VIRTUAL INFORMATION & INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM: CHALENGES FOR KNOWLEDGE ORGANISER AND INFORMATION MANAGER
K.R.Mulla writes “ABSTRACT
Development of the Internet and the increasing popularity of the WWW have opened up a new realm of information access, storage, and delivery for librarians and information professionals. Libraries are striving to respond to the pervasive and persistent growth of global networking and manage the demand for access to this dynamic medium. Working in the trenches of the digital revolution, librarians and information professionals are beginning to offer Internet services to patrons; their work marks the beginning of the grassroots implementation of the “Public� digital library
VIRTUAL INFORMATION & INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM: CHALENGES FOR KNOWLEDGE ORGANISER AND INFORMATION MANAGER
K.R.Mulla writes “ABSTRACT
Development of the Internet and the increasing popularity of the WWW have opened up a new realm of information access, storage, and delivery for librarians and information professionals. Libraries are striving to respond to the pervasive and persistent growth of global networking and manage the demand for access to this dynamic medium. Working in the trenches of the digital revolution, librarians and information professionals are beginning to offer Internet services to patrons; their work marks the beginning of the grassroots implementation of the “Publicâ€? digital libraryK.R.Mulla writes “VIRTUAL INFORMATION & INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM: CHALENGES FOR KNOWLEDGE ORGANISER AND INFORMATION MANAGER
K.R.Mulla* and M. Chandrashakara+
* Librarian; HKBK College of Engineering, Nagawara, Bangalore-560045. Ph: + 91-80-544 –1722, 3744; Ext: 103; Fax: + 91-80-2544-3813 (M) + 91-80-94480-31969
Email: [email protected]
+ Faculty, DOSLISc. Manasagangothri, University of Mysore, Mysore-570 006.
Email: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Development of the Internet and the increasing popularity of the WWW have opened up a new realm of information access, storage, and delivery for librarians and information professionals. Libraries are striving to respond to the pervasive and persistent growth of global networking and manage the demand for access to this dynamic medium. Working in the trenches of the digital revolution, librarians and information professionals are beginning to offer Internet services to patrons; their work marks the beginning of the grassroots implementation of the “Public� digital library
With digital libraries, the notion of ‘freedom of information’ has become ossified. Capturing the attention of researchers, policy-makers, funding agencies, and practitioners alike, the concept of the “digital� or “virtual� library describes a new organizational form that is existing areas of research. Most of the well-publicized work that has been done on digital libraries has occurred in academic settings and has focused on the technical issues involved in digitizing, storing, organizing, and providing access to the content of these libraries.
There is a rang of issue and concerns that must be considered by those who are building and managing digital libraries which will vary with the setting within which the development effort takes place. Academic, special and public/School libraries operate under varying institutional, social, and economical constraints and it is reasonable to expect that researchers and practitioners exploring the possibilities of digital libraries will have access to different resources and will face different problems in their work.
In this paper an attempt has been made to the complexity of the technical challenges that must be faced and overcome in these settings is neither trivial nor easily managed. Providing connections to global information, services and networks is not the same as selecting and purchasing materials for a library collection. Determining the accuracy or authenticity of electronic information may present special problems to digital libraries. Current networking hardware and software, which make the copying and transfer of digital information simple and relatively painless, also raises serious problems of copyrights. There are equally challenging set of issues focused loosely around the concept of intellectual freedom, which also must be faced and managed.
I. Introduction: –
The library and information professional will face tremendous challenges in the 21st century Because of the confluence of the revolutionary developments in the field of digitization and networking, etc. laws of library and information science according to the spiral of scientific method. The new challenges can be met in the light of the revised laws of information science.
The emerging challenges and trends of the next millennium for library and information profession will be highlighted. Suggestions for evolving strategies to meet the challenges and opportunities available for the profession will also be delineated.
The relevance of Dr. S. R. Ranganathan’s ideas to meet these challenges will be explored. The emergence of Virtual electronic library, expert systems development and a widespread use of information networks for the dissemination and interactive use of information covering every facet of human life will become the order for the day. The vision and legacy of Dr. Ranganrhan will continue to be an inspiration and a guiding star for the emergence of the new library and information profession. To keep abreast and lead the information revolution of the new millennium the profession should strive for a dynamic approach in training and development with a new spectrum of specializations. These are essential to scenarios in information systems and related technologies; including content development, networking and more technique to meet the emerging user needs.
II. Virtual Information: –
The term electronic publishing is like intellectual property, one of those popular buzzwords that cover a multitude of things which aloe in fact disparate in certain significant ways. Electronic publishing includes not only on-line publishing but also CD-ROM and related technologies such as CDI. Of these two, CD-ROM and related technologies are much more analogous to classic publishing than on-line publishing.
Information highways have evolved over the last ten years; connecting people from around the globe for communicate and exchange ideas. One of the premises of scholarly communication is the permanent availability of published papers. However, the rapid obsolescence of both the file formats in which articles are stored and of the hardware and software needed to access and interpret these files looms as one of the major concerns related to archiving electronic journals. While he does not specifically address the topic of electronic journals, summaries the long-term problems associated with future access to all kinds of digital documents.
