This study contributes to the academic literature concerning social tag systems for digital libraries, addressing the identified information gap from the user’s perspective. It defines social tagging tools and tests users’ perceptions about possible practices. Moreover, it evaluates the effect when using social tagging systems in digital libraries, to assess whether such a system enhances the search process, and to identify whether there is any significant relationship between using social tagging systems in digital libraries and user satisfaction. Although developments in the field of social tags have been significant in recent years, there remains an open question regarding their usability, particularly in the context of digital libraries. Therefore, there is a need for further investigation, exploration and evaluation, and so this work contributed to this by exploring the usability of social tagging in digital libraries in terms of accuracy for research, user satisfaction and adoptability. For this study, Saudi students were given the opportunity to use the system in the United Kingdom, and their experiences, and opinions regarding ease of use and adoptability were then analysed to determine if they would assist digital libraries in Saudi Arabia to achieve their educational goals and to ensure user numbers would not decrease. A quantitative approach and a qualitative approach were combined to collect and analyse the data used in this research. The two approaches were conducted in sequential phases. In the first quantitative phase, assessment measures were administrated to Saudi students using library websites while studying in the UK. Data was collected from 175 participants, and statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS. Cross tabulation was also used to describe the numerical data and a chi-square analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between the various study variables. In the follow-up qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 15 Saudi students, to explore the proposed hypothesis in depth. This data was then thematically analysed. Results concerning the usability of social tagging in digital libraries obtained in western universities cannot be generalised to Saudi Arabian universities, because the context of Saudi Arabia differs culturally and academically (Alsurehi & Al Youbi, 1014). To address this, the study utilised a sample of Saudi Arabian students, who had had the opportunity to experience using social tags while studying abroad, specifically in the United Kingdom. Their experience might potentially be very important and this research could be considered a first attempt to examine the usability of social tags in digital libraries. Since to date few empirical studies have directly addressed the usability issues raised here in Saudi Arabia, this research also offers a contribution in this area. In addition, although this study relates to the Saudi perspective, the findings can also be considered valuable to Arab countries sharing similar cultural and academic traditions.

D.Phil. / The dependancy of academic information services on information technology is growing, particularly as information technology is the primary infrastructure of a digital library . This is compounded by the fast changing/developing nature of information technology and the trend towards digitisation. The changing nature of information technology contributes to the need to manage it. The focus of this thesis is on the management of information technology with specific reference to the changing nature of this resource. The problem addressed is: What is the most effective way (model) of managing changing information technology in academic information services and how can the disciplines of the management of change and the management of technology be used to find such a way? To solve this problem and to find a suitable model with which to manage information technology the management of change as well the management of technology was studied. In doing so 11 variables (which should be included in a management model) were distilled from the literature. Directors of academic information services in the South African tertiary sector were approached to rank the variables, an exercise that indicated the more important variables in the South African context. The ranking was as follows: Vision of the role of information technology in the enterprise Integrated strategic information technology and business plans of the enterprise Environmental scanning Available resources in the enterprise Centralised management responsibility Information technology standards and architecture Technological forecasting Market analysis The human aspect with reference to mankind's influence on and use of technology Evaluation of the information technology Risk assessment. Of these 11 variables, the first six were identified as key criteria. When existing information technology models were evaluated, these key criteria were used as the most important measures of effectiveness. However, attempts to find a suitable existing model that accommodates all six key criteria were unsuccessful. Equally, the effort to find a model which could be adapted to meet the criteria, was unproductive, though an effort was made to enhance the most promising model. In the process it has also been established that there are additional measures to which a successful model must comply. The development of a new model was embarked upon with success. The development of the model was done in two stages. The first effort was limited to the six key variables, while it was expanded in the second attempt to include all 11 variables. The model reflects both the relationships between the variables and the influences exerted between them. In designing a model for the management of information technology, it was discovered that the aim or goal of the model should be an integral part of the model. Integrating the goal resulted in clarity and contributed towards understanding the relationships and influences between the variables. In evaluating the model after completion, it was concluded that none of the 11 variables were unique or restricted to the tertiary sector or to South Africa. This conclusion is significant because it implies that the model can be applied as a general model for the management of information technology, irrespective of economic sector or geographic location.

The thesis presents a conceptual literature review of the subject of open access as it is reflected in literature relevant to digital library research. An approach to the grounded theory method specifically created for the purpose of performing a literature review is applied to 70 articles and conference proceedings found in the databases LISA and LISTA. Through the coding of the literature five categories that conceptually order the subject of open access emerged; Open Access, Authors, Scholarly Communication, Libraries and Librarians, and Developing and Transitional Countries. The conceptual relations of the categories are discussed in the presentation of the categories. The emerged theory is then validated through a review of earlier literature, which focused on literature reviews on open access. A model of the emerged theory with explanatory narratives are then presented in the concluding chapter.

