To investigate Digital Library reference modelling and best practices and address interoperability challenges along the core concepts characterising a Digital Library, DL.org has brought together international experts in six thematic Working Groups. The Working Groups have met periodically through virtual tools and physically in dedicated meetings, as well as all-group gatherings.
Content Working Group: The Content concept encompasses the data and information that the Digital Library handles and makes available to its users. It comprises a set of information objects organised into collections. Content is an umbrella concept used to aggregate all forms of information objects that a Digital Library collects, manages and delivers. It encompasses the diverse range of information objects, including such resources as objects, annotations and metadata. For example, metadata have a central role in the handling and use of information objects, as they provide information critical to its syntactical, semantic and contextual interpretation.
Members
User Working Group: The User concept covers the various actors, whether human or machine, entitled to interact with Digital Libraries. Digital Libraries connect actors with information and support them in their ability to consume and make creative use of it to generate new information. User is an umbrella concept including all notions related to the representation and management of actor entities within a Digital Library. It encompasses such elements as the rights that actors have within the system and the profiles of the actors with characteristics that personalise the system’s behaviour or represent these actors in collaborations.
Policy Working Group: The Policy concept represents the set or sets of conditions, rules, terms and regulations governing interaction between the Digital Library and users, whether virtual or real. Examples of policies include acceptable user behaviour, digital rights management, privacy and confidentiality, charges to users, and collection delivery. Policies belong to different classes; for instance, not all policies are defined within the DL or the organisation managing it. The policy supports the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic policies. The definition of new policies and re-definition of older policies will be a feature of digital libraries.
Quality Working Group: The Quality concept represents the parameters that can be used to characterise and evaluate the content and behaviour of a Digital Library. Quality can be associated not only with each class of content or functionality but also with specific information objects or services. Some of these parameters are objective in nature and can be measured automatically, whereas others are subjective in nature and can only be measured through user evaluations (e.g. focus groups).
Architecture Working Group: The Architecture concept refers to the Digital Library System (DLS) entity and represents a mapping of the functionality and content offered by a Digital Library on to hardware and software components. Architecture is an important core concept because:
A clear architectural framework for the DLS thus plays a key role in addressing both of these issues effectively.