Using the library today can mean traversing through a rich mix of materials. Today's learners move among electronically delivered resources, regardless of where they are located, as well as traditional print-based materials. Learning doesn't stop at the end of class, nor does it cease when the library is closed.
Consider this scenario:
An environmental studies project aims to discover the links between environmental exposure to disease and low income and minority communities. From her apartment in Tacoma, a medical geography student connects via her laptop to the UW Digital Library World Wide Web interface, and searches several databases simultaneously with a natural language query. The results of the search include references that are linked to full-text articles, pictures and graphs, all of which can be printed instantly. The student opens up a Geographic Information System (GIS) program, takes the data listing disease incidents in the state, and maps minority and low income distribution in the Tacoma area. She builds a class presentation using information from the journal articles, images from the Internet, and her disease distribution map. She e-mails the Web address of the presentation to her instructor and classmates, located in every county in Washington, and her presentation is available to them immediately through the high-speed Internet II connection. Other class participants emulate this exercise to cover the entire state.
The University Libraries is working to make such a scenario a reality. In this issue of Library Directions, we focus on the building of a Digital Library for the University community and for our constituents across the region, showcasing some of the faculty and librarians who are using digital technologies to reach out to their students and clients. Providing materials in digital format is a key strategy for enriching and extending library services and resources. This is true whether we are digitizing our unique holdings or providing access to commercially available materials.
The University Libraries' Strategic Plan, 1995-99, declares that in order to champion the University's mission, the Libraries will support
the transition ... from an entirely print-based library ... to an electronic library in which documents and other sources of information are stored in digital or other formats and can be searched or manipulated by computer, accessed remotely, and delivered electronically as needed. This concept of the electronic library assumes an increasingly predominant and powerful environment of national and international networks, networked information, and network navigation tools.... [However], for the foreseeable future, it is certain that academic research libraries will be responsible for providing a full mix of both print-based and electronic library resources.
Maintaining high quality traditional services while building a Digital Library program requires collaboration not only within the University, but also with government and industry partners. Many repositories are already online at UW Web sites to which users need guided yet powerful access. The University Libraries, with advice from a broad-based alliance of faculty, staff and students, seeks to serve as an interpretive and navigational hub for a coherently organized UW Digital Library.
Keeping our libraries "state-of-the-art" requires that we deliver the full text and images of articles and books to the user's desktop. Some of these are commercially available, whether purchased outright or leased for remote access. These include full-text monographs, journals, graphical works, datasets, maps, and the abstracting and indexing databases which serve as "finding aids" to these materials. Providing access to commercially available full-texts and indexes is a high priority as we mediate demands for all types of materials across the disciplines. See the "The Complete Article" for some recently added databases.
A second type of resource found in the UW Digital Library involves converting existing printed or other analog materials (e.g., sound and video) to digital format. We can exploit digital technologies to create new knowledge by assembling and scanning our unique and rare materials to form virtual collections. From the health sciences' Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems (IAIMS) projects to the Burke Museum Dinosaur Study Kits, digital collections, databases and works of art are found in every corner of the University. In this issue we highlight, among others, the Asahel Curtis photographic collection.
The University Libraries has many significant collections of materials of regional and historical significance. The Digital Northwest Project, an early focus of our digital imaging efforts, promotes the cross-disciplinary nature of modern scholarship and exploits the capabilities of the Internet to foster and deliver collaborative research. The Pacific Northwest, in all of its demographic, environmental, political and historical diversity, defines the project's parameters. The resulting research sites will be available for use by UW and off-campus users alike. Searchable oral histories with both the transcribed texts and the recordings themselves, the entire run of a newspaper in facsimile and in searchable text, and a statistical database are examples of the kinds of research collections that will be accessed online, anytime and anywhere, through the Digital Northwest Project.
The UWired Program's outreach efforts have already begun to contribute to the Digital Northwest Project by producing curriculum packets for Washington state history teachers. The Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest (CSPN) extends educational outreach services using digital images of library and departmental print resources. This is a collaborative effort led by Professor John Findlay, History Department, and Scott Macklin, Undergraduate Education/UWired, with librarians Carla Rickerson, Karyl Winn, Richard Engeman and Theresa Mudrock. The curriculum packets are described in this issue.
Some of our campus resources reside in the University Libraries, while others are being developed in "studios" such as the Center for Research and Technology in the Arts and Humanities (CARTAH). In this issue, Associate Professor Richard Karpen talks about technology and the arts, collaboration and the UW Digital Library. Our goal is to weave these resources together using the seamless framework for navigation being developed through the Web Initiative.
As these projects are developed, a faculty and librarian advisory council will collaborate with researchers in information literacy and technology to continually assess the effectiveness of our Digital Library tools and resources. Usability studies are being designed by information professionals both in the Libraries and across the academy, and student and faculty feedback will guide development efforts.
In lieu of additional funding, library staff are also collaborating with faculty to leverage our varied skills and resources and to provide broad and organized access to teaching and research materials. The Digital Library Initiatives Working Group has been formed to select, organize, describe and scan materials in partnership with on-campus and off-campus projects. Digital archives of images, sound and video will be stored in Content; geographic information systems and numeric databases will also be linked into the UW Digital Library.
The missing link to the digital treasures scattered across the campus is a comprehensive map. As part of the Digital Library, the University Libraries is developing coherent systems of organizing and navigating the expanding set of available digital resources with easy-to-use, yet flexible electronic interfaces. To organize, maintain and display new resources and collections, we are using both commercial and locally created access tools.
In the following article, Professor Greg Zick, Center for Information Systems Optimization (CISO), describes Content*, the high-performance multi-media database management system in use by the UW Digital Library. Content makes the organization, maintenance and display of our digital archives fast, reliable and easy to distribute around the world.
In a related article, Beth Fraser and Betsy Wilson describe the Libraries' recently formed Web Initiative Steering Committee, which is developing a Web Gateway through use of a prototyping team and high-performance tools. A digital resource database will provide the infrastructure for the Gateway. Collaboration with campus creators of communication tools, as well as learning from industry, are key to its success.
*Content requires a Java-enabled browser such as Netscape version 3.0 or higher.