The purpose of this project is to make available a Web-based Library, a web application developed for the Department of Computer Science at CSUSB to manage student projects/theses and faculty papers. The project is designed in accordance with Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern using the Jakarta Struts framework and iBATIS Data Mapper framework from Apache Software Foundation, JavaServer Pages (JSP), and MySQL database.

This research project report discusses the development of a commercial, consignment-based library (a) of reusable software components to be accessed using the World-Wide Web. The research project consists of two parts: the development of a prototype system that provides interface and information retrieval functionality for such a system, and an analysis of the technical and business issues involved in making the library operational as a commercial entity. <p>The prototype system uses a hypertext browser and a query-based search mechanism to access descriptions of reusable software components; these descriptions are structured by a variation of a faceted classification system. The issues addressed include the classification and description of reusable software components; methods of retrieval, especially library browsing methods based on component classification; and analysis of incentives for reuse. / Master of Science

Cultural heritage institutions, including galleries, libraries, museums, and archives are increasingly digitizing physical items and collecting born-digital items and making these resources available on the Web. Metadata plays a vital role in the discovery and management of these collections. Existing frameworks to identify and address deficiencies in metadata rely heavily on count and data-value based metrics that are calculated over aggregations of descriptive metadata. There has been little research into the use of traditional network analysis to investigate the connections between metadata records based on shared data values in metadata fields such as subject or creator. This study introduces metadata record graphs as a mechanism to generate network-based statistics to support analysis of metadata. These graphs are constructed with the metadata records as the nodes and shared metadata field values as the edges in the network. By analyzing metadata record graphs with algorithms and tools common to the field of network analysis, metadata managers can develop a new understanding of their metadata that is often impossible to generate from count and data-value based statistics alone. This study tested application of metadata record graphs to analysis of metadata collections of increasing size, complexity, and interconnectedness in a series of three related stages. The findings of this research indicate effectiveness of this new method, identify network algorithms that are useful for analyzing descriptive metadata and suggest methods and practices for future implementations of this technique.

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No description available.

Digital libraries (DLs) are complex information systems and therefore demand formal foundations lest development efforts diverge and interoperability suffers. In this dissertation, we propose the fundamental abstractions of Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios, and Societies (5S), which allow us to define digital libraries rigorously and usefully. Streams are sequences of arbitrary items used to describe both static and dynamic (e.g., video) content. Structures can be viewed as labeled directed graphs, which impose organization. Spaces are sets with operations that obey certain constraints. Scenarios consist of sequences of events or actions that modify states of a computation in order to accomplish a functional requirement. Societies are sets of entities and activities, and the relationships among them. Together these abstractions provide a formal foundation to define, relate, and unify concepts -- among others, of digital objects, metadata, collections, and services -- required to formalize and elucidate ``digital libraries''. A digital library theory based on 5S is defined by proposing a formal ontology that defines the fundamental concepts, relationships, and axiomatic rules that govern the DL domain. The ontology is an axiomatic, formal treatment of DLs, which distinguishes it from other approaches that informally define a number of architectural invariants. The applicability, versatility, and unifying power of the 5S theory are demonstrated through its use in a number of distinct applications including: 1) building and interpreting a DL taxonomy; 2) informal and formal analysis of case studies of digital libraries (NDLTD and OAI); 3)utilization as a formal basis for a DL description language, digital library visualization and generation tools, and a log format specific for DLs; and 4) defining a quality model for DLs. / Ph. D.

Many scholarly tasks involve working with contextualized fine-grain information, such as a music professor creating a multimedia lecture on a musical style, while bringing together several snippets of compositions of that style. We refer to such contextualized parts of a larger unit of information (or whole documents), as subdocuments. Current approaches to work with subdocuments involve a mix of paper-based and digital techniques. With the increase in the volume and in the heterogeneity of information sources, the management, organization, access, retrieval, as well as reuse of subdocuments becomes challenging, leading to inefficient and ineffective task execution. A digital library (DL) facilitates management, access, retrieval, and use of collections of data and metadata through services. However, most DLs do not provide infrastructure or services to support working with subdocuments. Superimposed information (SI) refers to new information that is created to reference subdocuments in existing information resources. We combine this idea of SI with traditional DL services, to define and develop a DL with SI (an SI-DL). Our research questions are centered around one main question: how can we extend the notion of a DL to include SI, in order to support scholarly tasks that involve working with subdocuments? We pursued this question from a theoretical as well as a practical/user perspective. From a theoretical perspective, we developed a formal metamodel that precisely defines the components of an SI-DL, building upon related work in DLs, SI, annotations, and hypertext. From the practical/user perspective, we developed prototype superimposed applications and conducted user studies to explore the use of SI in scholarly tasks. We developed SuperIDR, a prototype SI-DL, which enables users to mark up subimages, annotate them, and retrieve information in multiple ways, including browsing, and text- and content-based image retrieval. We explored the use of subimages and evaluated the use of SuperIDR in fish species identification, a scholarly task that involves working with subimages. Findings from the user studies and other work in our research lead to theory- and experiment-based enhancements that can guide design of digital libraries with superimposed information. / Ph. D.