Evolution of Digital Library

As an essential eLearning solution, digital libraries drive online education and enterprise skilling. Schools, colleges, universities, and other educational institutions set up digital libraries to deliver digital learning content to students in various formats and languages. Likewise, companies and startups build digital libraries to reskill and upskill employees by providing 24/7 access to multi-format digital content.

Enterprises and educational institutions these days implement cloud-based digital library software. In addition to curbing infrastructural and staffing costs, the cloud-based digital library can be customized, configured, and scaled according to the precise organizational needs and goals. However, digital libraries, like other software solutions, have been evolving consistently. We can understand the evolution of digital library by discussing 7 important stages.

7 Important Stages in the Evolution of Digital Library

1. Concept Ideas

Since the 1890s, many thinkers have been discussing the concept of digital libraries. In 1895, Paul Otlet, often considered the father of information science, transformed traditional libraries by introducing an information retrieval tool. The tool led to the creation of an online public access catalog (OPAC)) that unifies and categorizes information using index cards.

In 1965, J.C.R. Licklider described the potential of computers to automate conventional libraries and enable remote access. However, the digital library emerged in its modern form only after the development of the World Wide Web (W3) by Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues in 1989. W3 facilitated remote access to digital documents by standardizing the communication between servers and clients.

2. ArXiv

In 1991, Paul Ginsparg founded an online e-print archive called arXiv. The free distribution service made open-access scholarly writings on various scientific disciplines accessible to scholars and researchers. The project continues to collect 2.4 million scholarly articles in physics, mathematics, computer science, and other fields of science. Also, it acted as the prototype for many institutional repositories. Many universities set up institutional repositories to collect and digitalize research papers submitted by faculties and research students.

3. Digital Library Initiative

In 1994, eminent educational and research institutions in the USA launched the digital library initiative (DLI). Six major American universities participated in the project intending to develop digital library architecture and technologies. Also, they focused on standardizing the process of capturing, organizing, storing, delivering, and accessing digital information and content. Unlike arXiv, DLI resulted in the digitization of a wide variety of information and content, including scientific research. At the same time, the collaboration resulted in standardizing research and development related to digital libraries.

4. Open Architecture

In 1995, the Networked Computer Science Technical Research Library (NCSTRL) added more power and flexibility to digital libraries. The technology introduced an open architecture that made digital library designs public and universal. An organization can leverage the open architecture concept to set up digital libraries by overcoming restrictions associated with proprietary or licensed software.

The architecture enabled organizations to customize and extend digital libraries according to their current needs. At the same time, it helps users gather additional information about digital content by introducing library metadata. Content creators can convey important information like author, publication date, and subject headings by adding library metadata to their content.

5. Digital Public Library of America

The American project focused on developing a large-scale digital library. It made a wide range of content accessible to learners by digitalizing digital holdings. Since 2013, the project has been expanding an open-access content repository. The content repository currently includes over 29 million images, videos, texts, and sound from public libraries across the United States of America.

The database enables learners to access digital content in various formats without visiting public libraries in person. Also, a learner can access books, photographs, maps, letters, government documents, and artwork in digital format regardless of his location. The project contributed hugely towards making readers switch from conventional libraries to digital libraries.

6. On-Premise Digital Libraries

Many educational institutions and enterprises set up on-premise digital libraries using software running on their IT infrastructure. They install on-premise digital library software locally in an internal IT environment. Also, they deploy dedicated IT staff to maintain, update, customize, and secure the on-premise digital library software regularly.

The on-premise software enabled large organizations to set up digital libraries. However, the high infrastructural and staffing costs make it challenging for small businesses and startups to set up onsite digital libraries. The popularity of cloud computing impacted the popularity of on-premise digital libraries directly and negatively.

7. Cloud Digital Libraries

Cloud computing made digital libraries accessible and affordable by minimizing resource and cost constraints.  The cloud-based software is hosted on remote servers. Also, it is maintained and managed by the provider. Hence, an enterprise or educational institution can use the digital library over the Internet without investing in infrastructure and IT staff.

At the same time, the provider customizes, configures, and scales the digital library according to the precise needs of an organization. Leading cloud-based digital library software provides off-the-shelf content and share curated content. In addition, they enable learners to access digital content in various formats and languages using computers or mobile devices.

Conclusion

Eminent thinkers and scientists contributed to the evolution of digital library. Also, the digital library in its current form is driven by both existing and emerging technologies. Hence, the evolution of digital libraries is not linear. Also, many individuals and organizations collaborated with each other to standardize and modernize digital library architecture.

We cannot attribute the development of digital libraries to specific persons, organizations, or technologies. At the same time, Industry 4.0 technologies have transformed digital libraries in a short amount of time. For instance, cloud computing makes digital libraries easier to configure, customize, and scale. Likewise, artificial intelligence technologies make the software effective in sharing curated content and recommending insightful content.

Also, many organizations streamline the online learning or corporate training process by integrating the cloud-based digital library software with widely used eLearning tools like learning management systems (LMSs) and virtual classroom software. The integration makes the digital library a core component of unified learning systems. Hence, digital libraries will continue to evolve by leveraging next-generation technologies.