Towards a general theory of the Digital Library

Mel Collier

Director of Strategic and Operational Planning, Dawson Holdings PLC
Professor of De Montfort University, UK

Introduction

The digital library is a curious entity. It has been long predicted, but the innovations which made it a reality only recently were not generally foreseen. Although it is a reality, it is a diffuse concept which is being manifested in many different forms. Although professionals and users alike realise that it is critical for the future, there is much uncertainty about what it means for culture, learning, democracy, commerce, jobs, and society in general.
Debate about the digital library is clouded by emotion and self-interest. Emotion plays its part because the digital library is seen by some as a threat to the book, and a threat to the book is an attack on culture itself. Self-interest enters the fray because in the instability provoked by the digital library there will be winners and losers, whether in business, or the professions. Depending on your point of view the digital library can be the end of libraries as we know them, or the salvation of libraries as we know them.
The growth of digital libraries has been phenomenal. Ten years ago the projects could be enumerated singly, such as those at Carnegie Mellon and Cornell Universities and in the public library sector at Pikes Peak, Colorado. When my university commenced the first UK digital library project, ELINOR, in 1991 true digital library projects were still very few. Since then, the World Wide Web and its associated products and standards brought about a sea change whereby digital library projects now are simply too numerous to mention, but do we yet know what we mean by the digital library, and if so do we know how to handle it?

Definition and theory

Perhaps we should ask ourselves if and why definitions and theory are needed. After all, the Internet has famously changed the world of information without much formality of that kind. It could be argued that market forces have led us to the present state of the art and can be relied on to lead us further. One compelling software invention can overturn a mass of theory. On the other hand, it is argued, principles of information management hold firm whatever the technology, and practitioners just need to adapt themselves to the new techniques in order to proceed.
One of the early authors on the electronic library, and we note here that the terms electronic library and digital library are synonymous, was Kenneth Dowlin who wrote a book entitled ``The Electronic Library'' in 1984.(1) He defined the characteristics of the electronic library as follows: There is nothing to disagree with there, so given the date of the work, this characterisation stands up quite well. However from a perspective thirteen years on we say much more. In 1991 when we started ELINOR at De Montfort we used the following working definition: That definition was intended to convey that a book library, however highly automated, is not a digital library. A library becomes digital when the majority of its resources are held in electronic form. That definition itself began to look dated with the phenomenal speed of development over the next three years and in 1994 we arrived at this, which I now propose to revise. We should note at this stage that the term hybrid library is creeping into use. It is not a term to which I have any objection, it just does not help us very much. It simply expresses the obvious, that books and electronic materials in many libraries will continue to co-exist.
The virtual library, on the other hand, does need to be defined. It is the extension of the digital library to a state where there is no single physical access locale and there may be no single point of electronic storage. One can imagine a virtual library where the users and the holdings are totally distributed and the answer to every search is assembled ``on the fly''. We can imagine it, but we cannot see how at this stage such an entity would be managed, and we have said already that a requirement for the digital library is that it should manageable. However let us hazard the following definition for the virtual library: Returning to the question of whether definitions and theory are needed, the quick answer is that if there is no digital library theory, there would be no profession of digital librarianship. More important is the recognition that whilst some principles of information management endure, information technology has changed the world. All revolutions cause turbulence and anarchy, after which there is a new order. We are at that stage in library and information services. A framework is needed because some extremely basic issues about the digital library must be addressed, namely:

The lessons of previous work

The last few years have seen massive development. From a situation only six or seven years ago where digital libraries were the tentative proposition of a few enthusiasts and often regarded with scepticism and hostility, they are now receiving endorsement and support at national and international level. In the United Kingdom, for instance the eLib programme in higher education has now funded over sixty projects involving the majority of UK universities. This programme has had a massive impact on strategic thinking in the university sector, not only on how libraries will develop, but more fundamentally on how teaching, learning and scholarship will be conducted in the digital age. Strategic planning will be developed further when the recent Dearing Report (2) into higher education has been fully discussed. What everyone seems to agree is that learning will become more student centred and resource based. In that scenario we ask ourselves, where will be the dividing line between the digital library and the virtual university? Change has been so rapid that the first lesson learned is the first of my list: Academic libraries have tended to lead digital library development, but the above lessons apply equally to public libraries. However we must recognise that public libraries have a special role to play in the emerging information society. In the last analysis academic libraries exist to serve their host organisation and their direct customers: staff and students. Public libraries underpin the literacy of the people, access to information supporting citizenship and democracy, and of course leisure and culture. As public libraries become more engaged with the digital library than hitherto, even more fundamental questions will be asked and lessons learned which affect the fabric of society. In Britain, the Library and Information Commission, on which I have the honour to serve, has launched a public library networking plan, entitled ``New Library: the people's network'' (3) which will propose to government a national infrastructure of communications, training and content to modernise public libraries for the next century. Already the Secretary of State has welcomed the proposals stating that they could be a defining moment for public libraries.

Characteristics of the digital library

In order to understand the magnitude of change which our theory of the digital library must encompass let us try to describe the characteristics of the digital library and to do so independently of the library environment: academic, national, public or commercial.

