Week 11 Readings

This week's readings:
William Arms' A Viewpoint Analysis of the Digital Library

Wade Roush's The Infinite Library

and Social Aspects of Digital Libraries by the UCLA's Final Report.

In Arms' chapter, the viewpoint that I found most interesting was the viewpoint of the user. While the organization's viewpoint and the technical viewpoint were enlightening, I do not think that they are as important as the viewpoint of the user. After all, it's the user that is the sole focus while creating a digital library. Technology, irrelevant? Organizations, not important? As a user of digital libraries, I would say this is true. Users who know nothing about the way a digital library is put together do view things this way. I'm wondering how UCLA found this information about users.

While the user's viewpoint is very limited, they do seem to see the importance of the Google Book Project. Google is digitizing many of the world's old books that are both valuable and beyond copyright issues. They are even digitizing books that are still within copyright. It's a big controversy. The idea of digitization has become much more mainstream than it ever was before. This means that librarians and those that are adept at working with digital libraries will have more job security. And why not? Larger digital libraries will lead to more jobs, but different kinds of jobs. I think the whole point of this reading is to express how long it can take for users to gather information, even from a digital library. The author talks about the Bodleian Library at Oxford and how the old texts are not easily accessible. Requests have to be sent to view the materials, and materials are not able to be checked out. But with a digital library access to materials can be next to instant. Making these materials digital is not an instant process. It can take a very long time to scan and upload a book to a digital environment.

"Social Aspects of Digital Libraries" is a very long document that goes over different points dealign with art in digital libraries. Because art is in image format it is handled a little differently in the digital environment. Based off of a workshop that took place, the goals being to inform researchers about what takes place regarding social aspects of digital libraries and and assess how well digital libraries are working out. The workshop discussed the same user-centered, organizational-centered and technical-centered aspects of DLs. The seamless interaction between all parts of a digital library are what were stressed at this meeting. They talked about allowing users to have a part in constructing digital libraries. I think this is a great idea! By allowing users to get behind the scenes and give suggestions from more than a creative viewpoint it will allow those that are familiar with the technical aspects of DLs to see it from a truly end-user perspective. This will also provide ways for users to gather information on how better to use a DL.

Muddiest Points from Week 10 Lecture:
How necessary is it for our groups to have a set schedule/timeline for our DL project? After viewing other DL proposals I am thinking that we may be behind and while working with a professor gives us access to a lot of great materials, it will make it harder to do things earlier than they need to be done. What is a suggested timeframe to stay on top of all the work?