The content of digital files may be lost to future scholars not just because the physical item deteriorates, but because the information cannot be extracted and interpreted correctly. Words on the printed page can be viewed and comprehended without any special equipment, as long one knows the language in which they are written. Digital documents, however, are dependent on the hardware and software needed to access them. Several authors have also addressed whether or not files used to store digital information need to be “refreshed” or converted to new formats so that they may be retrieved and interpreted by whatever technology comes into use at some’ future date. While the potential obsolescence of digital files overshadows their possible physical deterioration, the actual physical lifespan of various storage formats also remains a concern.
Authors generally want the assurance that others will not alter their work after its publication. Readers must have confidence that the copy of the article they read has not been tampered with and that it represents what the author wrote and what the editorial process has vetted. While alteration of the original is remotely possible with printed works, the problem is magnified for digital documents. An article printed in a scholarly journal has certain fixity. It cannot be altered without a great deal of trouble, and such alteration would most likely be readily apparent. However, a digital document is not necessarily so stable. A simple text file could easily be modified without any indication that it had been altered. An electronic page image from a printed journal would be more difficult to alter although it could still be done. Various measures, which can help, distinguish between successive, versions of electronic documents.
A wide range of formats is available for publishing and archiving electronic journals. Some authors express preferences for one format over others, but there seems to be no clear consensus as to which is best. Simple ASCII text was prevalent in early electronic journals, but it suffered because it was unable to express complex mathematical formulae or symbols.
Some print journals are of high enough value to the scholarly community that they are bound and archived, whereas others are not. Such is also the case with electronic journals. The same general criteria librarians use to evaluate whether or not a print journal should be archived can be applied to its electronic counterparts. Some publications are considered to be scholarly resources and should be preserved, while others are more ephemeral in nature and need not be archived on a long-term basis. Scientific information has a short lifespan in general and may therefore be more suited for current access than for long-term archiving.
Publishers are unlikely to maintain long-term archives unless it is financially beneficial to them to do so. Individual libraries have traditionally have taken on the responsibility of archiving the world’s knowledge. This has generally not been a formal, organized system, but it has worked nonetheless. Multiple sites typically archived copies of various journal titles, ensuring redundancy and availability of the scholarly record. The archival record survived because there were many. Duplicate copies in distribution throughout the world. This principle should hold true for archiving electronic information sources as well. Local archiving by libraries or consortia would be more reliable than relying on publishers to do so. Issues including storage space, costs, and mirroring which must be considered prior to beginning a local archiving project. Consortia or national libraries have increasingly begun to focus attention on the archiving of electronic journals. Another possible scenario in which vendors or subscription agencies might fill this archiving need, as they have with providing back issues of print journals. The role aggregators may play in archiving electronic journals.
III. Role & Responsibilities of Librarians: –
Designing a concept of virtual libraries an expensive and resource intensive and require some technical skill. Before embarking on such a venture, it is important to consider some basic principles underlying the design, implementation, and maintenance of any virtual library. These principles apply not only to conversion projects which analog objects are converted to digital form, but to digital libraries in which the objects have always been digital form and to mixed virtual libraries in which the objects may be of both types. The principles are in some sense, self evident, yet it is easy to lose sight of them when under pressure to build a system, despite limited resources and time
a. Expect change: –
It may no be apparent why the changing technology landscape is such a thorny problems virtual library projects. Consider, for example a conversion project in which documents are converted to some digital format. If the chosen format is part of a propriety system, viewable only through a proprietary interface, when the company that markets the interface no longer supports they system and format, the digitized in a particular word processing program and the document is to preserve all of that person’s email messages for future generations. We are all too aware of our dependence on our email technology for reading such attachments. Imagine what today’s platform limitations will mean to future generations, when the content of the attachments is likely no longer accessible.
b. Know your content: –
For user, content is the most interesting and valuable aspects of virtual library. Creators of virtual libraries need to manage and make decision about their content, including selecting the objects to be included, digitizing items that exist only in analog form, possibly marking up items using standard languages like the ‘Standard Generalized Mark Language’ (SGML) and assigning metadata describing the content and other attributes of each object.
It is important for developers to decide on the nature and number of metadata elements early in a project. Although some elements may be added over time, significant costs might be associated with assigning metadata retroactively to already tagged and cataloged items in a collection. Important is deciding on the basic conceptual units, or objects the system will include, such as individual documents, photographs, videos. This decision affects the level at which metadata is assigned and how the materials are organized, accessed and archived.
c. Involve the right people: –
Ideally, individuals from a variety of background and offering a variety of expertise contribute to building a virtual library. In practice, this may not be the case, but even when it is not, knowing that building the system requires insight from a number of fields yields a better digital library.
The two fields involved most directly are computer science and library science. Computer scientists appreciate the possibilities, as well as limitations, of technology and are generally the ones who actually build the system. Librarians, including catalogers, indexers, and archivists, have long been the custodians of information resources, understanding not only the information needs of diverse audiences but the issues and use. Digital and virtual library research and development have meant that each group has had to understand the other group’s perspectives.
