Digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats (as opposed to print, microform, or other media) and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks.
The first use of the term digital library in print may have been in a 1988 report to the Corporation for National Research Initiatives. The term digital libraries was first popularized by the NSF/DARPA/NASA Digital Libraries Initiative in 1994. The older names electronic library or virtual library are also occasionally used, though electronic library nowadays more often refers to portals, often provided by government agencies, as in the case of the Florida Electronic Library.
Advantages
The advantages of digital libraries as a means of easily and rapidly accessing books, archives and images of various types are now widely recognized by commercial interests and public bodies alike.
Traditional libraries are limited by storage space; digital libraries have the potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very little physical space to contain it. As such, the cost of maintaining a digital library is much lower than that of a traditional library. A traditional library must spend large sums of money paying for staff, book maintenance, rent, and additional books. Digital libraries do away with these fees.
Digital libraries can immediately adopt innovations in technology providing users with improvements in electronic and audio book technology as well as presenting new forms of communication such as wikis and blogs.
No physical boundary. The user of a digital library need not to go to the library physically; people from all over the world can gain access to the same information, as long as an Internet connection is available.
Round the clock availability. A major advantage of digital libraries is that people can gain access to the information at any time, night or day.
Multiple accesses. The same resources can be used at the same time by a number of users.
Structured approach. Digital libraries provide access to much richer content in a more structured manner, i.e. we can easily move from the catalog to the particular book then to a particular chapter and so on.
Information retrieval. The user is able to use any search term (word, phrase, title, name, subject) to search the entire collection. Digital libraries can provide very user-friendly interfaces, giving clickable access to its resources.
Preservation and conservation. An exact copy of the original can be made any number of times without any degradation in quality.
Space. Whereas traditional libraries are limited by storage space, digital libraries have the potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very little physical space to contain them. When a library has no space for extension digitization is the only solution.
Networking. A particular digital library can provide a link to any other resources of other digital libraries very easily; thus a seamlessly integrated resource sharing can be achieved.
Cost. In theory, the cost of maintaining a digital library is lower than that of a traditional library. A traditional library must spend large sums of money paying for staff, book maintenance, rent, and additional books. Although digital libraries do away with these fees, it has since been found that digital libraries can be no less expensive in their own way to operate. Digital libraries can and do incur large costs for the conversion of print materials into digital format, for the technical skills of staff to maintain them, and for the costs of maintaining online access (i.e. servers, bandwidth costs, etc.). Also, the information in a digital library must often be "migrated" every few years to the latest digital media. This process can incur very large costs in hardware and skilled personnel.(See data migration).
Problems
Some people have criticized that digital libraries are hampered by copyright law, because works cannot be shared over different periods of time in the manner of a traditional library. The content is, in many cases, public domain or self-generated content only. Some digital libraries, such as Project Gutenberg, work to digitize out-of-copyright works and make them freely available to the public. An estimate of the number of distinct books still existent in library catalogues from 2000BC to 1960, has been made.
UNESCO and the US Library of Congress will join forces to build a World Digital Library, following the signing of an agreement by Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, and the Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 17 October 2007.
The World Digital Library initiative will digitize unique and rare materials from libraries and other cultural institutions around the world and make them available free of charge on the Internet. These materials include manuscripts, maps, books, musical scores, sound recordings, films, prints and photographs.
From the afternoon of the 15th of October through the 19th, outside Room X at UNESCO Headquarters, a prototype of the World Digital Library will be demonstrated, and tested, before delegates of UNESCO’s 193 Member States attending the Organization’s General Conference. The prototype was developed by the Library of Congress and UNESCO with five other partner institutions: Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the National Library of Egypt, the National Library of Brazil, the National Library of Russia, and the Russian State Library.
The prototype functions in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, the six official languages of the United Nations, as well as in Portuguese. It features search and browse by place, time, topic, and contributing institution.
The World Digital Library initiative has been designed to promote international and inter-cultural understanding, increase the quality and diversity of cultural content on the internet, and contribute to education and scholarship. Individuals and institutions in more than 40 countries and the IFLA have participated in working groups and expert meetings to plan the World Digital Library.
“Libraries are key actors for ensuring universal access to information and building knowledge societies,” said UNESCO Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura. “We are very pleased to build on the excellent partnership that we have long enjoyed with the Library of Congress to work in innovative ways to preserve and make accessible the memory of the world.”
