What we learned while building DLESE
Katy Ginger ([email protected]) http://www.dlese.org/Metadata
Metadata Architect, Meteorologist, Instructional DesignerDLESE Program Centerhttp://www.dlese.org/Metadata/presentations/2004/lessons-learned.ppt
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What is a digital library
• Managed environment of multimedia materials in digital form
• Designed for a user population
• Structured to facilitate content access
• Equipped with aids to navigate the global network Summarized from: Mel Collier, International Symposium on Research,: Development, and Practice in Digital Libraries
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Why DLESE
Initiatives seeking to change geoscience education
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To improve the quality, quantity, and efficiency of teaching and learning about the Earth at all educational levels.
Digital Library for Earth System Education
Mission
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Vision
• Collections of peer-reviewed teaching and learning resources
• Interfaces and tools to allow exploration of Earth data sets
• Services to help users effectively create and use materials
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Organization
• Program Center - build infrastructure, integrate collections and coordinate all
• Data Services - integrate Earth data/tools
• Evaluation Center - conduct evaluations on user needs, data access, collections, effect on teaching/ learning
• Community Services - increase use and diversity
• Collection activities - catalog resources
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Operating Principles
• Community governance & ownership
• Respond to community input/needs
• Build a federated, distributed effort
• Engage users as contributors • individuals and formal collection efforts
• Measure impact on learning
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Concrete View of DLESE
• Library Catalog: metadata records that provide access to resources
• Collection building
• Policies
• Community building & outreach
• Tools: for search, share, collections development and resource usage
• News & email lists
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Lessons Learned: Policies
• Create and update in timely manner
• Separate ‘process’ from ‘policy’
• Suggested policies• IP, Privacy, Scope, Accession/Deaccession
• governance structure (streamline it)
• Create guidelines that answer process questions the policies don’t (e.g. DLESE’s How to Contribute a Collection)
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Lessons Learned: Library Catalog
• Define information space; get buy-in; recognize different types of info
• Define content of the library• metadata or resources
• Format of library content (XML for DLESE)
• Library content must play in many realms
• Make certain information required (title description)
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Lessons Learned: Collection building
• Provide training for collection developers
• Use a test-bed collection encompassing information space
• Community cataloging does not work
• Need incentive for collection contributions• provide to NSDL• searchable by collection name• have a reviewed collection• provide metadata translation services • have a What’s new page
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Lessons Learned: Community
• Who are the most important stakeholders?• library users, resource developers, collection
builders, funding sources
• Does the community understand the governance structure and how change can be accomplished?
• Does the community understand the benefits of the digital library?
• Show how community input caused the library to evolve
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Lessons Learned: Outreach (to users)
• Presentations at standard community meetings is not enough
• Need incentive for user engagement• relevant, free, reviewed collection
• Choose targets wisely • strategic partnerships, pilot projects,
ambassadors
• Support for user questions and needs ([email protected])
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Lessons Learned: Tools
• Development is expensive
• Open access development philosophy provides control & responsiveness to needs
• Search engine is faster than Dbase queries
• Flat files provide lower threshold to tool use
• Collection builders don’t use OAI correctly
• Data translation services are a must
• Browse is important
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Lessons Learned: News & Email Lists
• Both highly used
• Control and monitor email lists• prevent spam; look at multiple subscriptions• open and closed lists
• Host lists for community projects who don’t have the infrastructure
• Community members rather send email to DLESE than use the news posting tool
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Technical Specifications
• Lucene search engine that creates a searchable index
• Java based web-apps (using Tomcat)• discovery, cataloging, sharing metadata
(OAI), collection manager
• JSP tags for user interface
• Majordomo for email lists
• LDAP for registration (registration is not required)
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New Developments
• Starting to use RSS news feeds
• Creating web services
• Supporting annotation of resources
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Screen Captures Follow
Intentionally Blank
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