Adding a local node to a global georeferenced digital library - A local administrator?s revelations
Master thesis
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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2571073Utgivelsesdato
2005Metadata
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Sammendrag
Global digital libraries depend on the cooperation between many independent/autonomous organizations.The configuration of the local sub-systems in a global distributed digital librarydepends both on the requirements from the global system as well as from the local environments.
The local administrators in the different organizations play a crucial and often neglected role inspreading global distributed digital libraries.The main goal of this thesis has been to add an operational local node, with local collections, to aglobal georeferenced distributed digital library network. The pilot installation was done withAlexandria Digital Library as the global georeferenced distributed digital library network, andGalleri Nor from the National Library of Norway was used as a local collection for the NTNUADL node.
The conclusions of this thesis have been reached through an investigation of theory concerningdistributed georeferenced digital libraries and an investigation of problems and solutions associatedwith the pilot installation of the NTNU ADL node with Galleri Nor as the local collection.
The main findings and recommendations from this work can be summarized as follows:
1. Digital libraries are characterized by the use of many different standards, formats, and technologies.This has an impact on the configuration of these systems.
The complexity of digital libraries must be dealt with so that local administrators can installand configure digital library nodes without needing to be experts in all the different standards,formats, and technologies used in the digital libraries. A configuration tool can be used to adda layer of abstraction between the local administrator and the complexity of a digital library.
Lowering the requirements of skills needed in order to install and configure a digital librarywith local collections can increase the expansion of the digital library technology. An increasein the number of nodes in a distributed digital library will most likely increase the number ofavailable collections, and the increase of available collections will increase the value of thedistributed digital library network for information seekers. As more information seekers realizethe value of the distributed digital library network more organizations will seek to becomepart of such a global network.
Addressing the problems the local administrators face in the configuration and installationprocess in order to make a more user-friendly system is the first step in the right direction onthe path towards a global distributed digital library system.
2. Documentation must be written with a complexity and a terminology that can be easily understoodby the user groups of the system. It is important to know for whom the documentation iswritten.
The documentation is an important part of the puzzle for solving the problems related to theconfiguration of a digital library with local collections. In digital libraries, as in all other softwaresystems, the user groups have to be identified. The documentation must meet the needsand use the right terminology at the right knowledge-level for each user group. Three usergroups are identified in this thesis: software developers, local administrators, and informationseekers.
3. It is possible to add existing Norwegian collections to a global georeferenced distributed digitallibrary, and to make the local collections available for a global audience.
One main difference between georeferenced digital libraries and digital libraries in general, isthat georeferenced digital libraries provide new access points to collections where spatial literacycan be used to solve problems and satisfy information needs. The problems described inthis thesis are not specific for global georeferenced digital libraries, but will affect all globaldigital libraries with distributed nodes in the same way.
Existing Norwegian collections can be added to a global georeferenced distributed digitallibrary network regardless of the content of the collection, or which metadata formats andstandards used. The prerequisite of this thesis was to use the Alexandria Digital Library andadd a collection from the National Library of Norway to the local NTNU ADL node. GalleriNor was chosen as the collection from the National Library.
The theory part of this thesis investigates digital libraries and what the georeferenced informationparadigm offers in the context of digital libraries. The theory gives an overview of georeferencingin digital libraries and which technologies and problems associated with this relatively new paradigm.Special attention is given to the Alexandria Digital Library system. The possibilities thissystem offers are discussed in the ADL chapter. The State of the Art part of the thesis comparesdifferent georeferenced systems and investigates the concept of a fully fledged georeferenced digitallibrary and how different systems compare to this concept.
The Installation of the NTNU pilot system, Discussion, and Possible improvements and recommendationschapters give an overview of the installation and issues related to the installation andconfiguration of a local node (from a local administrator?s point of view), and how these issuesmay be addressed through possible solutions and further work.