There is a confusion concerning the accurate difference between digital and electronic libraries. Trying to make it more simple we could say that digital libraries are these which are accessible only from computers and networks, they provide digital materials and services and they include full texts and multimedia objects (Bawden & Rowlands, 1999). On the other hand, electronic libraries can provide digital materials and objects in analog format, for example video tap and audio materials (Bawden & Rowlands, 1999). With the term "digital libraries" in this blog we describe all the libraries that offer online services, these that exist exclusively online, as well as portals and platforms which can provide someone with links and sources for free access to a variety of works.
source of the picture: UNESCO retrieved on 4/12/2012
The Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the general law framework wich indicates how digital libraries should operate. However several other attempts have tried also to determine which should be the legal framework concerning the online publication of a work such as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act . Generally digital libraries need licence to publish a work and as long as they are appeared as free/open platforms, users can have access to the published works only with some differentiations depending on the digital library.
There is an interesting article in New York Times concerning the digital libraries' concept and their evolution. The notion of gathering all the knowledge created by humans and offer it for free and easily back to them just using a computer is considered to be ambitious and revolutionary, however, digitized books appear to be a more sensitive issue for a lot of people (Kelly, 2006). Despite the possitive influence that the spread of digital libraries could have in education, the gradual isolation of the traditional book and all of its advantages apparently will always be on debade (MacMilan).
Digital and electronic libraries are a complement in education process these days. Educators have the chance to enrich the learning environment with easy accessible knowledge from their computers. Books, articles, research papers, newspapers, magazines and a lot of other sources are available online (Roes, 2001). It is up to the teacher to decide among the different ways how he/she can take advantage of the opportunities that a free digital library can bring to the learning environment (Mendel). The majority of the Universities' libraries provide also digital services. Universities are adjusting to the new digital age and at the same time they offer free access to outside "visitors" (LaMartina, 2012).
You can find a list of free digital University Libraries here .
.
Some suggestions!
Unesco and United States Library Of Congress operate The World Digital Library which offers free access to books, manuscripts, films and others from all over the world and from different periods of time. According to the library's site it contains over 6000 items available for free.
The official site: http://www.wdl.org/en/
General information: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=28484&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
On the official site is written: "Europeana is a single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe". Europeana contains electronic versions from books, manuscripts, journals, films, records and many more other, all coming from the European history.
The official site: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/
General information: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/apps/projects/factsheet/index.cfm?project_ref=270933
Project Gutenberg according to the official site offers for reading and downloading over 40,000 free ebooks. Receltly it has been established the Self Publishing Portal which offers to contemporary and independent authors the opportunity to publish their work.
The official site: http://www.gutenberg.org/
The Self Publishing Portal: http://self.gutenberg.org/
The Universal Digital Library or Million book project is a project operated by Universities and Institutes under the umbrella of the India's and China 's goverment. The official site of the Universal Digital Library refers to almost 1.000.000 free accessible works.
official site: http://www.ulib.org/
general information: http://www.slideshare.net/nassour/million-book-project#btnPrevious
EuroDocs offers access to links for historical resources from all the European countries as well as digitized texts. The official site welcomes anyone who is interested to contribute to it, as it is "wiki-structured"
official site: http://eudocs.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page
If you would like to find more digital libraries you can see this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_digital_library_projects
references/sources:
Bawden, D., Rawlands, I., (1999). Digital Libraries: Assumptions and concepts. Libri. Department of Information Science, City University of London, UK. Vol 41, pp 181-191 Retrieved on 1/12/2012 from: http://www.librijournal.org/pdf/1999-4pp181-191.pdf
LaMartina, D. (2012) The Role Of University Libraries in the Digital Age. Edcetera. Retrieved on 2/12/2012 from: http://edcetera.rafter.com/the-role-of-university-libraries-in-the-digital-age/
MacMillan, G. The Digital Library: Without a Soul Can It Be a Library? Univesity Libraries,Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Retrieved on 1/12/2012 from: http://www.vala.org.au/vala2000/2000pdf/McMillan.PDF
Mendel, J., M. Education Using Digital Libraries, Chapter 3. pp 13-20. Retrieved on 2/12/2012 from: http://www.wtec.org/loyola/digilibs/chap3.pdf
Kelly, K. (2006). Scan this Book. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved on 1/12/2012 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/magazine/14publishing.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
Roes, H. (2001). Digital Libraries and Education, Trends and opportunities. D-Lib Magazine July/August 2001. Vol 7, No 7/8 ISSN: 1082-9873. Retrieved on 2/12/2012 from: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july01/roes/07roes.html
No comments:
Post a Comment