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The University of Virginia Library is building a distributed and flexible
technology infrastructure that enhances access, manipulation, storage, distribution,
and integration of information and services throughout the University of Virginia.
The scope of the Digital Initiatives includes digital collections from UVa
and elsewhere, metadata standards to describe those collections, a Digital Library Repository to store and manage files, indexing and retrieval tools,
and tools to effectively use the collections in teaching and research.
The vision for the Digital Initiatives come in part from the work of a series
of committees that participated in the Library of Tomorrow (LofT) planning
process in 2001, meant to guide the five-year program to transform the traditional
library into the model university research library for the twenty-first century.
Overall Scope and Goals
- Build a core digital collection comprised of digital version of works
in the Library's collections, digital scholarly work created by faculty,
and licensed resources.
- Create a Digital Library Repository based on FEDORA™ to serve a research
library with broad, comprehensive electronic collections that stores collections
as "digital objects" and the metadata that describe them, manages
access, including rights management, supports indexing and retrieval, and
coordinates delivery of the collections to users. The repository service
will include a mechanism to collect new contexts and uses of our collections,
including new research categorizations and relationships, digital publications,
and online exhibitions
- Provide access to content across many format types through a single web-based
point-of-access mechanism with a number of paths pointing to it, including
subject-based "lenses" on the collections provided through the
branch libraries and subject librarians, and format-based access.
- Launch a series of Information Communities, each an online subject-based
nexus for bringing people together and making them aware of opportunities
and resources, fostered by personal communication, shared research materials,
and shared tools. Each Information Community comprises a collection of content
resources, including features promoting research themes, events, and activities
involving or of interest to the Community's members, communication services,
and directory services.
- Create a central digital production facility - the Digital Library Production
Service (DLPS) - and the necessary production workflow and capacity for
the creation of a core digital collection. DLPS performs the vital services
of coordinating production of digital collections, reviewing all collections
selected for the collections for conformity to standards, and loading files
into the Digital Library Repository.
- As the University of Virginia develops its UPortal, the Library will partner
with them to develop a Library gateway that will support personalized Library
content interfaces, allowing users to pick and choose between licensed resources,
links to web resources, and Library services to create a custom, personal
pages.
For a brief status overview, please review the PowerPoint outline from the
Digital
Library Initiatives at UVa: A Work in Progress presentation from October
29, 2002. The presentation includes a status report on the LofT recommendations.
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