the early twentieth century on behaviorist theories until the so-called "cognitive revolution" in the 60s. And in fact, the chapter later alluded to that same revolution on p.24 (section 1.5), with references to scientists such as Chomsky and Oettinger.
I have a BA in Lingustics (full disclosure, ha), so section 1.5 was highly interesting to me. However, I did feel that it understated the real challenges and shortcomings of attempts to capture the intricacies of natural human language with computers and other machines, perhaps for necessary reasons of length.
The background info on the history of the internet and the programs/interfaces that are commonly used today was quite informative and clear, in particular the discussion of Google's groundbreaking method of ranking search results to provide better information, and not just a lot of it. On a side note, I was talking to my mother on the phone last night and she told me that for the first time ever she successfully used google to find information that she was looking for (a substitution for self-rising flour in a recipe). That this is the first time she has managed to do so only now, after nearly six years of regular computer usage (yes, she was a late adopter) really drove this point home to me, of the very really challenges involved in making digital information an effective tool for retreiving high-quality information.
As stated in section 1.7, I felt that the two most important questions lingering over the development of DL's are:
1. What do people want to do with available technologies?
2. What content should be provided? And specifically, which content can be provided entirely digitally, and which types will never be as effective/adequate in a digital form?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
muddiest point - week one
As I have just joined the class through add/drop, I missed the class session on Monday. On that note, I suppose my "muddiest point" would just be what exactly is due when between now and the next class on Sept. 8. I know which readings are due for the first two sessions, just not exactly which notes/responses are due when.
Borgman, Christine: From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure
This reading seemed a bit repetitive and long-winded to me, although I suppose it was good to get a more in-depth perspective on the conflicts of interest in digital library research and implementation. The point that stood out to me as most important was the fact that databases and other forms of stored digital information my comprise the bulk of a DL, but these collections will not be usable and worthwhile unless they are accessible to a community of users, and the information contained within these collections must be of value to the user community.
In particular I liked this sentence from p. 46: "Libraries collect content on the basis of the information needs of their user communities; the medium in which the content is captured is a secondary concern."
I did agree with the use of Borgman's woking definition on p.48 as a way to encompass both sides of the research/practice divide, as well as the statement on p.50 that "digital libraries are themselves becoming 'enabling technologies' for other applications." However, I was a bit confused about the emphasis on a definition for a "global digital library." Is this concept meant in the same sense as H.G. Wells' goal of attaining a single encyclopedia that contains all the world's knowledge? If not, I guess I just don't understand the importance of defining this beyond the loose concept of individual digital libraries that are accessible via a single medium, in this case the internet.
One concern that I did have was the aging of the information in this article...as it was written in 2000, I am curious to see how much of the information is still valid and up-to-date in 2008. For example, p. 50 states that "Digital libraries research now falls under the human-centered systems program of CIC" and I would like to know if this is still the case or if it has changed in the past 8 years. The final paragraph on this same page laments the challenges of DL's as an interdisciplinary problem and that some reasearches have yet to hear the term "digital libraries." Surely this is not still the case in 2008, or at least not to nearly the same degree?
In particular I liked this sentence from p. 46: "Libraries collect content on the basis of the information needs of their user communities; the medium in which the content is captured is a secondary concern."
I did agree with the use of Borgman's woking definition on p.48 as a way to encompass both sides of the research/practice divide, as well as the statement on p.50 that "digital libraries are themselves becoming 'enabling technologies' for other applications." However, I was a bit confused about the emphasis on a definition for a "global digital library." Is this concept meant in the same sense as H.G. Wells' goal of attaining a single encyclopedia that contains all the world's knowledge? If not, I guess I just don't understand the importance of defining this beyond the loose concept of individual digital libraries that are accessible via a single medium, in this case the internet.
One concern that I did have was the aging of the information in this article...as it was written in 2000, I am curious to see how much of the information is still valid and up-to-date in 2008. For example, p. 50 states that "Digital libraries research now falls under the human-centered systems program of CIC" and I would like to know if this is still the case or if it has changed in the past 8 years. The final paragraph on this same page laments the challenges of DL's as an interdisciplinary problem and that some reasearches have yet to hear the term "digital libraries." Surely this is not still the case in 2008, or at least not to nearly the same degree?
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