Issues

Funding

Funding for new technology has always been a problem for libraries. As library automation developed over the last thirty years budgets have changed substantially to the extent that information technology infrastructure is now a major item. Although adjustment for automation was often difficult in tight fiscal circumstances, the problem was eased because it could be handled incrementally over time. With the advent of the digital library we do not have so much leeway. Electronic information gets added to the portfolio without corresponding reduction. Generally speaking libraries do not envisage huge improvements in budgets to allow for digital information. Digital information may well expand at the expense of printed information, which would be a painful process and exacerbate the polarisation of books versus electronic materials. It is possible that operational savings could be made which could help, but not I suspect sufficient within the library budget to cope with a step increase in content acquisition. However we should look more widely than the library budget. In universities, for instance, there is much talk of developing student centred, resource based learning, both on pedagogic and on financial grounds. We are not yet seeing the restructuring of teaching and learning, together with the associated restructuring of expenditure away from teacher centred activity towards resource based activity. This will surely have to come. As organisations move towards being learning organisations, or knowledge based organisations this type of restructuring will need to occur in many types of enterprise.
Returning to the library, a new library economy will need to be developed. It is not enough to say that electronic information is expensive, without making valid comparisons with the alternatives and measuring the relative cost benefits. These could be intangible, but nevertheless hugely important. How do you measure, for instance the benefit of making citizenship information available to the population, compared to its cost? How would you calculate the benefit the library brings through electronic information of increasing a university's student numbers by fifty per cent? Our thinking is not well developed but it needs to be quite soon and the sort of factors entering the calculation will be: All of these factors will need to be compared with the traditional library economy, including all the associated overheads of print-based libraries, which are often ignored.

Free or fee

The debate as to whether libraries should offer fee based services, or be free at point of use has intensified with the development of online and business information services. The totally electronic library will require this issue to be faced more than ever before. As a point of principle, this is most sensitive in public libraries, but it is an issue for all. As the electronic information market grows ever larger, and budgets remain constrained, the pressure for income generation will become more intense. Although I am a firm supporter of the principle of free at point of use for an agreed core of information, particularly in public libraries, in my view the case for a mixed economy will become irresistible.

Authority

Authority is an important issue for the quality of library services. In the past we relied on the process and the reputation of publishers to provide document authority.. Authority was further supported by the librarian, who by professional and subject knowledge guaranteed the integrity of the collection. In the electronic world this authority us threatened in two ways: The former is of course not new, but it is the scale of the problem which will require attention in our new theory. The latter we can reasonably expect to be solved by emerging watermarking and ``cryptolope'' techniques such as those developed by IBM, but in an increasingly commercially driven world our theory will need to alert librarians to the risks of supplying incorrect material or that which infringes copyright or paternity rights.

Censorship

Librarians have long been supporters of freedom of information and against censorship in general. It is one of the basic principles of librarianship. There is, however a growing recognition that the unprecedented availability of pornographic, violent and otherwise illegal or undesirable content will require new policy approaches in the electronic library. Whereas in the past, librarians would protect children through their acquisitions policy, the electronic library will require active, preventative measures. I see this as a major issue when we come to network public libraries in UK.

Social inclusion

Like many new developments, the electronic library has potential for both positive and negative outcomes. Nowhere is this more critical than in the area of social inclusion. For instance, information technology is raising great expectations for improving access for the disabled, through specialised applications and through home access. People in rural areas or in minority community groups now have opportunities for access to information in general or to specialised local services. At the same time the gap between the rich and the poor, at least in Britain, is widening and there is a clear danger that the increasing commercialisation of the library and information market will exclude sections of the community. On the wider scale, the ever increasing dominance of the English language threatens global cultural diversity. These and the next issue I shall raise are indeed weighty issues for our new theory to encompass.

Democracy and citizenship

In various countries, there is a strong tradition of support for freedom of information. In Britain, I regret there is no such tradition. From central government there has been a tradition of secrecy, often taken to absurd lengths. This reminds us that in Britain we are subjects, not citizens. However we have great hopes that our new government with its high ideals and huge majority will promote citizenship through information. This is one of the main thrusts of our proposals for the ``People's Network''. On the global level, the electronic library, which transcends borders, is potentially a great safeguard against secrecy, propaganda and disinformation.

Libraries as publishers

Many of these big issues lead to the realisation that libraries have the opportunity, more than that, the responsibility to publish. The technology is not a problem. Public libraries are the natural collectors and publishers of government, community, cultural and leisure information at the local level. University libraries may yet decide to publish their faculty's academic work rather than utilise the existing supply chain.

Towards a general theory

In thinking about this paper, I thought it would be useful to review the topics that seem to be forming the core principles which would underpin a general theory. Two Internet sites in particular were helpful, namely Rutgers (4) and Berkeley (5). We see that some of the topics are of course carried forward from traditional library management. Others are entirely new or are not new, but have not hitherto been of such central importance to librarians. This leads to a set of assumptions which perform two functions. They expand and elaborate the definition of the digital library with which I have been working for three years. Second, they provide, I propose, the framework within which our new general theory of the electronic library can be developed. If we can elaborate the body of theoretical and practitioner knowledge around these principles, I propose that we will be well on the way to managing the electronic library, and developing a theory of the electronic library. This will provide both a cultural and economic framework within which digital library professionals can form principles of good practice for operational purposes and for ongoing training of our people..

References

(1)
Dowlin, K.E. The electronic library. Neal-Schuman, 1984
(2)
Higher education in the learning society. The national committee of inquiry into higher education. Chairman: Sir Ron Dearing. Summary report. HMSO, 1997. ISBN:185838253X
(3)
New library: the people's network. Library and Information Commission, 1997.
(4)
URL:http://aultnis.rutgers.edu/texts/DRC.html Graham, P.S. Requirements for the digital research library.
(5)
URL:http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/UCDL/report.html The University of California digital library: a framework for planning and strategic initiatives.