Digital library 4

Construction and organization

Software

There are a number of software packages for use in general digital libraries, for notable ones see Digital library software. Institutional repository software, which focuses primarily on ingest, preservation and access of locally produced documents, particularly locally produced academic outputs, can be found in Institutional repository software.

Digitization

In the past few years, procedures for digitizing books at high speed and comparatively low cost have improved considerably with the result that it is now possible to plan the digitization of millions of books per year for creating digital libraries.

Advantages

The advantages of digital libraries as a means of easily and rapidly accessing books, archives and images of various types are now widely recognized by commercial interests and public bodies alike.

Traditional libraries are limited by storage space; digital libraries have the potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very little physical space to contain it. As such, the cost of maintaining a digital library is much lower than that of a traditional library.

A traditional library must spend large sums of money paying for staff, book maintenance, rent, and additional books. Digital libraries may reduce or, in some instances, do away with these fees. Both types of library require cataloguing input to allow users to locate and retrieve material. Digital libraries may be more willing to adopt innovations in technology providing users with improvements in electronic and audio book technology as well as presenting new forms of communication such as wikis and blogs; conventional libraries may consider that providing online access to their OPAC catalogue is sufficient. An important advantage to digital conversion is increased accessibility to users. They also increase availability to individuals who may not be traditional patrons of a library, due to geographic location or organizational affiliation.

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Searching
Most digital libraries provide a search interface which allows resources to be found. These resources are typically deep web (or invisible web) resources since they frequently cannot be located by search engine crawlers. Some digital libraries create special pages or sitemaps to allow search engines to find all their resources. Digital libraries frequently use the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) to expose their metadata to other digital libraries, and search engines like Google Scholar, Yahoo! and Scirus can also use OAI-PMH to find these deep web resources.

There are two general strategies for searching a federation of digital libraries:
   1. distributed searching, and
   2. searching previously harvested metadata.
Distributed searching typically involves a client sending multiple search requests in parallel to a number of servers in the federation. The results are gathered, duplicates are eliminated or clustered, and the remaining items are sorted and presented back to the client. Protocols like Z39.50 are frequently used in distributed searching. A benefit to this approach is that the resource-intensive tasks of indexing and storage are left to the respective servers in the federation. A drawback to this approach is that the search mechanism is limited by the different indexing and ranking capabilities of each database, making it difficult to assemble a combined result consisting of the most relevant found items.

Searching over previously harvested metadata involves searching a locally stored index of information that has previously been collected from the libraries in the federation. When a search is performed, the search mechanism does not need to make connections with the digital libraries it is searching - it already has a local representation of the information. This approach requires the creation of an indexing and harvesting mechanism which operates regularly, connecting to all the digital libraries and querying the whole collection in order to discover new and updated resources. OAI-PMH is frequently used by digital libraries for allowing metadata to be harvested. A benefit to this approach is that the search mechanism has full control over indexing and ranking algorithms, possibly allowing more consistent results. A drawback is that harvesting and indexing systems are more resource-intensive and therefore expensive.

Frameworks
The formal reference models include the DELOS Digital Library Reference Model (Agosti, et al., 2006) and the Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios, Societies (5S) formal framework  The Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) provides a framework to address digital preservation.

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Academic repositories

Many academic libraries are actively involved in building institutional repositories of the institution's books, papers, theses, and other works which can be digitized or were 'born digital'. Many of these repositories are made available to the general public with few restrictions, in accordance with the goals of open access, in contrast to the publication of research in commercial journals, where the publishers often limit access rights. Institutional, truly free, and corporate repositories are sometimes referred to as digital libraries.

Digital archives

Physical archives differ from physical libraries in several ways. Traditionally, archives were defined as:

   1. Containing primary sources of information (typically letters and papers directly produced by an individual or organization) rather than the secondary sources found in a library (books, periodicals, etc);

   2. Having their contents organized in groups rather than individual items.

   3. Having unique contents.

The technology used to create digital libraries has been even more revolutionary for archives since it breaks down the second and third of these general rules. In other words, "digital archives" or "online archives" will still generally contain primary sources, but they are likely to be described individually rather than (or in addition to) in groups or collections, and because they are digital their contents are easily reproducible and may indeed have been reproduced from elsewhere. The Oxford Text Archive is generally considered to be the oldest digital archive of academic physical primary source materials.

The future

Large scale digitization projects are underway at Google, the Million Book Project, and Internet Archive. With continued improvements in book handling and presentation technologies such as optical character recognition and ebooks, and development of alternative depositories and business models, digital libraries are rapidly growing in popularity as demonstrated by Google, Yahoo!, and MSN's efforts. Just as libraries have ventured into audio and video collections, so have digital libraries such as the Internet Archive.