“We look forward to continuing and deepening our collaboration with UNESCO,” said Mr Billington, “and to working with the Organization and its staff to ensure that libraries, archives, and museums from around the world join with us in making their cultural treasures accessible online."
Under the terms of the agreement, the Library of Congress and UNESCO will cooperate in convening working groups of experts and other stakeholders to develop guidelines and technical specifications for the project, enlisting new partners, and securing support from private and public sources.
A key aspect of the project is to build digital library capabilities in developing countries, so that all countries and all regions can participate and be represented in the World Digital Library.
The project pursues work already undertaken by UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme which seeks to preserve documentary heritage. This heritage reflects the diversity of languages, peoples and cultures and is the mirror of the world and its memory. But this memory is fragile; every day, irreplaceable parts disappear forever. UNESCO launched the Memory of the World Programme to guard against collective amnesia by contributing to the preservation of archive holdings and library collections all over the world and ensuring their wide dissemination.
Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States of America, and the largest library in the world, with more than 134 million items in more than 450 languages. Its collections are universal in scope and are in all formats in which information is recorded.
Mission: A million books on the web by 2009
It is believed by some that the goal of creating a Universal Digital Library is impossible and that attempting to create it could take hundreds of years and still may never be completed. Nevertheless, as a first step toward realizing this grand vision, a project was proposed that would create a Universal Library starting with a free-to-read, searchable collection of one million books available to everyone over the Internet by the year 2008. This first major project toward building a Universal Library is named the Million Book Digital Library Project (MBP). Within 10 years, it is expected that the collection will grow to 10 Million books. The result will be a unique resource accessible to anyone in the world, 24x7, without regard to nationality or socioeconomic background. Typical large high school libraries house fewer than 30,000 volumes. Most libraries in the world have fewer than a million volumes. The total number of different titles indexed in OCLC's WorldCat is about 55 million. A library of one million books, therefore, contains more than the holdings of most high schools, and is equivalent in number of volumes to the number in the libraries at many universities, representing a useful fraction of all available books.
RFID Technology for Libraries
HIGH-TECH LIBRARY WITH RFID SYSTEM
1. RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) is the latest technology to be used in library theft detection systems. Unlike EM (Electro-Mechanical) and RF (Radio Frequency) systems, which have been used in libraries for decades, RFID-based systems move beyond security to become tracking systems that combine security with more efficient tracking of materials throughout the library, including easier and faster charge and discharge, inventorying, and materials handling.
2. RFID is a combination of radio-frequency-based technology and microchip technology. The information contained on microchips in the tags affixed to library materials is read using radio frequency technology regardless of item orientation or alignment (i.e., the technology does not require line-of-sight or a fixed plane to read tags as do traditional theft detection systems) and distance from the item is not a critical factor except in the case of extra-wide exit gates. The corridors at the building exit(s) can be as wide as four feet because the tags can be read at a distance of up to two feet by each of two parallel exit sensors.
3. The targets used in RFID systems can replace both EM or RF theft detection targets and barcodes.
Advantages of RFID systems
Rapid charging/discharging
1. The use of RFID reduces the amount of time required to perform circulation operations. The most significant time savings are attributable to the facts that information can be read from RFID tags much faster than from barcodes and that several items in a stack can be read at the same time. While initially unreliable, the anti-collision algorithm that allows an entire stack to be charged or discharged now appears to be working well.
2. The other time savings realized by circulation staff are modest unless the RFID tags replace both the EM security strips or RF tags of older theft detection systems and the barcodes of the automated library system - i.e., the system is a comprehensive RFID system that combines RFID security and the tracking of materials throughout the library; or it is a hybrid system that uses EM for security and RFID for tracking, but handles both simultaneously with a single piece of equipment. There can be as much as a 50 percent increase in throughput. The time savings are less for charging than for discharging because the time required for charging usually is extended by social interaction with patrons.
Simplified patron self-charging/discharging
1. For patrons using self-charging, there is a marked improvement because they do not have to carefully place materials within a designated template and they can charge several items at the same time.
2. Patron self-discharging shifts that work from staff to patrons. Staff is relieved further when readers are installed in book-drops.
High reliability
1. The readers are highly reliable. RFID library systems claim an almost 100 percent detection rate using RFID tags.
2. There are fewer false alarms than with older technologies once an RFID system is properly tuned.
3. RFID systems encode the circulation status on the RFID tag. This is done by designating a bit as the "theft"(EAS) bit and turning it off at time of charge and on at time of discharge. If the material that has not been properly charged is taken past the exit sensors, an immediate alarm is triggered. Another option is to use both the "theft"(EAS) bit and the online interface to an automated library system, the first to signal an immediate alarm and the second to identify what has been taken.
