Research in digital
libraries
the big picture
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Visionaries
Vannevar Bush (1945)
– “As we may think” Atlantic Monthly
– machine Memex
J.C.R. Licklider (1964)
– Libraries in the future
Both envisioned computers for
storing, organizing, finding &
retrieving human knowledge
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Challenge
– computers very effective dealing
with well defined problems
– dealing with human knowledge
is not a well defined problem
Needed: effective alliance
between computers & human
knowledge records
– not easy at all
– basic theme of all DL research
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Estimation themes
underestimated how much
can be achieved by brute
computer power & cheap
computing
overestimated the power of
artificial intelligence ,
improvements in computer
methods & natural language
processing to deal with
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
human
knowledge records
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the Web
– computers in libraries long before
the Web
– but the Web enabled digital
libraries
•provides a convenient way to
distribute information over Internet
spurred both practical
developments & applied research
– INDEPENDENT of each other
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Technical problems
Substantial , larger & more
complex than anticipated:
– representing, storing &
retrieving of library objects
•particularly if originally designed to
be printed & then digitized
– operationally managing large
collections - issues of scale
– dealing with diverse &
distributed collections
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Research issues
– understanding objects in DL
•representing in many formats
•non-textual materials
–
–
–
–
–
–
metadata, cataloging, indexing
conversion, digitization
organizing large collections
managing collections, scaling
preservation, archiving
interoperability, standardization
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Research issues ...
– user interfaces & humancomputer interaction
– information discovery
•search, retrieval, browsing
–
–
–
–
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natural language processing
reliability, robustness
performance, evaluation
social, legal & economic issues
impact on scholarship, education
& other areas
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Digital Library
Initiatives (DLI)
Research consortia under National
Science Foundation
– DLI 1: 1994-98, 3 agencies, $24M, six large
projects
– DLI 2: 1999-2006, 8 agencies, $60+M, 77
large & small projects in various
categories
‘digital library’ not defined to cover
many topics & stretch ideas
– not constrained by practice
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Projects in DLI 1
“Informedia Digital Video Library” images in DL; continued in DLI 2
• Carnegie Mellon U
“Environmental Planning and Geographic
Information Systems” - environmental
information
• U of California at Berkeley; continued in DLI 2
“Spatially-referenced map information” geospacial sources
• U of California at Santa Barbara; continued in
DLI 2
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Projects in DLI 1 (cont.)
“Federating repositories of scientific
literature” - interoperability
• U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
“Intelligent agents for information
location” - interfaces for providers ,
mediation & users
• Michigan U
“Interoperation mechanisms among
heterogeneous services” - Infobus
• Stanford U; continued in DLI 2
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Results? Mixed bag
– original hoopla high
– no overall evaluation, so difficult to gauge
what really accomplished
– some characteristics:
• 5 of 6 Principal Investigators from comp science
• four projects continue in DLI 2
• four have established testbeds
• two have links with the university library
Is digital library research a province of
computer science?
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Projects in DLI 2
Larger number & diversity
– reflects more agencies & fields
– computer scientists still dominant
– but others joined in many projects
•still almost no librarians
A number of projects have
definite operational goals
Some projects toward education
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Sample of DLI2 projects
Re-inventing Scholarly Information
Dissemination & Use
U of California - Berkeley
High Performance Digital Library
Classification Systems
U of Arizona
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative
U of California at Los Angeles
Data Provenance
U of Pennsylvania
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Alexandria Digital Library Earth
Prototype
U of California Santa Barbara
Project Prism: Information Integrity
in Digital Libraries
Cornell University
Digital Analysis and Recognition of
Whale Images on a Network
Eckerd College
An Operational Social Science
Digital Data Library
Harvard
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Creating the Digital Music Library
Indiana U
Techniques for restoring, searching,
& editing humanities collections
University of Kentucky
National Gallery of the Spoken Word
Michigan State U
Automatic Reference Librarians for
the World Wide Web
U of Washington
Digital Libraries for Children
U of Maryland
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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DLI2: Results so far…
28 projects in the main part:
– orientation: 18 (64%) domain, 1o
technology - in DLI1 33% domain
– 53% PIs from comp sc -in DLI1 83%
– 5 include practical dl in their
domain
– 9 show demos of work
– but the amount & quality of results
vary greatly from site to site
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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DL projects in practice
Assoc of Res Libraries (ARL) db:
– 427 dl projects in 13 countries
– 374 in the US
•51% in universities; 24% fed govmt;
9% hist societies; 6% regional …
•84% are explicitly retrospective; 16%
technological
•1 listed from DLI (Illinois)
•no connection with DLI projects
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Agenda in ARL listed
projects
– providing access to specialized
materials and collections from
an institution (s) that are
otherwise not accessible
– covering in an integral way a
topic with a range of sources
– providing technological support
for specific functions in digital
libraries
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Internationally: UK
UK Electronic Libraries
Programme (eLib)
– UKOLN:
The UK Office for Library and
Information Networking
– oriented toward practice &
development not research directly
– a number of innovative projects
– considerable funding
– heavy library involvement
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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European Union
DELOS Network of Excelence on
Digital Libraries
– many projects throughout
European Union
•heavily technological
– many meetings, workshops
– resembles DLIs in the US
– well funded, long range
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Agendas
Most dl research agenda is set from
top down
– from funding agencies to projects
– imprint of the computer science
community's interest & vision
Most dl practice agendas are set
from bottom up
– from institutions, incl. many libraries
– imprint of institutional missions,
interests & vision
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Connections
dl research &dl practice
presently are conducted
– mostly independent of each
other,
– minimally informing each other,
– & having slight, or no connection
Parallel universes with little
connections & interaction
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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Conclusions
Most DLI research concentrated on
technical, infrastructure issues
– Positive: essential for innovation
– Negative: research & library
communities totally separated
Problems harder than thought,
results less than expected
– normal for research in general
– how will this be translated?
© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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© Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University
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