special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

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Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia? Dale Flecker Harvard University Library

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Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?. Dale Flecker Harvard University Library. Intersection. *Development of library technology * Purpose of consortia * Nature of special collections. 1. Development of library technology. Development of library technology. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Special collections and digital libraries: a new role

for consortia?

Dale Flecker

Harvard University Library

Page 2: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Intersection

*Development of library technology

* Purpose of consortia

* Nature of special collections

Page 3: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

1. Development of library technology

Page 4: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Development of library technology

Three phases:

1. Processing support

2. Intellectual access

3. Digital collections

Page 5: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Library technology – Phase one

• Automation of business records and processes

• Library “back room”– acquisitions, circulation, serial records, etc

• Stand-alone systems

• Locally developed

• 1960 – 1970’s

Page 6: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Library technology – Phase two

• Technology for information retrieval

• OPAC – public access to library systems

• “Integrated library systems”– both processing and public catalog– based on common bibliographic record

• Vendor systems become dominant

• Consortial shared systems become common

• 1980 – 1990’s

Page 7: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Library technology – Phase three

• Digital collections– the “digital library”

• Two sources– “born digital”– “reborn digital” from existing collections

• Shared licensing, portals become common• Mid-1990’s…

– in its infancy

Page 8: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

2. Purposes of consortia

Page 9: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Sharing!!

Collections (avoiding materials duplication, richer resources)

Infrastructure(avoiding hardware, software, and facilities duplication)

Expertise(avoiding staff duplication)

Page 10: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Today’s consortia

• Two core purposes– Sharing of collections

• initially traditional book and serial collections

• increasingly licensed resources

– Sharing of integrated library systems• shared record efficiency, union catalog, shared

hardware, software, and staff

Page 11: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

3. Nature of special collections

Page 12: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Attributes of special collections

• Unique or rare materials

• Related materials widely dispersed

• Materials highly diverse

• Metadata practices not standardized

Page 13: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Implications for consortia

Unique materials:

no economy in sharing records oravoiding duplicate purchases

Page 14: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Implications for consortia

Related materials widely dispersed :

geographically-based union catalogs are

less compelling

Page 15: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Implications for consortia

Materials highly diverse:

union catalogs problematic

Page 16: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Implications for consortia

Metadata practices not standardized :

sharing descriptive metadata difficult

Page 17: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Digital library important for special collections

• A means of sharing unique materials

• Physically dispersed collection can be “virtually” united

• Permits browsing of difficult to describe materials (e. g., visual collections)

• Digitization creating ferment and development in descriptive metadata

Page 18: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Digital library important for special collections

Born digital materials are coming…

the archive of a 21st Century Berensonwill include e-mail, digital

images, and databases!

Page 19: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Potentially a key role forconsortia in building digital libraries…

because sharing again can lowercosts and increase quality

A new role?

Page 20: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Danger in naiveté

Digitizing is easy!but digitizing well is hard!

Putting digital things on the web is easy!but preserving them is hard!

Building a little database for access is easy! but who will find that database?

Page 21: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Digital libraries are hard!

Expertise is critical, expensive,

and hard to find!

Sharing expertise makes sense…

Page 22: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Expertise – digital object formats

• Understanding digital formats the KEY to most digital library work

• Formats vary significantly in “preserve-ability”

• Digitizing costs sensitive to format used• Formats can be applied well or poorly• Constant technological change threatens all

formats

Page 23: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Expertise -- digitizing

• Many ways to digitize the same object– Vary in quality– Vary in functions supported– Vary in cost (both one-time and on-going)– Vary in preserve-ability

• Understanding equipment options important

• Understanding workflows important

Page 24: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Expertise – metadata of all kinds

• Descriptive/access metadata – differing conventions in different domains– integration with the larger environment– conflicting developments, much change

• Technical metadata– for rendering– for preservation

Page 25: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Expertise – metadata of all kinds

• Administrative metadata– management– protecting assets

• Structural metadata– growing as objects become more complex

Page 26: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Expertise -- preservation

• Digital materials much more fragile than traditional collection

• Preservation poorly understood, few models available– Developing rapidly

Page 27: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Digital library – sharing infrastructure

Infrastructure of two types:

* systems

* services

Page 28: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Shared infrastructure -- digitizing

• Digitizing laboratory with– equipment– expertise– established workflow

• Reduced cost, better product

Page 29: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Shared infrastructure -- repository

• Repository provides– object storage, management, protection, access– persistent identifiers– preservation

• Shared hardware, software, management

Page 30: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Shared infrastructure – metadata creation

• Digital library metadata more diverse, complex than traditional library cataloging

• Few libraries can afford to have expertise in all metadata domains– trade-off between options– requires both expertise and technical facilities

Page 31: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

Summary – consortia and special collections

• For basic library collections– Share collections– Share expertise– Share infrastructure

• For special collections/digital libraries– Shared collections less compelling– Need for expertise much greater– Need for infrastructure as great

Page 32: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

This will be hard…

• Skilled staff are scarce

• There are few turn-key digital library systems

• Money is scarce in general, scarcer for special collections

• We need a lot of development in standards, good practices, etc….

Page 33: Special collections and digital libraries: a new role for consortia?

But the promise is ENORMOUS!