Leonardo Candela on the DL.org Cookbook

Leonardo Candela explored the DL.org approach to interoperability with a focus on the DL.org Technology & Methodology Cookbook. The Cookbook has been designed to provide a comprehensive, pragmatic approach to overcome the lack of systematic approaches and ensure stakeholders don’t re-invent the wheel. The Cookbook is scoped to provide a portfolio of best practices and pattern solutions for common issues associated with the development of large-scale interoperable Digital Library systems.”Patterns” are understood as standard, well-recognised or proven solutions to development challenges. The talk offered a sample of current solutions and related standards across the six main concepts: content, functionality, user, policy, quality and architecture.

The talk also highlighted some of the major challenges associated with interoperability, citing experts on the topic:

• G. Anthes (May 2010), schema mapping, converting data from one format to another, is particularly hard – the “unsolved problem” of querying geographically distributed databases”.
• Our own expert, Yannis Ioannidis (professor at the University of Athens) believes interoperability is very difficult to achieve, calling it “a dirty but critcal” job, that is “complex but fun” and that must be solved at least approximately.

The talk is available on the dedicated workshop page on the DL.org website.

• Trigger a multi-disciplinary debate about research on Digital Libraries and Open Access.
• Discuss DL.org project results, and existing frameworks and best practices for interoperability within the communities of practice.
• Propose common strategies for interoperability: start discussing how to implement a mechanism for exchanging, sharing and integrating results between DLs and OARs communities.
• Create new connections and partnerships, and explore ways for a closer cooperation between researchers and the communities of practice.

British Academy - Workshop Setting

The Workshop addresses interoperability challenges within the context of digital libraries and open access repositories, along the perspectives of content, user, functionality, policy, quality and architecture, the six core domains captured in the DL.org Reference Model. Targeted at Library and Information Science researchers and professionals, and to the Open Access community, the event is of interest to people involved in developing interoperability frameworks or models, and people involved in the implementation of digital libraries, institutional, subject or learning object repositories, and associated services across a broad range of communities of practice.

International Experts

Peter Burnhill, EDINA, University of Edinburgh, UK

Pablo De Castro, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain

Wolfram Horstmann, University of Bielefeld, Germany

Heather Joseph, SPARC, U.S.

Hans Pfeiffenberger, Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany

Experts on DL.org Outputs

Leonardo Candela,  National Research Council of Italy

Vittore Casarosa, National Research Council of Italy

Perla Innocenti and Giuseppina Vullo – HATII, University of Glasgow

Introduction and Chair of Round Table on Common Strategies for Interoperability

Seamus Ross, Dean and Professor, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Canada

Places are limited due to venue capacity. Early registration is highly recommended. More details here.

• The Reference Model (V1.0) with Yannis Ioannidis, Professor at the University of Athens and DL.org partner explaining why modelling makes our lives in the Digital Library space easier and pinpoints the core concepts on which our Ref model is grounded.
• The Cookbook (Ready for Comment version) with Leonardo Candela from the National Research Council of Italy offering insights into best practices and current solutions proposed for Digital Library interoperability, which is key to taking DLs to the next level.

Athens Workshop, 13 December 2010

Perspectives from Veria Central Library, a new DL.org Strategic Alliance, are brought by Yannis Trohopoulos &  Vaggelis Banos, taking the floor to discuss heterogeneity in European Digital Libraries with the spotlight on the EC’s Europeana initiative to ensure Europe’s cultural heritage is not only accessible to all citizens but also preserved for new generations in the years to come. One of our experts in our Quality Working Group, Sarantos Kapidakis, a professor at the Laboratory on Digital Libraries and Electronic Publishing, Ionian University, looks at interoperability approaches for metadata. Participants will get the chance to debate all of these topics throughout the morning session before the networking lunch.

The rest of the Workshop focuses on demos illustrating a diverse set of Digital Library functionalities from a European perspective:

• Europeana
• TEL & TELplus
• Access-IT
• DRIVER & OpenAIRE
• D4Science.

The event wraps up with an interactive discussion, demonstrating how concerted efforts can ensure  a better understanding of both the role of Reference Models  and of how interoperability challenges are being addressed by DL.org. By doing so, DL.org aims to help narrow the gap between theory and practice so practioners and researchers alike are in a much stronger position to tackle the challenges that lie ahead.

The final part of the workshop was dedicated to an interactive discussion bringing to the table additional perspectives and an exchange of ideas on effective methods for DL interoperability and best practices for other related critical DL issues. The discussion also brought to light several open questions that should be further explored at similar events in the future.
There is nothing like a good debate to warm up an audience and this one certainly didn’t disappoint. Four key themes ran through this lively and fruitful discussion:

• Identifying commonalities with approaches to challenges in the arena of information systems coupled with pinpointing the specifics that define DL interoperability.
• Addressing mass digitization in the Reference Model.
• Closer collaboration between computer scientists and digital librarians.
• Fostering forward-thinking approaches in academic courses on information science and library services.

DL.org has begun to explore many aspects regarding DL interoperability, best practices and reference modelling across the six key concepts identified in the DELOS Reference Model.

Workshop Attendees 1

“Many of the problems are generic and related to other systems, so the approach has been to explore them at a higher level and then investigate the various facets that impact on the interoperability of DL systems, thus moving towards specific aspects. The Cookbook will need to be generic because users will make concrete implementations according to their individual needs.” Yannis Ioannidis, University of Athens.
(blogger note: DL Technology and Methodology Cookbook, one of DL.org’s planned outputs)

“Much of the work applies to any kind of information system. The specifics come into play when we apply concepts to a particular field.” Dagobert Soergel, University at Buffalo.
“The idea is produce for each scenario proposed solutions for interoperability, each with quality parameters.” Leonardo Candela, CNR-ISTI, on the role of the Cookbook.

“The framework will then define what interoperability is in terms of each of the six domains. The starting point is a generic model similar to other information systems but the goal is to map the framework to existing solutions“. Paolo Manghi, CNR-ISTI.

“It would be important to define the characteristics of DLs with regard to information systems on a concrete as opposed to abstract level. It is difficult to materialize concepts like functions and their roles if the approach remains on an abstract level. Hence it would be valuable to make it more explicit and ascertain the commonalities and differences with other information systems.” Tiziana Catarci, University of Rome, Member of the User WG.

“Variety is key. The aim is to avoid being too abstract as we risk losing significance in the real world but we also need to avoid being too low level as concrete examples may not apply across a broader spectrum. Adopting a middle ground approach enables users to adapt the framework to their specific cases. Users should be able to take the framework and customize it to their needs. The plan is to reach a point of stability in terms of the framework development.” Yannis Ioannidis, University of Athens.