So it’s Week 10, and FINALLY, I’m seeing “the method in the madness” of the preceding weeks. For without even a superficial knowledge of hardware, software, databases, metadata, open source, storage, networks, WWW, HTML, and XML, we would not be able to have a discussion about the burgeoning digital library services we’re reading about this week. Clearly, computer technology and library science have had to merge disciplines in order to create the DLI-1 and 2 projects discussed in Mischo’s “Digital Libraries” article. The collaboration between computer scientists and librarians less than twenty years ago yielded powerful (re)search tools and allowed access to these resources to many people. Once again, I see how important it is for librarians to understand technology, for THEY are part of the research team that creates these services.
(All I could think of while reading the “Dewey Meets Turing” article was that Google video we watched back in Week 7, and how the company encourages its employees to focus a few hours of each work day on some problem they’re interested in. This article couldn’t sum up that philosophy better: “Digital library projects were for many computer scientists the perfect relief from the tension between conducting ‘pure’ research and impacting day-to-day society.”) So computer scientists had a set of expectations for DLI, and librarians had a set, but the Web “undermined the common ground that had brought the two disciplines together.” Still, they shared common values, that of “predictable, repeatable collection access and retrieval.” While technology lays the foundation for these values, this article encourages librarians to broaden their technology horizons so they can contribute to this emerging field.
Lynch’s article about institutional repositories addresses the value of making available and preserving intellectual life and scholarship. But he also worries that too strict or too complicated policies about what may be included in such a repository may turn some institutions away from the idea. Other concerns he has are preserving digital files in formats that may not be accessible in years to come, ensuring “persistent reference to materials” even as they go through different versions, and recording and documenting rights and permissions of works deposited in institutional repositories. He makes a strong case for thoughtful and careful consideration, and consultation and collaboration with faculty and librarians before rushing into preserving intellectual work.
I, too, saw the "method to the madness" this week. This week's reading brought together a lot of the things you mentioned, especially about metadata. We need it to make digital libraries work and make sense! Your summary of the Lynch article is well-done. His cautionary point should be heard by those who want to rush into anything digital. These things change so fast that we have to remind ourselves to look ahead to its future value.
ReplyDeleteI also thought about all the previous readings that we had to do and all the things we had to learn before coming into this theme. Like Kristen mentions we will need it to engage and develop much of the digital technologies that we will plan to use in our institutions!
ReplyDeleteLynch is right in addressing the problem of reformatting and accessibility with self archiving institutional repositories, as is the current and ubiquitous problem with all digital archiving. Yes, repositories are a great step in the right direction, but the clock is ticking, and we all need to put our heads together to come up with an innovative way to archive, preserve, and access our digital files for as long as we can.
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