Through their formal publications CLIR and the DLF seek to
raise awareness about and share experience in current digital
library practices, trends, and innovations. These publications
report finally on specific initiatives or pieces of research.
Available in both printed and electronic formats, they are highly
polished productions.
2003
Archiving Electronic
Journals: Research Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Edited, with an Introduction, by Linda Cantara. (December 2003)
Increasingly, scholarly journals are published electronically. What
does it take to keep them accessible electronically in perpetuity? Can
the property rights of publishers, the access responsibilities of libraries,
and the reliability assurances that scholars need be reconciled in agreements
to create archives of electronic journals? These series of studies from
seven major libraries examine various aspects of the challenges of archiving
electronic journal content.
- Cornell University Library: Project Harvest: Report of the Planning
Grant For the Design of a Subject-Based Electronic Journal Repository
- Harvard University Library: Report on the Planning Year Grant
For the Design of an E-journal Archive
- MIT University Library: DEJA: A Year in Review. Report on the
Planning Year Grant For the Design of a Dynamic E-journal Archive
- New York Public Library: Archiving Performing Arts Electronic
Resources: A Planning Project
- University of Pennsylvania Library: Report on a Mellon-Funded
Planning Project For Archiving Scholarly Journals
- Stanford University Library: LOCKSS: A Distributed Digital Archiving
System -- Progress Report For The Mellon Electronic Journal Archiving
Program
- Yale University Library: The Yale Electronic Archive: One Year
of Progress: Report on the Digital Preservation Planning Project
A Survey of Digital Library Aggregation Services
Martha L. Brogan.
(December 2003)
This report, commissioned by the DLF, provides an overview of a diverse set of more than thirty digital library aggregation services, organizes them into functional clusters, and then evaluates them more fully from the perspective of an informed user. Most of the services under review rely wholly or partially on the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI-PMH). Each service is annotated with its organizational affiliation, subject coverage, function, audience, status, and size. Critical issues surrounding each of these elements are presented in order to provide the reader with an appreciation of the nuances inherent in seemingly straightforward factual information, such as "audience" or "size."
2002
659 Data Tables for
Dimensions and Use of the Scholarly Information Environment.
(November 2002)
We know from anecdotal evidence that users' expectations of
libraries are changing as they find more information directly
from the Web, but anecdotes are an insufficient basis for
developing new library services. DLF and CLIR
commissioned Outsell, Inc. to conduct a
large-scale study to give us a much more reliable picture of user behaviors.
Published here are the
659 data tables that record the responses to 35 groups of questions asked of 3,200
undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members from academic institutions
ranging from small liberal arts colleges to the largest public and private research universities. [Formats: PDF; HTML; MS Excel]
An Introduction
to Dimensions and Use of the Scholarly Information Environment. Amy
Friedlander. (October 2002)
This report presents a summary of the findings and 158
selected data tables; it should be viewed as an entry to the much
larger data set of 659 data tables provided above. [Formats: PDF; HTML; Ms Reader;
Palm; print]
The Digital Library: A Biography. Daniel Greenstein and Suzanne E. Thorin. (September 2002)
Digital libraries, once project-based and largely autonomous efforts, are maturing. As individual programs have grown, each has developed its own personality, reflecting the circumstances of its creation and environment, and its leadership. This report from CLIR and the DLF draws on the results of a survey and case studies of DLF members to reveal how these influences have molded a range of organizational forms that we call the digital library. The report is written by Daniel Greenstein and Suzanne Thorin. Greenstein, formerly the director of the DLF, is now university librarian and director of the California Digital Library. Thorin is the dean of university libraries at Indiana University. Section one of the report examines three stages of digital library growth: the young digital library, the maturing digital library, and the adult digital library. Section two of the report presents case studies of digital library development at six institutions. [Formats: PDF; HTML; print]
Diffuse Libraries: Emergent Roles for the Research Library in the Digital Age. Wendy Pradt Lougee. (August 2002).