High-speed inventorying
1. A unique advantage of RFID systems is their ability to scan books on the shelves without tipping them out or removing them. A hand-held inventory reader can be moved rapidly across a shelf of books to read all of the unique identification information. Using wireless technology, it is possible not only to update the inventory, but also to identify items which are out of proper order.
Automated materials handling
1. Another application of RFID technology is automated materials handling. This includes conveyer and sorting systems that can move library materials and sort them by category into separate bins or onto separate carts. This significantly reduces the amount of staff time required to ready materials for re-shelving.
Long tag life
1. Finally, RFID tags last longer than barcodes because nothing comes into contact with them. Most RFID vendors claim a minimum of 100,000 transactions before a tag may need to be replaced.
FREE LIBRARY SOFTWARE
Presently there two type library management software available in market one is branded with copyrighted and second open source code free software, both are having some merits /demerits, and one major demerit of branded software are very expensive and their developer require 10 to 20 % AMC fee every year. So I think open source code is the best option for all libraries. I telling about following two open source library software’s
1. Koha: Integrated Library System (ILS).
2. Openbiblio
Koha : The First Open Source ILS
Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha's impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base.
Why Koha?
Full-featured ILS. In use worldwide in libraries of all sizes, Koha is a true enterprise-class ILS with comprehensive functionality including basic or advanced options. Koha includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more. For a comprehensive overview of features visit the Koha feature map.
Dual Database Design. Koha uses a dual database design that utilizes the strengths of the two major industry-standard database types (text-based and RDBMS). This design feature ensures that Koha is scalable enough to meet the transaction load of any library, no matter what the size.
Library Standards Compliant. Koha is built using library standards and protocols that ensure interoperability between Koha and other systems and technologies, while supporting existing workflows and tools.
Web-based Interfaces. Koha's OPAC, circ, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies--XHTML, CSS and Javascript--making Koha a truly platform-independent solution.
Free / Open Source. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). More information on the GPL can be found here.
No Vendor Lock-in. It is an important part of the open-source promise that there is no vendor lock-in: libraries are free to install and use Koha themselves if the have the in-house expertise or to purchase support or development services from the best available source. For more information about obtaining support visit the support page.
Delhi Public Library is going to use KOHA for computerizing circulation of DVDs in its three zonal libraries (Central Library, Sarojini Nagar and Patel Nagar).
OpenBiblio
OpenBiblio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
As an exception to the license, the copyright holders waive the
requirements of section (2)(a) of the GPL. If you modify OpenBiblio,
you may extend this exception to your version of OpenBiblio, but
you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete
this exception statement from your version.
O p e n A c c e s s E - J o u r n a l s
Bioline International
http://www.bioline.org.br/
BioMed Central
http://www.biomedcentral.com/
HighWire Press
http://highwire.stanford.edu/
Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS)
http://www.ias.ac.in/
Indian Journals
http://indianjournals.com/
Journal of Digital Information (JoDI)
http://jodi.tamu.edu/
Journal of Postgraduate Medicine
http://www.jpgmonline.com/
MedIND
http://medind.nic.in/
Medknow
http://www.medknow.com/
Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI)
http://www.mdpi.org/
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
http://www.plos.org/
PubMed Central
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/
Trials
http://www.trialsjournal.com/
O p e n A c c e s s D i r e c t o r i e s
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
http://www.doaj.org/
Free Medical Journals
http://www.freemedicaljournals.com/
Open J-Gate
http://www.openj-gate.com/
IRs @ M e m b e r I n s t i t u t i o n s Etd@IIT Bombay
http://www.library.iitb.ac.in/
Eprint & Etd@IIT Delhi
http://eprint.iitd.ac.in/dspace/
Etd@IIM Kozhikode
http://eprints.iimk.ac.in/
Eprints@IISc Bangalore
http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/
DU Eprint Archive
http://eprints.du.ac.in/
Dspace@nitr
http://dspace.nitrkl.ac.in/dspace/
Dspace@Thapar University
http://dspace.tiet.ac.in:8080/dspace/
Indian Institute of Information Technology GNU EPrints (OAI)
http://eprints.iiita.ac.in/
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