According to Larry Lannom, Director of Information Management Technology at the nonprofit Corporation for National Research Initiatives, “all the problems associated with digital libraries are wrapped up in archiving.” He goes on to state, “If in 100 years people can still read your article, we’ll have solved the problem.” Daniel Akst, author of The Webster Chronicle, proposes that “the future of libraries—and of information—is digital.” Peter Lyman and Hal Varian, information scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, estimate that “the world’s total yearly production of print, film, optical, and magnetic content would require roughly 1.5 billion gigabytes of storage.” Therefore, they believe that “soon it will be technologically possible for an average person to access virtually all recorded information.”

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A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats (as opposed to print, microform, or other media) and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks. A digital library is a type of information retrieval system.

The DELOS Digital Library Reference Model defines a digital library as:

An organization, which might be virtual, 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.

The first use of the term digital library in print may have been in a 1988 report to the Corporation for National Research Initiatives The term digital libraries was first popularized by the NSF/DARPA/NASA Digital Libraries Initiative in 1994.These draw heavily on As We May Think by Vannevar Bush in 1945, which set out a vision not in terms of technology, but user experience. The term virtual library was initially used interchangeably with digital library, but is now primarily used for libraries that are virtual in other senses (such as libraries which aggregate distributed content).

A distinction is often made between content that was created in a digital format, known as born-digital, and information that has been converted from a physical medium, e.g., paper, by digitizing. The term hybrid library is sometimes used for libraries that have both physical collections and digital collections. For example, American Memory is a digital library within the Library of Congress. Some important digital libraries also serve as long term archives, for example, the Eprint arXiv, and the Internet Archive.

Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe Digital Editions is ebook reader software from Adobe Systems built using Adobe Flash. It is used for acquiring, managing and reading eBooks, digital newspapers, and other digital publications. The software supports PDF, XHTML (through the nonproprietary .epub file type specification), and Flash-based content. It implements a proprietary scheme of Digital Rights Management, which since version 1.5 (May 2008) allows document sharing between multiple computers and user authentication through Adobe ID. Adobe Digital Editions is a successor to Adobe eBook Reader.

Windows and OS X versions of Adobe Digital Editions were released on June 19, 2007. The software requires version 9.0 of Adobe Flash Player. Adobe originally announced a Linux version would be published at the end of 2007 but later changed their mind.All promises of future versions have now been removed from the Adobe's official FAQ.

Digital rights management

Adobe Digital Editions uses the proprietary ADEPT (Adobe Digital Experience Protection Technology) digital rights management scheme, which is also implemented on some e-book readers such as the Sony Reader. The software locks content to up to six machines and allows the user to view the content on each of them. Barnes & Noble (B&N) ebooks are protected with a variant of ADEPT.

In March 2009, the author of the reverse engineering blog i♥cabbages announced that they had broken the scheme.As of 2010, a collection of Python scripts that are claimed to be able to remove this form of DRM are circulated on the Internet; they are called "inept" (for ADEPT) and "ignoble" (for the B&N variant). Separately, a program called "Digital Editions Converter" converts Digital Editions files to PDFs that can be read or printed without limitation, now, a professional program called ePub DRM Removal can remove drm from tens of epub files with one click.

FBReader

FBReader is a free and open source e-book reader for GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, and other platforms.

It was originally written for the Sharp Zaurus and currently runs on many other mobile devices, like the Nokia Internet Tablets, as well as desktop computers. A preview of FBReaderJ (the Java port) for Google Android was released on April 13, 2008.Supported formats include EPUB, FictionBook, HTML, plucker, PalmDoc, zTxt, TCR, CHM, RTF, OEB, non-DRM'ed mobipocket, and plain-text.

History

FBReader was originally released for the Sharp Zaurus in January 2005, a Maemo port was added in December 2005 for the Nokia 770. FBReader has since had binary packages released for many mobile device platforms and most major personal computer (PC) operating systems.

Components

For easy cross-platform compiling, FBReader uses zlibrary, a cross-platform interface library. It allows recompiling for many platforms while disregarding the GUI-toolkit used.

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Online-only newspapers

The true online only paper is a paper that does not have any hard copy connections. An example of this is an independent web only newspaper, introduced in the UK in 2000, called the Southport Reporter.It is a weekly regional newspaper that is not produced or run in any format other than 'soft-copy' on the internet by its publishers PCBT Photography. Unlike blog sites and other news websites it is run as a newspaper and is recognized by media groups in the UK, like the NUJ and/or the IFJ. Also they fall under the UK's PCC rules. But even print media is turning to online only publication. As of 2009, the collapse of the traditional business model of print newspapers has led to various attempts to establish local, regional or national online-only newspapers - publications that do original reporting, rather than just commentary or summaries of reporting from other publications. An early major example in the U.S. is the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which stopped publishing after 149 years in March 2009 and went online only. In Scotland in 2010,Caledonian Mercury was set, as Scotland's first online-only newspaper with the same aims as Southport Reporter, in the UK.

