SLIS S652: Digital Libraries: Fall Semester 2007
John A. Walsh

Contact Information

Course Description

This course covers general digital library topics including:
  • organization, planning, project management
  • digital content (media types, standards, format-specific metadata)
  • general digital library metadata formats and standards
  • digital library technologies and systems
  • user-center design in digital libraries
  • digital preservation
  • current/future trends in digital libraries
  • institutional, societal, and professional issues/challenges facing digital libraries and their analog counterparts

Text

Witten, Ian H. and David Bainbridge. How to Build a Digital Library. Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann, 2003. (Referred to as Witten below.)
The above text will be supplemented by online and reserve readings.

Assignments

Essays (45%)

Essays should be 500-750 words, in length, except the fourth essay, "Analysis of metadata in a digital library project," which should be a bit longer 750-1000 words. Please try to keep to the specified length. Longer is not better, and these papers should be clear and thorough, but also concise. All essays may, where relevant, be accompanied by screen shots, tables, or other graphics. All essays should be clearly organized with liberal use of headings and other "signposts."
  1. Essay on a current digital library issue (10%); due 2007-09-20. Possible issues include: copyright, scholarly communication, institutional repositories, open access, professional/institutional transformation, Google Book Project / Open Content Alliance, etc.
  2. Essay on text-based DL project(s) (10%); due 2007-09-27. The essay can take the form of a comparison of two projects/systems, an analysis of the usability of the site or of special or unique functionality, a critique of the project, or a proposal for enhancements or future directions. Other ideas are welcome, but the essay should not be simply and overview of a project; it must include some analysis, criticism, and/or new thinking.
  3. Essay on non-text-based DL project(s) (10%); due 2007-10-04. See "Essay on text-based DL project(s)" above for further detail.
  4. Analysis of metadata in a DL project (15%); due 2007-11-01.. Some questions you may ask in this analysis include: What metadata exists for the project? What metadata standards are used? Was metadata preexisting or generated/modified/enhanced as part of the project? How is metadata exposed to the user? and to other library systems (e.g., by OAI)? How does metadata drive or enhance the functionality of the project interface?

Final Project (45%)

  1. preliminary proposal (3 pages) (10%); due 2007-10-25.
  2. final project presentation (10%); due on 2007-11-29 or 2007-12-06.
  3. final project (25%); due on 2007-12-13.

Participation (10%)

Students are expected to attend, to be prepared for, and to participate in all class meetings.

Letter Grade Definitions

All grades will be assigned according to the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science Definitions of Letter Grades.

Schedule

Date Topics Readings
2007-08-30
  • Introductions
  • Overview of Syllabus
  • Concepts
  • History
  • Example programs & projects
  • Personal Profiles
2007-09-06
Digital Library Funding, Planning, Organization, & Staffing
  • staffing
  • content selection
  • partnerships
2006-09-13 No class. Professor Walsh will be attending the Digital Resources for the Humanities and Arts (DRHA) conference.
Reading
  • Witten. Ch. 6.1
Lab Task
  1. Install Greenstone on your home system. The Greenstone website has both a Windows distribution and an OS X distribution of the software and also has links to the Installer's Guide.
  2. Play around with your installation.
  3. Comment on the Oncourse Message Board regarding your installation experiences. Other possible points of commentary include the clarity of the installation instructions, suggestions for making things run smoother, problems getting oriented, etc.
2006-09-20
Digital Content: Text
  • general issues
  • digitization processes & standards
  • formats
  • Unicode
  • delivery systems
  • metadata
2007-09-27
Digital Content: Image
  • general issues
  • digitization processes & standards
  • formats
  • delivery systems
  • metadata
2007-10-04
Digital Content: Time-Based Formats (Audio & Video)
  • general issues
  • digitization processes & standards
  • formats
  • delivery systems
  • metadata
  • Witten. Ch. 4.6 "Representing Audio and Video," pp. 206-215.
2007-10-11 Digital Content: Multimedia
2007-10-18 Metadata
2007-10-25
Fundamental Technologies & Standards
  • Web: Apache, Tomcat, HTML/XHTML, CSS, Javascript
  • Z39.50 & SRU/SRW
  • Data: XML & Relational Database Management Systems
  • Programming Languages and Frameworks: Java, Perl, PHP
2007-11-01 Guest Lecture: Jon Dunn, Digital Library Infrastructures.
2007-11-08 Guest lectures by Muzaffer Ozakca, Programmer/Analyst, and David Jiao, Programmer/Analyst, from the IU Digital Library. (tentative)
2007-11-15 User-Centered Design
2007-11-22
  • Digital Preservation
  • Future Trends in Digital Libraries
  • Google
2007-11-29 Final Project Presentations
2007-12-06 Final Project Presentations
2007-12-13 Final projects due by noon.

Resources