Publisher's Synopsis
It is no longer news that the world has moved from the industrial age into information age. Man's quest for knowledge has led to the creation and accumulation of tremendous amount of information. The world today boast of a knowledge based society. This quest for knowledge knows no bounds and limits and is never satisfied. Libraries play a fundamental role in our society. They are the collectors and stewards of our heritage; they are organizers of the knowledge in the books they collect - adding value by cataloguing, classifying and describing them; and, as public institutions, they assure equality of access for all citizens. They take the knowledge of the past and present, and lay it down for the future. In this Internet Age, the world's societies have extended this process to span from the personal to the global, as the concepts, practices, systems, and services related to Library and Information Science unfold through digital libraries. Scientists, scholars, teachers, learners, and practitioners of all kinds benefit from the distributed and collaborative knowledge environments that are at the heart of the digital library movement. Thus libraries acquired a great importance in the knowledge society. Libraries which have been variously referred to as the purveyor of information, the custodian of knowledge, and the house of learning plays a vital role in the development of any society by catering for the information needs of thousands of peoples within a particular community. Digital library represents distributed information systems enabling reliable accumulation, preservation, and effective use of diverse electronic document collections that are available to users in a convenient format through the global data transfer networks. Traditional libraries are limited by storage space; digital libraries have the potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very little physical space to contain it. As such, the cost of maintaining a digital library is much lower than that of a traditional library. Theoretical Foundations for Digital Libraries examines the theory and practice of acquisition, definition, organization, management, and dissemination of digital information via global networking. It emphasizes issues in digital information production, management, and use; high-speed networks and connectivity; interoperability and seamless integration of information, people, profiles, tasks, and needs; security and privacy of individuals and business transactions; and effective business processes. It illustrates how suitable knowledge environments can be more easily prepared as instances of these meta-models, resulting in usable and useful DLs, including for education, computing, and archaeology. It is no longer news that the world has moved from the industrial age into information age. Man's quest for knowledge has led to the creation and accumulation of tremendous amount of information. The world today boast of a knowledge based society. This quest for knowledge knows no bounds and limits and is never satisfied. Libraries play a fundamental role in our society. They are the collectors and stewards of our heritage; they are organizers of the knowledge in the books they collect - adding value by cataloguing, classifying and describing them; and, as public institutions, they assure equality of access for all citizens. They take the knowledge of the past and present, and lay it down for the future. In this Internet Age, the world's societies have extended this process to span from the personal to the global, as the concepts, practices, systems, and services related to Library and Information Science unfold through digital libraries. Scientists, scholars, teachers, learners, and practitioners of all kinds benefit from the distributed and collaborative knowledge environments that are at the heart of the digital library movement. Thus libraries acquired a great importance in the knowledge society. Libraries which have been variously referred to as the purveyor of information, the custodian of knowledge, and the house of learning plays a vital role in the development of any society by catering for the information needs of thousands of peoples within a particular community. Digital library represents distributed information systems enabling reliable accumulation, preservation, and effective use of diverse electronic document collections that are available to users in a convenient format through the global data transfer networks. Traditional libraries are limited by storage space; digital libraries have the potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very little physical space to contain it. As such, the cost of maintaining a digital library is much lower than that of a traditional library. Theoretical Foundations for Digital Libraries examines the theory and practice of acquisition, definition, organization, management, and dissemination of digital information via global networking. It emphasizes issues in digital information production, management, and use; high-speed networks and connectivity; interoperability and seamless integration of information, people, profiles, tasks, and needs; security and privacy of individuals and business transactions; and effective business processes. It illustrates how suitable knowledge environments can be more easily prepared as instances of these meta-models, resulting in usable and useful DLs, including for education, computing, and archaeology. It is no longer news that the world has moved from the industrial age into information age. Man's quest for knowledge has led to the creation and accumulation of tremendous amount of information. The world today boast of a knowledge based society. This quest for knowledge knows no bounds and limits and is never satisfied. Libraries play a fundamental role in our society. They are the collectors and stewards of our heritage; they are organizers of the knowledge in the books they collect - adding value by cataloguing, classifying and describing them; and, as public institutions, they assure equality of access for all citizens. They take the knowledge of the past and present, and lay it down for the future. In this Internet Age, the world's societies have extended this process to span from the personal to the global, as the concepts, practices, systems, and services related to Library and Information Science unfold through digital libraries. Scientists, scholars, teachers, learners, and practitioners of all kinds benefit from the distributed and collaborative knowledge environments that are at the heart of the digital library movement. Thus libraries acquired a great importance in the knowledge society. Libraries which have been variously referred to as the purveyor of information, the custodian of knowledge, and the house of learning plays a vital role in the development of any society by catering for the information needs of thousands of peoples within a particular community. Digital library represents distributed information systems enabling reliable accumulation, preservation, and effective use of diverse electronic document collections that are available to users in a convenient format through the global data transfer networks. Traditional libraries are limited by storage space; digital libraries have the potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very little physical space to contain it. As such, the cost of maintaining a digital library is much lower than that of a traditional library. Theoretical Foundations for Digital Libraries examines the theory and practice of acquisition, definition, organization, management, and dissemination of digital information via global networking. It emphasizes issues in digital information production, management, and use; high-speed networks and connectivity; interoperability and seamless integration of information, people, profiles, tasks, and needs; security and privacy of individuals and business transactions; and effective business processes. It illustrates how suitable knowledge environments can be more easily prepared as instances of these meta-models, resulting in usable and useful DLs, including for education, computing, and archaeology.
