Development of Digital Libraries – An American Perspective

Deanna B. Marcum's Development of Digital Libraries – An American Perspective collects a total of 22 lectures on the subject of the development of digital libraries by prominent library, education and information technology specialists. The lectures took place in the framework of the Roundtable on Library and Information Science organized by the Japanese Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT) from 1994 to 1998 under the guidance of Kakugyo S. Chiku, Director of the Kanazawa Institute of Technology Library Center. The objective of the roundtable was to serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas among Japanese and Western librarian on the topic of library and information technology.

The editor has organized the lectures in three main themes, namely “digital libraries in the context of higher education”, “challenges to digital libraries” and “practical experiences”. A thematic order was preferred over a chronological order to provide a gradual transition from abstract considerations on the role of libraries and digital libraries in research, scholarship and education to more practical experiences in the implementation of specific digital library programs.

The book's first part provides an overview of the position of libraries and by extension digital libraries in the world of education. The six lectures in this section focus on how digital technologies will enable research libraries to better focus on undergraduate education, introduce new educational tools and better integrate existing human resources in education with library programs (Elaine Sloan, 1994). Not all lectures focus particularly on the position of digital libraries in higher education. Some address the changing role of libraries in a time of rapid technological advances in information technology (Jerry Campbell, 1995). Others discuss why an evolution from traditional libraries to digital libraries is inevitable (Michael Lesk, 1995) and how this process will lead to different practices and standards in scholarly communication. Of particular interest was a discussion by Stanley Chodorow (1996) on how the fluidity of electronic publications may change existing publication and citation practices to a more dynamic, collaborative, annotation‐driven process.

The second part of the book contains a set of lectures on the challenges facing digital libraries. A number of lectures discuss the economics of digital libraries (Ann B. Okerson, 1995) and how the costs of maintenance, preservation and digitalization of existing resources challenges the prevailing notion that digital libraries are more cost‐effective. A number of lecturers investigate issues of human resources management. Ann J. Wolpert (1998) provides pointers to how digital libraries may necessitate new customer‐oriented standards of doing business. Rachael K. Anderson (1996) proposes changes in librarian education programs aimed not at producing better technicians but librarians capable of creatively addressing the challenges of new information technology. Peter Lyman (1995) argues that changes in intellectual property law may be required to accommodate changing notions of information value and the public interest. Peter B. Hirtle (1998) addresses the challenge of maintaining the integrity of digital government records while Deanne B. Marcum (1998) focuses on digital preservation.

Brian L. Hawkins (1994) provides a theoretical foundation for discussions regarding the economic challenges to traditional and digital libraries by referring to the lessons that can be learned from the failure of Malthusian population models. He observes that exponential growth of the earth's population, and consequently increasing demand for food, has so far unexpectedly been matched by equally rapid improvements in food production. An analogy is drawn to the exponential growth in the production of information and the challenges this poses to the linearly growing or declining resources of traditional libraries. The author suggests digital libraries may be able to meet exponential information growth by moving beyond traditional storage and distribution paradigms.

The third part of the book relates experiences in the construction of digital libraries that demonstrate how the issues covered in the previous parts of the book have found solutions in the work of educators and practitioners. Laura Campbel (1997) discusses the Library of Congress's National Digital Library as an example of how large existing collections can be made available to the public to improve education and awareness. In the same theme, Joseph W. Janes (1998) reports on the Internet Public Library. Beverly P. Lynch (1997) provides an overview of the history and future of public libraries. Leigh Swan and Susan Haigh (1998) discuss the challenges of implementing a digital library system in Canada. Their discussion demonstrates how the development of digital libraries is shaped to a large extent by particular economic, societal and governmental structures. Susan K. Nutter (1997) and Jack M. Wilson (1994) discuss efforts to improve higher education by embracing the potential of distance‐learning and expanding the role of digital libraries, while Daniel Atkins (1995) frames a proposal for education in information technology in terms of a process balancing innovation and extrapolation. Finally, William D. Walker (1996) formulates a set of prognoses on how digital resources will affect business education.

It is difficult to provide an adequate overview of this book. Although the editors have organized the lectures according to three main themes, each individual lecture addresses equally interesting but highly specific aspects of the development of digital libraries as they appeared to be relevant in the period 1994 to 1998. Neither the collection nor the individual lectures can be done justice by the brief overview I have so far provided. Complicating matters is that some discussions have been overtaken by technological and political developments, while others are as relevant today as they were in 1995. A number of common themes can nevertheless be identified.

Most authors agree that a crisis is taking place in librarianship induced by growing costs, reduced budgets and the challenges posed by the emergence of electronic communication. Most lectures therefore focus on how to redefine aspects of how traditional librarians interact with content, research, education and the public. Some authors are more skeptical than others on whether digital libraries provide adequate answers to these challenges, but none dispute the inevitable evolution toward libraries that increasingly apply information technology and shift their focus from collection management to end user services. Many authors confirm their belief that the future role of librarians will be one of providing high‐level information services rather than custodianship. Several authors stress how information and library science education must support this trend.

The notion of preservation is prevalent in many lectures. Several authors acknowledge the power of new information technologies, but rightfully fear that the rapid succession of alternative data formats and hardware will render information preservation impossible thereby voiding a significant portion of the traditional library mission. If the amount of information produced grows at an exponential rate, short‐term losses will afflict increasing parts of our collective memory. The recent discussion regarding the reconstitution of Usenet archives for the Google search engine shows the extent of this problem. The difficulties encountered in the preservation of such a widely available and archived resource after a period of less than 15 years is testament to the challenges we are faced with. Although most authors acknowledge the problem of preservation, few propose practical solutions. It is clearly as relevant today as it was in the period 1994 to 1998.

I was personally pleased to realize how strongly many authors felt about the need for librarians to focus on high‐level services to accommodate research and education information needs in digital libraries. The development of advanced recommender systems has to a large degree been driven by similar considerations. A combination of thorough librarianship and modern technology is vital to avoid the “rearrangement effect” discussed by Donald J. Waters (1997) in his insightful lecture “The uses of digital libraries: some technological, political, and economic considerations”. A strong focus on systems for information discovery and usage analysis will allow digital libraries to realize their full potential and avoid the pitfalls detailed by many authors in this volume.

The collection of lectures in this book provides a unique and compelling overview of the information science domain as it existed in the period of 1994 to 1998. It serves as a reminder of the main issues that drove the development of digital libraries and have shaped the choices that have since been made in terms of interoperability standards, user interfaces, preservation and librarianship.

Given that the digital library domain has made such astounding advances in the past five years, the main interest for this book will be as a record of past issues and discussions, and as a yardstick by which we can evaluate the degree to which certain issues have or have not been resolved. Although I found the organization of the lectures in the three mentioned themes appropriate, the authors may have opted to make the chronological order of the lectures more salient. Indeed, I found myself verifying many times when exactly a lecture had taken place to assess how the author's statements fit into the developments of the past eight to ten years. For example, Peter Lyman in 1995 discusses copyright laws and how they may have to be redefined to accommodate for electronic distribution. Given the recent controversies surrounding peer‐to‐peer (P2P) networks for the limitless exchange of multimedia documents, we see that this issue has not been resolved but has rather moved to the forefront of present developments.

The Development of Digital Libraries – An American Perspective is a worthwhile read for any scholar interested to review and assess the development of digital libraries over the past ten years. The time period it covers includes four years of great, explosive changes in library science and networked information systems such as the World Wide Web. In a domain characterized by rapid evolution, it serves to remind us of what has been achieved and what deserves our continued attention. It is a welcome reminder of the challenges that have driven us to where we are and will continue to propel the development of digital libraries.