The digital era has enhanced the need for sound information organisation practices and data management systems. In addition to traditional information organisation techniques such as classification systems, digital libraries have introduced a range of new technologies. The new technologies are utilised to support the organisation and retrieval of more complex types of media than the media traditionally available in libraries.
Digital Library Technologies is the third volume in the Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts Retrieval and Services series, a four volume series providing a 5S (Societies, Scenarios, Spaces, Structures, Streams) framework for data management systems. It is believed that this volume should help to advance work in digital libraries, the web and other information systems. Digital Library Technologies describes six case studies of extensions beyond a minimal digital library and covers topics such as complex objects (COs), annotation, ontologies, classification, text extraction and security. Each chapter has both a theoretical and an application component. For example, in Chapter 1 the theoretical discussion focuses on the use of complex objects to facilitate aggregation abstraction, whereas the practical discussion helps developers to manage heterogeneous resources and their components. A fingerprint digital library is used to illustrate the different levels of information extraction from complex objects.
Annotations help contextualise information such as those appearing in sub-documents. Chapter 2 shows how annotations can extend the formalisation of a digital library with superimposed information based on the 5S framework. A case study exploring a meta-model for superimposed information in digital libraries concludes the chapter.
Many digital libraries seem to support taxonomic systems but few support ontologies. Chapter 3 explains what ontologies are, how they are developed and how they are used in digital libraries to support information retrieval. The author acknowledges the usefulness of browsing by subject in large document collections. In order to support faceted browsing and searching machine-learning-based techniques are applied to categorise electronic theses and dissertations into topical taxonomies. Machine learning of text extraction services can therefore also be successfully applied in digital services. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on exploring machine learning techniques and their applications in digital libraries.
Information security is a great concern in all digital environments. The final chapter addresses the issue of information security in digital library design. It explores the security requirements that are essential for any digital library, as well as the models and mechanisms to provide that security.
Each chapter includes a list of sources to support further reading, as well as a number of exercises and projects that could be used for teaching or training purposes. This book not only provides formal approaches that would support researchers in expanding the coverage of the presented concepts, but also provides developers with ideas in developing, implementing and deploying even better digital libraries.
