Digital Library Reference Sources

1. Digital Library Reference Sources Kristine Brancolini, Director Digital Library Program Web: www.dlib.indiana.edu Email: brancoli@indiana.edu SLIS 524 | October 2, 2005

2. Outline • Digital Library Program – what’s my role in all of this? • Problems – Finding images and other digital content • Created Digital Content • Licensed Digital Content • Problems of Aggregation

3. Mission The Indiana University Digital Library Program (DLP) is dedicated to the production, maintenance, distribution, and preservation of a wide range of high quality networked resources for scholars and students at Indiana University and elsewhere. Created digital resources vs. licensed

4. Organization The Indiana University Digital Library Program (http://www.dlib.indiana.edu) was established in 1997, a collaborative venture among: • University Libraries (IUL) • University Information Technology Services (UITS) • School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) • School of Informatics Funding provided by the Libraries and UITS

5. Staff • 14 full-time permanent staff • 3 librarians • 10 information technology professionals • 1 support staff (imaging specialist) • 10 grant-funded programmers/project manager • Student staff, including graduate assistants and interns from the School of Library and Information Science and Computer Science Two new programmers to work on digital library infrastructure, which we hope will solve some of the problems I identify this evening.

6. Major Activities • Developing and maintaining digital library infrastructure – hardware, software, staff expertise • Creation of digital resources for instruction (Variations and DIDO) • Creation of digital resources for research (archival collections, indexes) • Consultation with individuals and department who have ideas about potential digital projects • Increasing involvement with statewide digital library planning and development

7. Digital Projects • Conversion from an analog to a digital format • Creation of metadata for digital objects • Development of systems to store and provide access to created digital content We provide technical expertise needed to create the digital resource, store the content and metadata, provide persistent access to it.

8. Problems • Many people need to find multimedia content, but do not know where to look • Not in online catalogs or indexes • The content is located in a number of resources – inconvenient to find – databases and finding aids • Users don’t know about the new types of resources – like metadata harvesters than can help them find good content more quickly • Most users rely on Google – usually an inferior source of digital content

9. What kind of content do I mean? • Literally thousands of sources of reliable content – often with contextual information designed for users • Sources: libraries, archives, museums, and more • Examples: Library of Congress American Memory, Indiana University Digital Library Program, Chicago Historical Society, to name only a few

10. How do I find it? • Do a search in Google for “steel industry in Indiana photographs” • What will I find? • Change it to “steel industry Indiana” • Change it to “photographs of steel industry in Indiana” • Try it in Google Image • As with any search, what you retrieve depends upon how you search and where you search

11. Where else could I look? • Try to find specific sites – go directly to our U.S. Steel site once you find it in Google • Go to large digital library sites, such as American Memory, because you cannot be sure Google is searching the deep web • Try a metadata harvester, such as OAIster at the University of Michigan; think of it as WorldCat for digital content – hundreds or thousands of contributors

12. How does a metadata harvester work? • Data providers expose their metadata to • Data harvesters • Service is only as good at the metadata that is provided • Advantage is that all metadata doesn’t have to be in one format, such as MARC. Must have at least Unqualified Dublin Core, but can handle anything.

13. Licensed Content • Many libraries do not licensed any images • Indiana University licenses several collections and subscribes to some other services that include images • RLG Cultural Materials – Try Indiana steel search • RLG AMICO/CAMIO (Art images) • AP Photo Archive • EBSCO Images • Go to Find Information/Databases by Type • Without this list, no one could find these resources.

14. Aggregation • For created content, we have metadata harvesting services • For licensed content, we have metasearch tools for print, but not for other formats; OneSeach doesn’t access images • We plan to solve this problem for ourselves at Indiana University – new digital library infrastructure – but not a simple problem

15. Conclusions • Users need help finding online multimedia, especially images • Reference librarians need to be knowledgeable about how to help users find these materials • The technology changes constantly; need to remain current with new tools for users and new sources of information

16. Contact Information • Kristine Brancolini, Director, Indiana University Digital Library Program • Phone: 855-3710 • Email: brancoli@indiana.edu • Web: www.dlib.indiana.edu • Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments!