Digital Libraries
Collaborative Electronic Reviews
Department of Library Science and Instructional Technology
Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven CT

LSC 551-70
Fall 1999

Reviews by:
Karen Ball
Gayle Bogel
Lisa Brenner
Deborah Coretto
Sue Crego
Marilyn Geiger
Mark Gore
Dawn Higginson
Eric Jones
Dianne Lyons
Kathleen Marszycki
Robert Murphy
Kris Piecyk
Jodi Stacy
Amanda Timolat

[no author/date given.] Libraries Without Borders

Reviewed by Kristina Piecyk

The second article I read was Libraries Without Borders (LWB), is a California not-for-profit organization committed to cooperative research in global information in the digital library area. LWB offers four main catagories: Scientific, Educational, Humanitarian and Methodological.

Scientific:

The development and introduction of software and other means for organizing cooperation between libraries. Development, analysis and evaluation of a system for the collection, registration and administration of request handling, favorable ways of moving patron request and current subscriptions rates among libraries.

Educational:

Organizing and teaching these new technologies to library specialists in America and around the world with aids such as seminars, conferences and teleconferences.

Humanitarian:

Applying low-cost, efficient means of interlibrary cooperation, especially if current methods have been costly for libraries and their patrons. Increasing international communication through cultural exchange.

Methodological:

Applying methods and technologies for communication between various libraries, internationally. Organizing the delivery of information between international countries and the United States and vice versa.

LWB plans to introduce digital libraries to the scientific and general communities. LWB wants to be the gateway to the world's libraries and research centers. Patrons will access the digital library thru the World Wide Web and when they find what they want they will be able to download to their local machines in PDF format. LWB has started to collect materials in:

- Blood substitution

- Global AIDS research projects.

- Environmental Studies

- Global Security

Send e-mail to lwb@lwbnet.org

Reference: http://www.lwbnet.org/htdocs/digital.html

Threaded discussion question:

none

How to Build a Digital Librarian

Reviewed by Kris Piecyk

I read an article on How to Build a Digital Librarian, a program that was developed to teach librarians about digital libraries. The program's goal was to train individual in increasing electronic resources using the World Wide Web, while also preparing them to train others.

The group who offered this course is called The Institute for Electronic Resource Development, The Institute for short. The Institute's primary goal was to train information professionals in practical techniques which could be used to create collections and services. They also wanted to instill some key training and instruction in current digital library practices. The technique the Institute used was lectures, demonstrations, hands-on exercises and open lab periods.

During the week long course participants learned the more advance features of HTML (They had to come the session knowing basic HTML), for example HTML tables, forms, image mapping and style and design. Participants also learned about digital imaging by being given a finite project they had to focus on. Creating images for the web, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and advanced image enhancement in photoshop was taught to participants in detail.

After the week long session the Institute materials were posted online for anyone to use, they can also be contacted for questions. The Institute started an electronic discussion, DigLibns to help with day-to-day issues and problems facing today's digital librarians. Anyone is welcome to subscribe and participate in the discussion.

References

Institute for Electronic Resource Development, grant application submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, Higher Education Act Title II-B, Library Education and Human Resource Development Program, November 24, 1994.

HYPERLINK

Threaded Discussion Question:

[Are sessions like the one above to become more commonplace as more and more informational institutions want to become digital?]