Arms is at it again. (It seems like the Digital Library World has between three and five really prolific authors and then a bunch of people who wrote one or two articles.) For the most part, his article rung the “Duh” bell: of course users would prefer to have one interface and see “searching” as a thing they should be able to do from one place, namely their desks. Even I figured this out, and I’m just starting out studying this stuff. It bothers me that individual publishers put “branding” above ease of use, in terms of database subscriptions, and if digital library creators are doing the same thing, then shame on them. OAI-PMH/Z39.50 (yes, I know they’re different) is imperfect, and we all clearly must use different metadata standards (I’m only half sarcastic, I guess), but we still need to think a lot more about the larger user community and a lot less about making things “our own.”
One more point about Arms, specifically. He says “Google Scholar shows somewhat the same myopic viewpoint.” What now? I’m not feigning ignorance, here; I’m honestly unclear what he’s talking about.
As far as the topic of this week’s readings goes, generally, I know that communities are a big part of the definition of Digital Libraries. I think maybe that gets expanded too far, though. I think there needs to be a community interested in a particular subject, in order to make the work of making the digital library worthwhile, but I also think that you need to keep an eye on the grander picture. Once you’ve justified building the library, and once you’ve designed it so that the people whose use justifies its existence can, you know, use it, you then need to make it available to the broader community of potential users. Your individual community might dry up, but the library is already there and potentially usable by millions of people. So do it right.
Muddiest Point: I, too, would support the use of some class time to teach us how to use Greenstone. I figured out how to install it on my computer, but its interface isn’t exactly intuitive.
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