330 likes | 638 Views
Digital Text and Libraries Michael Popham Ranganathan’s laws of library science Books are for use Every reader his book Every book its reader Save the time of the reader A library is a growing organism (Ranganathan, 1931) Libraries and digital texts …as purchasers of digital texts
E N D
Digital Text and Libraries Michael Popham
Ranganathan’s laws of library science • Books are for use • Every reader his book • Every book its reader • Save the time of the reader • A library is a growing organism (Ranganathan, 1931) DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
Libraries and digital texts • …as purchasers of digital texts • from publishers, aggregator services • …as producers of digital texts • digitized from analogue originals, analogue surrogates • …as custodians of digital texts • purchased and licensed material • institutional repositories, digital assets created in-house • acquired e-MSS and personal digital collections DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
Libraries and digital texts – the challenges • …as purchasers of digital texts • we have to work with what we’re sold/what’s available • …as producers of digital texts • we have to work with what we’ve got • …as custodians of digital texts • we have to work with what we’re given DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
Thomas Bodley’s Vision • Bodleian founded 1602 • Universal library • Bodley’s “Republic of Letters” • Legal deposit privilege since 1610 • 60% of Bodleian readers not members of Oxford University DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
Bodleian Library • 400 staff • Budget of £14m (€20.5m) • Stock 8 million items • 45,000 registered users • 120 Miles (192km) of shelving • 123,000 monograph items and 194,000 serial items added each year DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
Oxford University Library Services • > 660 staff (600 fte) • 40 libraries, including the Bodleian • Budget > £25m (€37m) • Total bookstock:11 million items • 156 miles (250km) of shelving, including repository space DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
The “Digital Library” at Oxford 1960sMachine-readable texts for scholarly purposes 1976 Oxford Text Archive founded 1980s Networked databases and CD-ROMs 1990s Libraries on the web, e-journals etc. 2001 Oxford Digital Library (ODL) 2005ELISO (Electronic Library & Information Service)Google/Oxford partnership DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
An affecting and sublime! scene, or, : The great captain going to head his armies
Oxford-Google Project: what to digitize? • Direct discussions with Google since 2003 • Win/win situation for both parties • Extensive collection of out-of-copyright (and mostly out-of-print) material identified • Oxford differs from other partners in this aspect of our agreement • Decision made to begin with the 19th century material • Looking at approximately 1+ million items DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
Overview of workflow Selection N Fast-track Y QA Suitable for digitization? Digitize Slow-track Y N Generate deliverables Store outputs Update Google.print index Reshelve DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006 Update OULS OPAC
Outputs and outcomes • Large raw colour images from digitization process • Per volume, OULS receives: • JPEG2000 (probably), and TIFFs • Uncorrected OCR • Audit of production process • There are quality control processes at Google & Oxford • Deliverable images (to be hosted by Google in the first instance) linked to OPAC records • Ongoing software/hardware developments to improve the process DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
Challenges that lie ahead… • Building the local infrastructure to manage and deliver the Oxford Digital Copy of the data • Investigating ways to exploit the data, e.g.: • Correcting OCR files, adding additional markup • (Re-)structuring the data – moving beyond a simple search and page-turning presentation • Completing/extending volumes and collections • Automatic collation, authorship attribution, stylistic analysis.….and many, many more(?!) • Raising the barrier of what is possible, and end-users’ expectations about what we can deliver DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
Feel the Fear…. • ©opyright and IPR • Threat to (Scholarly) e-Publishers • Proliferating plagiarism • Encouraging poor research • Scope creep, scalability, data deluge • Preservation and access DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006
Useful links • http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/google/ • http://books.google.com/googlebooks/library.html DOI Meeting, Oxford, June 2006