Week 2 Readings

A Framework for Building Open Digital Libraries
Some of the key challenges of digital libraries are the lack of software toolkits to build them, the lack of interoperability between them, and lack of planning in implementing them. I was interested in this quote: "Most DLs are intended to be quick solutions to urgent community needs - so not much thought goes into planning for future redeployment of the systems." I wonder if the community need is often determined by librarians and administrators while the digital library is built by IT professionals, which may lead to a disconnect between goals and results. The open digital library system appears to be a viable solution. It seems a national or international organization (as opposed to many fragmented organizations) could set simple guidelines for building digital libraries, including expectations for interoperability, so that patrons can find information easily and archives can be updated and combined with less effort.

Several terms in this paper, such as "overloaded semantics" and "purposeful orthogonality," were unfamiliar to me.

The Internet and the World Wide Web
Much of the information in this article was not new for me, but I was not aware of the Internet Engineering Task Force and the RFC series. The lack of hierarchies and bureaucracy is truly democratic and encouraging in an age where governments and corporations seek autonomous control of networks and resources. I am thankful for these talented volunteers who continually improve the Internet.

The Los Alamos E-Print Archives is another democratic success. Arms writes, "The user interfaces have been designed to minimize the effort required to maintain the archive." Is this ideal? I believe the user should always come first, and that those developing and maintaining the archives should do everything possible to encourage smooth access to articles. Perhaps the grants cannot fund the cost of heavy maintenance.

An Architecture for Information in Digital Libraries
This article is very readable. I agree with the definition of a good user interface: "it can provide unsophisticated users with flexible access to rich and complicated information." The three basic principles for information architecture are also very user supportive, while understanding that those maintaining the collection should not be burdened with routine tasks. Since I have never been responsible for a DL, I am curious to see what the typical archive maintenance entails, and how some DLs use automatic maintenance to reduce human updating.

What is a "legacy database"?