Week 12 - Security and Economics

Arms - Economic and Legal Issues

This article captures the crux of digital information's economics from this quote:

With digital information, . . . once the first copy has been mounted online, the distribution costs are tiny. In economic terms, the cost is almost entirely fixed cost. The marginal cost is near zero. As a result, once sales of a digital produce reach the level that covers the costs of creation, all additional sales are pure profit [emphasis mine].

This made me think of all the profit that Apple is making from selling music and videos through ITunes! When the content is good, and the interface is popular, people are willing to pay =) .

Arms - Implementing Policies for Access Management

I really enjoyed this piece's explanation of security and implementation. It gave a very good piece of "design best practice" for user interface authentications embodied in this quote:

The least intrusive situation is when authentication is keyed to some hidden information, such as the IP address of the user's computer, or where the user logs in once and an authentication token is passed onto other computers[.]

I also found the illustrations showing particular roles and attributes for users and institutions to be very helpful.

Lesk - Economics

I greatly appreciated the reference to work done on library ROIs by Jose-Marie Griffifths and Don King - However, because this work is a little old, 2003, I would like to know -->

Muddiest Point:  Has there been more recent work on a library's return on investment, which give librarians strategies on showing their worth to their home institution?

Second - I believe there has been more recent work done on how administrative costs of OA journals can be borne by the authors, and not by the users. This may be a better model:  the prestige of having one's article accepted by a prestigious OA journal is greater than the small minimal cost of $2.99 for submission.

Kohl - Safeguarding Digital Library Contents and Users

Finally, I have a clear understanding on how encryption and decryption keys work in the digital world! These public and private key relationships were explained very clearly.

Week 11 - Social Issues

Borgman - Social Aspects of Digital Libraries

The great value from this early piece is summed up from these two sentences:

#1. Digital libraries are a set of electronic resources and associated technical capabilities for creating, searching, and using information.

#2. Digital libraries are constructed -- collected and organized -- by a community of users, and their functional capabilities support the information needs and uses of that community.

I am glad that, as early as 1996, researchers called for an empirical approach to digital library design, with a focus on users!

Roush - Infinite Library

This piece correctly pointed out three directions which Google's digitization project can go:

Door One - a private firm begins to purchase rights to things already in the public domain, in order to privatize them

Door Two - Parallel public and private databases coexist peacefully. Google could keep one copy of each library's collection for itself and give away the other copy.

Door Three - Private companies offer commercial access to digital books while public entities, such as libraries, are allowed to provide free access for research and scholarship.
I love this quote: "Libraries and publishing have always existed in the physical world without damaging each other; in fact, they support each other. What we would like to see is this tradition not die with this digital transformation."

Arms - A Viewpoint Analysis of the Digital Library

Again, a great emphasis on the user's perspective in light of interoperability.

Muddiest Point:  I have no questions this week - everything was easy to understand.

Week 10 - Interaction and Evaluation

Arms - Chapter 8

One of the best insights from this reading was from this quote: "The functions offered to the user depend upon . . . structural metadata." Because this reading comes from 1999, I wonder whether structural metadata is still crucial for user functionality in digital libraries.

Muddiest Point:  In 2012, which structural metadata is most crucial for user functionality?

This reading also gave me a good sense of what Java is, its distinction from JavaScript, and how Java functions.

Muddiest Point:  Dr. he, may you please tell us some best practices for selecting servers, middleware, and CMSes? For a medium-sized digital library, what type of server, database language, and middleware should a library purchase? Is there a website or journal which a librarian should follow regarding this type of selection?

Kling & Elliot - Digital Library Design for Usability

 I felt that this article was too vague. Maybe it is because it is a little outdated. I appreciate the author outlining in Section 6.3 a usability engineering life cycle model, but I want to know concrete steps:  how to conduct a user study, how to develop a questionnaire, how one should go about creating a prototype. Too vague, too little.

Saracevic - Evaluation of Digital Libraries, An Overview

This article raised more questions than it gave answers. That is fine, because these were questions which needed to be asked. Just one example would be:

To what extent are user studies also evaluation studies?
To what extent are studies of specific user behavior in digital libraries also evaluation studies?

Also, I believe his list of factors under Section 6, "Criteria,"can act as a checklist for what digital library designers should keep in mind when they begin development.

Hearst - Search User Interfaces

This reading gave solid practical advice on designing search interfaces from a user-based perspective. Its assertions were backed up with stats and studies. Thanks for having us read this article!