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Digital Library Sustainability and Design Processes

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Book cover Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7489))

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Abstract

This paper highlights the importance of sustainability in digital library design processes and frames these arguments within current digital library forums and literature. Sustainability of digital libraries is analysed through an empirical study of 10 best practice digital library projects across three African countries (Uganda, South Africa, Kenya). Through a retrospective review of the projects design processes the paper focuses on the role of technologies / platforms (bespoke, open source, proprietary, web 2 and mobile) in sustainability of these systems. In-depth interviews from 38 stakeholders were triangulated against a documentary analysis and observational data and the findings integrated through a grounded theory analysis. The results identify the importance of flexibility in technologies that enable customization of educational digital resources to meet specific institutional and subject discipline needs. Comparative Evidence is presented that highlights poor sustainability when inflexible systems do not consider scalability or maintenance issues.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Educational Technology (IET), Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Anne Adams & Pauline Ngimwa

Authors
  1. Anne Adams
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  2. Pauline Ngimwa
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology, 3036, Limassol, Cyprus

    Panayiotis Zaphiris  & Fernando Loizides  & 

  2. School of Informatics, City University of London, Northampton Square, EC1V 0HB, London, UK

    George Buchanan

  3. School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, The University of British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Edie Rasmussen

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Adams, A., Ngimwa, P. (2012). Digital Library Sustainability and Design Processes. In: Zaphiris, P., Buchanan, G., Rasmussen, E., Loizides, F. (eds) Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries. TPDL 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7489. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33290-6_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33290-6_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33289-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33290-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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