Research libraries are taking on a range of new roles in the digital age as they become more deeply engaged in the creation and dissemination of knowledge. While some of these roles are extensions of traditional library activity, others are largely new. Wendy Lougee, university librarian at the University of Minnesota, explores some of these emerging functions in this report. Lougee includes several examples of how some libraries and library organizations are forging new services in areas of collection development, information access, and user services; she also touches briefly on the continued importance of library as place. In addition, she suggests where new roles might emerge. In the section on information access, for example, she notes the potential for libraries to contribute to the development of the Semantic Web, which aims to develop languages for expressing information in a form that machines can process, and which therefore can be searched more accurately and efficiently. She writes, "Designing the Semantic Web will require a mix of skills, and librarians have the potential to contribute significantly to this effort." She also notes that there is a potential role for the library in certifying the authenticity and provenance of content on the Semantic Web.
[Formats: PDF; HTML; print]
The State of
Digital Preservation: An International Perspective.
Conference Proceedings. (July 2002).
The State of Digital Preservation: An International Perspective" is
the first in a series of international symposiums that are supported by a grant from Documentation Abstracts, Inc. (DAI). The institutes, presented by CLIR, will address key issues in information science relating to digital libraries, economics of information, or resources for scholarship. [Formats: ]
Building a
National Strategy for Preservation: Issues in Digital Media Archiving.
(April 2002).
In December 2000, the U.S. Congress appropriated funds to the Library
of Congress (LC) to spearhead an effort to develop a national strategy for the preservation of digital information. Understanding that the task cannot be accomplished by any one organization, Congress wrote into the appropriations language a requirement that LC work with other federal, scholarly, and nonprofit organizations to discuss the problem and produce a plan. The staff of the Library of Congress immediately scheduled a series of conversations with representatives from the technology, business, entertainment, academic, legal, archival, and library communities. LC asked CLIR to commission background papers for these sessions and to summarize the meetings. The resulting papers, along with an integrative essay by Amy Friedlander, are presented in this document. [Formats: ]
Usage
and Useability Assessment. Library Practices and Concerns.
Denise Troll Covey. (January 2002)
This report offers a survey
of the methods that are being deployed at leading digital
libraries to assess the use and usability of their online
collections and services. Focusing on 24 DLF member libraries, the study's
author, Distinguished DLF Fellow Denise Troll Covey, conducted numerous interviews with
library professionals who are engaged in assessment. The report
describes the application, strengths, and weaknesses of
assessment techniques that include surveys, focus groups, user
protocols, and transaction log analysis. Covey's work is also an
essential methodological guidebook. For each method that she
covers, she is careful to supply a definition, explain why and
how libraries use the method, what they do with the results, and
what problems they encounter. The report includes an extensive
bibliography on more detailed methodological information, and
descriptions of assessment instruments that have proved
particularly effective. [Formats: ]
2001
Scholarly
Work in the Humanities and the Evolving Information
Environment. William S. Brockman, Laura
Neumann, Carole L. Palmer, Tonyia J. Tidline. (December 2001)
As the scholarly information environment changes, so do the needs, expectations,
and behaviors of users. Assessing and responding to those changes
is essential for the academic library so that it may continue in
support of the scholarly mission. The authors of this report have
formally examined how humanities scholars conduct and collate
their research. The study was based on a small sample of
scholars; nonetheless, the results are powerfully suggestive of
ways in which academic libraries can adapt to and develop in a
rapidly changing environment. In particular, the findings
emphasize how important it is for libraries to chart their
evolutionary course in close consultation with scholarly user
communities. This study results from the fruitful
cross-fertilization between the scholar concerned with aspects of
information science and the librarian concerned with delivering
operational information services. [Formats: ]
Building
and Sustaining Digital Collections: Models for Libraries and
Museums. Abby Smith. (August 2001).
