VEAL & the TIGER

Comments on digital libraries

Introduction

• What is a digital library?– Emulating the card catalog…– Faster and cheaper– Evolving

• What does the future hold?– Emulating the mind– Friendlier and wiser– Resource sharing

What is a digital library?

• ARL Proceeding 126: Realizing Digital Libraries, 1995 http://www.arl.org/arl/proceedings/126/index.html

• Gary Cleveland, Digital libraries: Definitions, issues and challenges, 1998 http://www.ifla.org/VI/5/op/udtop8/udtop8.htm#1

• Digital Library Technologies Trends, Sun Microsystems Inc., 2002. http://www.sun.com/edu/libraries

• California Digital Library http://www.cdlib.org

Commercial digital libraries

• netLibrary

• Ebrary

• Questia

• Superstar 超星数字图书馆• 21media 书生之家• Eshunet e书时空

The traits

• Emulating the card catalog; the stacks; the reference desk… the old library

• Text dominance

• Mono-lingual

• Faster & cheaper

An IBM diagram

http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~fox/EDMEDIA96/DLIBM.pdf.

The East Asian breakouts

• Information providers: – CEAL site; e-Asia; UCB Stone

Rubbings; CEAL directory; EAL websites; Eastlib; etc.

• Services enablers:– RLIN CJK; OCLC CJK; PAIR;

askEASL; OPACs; etc.

• Virtual East Asian Libraries

Libraries in transition

14.4M volumes of books & others media

$11.3M of annual acquisitions budget

479 FTE of staff

53 locations---CEAL statistics, 2002

The digital differences

• Fast

• Compact

• Translatable

• Programmable

• Distributed

• Connected

The new library

• Digital & non-digital resources

• Multi-media

• Geographically spread out

• Technologically integrated

• Multi-sensors

• Multi-languages

• Programmable

Technologically Integrated Group of Enabling Resources (TIGER)

• Technologically Integrated for efficiency

• Grouped for sharing & conservation

• Enabling the creation & use of information

• Resources are intellectual and physical properties

Multi-sensors

• Read• Write• Tactile• Speak• Listen• Think• Smell (sniff out the coffee before buying

online!)• Taste?

Multi-languages

• Natural languages

• Machine languages

• Gestures, images and signs

• Sounds

• Tactile

• Smell

The sound of books

• Silent reading

• Reading in dialects

Literacy

• Read & write

• Machine assisted literacy

Programmable

• Machine translation

• Reading the future

• Animates reality

• Automated creation

Translations

• Natural languages

• Machine languages

• Gestures, images and signs

• Sounds

• Tactile

• Smell

Reading the future

• Anticipation of events

• Projection of trend lines

• Deduction

Creative environment

• Natural creation

• Machine creation

Costs

• Retro-con

• The China remedy

• Deep Blue

• Yahoo

What can a TIGER be?

• Library emulator

• Robotic intellectual

• Artificial life

• Sharing

Conclusion

• “Digital library” is not fully defined

• Who are going to define it?

• Quo vadis?

Thank You!

Thank You!