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Foundation of Library and Information Science

Notes Provide excellent opportunities for a broad range of patrons to find appropriate research
materials all in one place.

The access to information is not dependent on the patron being in one location.
Digital library need not be dependent on each user having a particular type of computer
or even a computer at all.

Digital libraries can be customized so user can have access to what they want and need to
use.
The librarian is in full control of the selection of materials for the digital library.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

1. DLs are the digital face of traditional libraries that include only digital collections.
2. The traditional library has a physical location, embodied in its physical building.
3. Digital library does not provide a starting point for all research.

10.2 Technical Issues in Digital Library

In this section, we will discuss about the technical issues that underlies any digital library
system. Libraries will need to enhance and upgrade current technical architectures to accommodate
digital materials. The architecture will include components such as:

high-speed local networks and fast connections to the Internet
relational databases that support a variety of digital formats
full text search engines to index and provide access to resources
a variety of servers, such as Web servers and FTP servers
electronic document management functions that will aid in the overall management of
digital resources

One important thing to point out about technical architectures for digital libraries is that they
won’t be monolithic systems like the turn-key, single box OPAC’s with which librarians are
most familiar. Instead, they will be a collection of disparate systems and resources connected
through a network, and integrated within one interface, most likely a Web interface or one of its
descendants. For example, the resources supported by the architecture could include:
bibliographic databases that point to both paper and digital materials
indexes and finding tools
collections of pointers to Internet resources
directories
primary materials in various digital formats
photographs

numerical data sets and
electronic journals
Though these resources may reside on different systems and in different databases, they would
appear as though there were one single system to the users of a particular community.

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