In February 2001, CLIR and the
National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH)
convened a meeting to discuss how museums and libraries are
building digital collections and what business models are
available to sustain them. A group of museum and library senior
executives met with business and legal experts, technologists,
and funders to discuss the challenges that cultural institutions
face when putting collections online and to identify models for
sustainability that support the core missions without
contravening the internal cultures of nonprofit entities. Using
examples of six enterprises -- JSTOR, HighWire Press, The
International Center for Photography and George Eastman House,
Questia Media, Inc., Art Museum Network, and Fathom -- the report
illustrates the differing approaches being used to extend the
reach of collections and services online. [Formats: ]
Selection
and Presentation of Commercially Available Electronic Resources:
Issues and Practices. Timothy D. Jewell. (July 2001).
This
report is the second in a series commissioned by the DLF to
identify and review digital collection development strategies and
practices. It provides an in-depth look at how several research
libraries select, license, present, and support the use of
commercial online materials. Uncovering a variety of practices,
author Timothy Jewell identifies those that are proving to be
most effective integrating commercial online materials into
library collections. He includes a decision tool that emphasizes
and supports strategic planning, and encourages careful
consideration of how libraries' functions and professional staff
are organized. He also supplies a reference tool, citing working
papers and operational guidelines that libraries rely on but
rarely "publish." Finally, the author frames an important and
practical development agenda by encouraging libraries to
collaborate in designing information systems capable of
organizing the detailed and often dynamic information they need
to maintain about their commercial holdings. [Formats: ]
Building
Sustainable Collections of Free Third-Party Web Resources.
Louis Pitschmann. (June 2001)
This report is the first in a
series commissioned by the DLF to identify and review digital
collection development strategies and practices. The report
identifies and synthesizes existing practices used in developing
collections of free third-party Internet resources that support
higher education and research. A review of these practices and
the projects they support confirms that developing collections of
free Web resources is a process that requires its own set of
practices, policies, and organizational models. Where possible,
the report recommends those practices, policies, and models that
have proved to be particularly effective in terms of
sustainability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and
applicability to their stated purpose. The report outlines the
similarities and differences between print and free Web resources
and describes how the nature and complexity of free Web resources
comply with or challenge traditional library practices and
services pertaining to analog collections. [Formats: ]
2000
Guides to Quality in
Visual Resource Imaging (July 2000).
Five guides issued by DLF and RLG are designed to serve the
growing community of museums, archives, and research libraries
that are turning to digital conversion to provide greater access
to their visual resources as well as to help preserve the
original materials. The guides range from project planning to
scanner selection, considerations for imaging systems, digital
master quality, and masters' storage, and share the experience
and knowledge of leaders in the field. In addition to providing
advice based on the uses to which the images will be put and the
technology now available, they also flag areas where further
research and testing are needed. [Formats: ]
Risk
Management of Digital Information: A File Format Investigation.
Gregory W. Lawrence, William R. Kehoe, Oya Y. Rieger, William H. Walters,
and Anne R. Kenney.(June 2000)
This report is based on an investigation conducted by Cornell
University Library to assess the risks to digital file formats
during migration. The report includes a workbook that will help
library staff identify potential risks associated with migrating
digital information. Each section of the workbook opens with a
brief issue summary; this is followed by questions that will
guide users in completing a risk assessment. The appendixes also
include two case studies for migration: one for image files and
the other for numeric files. [Formats: ]
Systems
of Knowledge Organization for Digital Libraries: Beyond
Traditional Authority Files. Gail Hodge. (April 2000)
Provides an overview of systems of knowledge organization and
pertinent examples of their application in a digital library
environment. [Formats: ]
Collections,
Content, and the Web. (February 2000).
The report explores how
the World Wide Web is affecting collections-based institutions.
