Digital Repositories: Not Quite at Your Fingertips
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Nancy John
The digital repository is a key technology used by today's libraries to collect, organize, archive and make accessible electronic files of different types. This paper argues that while the vision of the role of the digital repository has grown sharper and more articulate, the actual practical outcome has not met the hyperbole. Building blocks continue to be developed, but user access to repositories is still in its early development. There are promising exemplars of this technology, but more effort is needed. Particularly promising is some vendor open source work that may provide the tools needed to open up these digital resources. But fundamental change in how the existence of these repositories and their content is made known to the online user community is needed; traditional metadata access and harvesting is not enough. Infusing the content with an information context may be one way to assure that repositories are a significant part not only of the library of the future but also of the world's information landscape.
© 2005 by K. G. Saur Verlag GmbH, Federal Republic of Germany
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial
- Google Scholar: The New Generation of Citation Indexes
- Digital Repositories: Not Quite at Your Fingertips
- Advertising on Library Websites: Comparing library websites in Europe and the USA
- Rolling Stock: Library and Information Services for Gypsies and Travellers
- Constructing the Pillars of a Knowledge Society: The Challenge of Providing Access to ICTs in Rural Mongolia
- Collaboration across Europe: Experience from Practice
- 2005 Annual Award for the Best Libri Student Paper
- Table of Contents: Vol. 54, No. 1–4
- Author Index: Vol. 54, No. 1–4
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial
- Google Scholar: The New Generation of Citation Indexes
- Digital Repositories: Not Quite at Your Fingertips
- Advertising on Library Websites: Comparing library websites in Europe and the USA
- Rolling Stock: Library and Information Services for Gypsies and Travellers
- Constructing the Pillars of a Knowledge Society: The Challenge of Providing Access to ICTs in Rural Mongolia
- Collaboration across Europe: Experience from Practice
- 2005 Annual Award for the Best Libri Student Paper
- Table of Contents: Vol. 54, No. 1–4
- Author Index: Vol. 54, No. 1–4
