Full Description
Given modern society's need to control its ever-increasing body of information, digital libraries will be among the most important and influential institutions of this century. With their versatility, accessibility, and economy, these focused collections of everything digital are fast becoming the 'banks' in which the world's wealth of information is stored. "How to Build a Digital Library" is the only book that offers all the knowledge and tools needed to construct and maintain a digital library - no matter how large or small. Two internationally recognized experts provide a fully developed, step-by-step method, as well as the software that makes it all possible. "How to Build a Digital Library" is the perfectly self-contained resource for individuals, agencies, and institutions wishing to put this powerful tool to work in their burgeoning information treasuries.
The book sketches the history of libraries-both traditional and digital-and their impact on present practices and future directions; offers in-depth coverage of today's practical standards used to represent and store information digitally; and, uses Greenstone, freely accessible open-source software-available with interfaces in the world's major languages (including Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic). The book is written for both technical and non-technical audiences. It is Web-enhanced with software documentation, color illustrations, full-text index, source code, and more.
Contents
Contents Preface Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Orientation: The world of digital libraries Chapter 2 Preliminaries: Sorting out the ingredients Chapter 3 Presentation: User interfaces Chapter 4 Documents: The raw material Chapter 5 Markup and metadata: Elements of organization Chapter 6 Construction: Building collections Chapter 7 Delivery: How Greenstone works Chapter 8 Interoperability: Standards and protocols Chapter 9 Visions: Future, past, and present References Glossary of terms Appendix A Installing and operating Greenstone Appendix B Greenstone source code