Chapter 4

Digital Objects and System Architecture

of Digital Libraries

2ND Year Information Science Dep’t INSC2092

 Digital Objects and DOI
 Digital objects or digital materials :- refers to any item that is

available digitally.
 A digital object identifier (DOI):- is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by
a registration agency (the International DOI Foundation) to identify content and
provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet.
 The publisher assigns a DOI when your article is published and made available
electronically.
 is  used to uniquely identify an electronic document or other object.
 Metadata about the object is stored in association with the DOI name
and this metadata may include a location, such as a URL, where the
object can be found. With
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 DOI examples

 DOI names in the context of references to scientific and technical

journal articles, and book chapters:

 Journal Article: "Quantum tomography: Measured measurement",
Markus Aspelmeyer, nature physics January 2009, Volume 5, No
1, pp11-12; [ doi:10.10.1038/nphys1170 ]
 Book Chapter: Held, Gilbert. Internetworking LANs and WANs
(Second Edition), John Wiley & Sons, 1998, Published Online 05
Oct 2001. Chapter 1, Network Concepts (p 1-30)
[ doi:10.1002/0470841559.ch1 ]

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 How it Works

 Publishers assign a unique alpha-numeric identification to each

publication. All DOI's begin with the number 10. here is an
example below which links to a peer reviewed journal article

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 CRITERIA FOR DIGITAL LIBRARY
o To develop a digital library system, the following criteria can be considered.
1. Low cost, including all hardware and software components;
2. Technically simple to install and manage;
3. Robust: continuous operation with very low downtime, failure rate and
variability.
4. Scalable: capable of being scaled or upgraded
5. Open and inter-operable
6. Modular: can be independently created and then accessed in different
systems.
7. User Friendly;
8. Multi-user (including both searching and maintenance);
9. Multimedia digital object enabled; and
10. Platform independent (including both client and server components)..

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Principles for digital library design (Architecture)
a. Service driven: DL architecture must be driven by the services it provides and tools
required for delivering the service.
b. Open Architecture : The architecture must be open, extensible and support
interoperability among heterogeneous, distributed systems.
C. Scalability: The architecture must be robust, scalable and reliable in a high
transaction rate

d. Preservation:-The architecture must ensure persistent access to collection of the DL.

e. Privacy:-The architecture must be sensitive to privacy issues and support both

anonymous and customized access to resources.

f. Practicality:-The architecture should represent a flexible and practical approach to

standards, recognizing the need to balance the level of information collection with
economic constraints
g. Modularity: The architecture should represent a mix of new technology and
legacy pieces, all of which must inter operate while involving at different rates.

h. Time frame: The time frame required to plan for system migrations in the next
year as well as planning for a technology generation framework should be
approximately 3 to 5 years

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 Components of digital library

• Fig. 1: Major system components

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 Cont’d…

 User Interfaces:- is the component through which users can

communicate with the Digital Library system.

User interface can be:

1. for the end user

2. for the DL administrator.

• A standard user interface is browser.

• Web browser connects to the DL client services.
• Through the client service, users can deposit items, browse search
and do other operation.
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 Cont’d…

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 Cont’d…

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 Cont’d…

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 Digital library architecture
 An architectural approach to the digital library can be discussed
under following points.

A. Notional Architecture

B. Operational System

C. Technical System

D. System Architecture

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A. Notional Architecture

 At notional level, data, metadata and meta-object are

considered.
 Data are library materials in the traditional libraries where as
digital library deals with digital information or data and metadata
is data about object in the digital library.
 A meta-object is an object that provides references to a set of
digital objects.

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 B. Operational System

 At operational architecture level, it is important how

information flow is managed through the system's
components.

C. Technical System
 The metadata is for content and is added to the digital library.
 It provides information about the content. So, Metadata and data must be
bound together logically, and there must be a robust underlying technology
to manage the logical connection through time, across platforms, and over
geographical separations, all on a networked, distributed system.

