Understanding Digital Libraries
| Presenter: | Michael Lesk, Professor of library and information science at Rutgers University |  |
| Date: | 2 December 2009 | |
| Time: | 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m ET | |
| Price: | No Charge for SLA Members | |
Session Full (Contact click@sla.org) |
Seminar Description
Can we get all the resources we want from a keyboard? This dream dates back to 1945, but it's now close to realization. In this seminar we will talk about what kinds of material have been digitized, what remains to be done, what the obstacles are, and what the future will hold.
Increasingly, digital libraries are moving beyond current journals. The best-known example is Google Books, but we also see vast amounts of digital imagery, video, sound, and archival manuscripts. Each poses a different technical issue, but more important are the social issues. Many of these new materials have not been through traditional abstracting or indexing processes and instead rely on hyperlinks or "tagging" by volunteers. New technology may help us with identifying images, extracting information from multimedia sources, and searching.
People use online materials in different ways; for example, they are more likely to read small amounts of text from multiple places in a book rather than go through it cover to cover. Some condemn this, some welcome it, but we can't really fight it.
Who Should Attend?
Information professionals curious about the future of digital libraries.
Critical Learning Questions
How can we digitize a variety of materials - not just books?
What information comes into digital libraries that's not from publishers?
How can we use digital materials in new ways?
Are we making any progress with the copyright issues?
How do people use digitized materials, and what changes are coming?
Notes
Instructions for accessing the Webcast will be e-mailed to you 2 to 3 business days prior to the event. Your registration is for one computer and one site only. You can host as many people as you like, so be sure to invite your colleagues to learn with you!
* Note: Participants registration limited to 50
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Click U Presenter
After receiving the PhD degree in Chemical Physics in 1969, Michael Lesk joined the computer science research group at Bell Laboratories, where he worked until 1984. From 1984 to 1995 he managed the computer science research group at Bellcore, then joined the National Science Foundation as head of the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, and since 2003 has been Professor of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University, and chair of that department 2005-2008.
He is best known for work in electronic libraries, and his book "Practical Digital Libraries" was published in 1997 by Morgan Kaufmann and the revision "Understanding Digital Libraries" appeared in 2004. His research has included the CORE project for chemical information, and he wrote some Unix system utilities including those for table printing (tbl), lexical analyzers (lex), and inter-system mail (uucp). His other technical interests include document production and retrieval software, computer networks, computer languages, and human-computer interfaces.
He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, received the Flame award from the Usenix association, and in 2005 was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
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