Introduction to Digital libraries

Introduction to Digital
libraries in an African context
Antonin Benoît DIOUF
4th CERN-UNESCO school on Digital libraries,
28 November-2 December 2016
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana

Definitions
"Digital library"
 term which is used to describe distributed access to
collections of digital information
 is a collection of material organized for access for a
specific purpose, by the users of the electronic documents
 the material is in digital form: consist of or incorporate
various media (photographs, video, sound recordings, text
and page images); native or converted (data) in digital
form for use in a computer
 the access is provided through search engines using
metadata (bibliographic and descriptive information
about the contents), making the information accessible for
use.
can be also called "Repository"
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Characteristics
"Digital library"
 it can be accessed remotely (key aspect), usually
through a web browser
 the users for whom it is intended are a defined
community or group of communities that may be
scattered around the world, or may be in the
same geographical location
 can be of various type
3

Challenge 1: Dissemination & Access
 because of lack of Physical libraries, digital libraries
must be built to increase access to information &
knowledge. It’s cheaper to build a digital library than a
physical one  Another advantage is Portability.
the availability of the African content is still very low in
the World Digital ecosystem and the World Knowledge
economy
 Scientific knowledge and Scientific Information
 Cultural heritage
 Governmental publications…
even the dissemination towards our own communities
and users is very low
4

• Our actions as librarians,
while building Digital
libraries, must take in
account these facts.
• We must think about
strategies aiming to reach
our communities and
allow them to improve
their access (remotely) to
information and
knowledge including
those in local languages
6
Some dissemination
limiting factors

Challenge 2: Preservation
Content: backbone of the digital Library
 cultural heritage remains undocumented due to a lack of
capacity to record, transfer and disseminate information
 Indigenous knowledge, (indigenous portal): stored in
people’s minds and passed on through generations by word
of mouth rather than in written form, it is vulnerable to
rapid change (Greyling ; Zulu, 2010)
 Involve communities in content creation and content
development
 Interaction between the library, the community and the
technology used  Multimedia documents
(Documentaries, audio, …)
7

Textual content: more easy to identify and to collect
Academic and Research publications: theses and
dissertations, research outputs, articles, conference
papers,…
Official publications: development plans, policy
documents,…
NGOs and other International organizations
publications: reports, studies,…
essential component of a Digital library
More on preservation: http://handbook.dpconline.org/
(Digital preservation handbook)
Challenge 2: Preservation (2)
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Economy, 146385
Agriculture,
35963
Population,
40994
Planning, 59276
Industrie,
19218 Commerce;
25668
Employment &
Labour, 8957
Migration,
1598
Number of pages per subject
1801
474 422 383
257 188 156
33
Number of titles per subject
Some facts of a Current
digitization project
Publication period: 1960-2009,
regarding 49 African countries 9

The ultimate challenge:
DEVELOPMENT
 Preservation and Access to information and knowledge via the
Digital library must be linked to the local and national agenda of
Development
 Current governants must have access and refer to the previous
governmental publications as basis for the new development plans
to avoid them "reinventing the wheel" or "going in circles"
 Students must have access to knowledge created by the past and
build new knowledge based on them
 Local communities must be aware of the Development agenda, to
self-appropriate it and take the best way forward. Up-Down
approach
 Politicians and officials ‘‘need to learn from local communities to
enrich the development process’’. Bottom-Up approach
 Libraries are the natural hubs to find and to refer to
all these contents (Knowledges), especially via Digital
libraries and portals that can be acceded from
everywhere and in variety of formats including those
that are suitable for iliterate people.
10

Technological issues
are a big part of this CERN-UNESCO school and relate to:
Software: a huge number of Open source systems are
available for free (Dspace, Greenstone, Invenio,
Eprints…) to manage content description and
dissemination.
Infrastructure: must be improved at an acceptable
level that can:
 allow storage and access the digital content (Server
capacity)
 distance dissemination (Internet speed, bandwidth)
Training skills:
 for a daily management of data and content (Librarians)
 for maintainance of equipments and network installations
(IT managers)
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Relating to local languages:
 “There is great diversity in Africa, and there are many different
native people groups. Many of these people groups have their own
languages, and there are well over a thousand languages
recognized on the African continent. Because of this, the African
continent has the highest level of multilingualism in the world”
(http://www.whatarethe7continents.com/africa-continent/)
 The challenge is to integrate these languages in the wide use of a
number of cultural heritage metadata schemas, implicating the
development of interoperability techniques that facilitate unified
access to cultural resources in Africa. (e.g. of these techniques is
the Ontology-Based Integration). See also:
https://www.ics.forth.gr/_publications/871-871-1-PB-1.pdf
 What is an ontology? : see more at
https://marinemetadata.org/guides/vocabs/ont/definition
Technological Issues (2)
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Economical, Legal, Social issues
Budget: it is costly to build and maintain a Digital
library, even if the software is free. Funding from
national or institutional budget ; collaboration and
cooperation through and with international partners
and funders (ADLSN, BLDS, etc.) are possible ways.
Copyright matters are a big issue for Libraries. In any
case refer to the national laws and international
conventions and treaties. Online course available that
adresses this issue with several case studies:
https://cyber.harvard.edu/research/copyrightforlibrarians
Marketing digital libraries is crucial to reach the
potential users. (Web referencement, presentations,
articles in specialised reviews and journals,…)
13

©2015NormanJacknis,AllRightsReserved
[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/131572189014/8-trends-create-8-
opportunities-for-21st-century]
Trends that Create Opportunities For
21st Century Libraries
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Impact
Resulting of past CERN-UNESCO Schools: Rabat (2010), Dakar
(2011), Geneva (2011, 2012)
http://www.unidep.org/library/
Since 2012
15

Impact (2):
Virtual Library project of 8 main academic
libraries of the UEMOA (West African Economic
and Monetary Union): Invenio workshops in
Senegal, Benin (2014) and deployment in 2015
USAID/ERA (Education and Research in
Agriculture) project for Agricultural libraries in
Senegal: Invenio Workshop (2015)
Network of National Archives, Libraries and
Museums of Central Africa (10 countries):
Invenio presentation & workshop (2015, 2016)
Invenio software adopted
16

Thank you!
Social media: @tonnyben
AntoninBenoîtDIOUF
18

Introduction to Digital libraries

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