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 D. System Architecture

 The system architecture:- is rationalized relative

to the operational and technical architecture.
 It is desirable, to concern, system properties such
as scalability and extensibility can be taken into
account at the system architecture level.

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 Digital repositories

 A digital repository is a collection of online resources.

There are two primary types of digital repository: institutional and

disciplinary. Institutional repositories are collections of institution
specific resources.
 Most digital archives comply with the Open Archives Initiative
(OAI) protocol for metadata harvesting, which makes them
interoperable and cross-searchable.

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Digital Library Interoperability
o Is the ability of different systems to exchange data using
the same file formats and protocols.

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 Chapter 5

Digital Collections &

Content Organization

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Digital Collections

 In the digital library, collections are transformed

through the integration of new formats, licensed
content and third-party information over which the
library has little or no direct curatorial control.

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 Content Organization

 Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) such as:

 classification schemes:- that organize materials at a general level (such as books on a

shelf),
 authority files:- that control variant versions of key information (such as
geographic names and personal names).
 semantic networks: represents semantic relations between concepts in a network.
 ontologies are mechanisms for content organization.

These systems are used to organize content for the purpose of retrieval and
to manage a collection. This serves as a bridge between the user’s
information need and material in the collection.
 Knowledge Organization Systems help the user to identify their need
without prior knowledge of its existence.
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Common characteristics of KOS

 It imposes a particular view of the world on a

collection.
 Same entity can be characterized in different ways.
 Sufficient commonality between the concept
expressed in the system and real world object.

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Types of KOS

 Term Lists  Semantic Networks

 Authority files  Ontologies
 Glossaries,
 Dictionaries
 Gazetteers‘
 Classifications and
Categories
 Subject headings
 Classification schemes
 Relationship lists
 Thesauri
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Origin and use of KOS

KOS in the physical library:-

 Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)

 Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)

 Library of congress(lC) reflect the need to store a single item
at a single location on a shelf.

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 Abstracting and indexing service

 An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review,

conference proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject
and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's
purpose.
 This is a very fruitful way of knowledge management. The user can go
through the abstract of the document and decide whether its relevant for
further references.
 In a physical library, professional librarian can go through the document
and trace the major keywords for indexing purpose.
 This helps to user to search his needs without wasting time and can find
out exact information for his research purpose

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Planning KOS

 When analyzing how the KOS might be used with a

particular digital library it is essential to
understand the environment of the user.
 Librarian should analyze the user needs and its
necessary to locate KOSs to meet the need.

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 cont’d…

The data that metadata capture to describe an information

resource can be divided into two categories:

1. Intrinsic data

2. Extrinsic data

Intrinsic data:- are characteristics extracted directly from the

information resource such as title, author, and subject.
 It is useful for knowledge management and administrative
purpose.

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 cont’d…

 Extrinsic data:- are those related to the administration and

other non-bibliographic data such as:-
 Author e-mail
 Author department

 Password or digital signature. Which is used to facilitates

resource descriptions, identification and discovery.

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 Semantic web
 Semantic Web is a web of data that are associated in
such a way that they can easily be processed by
machines instead of human operators.
 The next generation of web, called semantic web it is
based on the machine-process able semantics of the
information, stored in the machine process able
metadata.
 This is not a separate web but an extension of the
current web in which the information is given well-
defined meaning, better enabling computers and
humans to work in cooperation.

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 cont’d….
 The prerequisite of this web, as its definition implies, is metadata
that explicitly represent semantics of data which called ontology.
 Ontologies that describe knowledge in specific area are often
connected with systems for data mining and knowledge
management.

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 Knowledge management (KM)

 Knowledge management:- is a systematic approach that

ranges from technology-driven methods of accessing,
controlling, and delivering information to massive efforts in
transforming corporate culture.
 KM: is the process of creating, sharing, using and managing
the knowledge and information of an organization.
 It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieving
organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge

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Building digital collections

Next class

We will have Quiz

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