Digitizing Rare and Unique Resources: The ‘Long Tail’ Role of Libraries in Digital Scholarship

24 May, 2008

Presented by

Christine Madsen

DPhil Student

Oxford Internet Institute

Dilemmas of Digitization

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Strategy?

• Digitization

• Access

• Use

• Are they being used?

3 Parts

1. Status quo

2. Why focus on unique holdings?

3. Conditions for & barriers to success

Part 1 :: Status Quo :: Big Projects

• Characteristics of large-scale projects

• Size => large

• Production speed => fast

• Cost => low per page

• Findability => Great!

Part 1 :: Status Quo :: Big Projects

• Characteristics achieved how?

• Selection by size, format, condition, proximity

• Text => priority

• Images => by-product

• Understand search

Big Projects: Pros & Cons

• Easily retrieved

• Not easily used

• Important indices, but NOT ‘digital libraries’

• Do not meet the conditions for the possibility of web scholarship

Quoting § Consensus § Dissemination / Preservation

Part 1 :: Status Quo :: Smaller Projects

Characteristics of small-scale projects

• Well-crafted & thorough, browsable

• Include rare materials

• Attention to ‘object’

• Cost => high per page

• Findability => Poor!

The State of Digital Humanities:

Inlink Analysis

First, some definitions:

• ‘Inlink’ = any link to a web site

site A

othersites [site A has 4 inlinks]

Measuring inlinks =citation analysis

The State of Digital Humanities:

Inlink Analysis

1. http://www.gutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg

2. http://memory.loc.govLC American

Memory

3. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ BNF Gallica

4. http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/index.html

Cornell Making of America

5. http://www.ulib.org/Carnegie Mellon:

Million Book Collection

16%

4%

Part 1 :: Status Quo :: Small Projects

Characteristics achieved how?

• Understanding of users (scholars)

• Understanding of materials

• Forgetting what it is to be a library

So…what next?

Scholarship vs. Research

“it does not matter how many books you have, but how good

they are”- Seneca

20% of collection80% of users

Is the ‘Long Tail’ Applicable to Libraries?

Yes, but…

Barriers to Success?

ACCESS!

Amazon Model vs. the Bookstore Model

Amazon Model vs. the Bookstore Model

‘Google Generation’

‘The information literacy of young people has not improved with

widening access to technology’

Books are for use

Every reader, his or her book

Every book its reader

Save the time of the reader

A library is a growing organism

Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science

Learning from Ranganathan

BOOKS ARE FOR USE

“no rack shall be higher than what can be reached by a person of average height, while standing on the bare floor”

✓ don’t make it difficult for people to get to the materials

✓ build easy to use interfaces

✓ understand your users

Learning from Ranganathan

“In no country where the concept, ‘BOOKS ARE FOR USE,’ has taken root in the Public Mind, will any library be allowed to close until the majority of humanity go to bed and cannot use it”

✓build a stable infrastructure

✓if users find a place ‘closed’ too many times, they will stop coming back

Learning from Ranganathan

“The majority of readers do not know their requirements, and their interests take a definite shape only after seeing and handling a well-arranged collection of books”

✓Build collections that can be easily navigated

✓Allow for serendipitous discovery of materials

Learning from Ranganathan

“a library that is keen about its books being fully used will plant itself in the midst of its clientele”

✓Market your collection or community

✓Go where your patrons are

✓Understand your users

✓Understanding the essential vs. the accidental

37

“It is no wonder that, when the

library has been extending its

scope, changing its outlook and

altering its very character and

functions, there should not be

adequate understanding among the

public as to what has been going

on.”