diglib: FW: Online Burma Library/request for advice

["Normandy Helmer" <nhelmer@darkwing.uoregon.edu>]

FYI--Greenstone sounds interesting and it's a lot cheaper than Content.

nsh
-----Original Message-----
From: Digital Libraries Research mailing list
[mailto:DIGLIB@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA]On Behalf Of William Lund
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 8:57 AM
To: DIGLIB@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA
Subject: Re: Online Burma Library/request for advice


Dear Mr. Arnott,

Regarding your message...


>REQUEST FOR ADVICE
>
>I was planning to put all this into html using Frontpage, when along came
an Expert who said that
>in 3 years time, OBL will have 10,000 links (internal and external) and
that it would be much better
>to plonk the whole kaboodle into a database ab initio. Now since I hardly
know what a database is, I
>am not really capable of making intelligent choices on the matter -- thus
this request.



I have to agree with this statement.  I manage the systems in the Lee
Library of Brigham Young University.  We have a sizable digital archive, but
I am constantly finding librarians who have put together a "small digital
library" which has grown to the point that it is unmanageable.  If you
believe that your collection of sites will grow into the range of 10,000
links or more, I highly recommend beginning with a database driven tool.

You didn't indicate what server you were running on, (Linux, Windows, Sun,
etc.), but there is an open source digital library product called Greenstone
from New Zealand which may be useful.  You can read about it at SourceForge
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/greenstone/> or at their homepage
<http://www.nzdl.org/cgi-bin/library?a=p&p=gsdl>.  I believe it runs on
Linux and Windows NT.

The advantage of open source products is that they are free.  The
disadvantage is that support varies from being excellent to non-existent.  I
don't have direct experience with Greenstone.  Perhaps someone on the Diglib
list has.  We installed Greenstone to experiment with it and found it to be
useful.

If you have funding (your message implied that this may be a problem) there
are a number of digital archive/library products on the market.  These may
provide better support.  We are using the Hyperion product from Sirsi, a
vendor of automated library services.

>
>
>ANOTHER THING
>
>At least one library with Burma holdings is digitising its grey literature.
>How can I find out which other libraries
>are doing the same for their Burma holdings, particularly if they are going
>to have the docs on open access so
>OBL can link to them?
>
>And would it be useful if OBL maintained a page listing Burma documents
>which  its expert sub-librarians think
>ought to be digitised, to help librarians in prioritising the
>digitisation?  OBL could also list Burma documents in line for
>digitisation if librarians would tell us what there were. Theoretically,
>this would help reduce duplication. Does
>a general digitation duplication avoidance bulletin board  (DDABB) already
>exist?
>

It appears that you will be both hosting your own digitized documents as
well as linking to other archives.  It may be useful to be familiar with the
Open Archive Initiative <http://www.openarchives.org/> and LOCKSS
<http://www.lockss.org>.  The Open Archives Initiative is working on
protocols and procedures for searching and accessing content across multiple
archives.  LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe) is a project to build a
network of archives which duplicate content in such a way that intentional
or accidental destruction of a single archive does not destroy the only copy
of a digital object.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Bill Lund









===========================================
William Lund


Library Information Systems
   Department Chair


2840 Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602


email: bill_lund@byu.edu
phone: 801-378-4202
fax:   801-378-6708
URL:   www.lib.byu.edu/~wbl
===========================================