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A Standards Framework For Digital Library Development Programmes Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath Email [email protected] URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ This ‘gong’ gives an overview of work in progress for JISC UKOLN is supported by: A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk About Me Brian Kelly: • UK Web Focus – a Web advisory post for UK HE and FE and cultural heritage communities • Involved in Web work since January 1993, when helped set up UK HE's first (?) institutional Web service at Leeds University • JISC representative on W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) • Based at UKOLN – a national centre of expertise in digital information management • Funding by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council) 2 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Background What do we have in common: • Involvement in building digital libraries • Awareness of importance of open standards?? • Seeking to maximise interoperability across digital libraries (provided by bodies with loose affiliations with ourselves) We may also say we support open standards as a code for being anti-Microsoft! 3 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Experiences of Supporting DL Programmes Background: • Contributor to Standards Document for JISC’s eLib DL programme (1995-2000) • Contributor to Standards Document for JISC’s DNER (IE) DL programme (2000-) • Contributor to Standards Document for NOFdigitise DL programme (2001-2004) Things In Common: Expectation of use of open standards Failure to make use of open standards to expected level 4 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Lessons learnt (standards) Difficulties in defining open standards Which is an open standard: • Flash PDF • Java MS Office format Difficulties in deploying open standards: • Non-compliance HTML & CSS, RSS, XML, … • Open standards may be flawed; fail to take off; … • Lack of compliance testing Flexibility of real-world applications: • Web browsers, scrapers, indexers, … appear to do a good job with flawed resources Users happy with proprietary solutions: • Flash is popular … and we use PowerPoint, PDF, … 5 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Lessons learnt (org. issues) Shortage of technical expertise and understanding in development community: • Short term contracts • Academic salaries • Technical expertise in wrong areas Institutional concerns: • Don’t want to be test bed for Comp Sci. research interests (e.g. cultural differences between Comp. Sci and IT Services) • Want mature, tested solutions – which aren’t of interest to research community • … 6 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk What do we do? How do we reconcile tensions between: • Research community • Digital library developers and maintainers • Institutional needs • Needs of the funders • And end users There is a need to recognise contextual differences across different communities 7 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Framework For Use Of Standards External factors: Institutional issues (funds, expertise, policies, security…) Digital Library programme My interests Context Community (HE/FE); Funding; resources; mainstream vs. developmental; … Policies Standards; architectures; accessibility; usability; OSS; project management; finance; Compliance External checking; penalty clauses; self-assessment; developmental; learning EU NSF … External factors: Legal factors; cultural factors; external bodies 8 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Implications Implications of this framework: • DL service providers are keen on open standards • There is a need to recognise bigger DL picture • There is a need to take a layered approach to development of policies • Service deployment has its own problems Comments welcome 9 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk