Digital Libraries

Stern, David ed. Digital Libraries: Philosophies, Technical Design Considerations and Example Scenarios New York, Haworth Press, 1999 230p. ISBN 0 7890 0769 X

This volume forms a double issue of the journal Science & Technology Libraries, reissued as a monograph. It is intended as a volume aimed at general librarians and is on balance good value, although it begins extraordinarily well and then tails off. The first article by Mike Lesk is quite excellent; an intelligent, well-written and thought provoking analysis of the organisation of digital libraries, arguing that they must focus on access and service not buildings and volumes. Daniel Jones from the University of Texas then discusses collection development and demonstrates the relevance of existing skills. Barbara Buttenfield follows with an examination of the neglected but important topic of usability evaluation, taking the Alexandria Digital Library project as an example, then Stern himself gives a history and analysis of search techniques and strategies.

The second section is full of good solid workmanlike stuff. Robert Ferrer discusses interoperability with some well clear and simple diagrams and a very accessible text. Chudnov in a brief paper argues the importance of XML, followed by Mitchell on interface design. This is another excellent article with good clear explanations of technical terms and an excellent bibliography. In fact all you wanted to know about digital libraries jargon but were afraid to ask.

The last three papers sit a little oddly in the collection. Still in the second section Johnson describes in fairly dense prose IODyne, an object-enhanced user interface for information retrieval in the Grainger Engineering Library. In the final Examples section, McGlamery records the University of Connecticut’s Map And Geographic Information Center (MAGIC) and Wherry considers prospects for the availability of patents. None of these papers is bad, but they might be considered somewhat narrow in a book aimed at general librarians, presumably based in general libraries.

Apart from Lesk, the assumptions are firmly American. Issues of language, multiculturalism and disability are notably absent for example. Two or three of the papers are quite short and they come across as slight, suffering by comparison with the more extended pieces. This does not claim to be a handbook on the topic and indeed some difficult issues such as preservation are specifically excluded. So a bit of a curate’s egg, which is none the less worth reading. The good pieces are as good as one will read anywhere, there is good journeyman stuff, but the whole is weakened by the slim and esoteric.