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Presented at the Dilemmas of Digitisation Conference in Oxford, UK on 24 May 2008
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Digitizing Rare and Unique Resources: The ‘Long Tail’ Role of Libraries in Digital Scholarship
24 May, 2008
Presented by
Christine Madsen
DPhil Student
Oxford Internet Institute
Dilemmas of Digitization
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Strategy?
• Digitization
• Access
• Use
• Are they being used?
3 Parts
1. Status quo
2. Why focus on unique holdings?
3. Conditions for & barriers to success
Part 1 :: Status Quo :: Big Projects
• Characteristics of large-scale projects
• Size => large
• Production speed => fast
• Cost => low per page
• Findability => Great!
Part 1 :: Status Quo :: Big Projects
• Characteristics achieved how?
• Selection by size, format, condition, proximity
• Text => priority
• Images => by-product
• Understand search
Big Projects: Pros & Cons
• Easily retrieved
• Not easily used
• Important indices, but NOT ‘digital libraries’
• Do not meet the conditions for the possibility of web scholarship
Quoting § Consensus § Dissemination / Preservation
Part 1 :: Status Quo :: Smaller Projects
Characteristics of small-scale projects
• Well-crafted & thorough, browsable
• Include rare materials
• Attention to ‘object’
• Cost => high per page
• Findability => Poor!
The State of Digital Humanities:
Inlink Analysis
First, some definitions:
• ‘Inlink’ = any link to a web site
site A
othersites [site A has 4 inlinks]
Measuring inlinks =citation analysis
The State of Digital Humanities:
Inlink Analysis
1. http://www.gutenberg.org
Project Gutenberg
2. http://memory.loc.govLC American
Memory
3. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ BNF Gallica
4. http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/index.html
Cornell Making of America
5. http://www.ulib.org/Carnegie Mellon:
Million Book Collection
16%
4%
Part 1 :: Status Quo :: Small Projects
Characteristics achieved how?
• Understanding of users (scholars)
• Understanding of materials
• Forgetting what it is to be a library
So…what next?
Scholarship vs. Research
“it does not matter how many books you have, but how good
they are”- Seneca
20% of collection80% of users
Is the ‘Long Tail’ Applicable to Libraries?
Yes, but…
Barriers to Success?
ACCESS!
Amazon Model vs. the Bookstore Model
Amazon Model vs. the Bookstore Model
‘Google Generation’
‘The information literacy of young people has not improved with
widening access to technology’
Books are for use
Every reader, his or her book
Every book its reader
Save the time of the reader
A library is a growing organism
Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science
Learning from Ranganathan
BOOKS ARE FOR USE
“no rack shall be higher than what can be reached by a person of average height, while standing on the bare floor”
✓ don’t make it difficult for people to get to the materials
✓ build easy to use interfaces
✓ understand your users
Learning from Ranganathan
“In no country where the concept, ‘BOOKS ARE FOR USE,’ has taken root in the Public Mind, will any library be allowed to close until the majority of humanity go to bed and cannot use it”
✓build a stable infrastructure
✓if users find a place ‘closed’ too many times, they will stop coming back
Learning from Ranganathan
“The majority of readers do not know their requirements, and their interests take a definite shape only after seeing and handling a well-arranged collection of books”
✓Build collections that can be easily navigated
✓Allow for serendipitous discovery of materials
Learning from Ranganathan
“a library that is keen about its books being fully used will plant itself in the midst of its clientele”
✓Market your collection or community
✓Go where your patrons are
✓Understand your users
✓Understanding the essential vs. the accidental
37
“It is no wonder that, when the
library has been extending its
scope, changing its outlook and
altering its very character and
functions, there should not be
adequate understanding among the
public as to what has been going
on.”