Challenges for the DL and the Standards to solve them

Alan HopkinsonTechnical Manager (Library Systems)Learning ResourcesMiddlesex University

Digital Libraries and the Internet

• Digital libraries in the context of this paper means any collection of digitised material.

• Many of these are available commercially under license or as pay as you view for those potential users for whom no licence has been purchased.

• Others are completely free

Publishing tradition

—Printed journals – articles were found through Word of Mouth until Abstracting and Indexing Services developed

—Replaced by e-journals which are more accessible

• In UK digital > print :: 25% > 75%; • 45% of HE library budget goes on journals

—How has shift to digital been achieved?—Internet protocols and PDF

Standards that enable the DL

Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules ISO 2709: record structure for

MARC, UNISIST Reference Manual, CCF

Successful standards

• PDF 1.7: Portable Document Format, part 1 (ISO 32000-1)

• COUNTER

• Common Command Language for Online Interactive Information Retrieval ANSI/NISO Z39.58

• Commands for Interactive Text Searching (ISO equivalent)

— Boolean and or not and codes for data (ti for title)

Key standards

System Data Sharing MARC (identifies fields and ISO 2709 is the record structure)

Cross System Searching Z39.50 – Information retrieval

(identifies indexes)

Standards makers

ISO

NISO

BSI

BIS

React to professional bodies

NISO most active

library technical services;

the acquisition and management of e-resources;

library systems implementation including ILS, ERMS, link resolvers, and web interfaces;

cooperative electronic arrangements with other libraries, consortia, or content providers; or

long-term preservation activities.

• COUNTER – Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources•Codes of practice for Journals/Databases and Books and Reference Works

•COUNTER-compliant reports are formatted exactly as defined in the COUNTER code of practice

Usage

SUSHI

• The Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) Protocol – Z39.93-2007 – an automated request and response model for the harvesting of electronic resources

—Delivers reports formatted in XML

Identification

• ISO/DIS 26324, Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• ANSI/NISO Z39.71 Holdings Statements for Bibliographic Items

• ISO 10324:1997 Information and documentation -- Holdings statements -- Summary level

• Implementation of holdings in XML: ISO 20775:2009 and documentation -- Schema for holdings information

Reporting holdings

• Data may be dispersed in several locations such as a union catalogue, local catalogue and a policy directory or repository.

• Standards for this purpose include:—NCIP for local holdings—XACML and LDAP for policy, authentication

and authorisation information and —SRU and Z39.50 for all types of searching

and retrieval.

Open URL

• OpenURL enables the transfer of metadata about an item (a journal article or book, for example) from a resource, where a citation is discovered to a link resolver.

• Link resolvers direct users at particular institutions or organisations to appropriate, subscribed resources for the content, be they in electronic or print form.

• This solves a critical problem for librarians

• Direct URL linking from one publisher’s content to another’s, including CrossRef DOI-based links, has the potential to lead users to resources that are inappropriate for them, i.e. to instances of content to which their institution does not subscribe.

• OpenURL overcomes this

Reporting holdings

• NISO developed SERU: A Shared Electronic Resource Understanding. The SERU Recommended Practice document (NISO-RP-7-2008).

• SERU offers publishers and librarians the opportunity to save both the time and the costs associated with a negotiated and signed license agreement by agreeing to operate within a framework of shared understanding and good faith. Among the issues covered in the SERU best-practice document are perpetual access, target6 groups of readers, archiving, and interlibrary loan.

Thank you