Also important when embarking on a project within an organization is whether its senior management supports the effort. Because most digital library projects are long-term efforts, they require the commitment of long term financial and human resources. Beginning such a project involves an implicit, if not explicit, commitment to the continuation of the work and a promise that digital materials
d. Design usable systems: –
Most digital libraries are made available over the Internet through the technology but. This is not a necessary attribute of a digital library. However, as the advantages of the web are so great, most library systems today are designed to be us accessible. The most successful web site design account for a number of factors, including the technical differences among computers and browsers, includes speed of access, and differences among users including, web navigation preferences. Browsers differ in the way they display information, even though they use the same basic communication protocols and standard markup languages.
e. Beware of data rights: –
A possible threat to open access to information arises because of intellectual property concerns. Existing intellectual property and copyright law provides economic and legal protection to publishers of physical artifacts. Fair use and first sale rights have promoted greater access to physical artifacts than might be possible otherwise, but these notions are only indirectly applicable to networked information. The Internet and web have emerged from communities that believe in sharing information, rather than restricting access to it. This has led to the perception, and perhaps even expectation that anything available on the web is freely available and may be redistributed.
f. Managing electronic resources: –
Managing electronic resources becomes a public services issue very quickly; because there is a very strong needs to create an internal and an external list of what is electronically available to library users. These tools need to be searchable by type, title, subject, vendor, etc.; most of our electronic resources are listed in our online catalog. However, by keeping a separate, searchable list, we help users who are accessing resources remotely and we help librarians manage the resources. We must keep in mind that electronic resources are not yet mainstreamed into the system. They are extremely new in the grand scheme of things, and they are certain to undergo many changes before their management becomes business as usual.
g. Ensure quality
Quality metrics can be applied to all the process and outcomes involved in creating a digital library. They are relevant to selection, metadata entry, image capture, and the overall usability of the system. Complete and correct metadata yields many benefits; incomplete or incorrect metadata affects the quality of the entire digital library.
If scanning procedures and guidelines in conversion projects involve immediate review and evaluation of the scanned images for appearance, including orientation, resolution, color and tone, there will be fewer future problems. Images that are skewed, dark, or cut off are not welcome in a digital library. Digitized video and audio need to be reviewed periodically for adherence to evolving standards and for their ability to be viewed and heard using current tools.
1. Verify delivery of 100 percent of files
2. Inspect 10 percent of file contents
3. Ensure technical requirements have been met
4. Provide feedback to contractor
5. Review any re-work
6. Prepare HTML files to provide frame work for collection
7. Create indexes
8. Quality review: test retrieval and verify links among digital elements
9. Connect new collection to the larger the larger resource
h. Creativity: –
We must be creative in how we offer access and guidance to our electronic resources. We no longer hold all keys to the doors of information. And moreover, at times there is in no perceptible door. We must continually re-evaluate how users are using, or not using electronic materials. We must be willing to try all new manners of activates to support these resources and we have to be willing to make mistakes as we experiment.
IV. Manage Information in file structure: –
The next big decision to be made is how to store the files that will comprise the digital library. There are a number of options available. Two possible methods are using a database and creating a special directory and file structure. There are many databases to choose from. Examples include Oracle, MSQL, VB.Net and Microsoft Access. If you use a PC, Access would probably be the database of choice, as it would be the most compatible with NT. Oracle is a good choice for a database on a UNIX machine. It is very reliable and flexible. There are some problems that arise from using a database, however. The main problem involves the database’s lack of flexibility. After creating a database, if a new field needs to be added, a new database needs to be created
V. Conclusion: –
The human action and the information flow shall be the two most dominant inputs to sound development strategy. For this, the right information to right user needs to be the hands of the right people at the right time. The success does not rely on individual’s knowledge, but the knowledge of the organization. Information revolution and knowledge society are the two most important buzzwords of the 21st century. But world is yet to devise a clear concept and/ or definition of information, and for that purpose the relation between information and knowledge is not so differ. The situation is so alarming that there emerges a view that nobody knows what the information is!
Reference: –
1. Mathai K.J. & Soni S.K. “Digital Library and Archives� Indian journal of Technical Education Vol. 25 (1) January-March 2002.
2. Arora R.C. & Sharma V.K “Resource Sharing / Networking for Human Resource Development� Indian journal of Technical Education Vol. 25 (2) April-June 2002
3. Sridhar.V (2002) “Libraries in the global village�. Frontline, August 30, 2002,
4. Natarajan R. ‘The Promise and Prospects of e learning�. Indian journal of Technical Education Vol. 25 (3) July-September 2002
5. Mulla K.R. “Information Technology: A Boon to e learning� New Challenges in Information Management and E-learning in the age of Globalisation: Issues and Opportunities� organized by jointly SIS & IIT CL Roorkee April 2003.
6. Express Computer, June-2003.
7. Talawar V.G. & et al., “Second ASSIST Annual Seminar on Resource Sharing & Networking of Engineering College Libraries� Bangalore December 2003.
8. Patel Santhosh “Virtual Information & Intellectual Freedom�.
9. www.yahoo search engine
10. www.google search engine”
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