Conference eyes challenges of the digital library

Conference
eyes challenges of the digital library
…………………………………………………………………

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff

Libraries of the 21st century are becoming digital, making
text, photos, video and information in other formats available
with the click of a computer mouse.

The challenges
and special problems created by this new breed of information
source are being addressed this week by specialists from
all over the nation attending the May 27-31 Joint Conference
on Digital Libraries (JCDL) at Rice.

Sponsored by
the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute
for Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society,
JCDL is an annual international forum focusing on digital
libraries and associated technical, practical and social
issues.

“Managing
digital assets presents significant research challenges
that traditional resources, such as books, magazines, journals,
videos, music and photographs, do not face,” said Geneva
Henry, executive director of Rice’s Digital Library
Initiative, who planned this year’s conference. “Scholars
benefit from easy, pervasive access to electronic information
in all forms, but how can they be assured that these assets
can be used reliably in supporting their efforts?”

Digital libraries
contain information from a wide variety of media that has
been digitized into bits of data that can be recombined
for easy manipulation and compressed for storage. Regardless
of whether the information originally appeared as text,
photo, sound or video, that information is readily accessible
in a digital library. In addition to the storage of information,
the digital library features operational systems for selecting,
collecting, organizing and distributing digital content.

Henry cited a
number of concerns facing users of digital libraries: Is
the information authentic? Do digital representations of
artifacts appropriately reflect the original item? Have
data sets, words, images, sound and other information been
modified in anyway to compromise their integrity? Does the
user have permission from the creator(s) to reproduce the
material?

These issues
and other aspects of digital libraries are being discussed
at the conference by specialists in computer science, information
technology, librarianship, archival science and other fields.

“The awarding
of this conference to Rice is a major achievement,”
said Chuck Henry, vice president and chief information officer.
“It underscores the university’s role as an emerging
national leader for digital library initiatives and ideas.”

A complete list
of conference sessions is available online at <www.rice.edu/jcdl03>.