Re: Issues and recommendations

On 4/14/11 6:23 PM, Thomas Baker wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 09:27:04AM -0700, Karen Coyle wrote:
>> We also want to make clear that our use of the word "library" does not
>> limit the report to formal institutions with "library" in their name,
>> but anyone providing library-like services. Thus, a definition is
>> needed, and we propose for discussion:
>>
>> "Library in this report refers to a collection of information
>> resources curated for a designated community and providing services
>> around those resources. In this definition, libraries may be public or
>> private, large or small, and are not limited to any particular types
>> of resources."
>
>> From Wikipedia [1]:
>
>      A library is a collection of sources, resources, and
>      services, and the structure in which it is housed; it
>      is organized for use and maintained by a public body,
>      an institution, or a private individual. In the more
>      traditional sense, a library is a collection of books. It
>      can mean the collection itself, the building or room that
>      houses such a collection, or both. The term "library"
>      has itself acquired a secondary meaning: "a collection
>      of useful material for common use." This sense is used in
>      fields such as computer science, mathematics, statistics,
>      electronics and biology. It can also be used by publishers
>      in naming series of related books, e.g. The Library of
>      Anglo-Catholic Theology.
>
> For the purposes of the LLD XG report, I'm wondering if it's
> problematic to define libraries in terms of "service".  While
> the notion of service may be central to the missions defined
> for most of the libraries we have in mind in preparing this
> report, I see their service function as somewhat tangential
> to the provision of a curated collection as linked data --
> unless one were to extend the notion of "service" to include
> things like the preparation of metadata and provision of
> "servers" that "serve" the information :-)
>
> I'm thinking specifically of "digital libraries" -- a concept
> which, like "libraries without walls", burst onto the scene in
> the early 1990s (the NSF Digital Library Initiative started
> in 1994).  According to NSF, "the notion of a 'digital
> library' is a metaphor for thinking about data collections
> in a networked world" [2].
>
> We should perhaps distinguish between the TARGET AUDIENCE of
> this report -- existing libraries in the service-oriented,
> brick-and-mortar sense -- and INSTITUTIONS THAT MIGHT
> FOLLOW ITS RECOMMENDATIONS.  We should perhaps not assume
> that existing libraries will always be the institutions best
> suited to publish "library data" in the linked data space.
> We should perhaps leave room for "libraries" in the more
> metaphorical sense, to include "digital libraries" optimized
> for curating and serving up collections of digital resources,
> perhaps in the context of institutions yet to be invented.
>
> As I see it, we are concerned here about the culturally
> significant data held by libraries and about the application
> of the "library ethos" to its curation, structured access,
> long-term preservation, and more specifically to its provision
> as linked data.  We could define libraries as the "target
> audience" of the report while remaining agnostic about whether
> existing libraries can or should be the ones to carry out
> all of its recommendations.
>
> Tom
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library
> [2] http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/cyber/digitallibraries.jsp


For what I'm concerned with, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europeana defines Europeana as a library (among other things ;-) ) and I find that quite alright.
We're indeed offering a (digital library) service which is similar in nature (though the scope is not the same) to what some "traditional libraries" provide.

I think the proposal Karen introduced is a good fit (provided that an explicit mention of digital and/or web resources is made) and don't feel the need to discuss it endlessly. In my (maybe not-so-humble) opinion, every organization or individual willing to provide or consume a (linked data-related) service similar to what any identified "traditional library" may provide or be interested in, can count in our report's audience :-)

Cheers,

Antoine

Received on Tuesday, 19 April 2011 14:52:47 UTC