In the US, technology news websites such as CNET, TechCrunch and ZDNet started as web publications and enjoy comparable readership to the conventional newspapers. Also, with the ever-rising popularity of online media, veteran publications like the US News & World Report are abandoning print and going online-only.

Hybrid newspapers

There are some newspapers which are predominantly an online newspaper, but also provide limited hard copy publishing An example is annarbor.com, which replaced the Ann Arbor News in the summer of 2009. It is primarily an online newspaper, but publishes a hardcopy twice a week.

Soft-copy news sheets

A news sheet is a paper that is on one or two pages only. Soft-copy sheets are like online newspapers, in that they have to be predominantly news, not advert or gossip based. These sheets can be updated periodically or regularly, unlike a newspaper. They must also like a newspaper be regarded as a news outlet by media groups and governments.

Future

The development of electronic newspapers, will very soon be supplementing hard-copy printed papers via electronic paper. In February 2006, the Flemish daily De Tijd of Antwerp announced plans to distribute an electronic-ink version of the paper to selected subscribers. This would have been the first such application of electronic ink to newspaper publishing.

Fair use

In a question and answer session, suggestions that Google and the Internet was eroding the intellectual property rights of newspapers was downplayed.

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Introduction

In the developing world online publishers are drawing large amounts of traffic and reaping the rewards of online publishing. The Guardian also leads the way with online news with a revolutionary website that trumps many other UK based newspaper websites. The oldest example of an online newspaper or in this case a weekly summary over the weekend's news is The Weekend City Press Review, set up in 1991 this was a pioneer in the online market. Popular in the city, this subscription based service continues to run today. But they are based on hard copy reports and papers. See 'Hybrid newspapers' section of this page. Truly 'Online Only' newspapers and magazines started much later, with the exception of "News Report", an online newspaper created by Bruce Parrello in 1974 on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois.

Examples of newspaper online

It would be difficult to find a daily newspaper in the UK or United States, in fact in the world, in the 21st century, that does not have or share a website.

Very few newspapers in 2006 will claim to have made money from their websites, which are mostly free to all viewers. Declining profit margins and declining circulation in daily newspapers have forced executives to contemplate new methods of obtaining revenue from websites, without charging for subscription. This has been difficult. Newspapers with specialized audiences such as The Wall Street Journal or The Chronicle of Higher Education, successfully charge subscription fees. Most newspapers now have an online edition, including, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The New York Times.

The Guardian experimented with new media in 2005, offering a free twelve part weekly podcast series by Ricky Gervais.Another UK daily to go online is The Daily Telegraph.

In India, major newspapers went online to provide latest and most updated news from them Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, Indian Express and The New Indian Express. Some newspapers even provide E-Paper which is regarded as the digital replica of the newspaper.

In Australia, some newspapers corporations offer an online version to let their readers read the news online, such as The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald.

The Santiago Times operates out of Santiago, Chile and is 100% on line, editions are published in English covering Chilean current events daily Monday through Friday.

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An online newspaper, also known as a web newspaper, is a newspaper  that exists on the World Wide Web or Internet, either separately or as an online version of a printed periodical.

Going online created more opportunities for newspapers, such as competing with broadcast journalism in presenting breaking news in a more timely manner. The credibility and strong brand recognition of well-established newspapers, and the close relationships they have with advertisers, are also seen by many in the newspaper industry as strengthening their chances of survival.The movement away from the printing process can also help decrease costs.

Professional journalists have some advantages over blogs, as editors are normally aware of the potential for legal problems.

Online newspapers are much like hard-copy newspapers and have the same legal boundaries, such as laws regarding libel, privacy and copyright,also apply to online publications in most countries, like in the UK. Also in the UK the Data Protection Act applies to online newspapers and news pages.As well as the PCC rules in the UK. But the distinction was not very clear to the public in the UK as to what was a blog or forum site and what was an online newspaper. In 2007, a ruling was passed to formally regulate UK based online newspapers, news audio, and news video websites covering the responsibilities expected of them and to clear up what is, and what isn't, an online publication.

News reporters are being taught to shoot video and to write in the succinct manner necessary for the Internet news pages. Many are learning how to implement blogs and the ruling by the UK's PCC should help this development of the internet.

Journalism students in schools around the world are being taught about the "convergence" of all media and the need to have knowledge and skills involving print, broadcast and web.

Some newspapers have attempted to integrate the internet into every aspect of their operations, i.e., reporters writing stories for both print and online, and classified advertisements appearing in both media; others operate websites that are more distinct from the printed newspaper. The Newspaper National Network LP is an online advertising sales partnership of the Newspaper Association of America and 25 major newspaper companies.