Copyright Sayeed Choudhury

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Integration of Digital Library Services through Repositories

Educause Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference

January 14, 2004

Sayeed Choudhury

Some disclaimers

• Not a specific formula or “recipe” to address this issue

• Begin with consideration of digital library services

• Rather, a discussion of a theoretical (even philosophical?) approach to maximizing the chances of success

Collections, Services and Infrastructure

• Digital Library projects began with collections (i.e., digitization)

• Subsequent development of associated services

• Development of digital library infrastructure (e.g., repositories)

What are Services?

• “A contribution to the welfare of others” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

• “Traditional” concepts like reserves, reference, circulation, resource discovery

• “New” items such as chat, e-reserves, visualizations, electronic publishing, digital preservation

So, what’s the problem?

• Development of digital collections, and now digital services, is leading to “silos” or “stovepipes”

• How do I search the content across different collections (beyond OAI harvesting)?

• How do I move content from [insert your favorite CMS] to an e-publishing system?

One approach

• Choose your favorite system and add functionality

• “Feature Creep” becomes a problem

• Will “monolithic” systems be flexible enough?

• Another approach is to build services upon repositories

Repositories? Some examples

• “Welcome to eprints.org, dedicated to opening access to the refereed research literature online through author/institution self-archiving.”(eprints.org)

• “DSpace provides stable long-term storage needed to house the digital products of MIT faculty and researchers.” (dspace.mit.edu)

A definition for repository

• “The important point is to consider repositories as services that manifest themselves as a migration of systems.”– Cliff Lynch, CNI

• The installation of a repository system is the beginning of the process to support services

• Repositories are “dumb” in that they basically store bits…but they are useful because they are persistent

Another approach

• Content is converted or created in the least fixed, most generalized form, and deposited into persistent repositories. Content is then accessed by services within the service layer to be presented by multiple interfaces

• Use open standards, and build interfaces between service modules

Example Technical Architecture (from the DL community)

Repositories

Services

Interfaces

Project repository

Institution repository

Personal repository

Reflection, Assessment

Chat, bulletin boards

E-publishing, visualizations

Portal Browser Cell phone or PDA

Some systems we are evaluating…

• DSpace, Fedora, eprints, WebWare• LOCKSS• DiVA, ETD• Coursework, Claroline • Internet Scout• OSPI• uPortal

Moving targets

• Digital Science (and Cultural Informatics?)

• “Digital Natives” (Growing up Digital by Tapscott)

• In 1994, Gopher was still extensively used

• In 2004, the browser is not the only means of access

Final thoughts

• In order to integrate, one must unbundle first.– Tim DiLauro, Johns Hopkins University

• The system should never be optimized.– Clay Shirky, DLF Fall Forum 2003