Page 15 - Building Digital Libraries

Introduction

Chapter 3 tackles the question of how to identify materials for your
repository and develop workflows to incorporate those materials into col-
lections. Once it is stored, the value of a resource is defined by the metadata
that makes it findable and the structures and mechanisms that allow it to
be used. This chapter helps you navigate the process of creating efficient
workflows to structure, organize, and protect resources so they will be use-
ful for many years to come.
Repositories exist to make resources available for future users—a chal-
lenging task given how formats are largely a reflection of the capabilities and
understandings of the times when they were created. Chapter 4 discusses
how to preserve materials so they can still be used as technology progresses.
Anyone building or maintaining a repository faces an alphabet soup of
technical acronyms. Chapter 5 introduces you to standards and technolo-
gies for storing, organizing, sharing, and searching repositories. Chapter 6
elaborates on these themes, with special attention paid to metadata formats
associated with general-purpose repositories, specific domains, and manag-
ing resources.
The value of a repository is measured by its use. Chapter 7 describes
how information in repositories can be shared across different environments
created for different purposes. This chapter discusses linked data, protocols
for sharing and harvesting information, technologies for indexing and
searching resources, and general-purpose technologies for manipulating
information in a shared environment.
Authentication and authorization appear straightforward from a tech-
nical perspective. However, working with a variety of privacy and security
needs, intellectual property requirements, data sources, user types, and
mechanisms that cross organizational boundaries makes it challenging to
set up access control. Chapter 8 discusses the deceptively simple task of
authenticating staff and users, as well as managing mechanisms that provide
them with convenient and appropriate access while honoring the needs of
different rights holders.
Of course, a repository would be of little use if users cannot find and
access content—the findability or discovery of content, both within an exist-
ing system, but within the larger information landscape. Chapter 9 looks at
the current research and techniques for exposing content both within one’s
repository and to the broader research community.
This book’s concluding chapter examines the future of repositories as
library services continue their trend of consolidation, and the vast major-
ity of resources that users need are owned and maintained outside the
library. Special attention is given to operating in shared environments, and
the chapter offers some thoughts for what might be in store as demand for
maintaining a huge number of resources with a small number of staff using
federated vocabularies continues to build.

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