Appendix 1

Document Contents

The Era of Digitization: transforming scholarly texts into digits

Presenters:

. Marilyn Deegan, University of Oxford, UK;
. Harold Short, King's College, London, UK.

Universities and research libraries throughout the world are discovering the benefits of communication and information technology in sharing their resources and expertise, and in the last ten years the concept of the digital library has been growing in importance. No two libraries are the same, and therefore no two digital libraries are the same, but digital libraries are being developed to serve particular institutions or communities of scholars and students in ways that grow organically out of expressed needs. In particular, digital libraries are beginning to be seen increasingly as something which is part of a hybrid library (a library which has materials in a whole range of formats: documents, CDs, microfilms, on-line materials, etc), and we will be placing our discussions of digital matters firmly within that context. Some institutions are becoming large-scale suppliers of information (national libraries, large research libraries), and for others the consumption of digital information is of more relevance than its production. We are moving away from the necessity of ownership and towards the benefits of accessóthe ëlibrary without walls' is becoming a reality, and there is a democratization of access between large, rich institutions and smaller, less well-resourced onesóalthough there are still some problems of information haves and have nots in this environment. But there are many issues which scholars and information professionals need to understand and deal with in this rapidly moving field.

This workshop is aimed at academics, librarians, archivists, and other information professionals who wish to find out about new developments in digital and hybrid libraries throughout the world. Little prior knowledge is needed, though basic familiarity with computer communication (email and web browsing) would be useful. The workshop is NOT about technology, so we will avoid jargon as much as possible. Participants will be introduced to a range of concepts that are important in digital library production and use, and will be shown a large number of examples of digital libraries and digitized research and teaching materials.

We plan to divide the workshop into four half-day sessions which will be incrementalóit would be most useful if attendees could commit themselves to attending the whole event. Discussion will be welcomed! The four sessions will be:

Session 1: some basic concepts

What is digitization? What is a digital library? Why digitize library collections? How do I start a digitization project? How do I plan, cost, and manage a project? What is metadata, why is it important, and how do I manage it?

Session 2: digital libraries in practice

We will look at a wide range of projects and libraries from all round the world, and discuss what they have to offer and how they might be useful to the workshop attendees. It would be useful if those participants with some knowledge of digitization projects could suggest examples to us. We will also discuss how digital materials might most usefully be used in teaching, learning, and research.

Session 3: some non-technical issues

Here we will look at a whole range of issues which need to be considered alongside the technology: Economicówill I save money or will buying electronic resources and the computers to display them cost more? Legal: what are the copyright and intellectual property concerns? (Greek copyright law is no doubt slightly different from English, but there are basic principles which are common) Managerialóhow will management of information and libraries change? Trainingóhow do we provide librarians, researchers, and students with appropriate training? How does electronic publishing and the supply of electronic journals affect the scholarly process? How might institutional strategies be affected in the digital environment?

Session 4: Open Forum: Where do I go from here?

This session is for participants to raise any issues which are of particular relevance to themselves or their own projects or institutions: for instance, how they might get started on using or developing electronic resources. This might be a panel consultancy session where we answer questions in as much detail as possible on the spot, or we could prepare some material in advance in response to questions sent to us prior to the workshop, or we could offer a mixture of both.

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