Seamless aggregation and integration of diverse datastreams: Essential strategies for building practical digital libraries and electronic information systems

Abstract

In the current information environment, libraries need to leverage on the latest digital technologies as well as the traditional paper technologies towards building practical digital libraries and electronic information systems. Digital libraries built exclusively out of nascent electronic publications such as e-journals, e-books, e-reference works (Web-based training programs, computer-based training programs, etc.), digital scholarly works (monographs, etc. in the public domain) and digitized documents conforming to standard digital formats are proving to be an uphill and unfinished task. Perhaps this could be the major reason why the start-success-finish ratio of most of the digital library initiatives, particularly initiated by isolated/individual libraries, is still left at alarmingly low numbers. We find the motivational and emotional bonding among the stakeholders melting down eventually as the digital library development process gets fired up. There are a host of problems the enthusiastic library fraternity face in their digital library development endeavours starting from copyright issues, technology complexities, infrastructure threats, diverse publication types, multiplicity of digital object formats and above all the publishers’ stringent policies and monopolies. It is therefore essential that the libraries adopt necessary strategies towards developing digital libraries from the lessons learnt. The monolithic and all-in-one-container approach is no longer feasible and no more advocated. It is imperative on the part of the information professional to have a componentized and a multi-system approach to knowledge technologies and information management. Seamless aggregation and meticulous integration of diverse datastreams, embracing the print as well as the electronic information, is the most appropriate strategy to be adopted and applied. This paper shares Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode's experience in creating a state-of-art digital library information system by seamlessly integrating and aggregating the print as well as the diverse and distributed digital content penetrating into its knowledge domain. The paper highlights significant features of IIMK's digital information system—the content aggregation and the content integration strategies we adopted for designing a scholarship Web portal and developing a digital library using the ‘Greenstone’ open source digital library software. The paper also highlights the role of libraries in promoting open access by setting up scholarly institutional repositories (IR). In summary, today's digital library information system is to be seen from a much wider and more holistic perspective, and provided with a much broadened meaning to hold and put together all the print, digital and electronic information available and accessible to the library.