International Cooperationin

Digital Libraries

CoLIS 3 - 25 May 1999

Edward A. Fox

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

fox@vt.edu

DLs: Why of Global Interest? National projects can preserve antiquities and heritage:

cultural, historical, linguistic, scholarly Knowledge and information are essential to economic and

technological growth, education DL - a domain for international collaboration

– wherein all can contribute and benefit

– which leverages investment in networking

– which provides useful content on Internet & WWW

– which will tie nations and peoples together more strongly and through deeper understanding

SMETE Library(from www.dlib.org)

Context: Global movement toward Digital Libraries (see April 1998 CACM)

NSF effort: Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (focussed on undergraduates)– 3 workshops, yearly increasing funds / new calls

– ex., www.cstc.org - CS Teaching Center SMETE Library likely to operate as distributed federation,

with separate parts for each key discipline, and to lead to a global effort

A Digital Library Case StudyDomain: graduate education,

researchGenre:ETDs=electronic

theses & dissertationsSubmission: http://etd.vt.eduCollection:

http://www.theses.org

Project: Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations (NDLTD) http:// www.ndltd.org

National Coverage (red/white)

US University Members U. of Iowa U. of Maine U. of Oklahoma U. of South Florida U. of Tennessee, Knoxville U. of Tennessee, Memphis U. of Texas at Austin U. of Virginia U. Wisconsin - Madison Vanderbilt U. Virginia Tech - required since 1/97 West Virginia U. - required beginning fall 1998 Worcester Polytechnic Inst.

Air University (Alabama)Cal TechClemson UniversityCollege of William & MaryConcordia University (Illinois)East Tenn. State UniversityFlorida Institute of Tech.Florida International UniversityMichigan TechNaval Postgraduate School (CA)North Carolina State U.Penn. State UniversityRochester Institute of Tech.U. of FloridaU. of GeorgiaUniversity of Hawaii, Manoa

Australian Project Members

U. New South Wales (lead institution)U. of MelbourneU. of QueenslandU. of SydneyAustralian National UniversityCurtin U. of TechnologyGriffith U.

German Project Members

Humboldt University (lead institution)3 other universities5 learned societies1 computing center2 major libraries

Other International MembersChinese University of Hong KongChungnam National U., Dept of CS (S. Korea)City University, London (UK)Darmstadt U. of Tech. (Germany)Gyeongsang National U. (Korea)India Institute of Technology, Bombay (India)Nanyang Technological U. (Singapore, part)National U. of Singapore (Singapore, part)*National Library of PortugalPolytechnic University of Valencia (Spain)Rhodes U. (South Africa)St. Petersburg St. Tech.U (Russia)Univ. de las Américas Puebla (Mexico)U. Laval; U. of Guelph; U. Waterloo; Wilfrid Laurier U. (Canada)

Key Ideas: Networked infrastructure

Scalability

Education is the rationale

University collaboration

Workflow, automation

Authors must submit

Maximal access

PDF, SGML, MMStandards

Federated searchMARC, DC, URNs

User Search Support(multilingual, XML)

NDLTD W orld FederatedSearch

V irg in ia Tech ...(un iv)

U M I ...(corporate)

O hioL ink(sta te netw ork)

Portugese N L ...(national lib)

Austra lia(reg ional)

UserInterface

Note: All groups shown are connected with NDLTD.

Aiding universities to enhance grad educ., publishing and IPR efforts

Helping improve the availability and content of theses and dissertations

Educating ALL future scholars so they can publish electronically and effectively use digital libraries (i.e., are Information Literate and can be more expressive) - >100,000 per year

What are we doing?

Why might you want to be involved? (www.ndltd.org/join)

To improve graduate education / better prepare your students

To unlock university informationTo save money for students and for the

university / improve workflowTo build an important digital library supported

by SURA, US Dept. Ed., UNESCO, Adobe, IBM, OCLC, ...

Questions from Asian DL Workshop, Hong Kong ‘98

Is there global understanding of DL?Will people take action beyond talking

about int’l collaboration?What frameworks for int’l collaboration

will be established?Will there be support from gov’t, industry,

and academia?

International Digital Libraries Association - Rob Akscyn (rma@ks.com)

1st Summit on International Cooperation on Digital Libraries, 27-28 June 1998, Pittsburgh, PA [Held immediately following Digital Libraries '98]

2nd Summit …, 14 Aug. 1999, Berkeley, CA [following ACM DL ‘99 - accessible from http://fox.cs.vt.edu/DL99]

1st Summit - Issues - 1of 5

1. Is international cooperation on digital libraries necessary, and why?

2. What are the truly important benefits of digital libraries and how might they be realized -- specifically by international cooperation -- while at the same time not being oversold via a never-ending series of grandiose pronouncements?

1st Summit - Issues - 1of 5 1. Is international cooperation on digital libraries

necessary, and why?

2. What are the truly important benefits of digital libraries and how might they be realized -- specifically by international cooperation -- while at the same time not being oversold via a never-ending series of grandiose pronouncements?

Reduce duplication, Increase cultural diversity, Ensure interoperability

1st Summit - Issues - 2 of 5

3. What goals should be set for international cooperation? Who should set them? And how might a critical mass of effort be accumulated to make timely progress?

4. What organizational mechanisms are appropriate for fostering international cooperation? What other models of international cooperation have worked and not worked?

1st Summit - Issues - 2 of 5 3. What goals should be set for international cooperation?

Who should set them? And how might a critical mass of effort be accumulated to make timely progress?

4. What organizational mechanisms are appropriate for fostering international cooperation? What other models of international cooperation have worked and not worked?

Increased communication , an IDL Reqt document, Exemplary efforts (multilingual, interoperable)

1st Summit - Issues - 3 of 5 5. How will all the cooperating participants benefit

-- so that the effort invested is a win-win for all?

6. What specific programs and projects should be undertaken, and how can these avoid fragmentation and oneupmanship?

7. How can results be achieved in graduated, incremental steps -- versus attempting the ever-deadly quantum leaps?

1st Summit - Issues - 3 of 5 5. How will all the cooperating participants benefit -- so that

the effort invested is a win-win for all?

6. What specific programs and projects should be undertaken, and how can these avoid fragmentation and oneupmanship?

7. How can results be achieved in graduated, incremental steps -- versus attempting the ever-deadly quantum leaps?

Common problem, e.g., Digital preservation??? Area: disaster relief, environment, children’s stories, educ., DL2. Approach: Internet/Web

1st Summit - Issues - 4 of 5

8. What is a realistic time frame for achieving these goals so that unachievable expectations are not spawned in the first place? What might be demonstrable (and heartening) progress in the interim?

9. What level of government funding is needed? How should that funding be sourced? Among what objectives should that funding be allocated and how?

1st Summit - Issues - 4 of 5 8. What is a realistic time frame for achieving these goals so

that unachievable expectations are not spawned in the first place? What might be demonstrable (and heartening) progress in the interim?

9. What level of government funding is needed? How should that funding be sourced? Among what objectives should that funding be allocated and how?

5-10 years; $5-10M/year; Plans/milestones

1st Summit - Issues - 5 of 5

10. How will the digital library paradigm be respectful of, but made part of, everyday activity -- especially across international boundaries?

11. What should be done next, following this Summit, and who will do it?

1st Summit - Issues - 5 of 5 10. How will the digital library paradigm be respectful of, but made part

of, everyday activity -- especially across international boundaries?

11. What should be done next, following this Summit, and who will do it? Ongoing projects inherently collaborative and widely used by large

numbers in many countries Many nations funding of planning (,) meetings, development, operation, as

well as basic research