It is based on a conference organized by CLIR and the Chicago
Historical Society in October 1999, with financial support from
the Institute for Museum and Library Services. [Formats: ]
1999
The
Making of America II Testbed Project: A Digital Library Service
Model. Bernard J. Hurley, John
Price-Wilkin, Merrilee Proffitt and Howard Besser. (December 1999)
The
publication defines a digital library service model that
encapsulates the interaction of digital objects (including their
metadata), tools, and services based on principles of
object-oriented design. [Formats: ]
Preserving
the Whole: A Two-Track Approach to Rescuing Social Science Data
and Metadata. Ann Green with JoAnn Dionne and
Martin Dennis. (June 1999)
This publication is a meticulously detailed study
of migration as a preservation strategy. [Formats: ]
Digitization
for Scholarly Use: The Boswell Papers Project at The Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Nicole
Bouché. (March 1999)
This paper reports on the digitization of
manuscripts from the Boswell Collection by The Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library at Yale University. It is one of a series
that CLIR is publishing in order to explore strategies for
integrating digital technology into the management of library
print and media collections. [Formats: ]
Enabling
Access: A Report on a Workshop on Access Management.
Caroline Arms with Judith Klavans and Don Waters. (February 1999)
This
report addresses the issue of how to manage access to digital
information that is sensitive, proprietary, or protected by
copyright. [Formats: ]
Why
Digitize. Abby Smith. (February 1999)
Evaluates the
experiences of cultural institutions with digitization projects
to date and summarizes what has been learned about the advantages
and disadvantages of digitizing culturally significant
materials. [Formats: ]
Avoiding
Technological Quicksand: Finding a Viable Technical Foundation
for Digital Preservation. Jeff Rothenberg. (January 1999)
The report documents and assesses existing models of digital
archiving and develops a theory of software emulation. [Formats: ]
1998
Selecting
Research Collections for Digitization. Dan
Hazen, Jeffrey Horrell, and Jan Merrill-Oldham. (August 1998)
Provides detailed
planning information for research libraries contemplating
large-scale digital conversion of holdings for research and
teaching purposes. [Formats: ]
Library
Systems: Current Developments and Future Directions. Leigh Watson Healy. (May 1998)
An overview of the state of the art
for those concerned with the development of digital libraries and
the role of library management systems in libraries today. It
contrasts librarians' visions and strategies with the development
philosophies of the systems vendors that serve them. [Formats: ]
Digitizing
Historical Pictorial Collections for the Internet. Stephen Ostrow. (February 1998)
Describes the nature and uses of large
historical pictorial collections in a both the reading room and
online, analyzing the advantages and the disadvantages of digital
access to images. [Formats: ]
Into the
Future: On the Preservation of Knowledge on the Electronic
Age.
This film (and accompanying discussion guide and a
compendium of other resources) was produced by CLIR to inform a
variety of publics about issues of preservation in the electronic
age, to articulate what might be at stake for our society, and to
point to ways that individuals and groups can work together to
find solutions to the challenges posed. [Formats: ]
1997
Digitization
as a Method of Preservation? Hartmut Weber
and Marianne Dörr. (October 1997)
Acknowledging that the
digital medium is unstable, and therefore risky as a preservation
medium, the report investigates how digitizing and microfilming
can be combined to achieve both optimal access and maximum
preservation. [Formats: ]
SGML as
a Framework for Digital Preservation and Access
James Coleman and Don Willis. (July 1997)
Explores the suitability of
Standard Generalized Markup Language for developing and providing
access to digital libraries, with special emphasis on
preservation issues. [Formats: ]
1996
Digital
Image Collections Michael Ester. (December 1996)
Projects
to digitize visual collections present their own unique set of
questions and concerns, as well as issues that overlap with
digital capture of text. The author provides library and archives
administrators with ways of thinking about this activity for the
long-term benefit of preservation and scholarship. [Formats: ]
Preserving
Digital Information, Report of the Task Force on Archiving of
Digital Information Donald Waters and John
Garrett. (May 1996)
This report recommends specific actions that the
Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries
Group, Inc., and other organizations could undertake to help
develop reliable systems for preserving access to digital
information. [Formats: ]
Preservation
in the Digital World Paul Conway. (March 1996)
Links the
historical context and concepts of preservation practice and
management to a new framework for effective leadership in the
digital environment. [Formats: ]