Digital Libraries (Digital Libraries and Electronic Publishing)

By William Y. Arms

Book Overview

The emergence of the Internet and the wide availability of affordable computing equipment have created tremendous interest in digital libraries and electronic publishing. This book is the first to provide an integrated overview of the field, including a historical perspective, the state of the art, and current research. The term "digital libraries" covers the creation and distribution of all types of information over networks, ranging from converted historical materials to kinds of information that have no analogues in the physical world. In some ways digital libraries and traditional libraries are very different, yet in other ways they are remarkably similar. People still create information that has to be organized, stored, and distributed, and they still need to find and use information that others have created. An underlying theme of this book is that no aspect of digital libraries can be understood in isolation or without attention to the needs of the people who create and use information. Although the book covers a wide range of technical, economic, social, and organizational topics, the focus is on the actual working components of a digital library.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262511274
• ISBN13: 9780262511278
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Introduction to Digital Libraries

While I was a little bit disappointed about the lack of in-depth detail, I must say that _Digital Libraries_ provides an excellent overview of the range of issues surrounding managed collections of digital information.Arms covers everything from the economic and legal issues (nice coverage of the issues involved for publishers!) to the concepts behind object models and structural metadata. The book finishes with a glossary which should prove useful to those trying to wade through the alphabet soup around asset management and digital library technology.Given that this is an overview, I missed a good bibliography for people interested in taking any of the topics in the book to a deeper level.