A digitized page from the mid-13th century by William de Brailes has become the 100,000th item in the Iowa Digital Library.
Read more about it at "Iowa Digital Library Hits 100,000 Items."
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A series of postings on the JISC Libraries of the Future Weblog document two debates: Revolution or Evolution: The JISC National E Textbook Debate and From eLib to the Library of the Future.
Here are the postings in chronological order:
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JISC has published Metadata for Digital Libraries: State of the Art and Future Directions.
Here's an excerpt from the "Executive Summary":
At a time when digitization technology has become well established in library operations, the need for a degree of standardization of metadata practices has become more acute, in order to ensure digital libraries the degree of interoperability long established in traditional libraries. The complex metadata requirements of digital objects, which include descriptive, administrative and structural metadata, have so far mitigated against the emergence of a single standard. However, a set of already existing standards, all based on XML architectures, can be combined to produce a coherent, integrated metadata strategy.
An overall framework for a digital object's metadata can be provided by either METS or DIDL, although the wider acceptance of the former within the library community makes it the preferred choice. Descriptive metadata can be handled by either Dublin Core or the more sophisticated MODS standard. Technical metadata, which is contingent on the type of files that make up a digital object, is covered by such standards as MIX (still images), AUDIOMD (audio files), VIDEOMD or PBCORE (video) and TEI Headers (texts). Rights management may be handled by the METS Rights schema or by more complex schemes such as XrML or ODRL. Preservation metadata is best handled by the four schemas that make up the PREMIS standard.
Integrating these standards using the XML namespace mechanism is straightforward technically although some problems can arise with namespaces that are defined with different URIs, or as a result of duplications and consequent redundancies between schemas: these are best resolved by best practice guidelines, several of which are currently under construction.
The next ten years are likely to see further degrees of metadata integration, probably with the consolidation of these multiple standards into a single schema. The digital library community will also work towards firmer standards for metadata content (analogous to AACR2), and software developers will increasingly adopt these standards. The digital library user will benefit from developments in enhanced federated searching and consolidated digital collections. The same developments are likely to take place in the archives and museums sectors, although the different metadata traditions that apply here are likely to make the form they take somewhat different.
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UNESCO has published Open Access to Knowledge and Information: Scholarly Literature and Digital Library Initiatives—The South Asian Scenario.
Here's the abstract from the dLIST record for the book:
The South Asia sub-region is now in the forefront of the Open Access movement within developing countries in the world, with India being the most prominent partner in terms of its successful Open Access and Digital Library initiatives. Institutional and policy frameworks in India also facilitate innovative solutions for increasing international visibility and accessibility of scholarly literature and documentary heritage in this country. This publication has its genesis in the recommendations and proceedings of UNESCO-supported international conferences and workshops including the 4th International Conference of Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL2001, Bangalore); the International Conferences on Digital Libraries (ICDL2004 & ICDL2006, New Delhi); and the International Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software (2006, Kozhikode), where many information professionals of this sub-region demonstrated their Digital Library and Open Access initiatives. This book describes successful digital library and open access initiatives in the South Asia sub-region that are available in the forms of open courseware, open access journals, metadata harvesting services, national-level open access repositories and institutional repositories. This book may be considered an authoritative Source-book on Open Access development in this sub-region.
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The National Science Digital Library NCore team has released three applications:
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The Ball State Libraries have nurtured an ambitious digital initatives program that has established an institutional repository, a CONTENTdm system for managing digital assets, a Digital Media Repository with over 102,000 digital objects, a Digitization Center and Mobile Digitization Unit, an e-Archives for university records, and a virtual press (among other initiatives). Future goals are equally ambitious.
Read more about it at "Goals for Ball State University Libraries' Digital Initiative."
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The Digital Curation Centre has published DCC Case Study—PrestoSpace: Preservation towards Storage and Access. Standardised Practices for Audiovisual Contents in Europe.
Here's the "Executive Summary":
Explicit strategies are needed to manage 'mixed' audio visual (AV) archives that contain both analogue and digital materials. The PrestoSpace Project brings together industry leaders, research institutes, and other stakeholders at a European level, to provide products and services for effective automated preservation and access solutions for diverse AV collections. The Project’s main objective is to develop and promote flexible, integrated and affordable services for AV preservation, restoration, and storage with a view to enabling migration to digital formats in AV archives.
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The Council on Library and Information Resources has released essays from its recent Core Functions of the Research Library in the 21st Century meeting.
Here's an excerpt from the meeting home page that lists the essays:
"The Future of the Library in the Research University," by Paul Courant
"Accelerating Learning and Discovery: Refining the Role of Academic Librarians," by Andrew Dillon
"A New Value Equation Challenge: The Emergence of eResearch and Roles for Research Libraries," by Richard E. Luce
"Co-teaching: The Library and Me," by Stephen G. Nichols
"Groundskeepers to Gatekeepers: How to Change Faculty Perceptions of Librarians and Ensure the Future of the Research Library," by Daphnee Rentfrow
"The Research Library in the 21st Century: Collecting, Preserving, and Making Accessible Resources for Scholarship," by Abby Smith
"The Role of the Library in 21st Century Scholarly Publishing," by Kate Wittenberg
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