In 2013-2014, Brooks Library at Central Washington University (CWU) launched library content in three systems: a digital asset-management system, an institutional repository (IR), and a web-based discovery layer. In early 2014, the archives at the library began to use these systems to disseminate media recently digitized from legacy formats. As…

Vocabularies are linguistic resources that make it possible to access knowledge through words. They can constitute a mechanism to identify, describe, explore, and access all the digital resources with informational content pertaining to a specific knowledge domain. In this regard, they play a key role as systems for the representation and…

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Science Digital Library/Distributed Learning (NSDL) program turned 10 years old in 2010. This report presents results of a preliminary program evaluation carried out by RAND and is organized around three principal goals: (1) Provide an initial evaluation of NSDL based on existing information…

Purpose: This paper aims to present the semantic content identifier (SCI), a permanent identifier, computed through a linear-time onion-peeling algorithm that enables the extraction of semantic features from a text, and the integration of this information within the permanent identifier. Design/methodology/approach: The authors employ SCI to…

Digital libraries continue to flourish. At the same time, the principles of user-centered design and the practice of usability testing have been growing in popularity, spreading their influence into the library sphere. This article explores the confluence of these two trends by surveying the current literature on usability studies of digital…

Purpose: To examine the relationship between deposit of electronic theses in institutional and archival repositories. Specifically the paper considers the automated export of theses for deposit in the archival repository in continuation of the existing arrangement in Wales for paper-based theses. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents a…

This paper compares the subject indexing on articles pertaining to Immanuel Kant, agriculture, and aging that are found simultaneously in Humanities Index, Academic Search Elite (EBSCO) and Periodicals Research II (Micromedia ProQuest), in order to show that there are substantial variations in the depth and quality of indexing in these databases.…

Describes the use of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Protocol for Metadata Harvesting in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Science Digital Library (NSDL). Describes the implementation experience and early practical tests. The overall conclusion is optimism that the OAI will be a successful part of the NSDL. (Author/AEF)

This article explores the archivists' and librarians' definition of a collection, and how they respectively arrange their collections in the context of collection development and collection management issues in a digital library. It centers on possible cooperative solutions and highlights, as a case study, the efforts of the Auburn University…

This report explores the suitability of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) as a framework for building, managing, and providing access to digital libraries, with special emphasis on preservation and access issues. SGML is an international standard (ISO 8879) designed to promote text interchange. It is used to define markup languages,…

Examines the different concepts and orientations of the two major approaches to the role of metadata in the digital library (library science-oriented bibliographic control and computer science-oriented data management), and proposes an integrated concept of metadata to facilitate the merging of these two approaches. Discusses ongoing efforts to…

Includes six articles that focus on practical uses of technologies developed from digital library research in the areas of education and scholarship reflecting the international impact of digital library research initiatives. Includes the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) (Brazil); the National Science Foundation (NSF) (US); the Joint…

An educational digital environment that will provide appropriate methods and techniques for the support and enhancement of the educational and learning process is a valuable tool for both educators and learners. In the context of such a mission, the educational tool SL-EDGE (Student Library-Educational DiGital Environment) has been developed. The…

The scholarly communication system is in a critical stage, due to a number of factors. The Open Access movement is perhaps the most interesting response that the scientific community has tried to give to this problem. The paper examines strengths and weaknesses of the Open Access strategy in general and, more specifically, of the Open Archives…

The Association of Research Libraries' (ARL) E-Metrics Project is an ongoing effort to develop new measures that describe and measure networked electronic resources and also to underscore the need for measuring the value of such resources. This article presents results from an ongoing iterative qualitative study with the following goals: (a) to…