What we learned while building DLESE Katy Ginger Metadata Architect, Meteorologist, Instructional Designer DLESE Program Center

2 What is a digital library Managed environment of multimedia materials in digital form Designed for a user population Structured to facilitate content access Equipped with aids to navigate the global network Summarized from: Mel Collier, International Symposium on Research,: Development, and Practice in Digital Libraries

3 Why DLESE Initiatives seeking to change geoscience education

4 To improve the quality, quantity, and efficiency of teaching and learning about the Earth at all educational levels. Digital Library for Earth System Education Mission

5 Vision Collections of peer- reviewed teaching and learning resources Interfaces and tools to allow exploration of Earth data sets Services to help users effectively create and use materials

6 Organization Program Center - build infrastructure, integrate collections and coordinate all Data Services - integrate Earth data/tools Evaluation Center - c onduct evaluations on user needs, data access, collections, effect on teaching/ learning Community Services - increase use and diversity Collection activities - catalog resources

7 Operating Principles Community governance & ownership Respond to community input/needs Build a federated, distributed effort Engage users as contributors individuals and formal collection efforts Measure impact on learning

8 Concrete View of DLESE Library Catalog: metadata records that provide access to resources Collection building Policies Community building & outreach Tools: for search, share, collections development and resource usage News & lists

9 Lessons Learned: Policies Create and update in timely manner Separate ‘process’ from ‘policy’ Suggested policies IP, Privacy, Scope, Accession/Deaccession governance structure (streamline it) Create guidelines that answer process questions the policies don’t (e.g. DLESE’s How to Contribute a Collection)

10 Lessons Learned: Library Catalog Define information space; get buy-in; recognize different types of info Define content of the library metadata or resources Format of library content (XML for DLESE) Library content must play in many realms Make certain information required (title description)

11 Lessons Learned: Collection building Provide training for collection developers Use a test-bed collection encompassing information space Community cataloging does not work Need incentive for collection contributions provide to NSDL searchable by collection name have a reviewed collection provide metadata translation services have a What’s new page

12 Lessons Learned: Community Who are the most important stakeholders? library users, resource developers, collection builders, funding sources Does the community understand the governance structure and how change can be accomplished? Does the community understand the benefits of the digital library? Show how community input caused the library to evolve

13 Lessons Learned: Outreach (to users) Presentations at standard community meetings is not enough Need incentive for user engagement relevant, free, reviewed collection Choose targets wisely strategic partnerships, pilot projects, ambassadors Support for user questions and needs

14 Lessons Learned: Tools Development is expensive Open access development philosophy provides control & responsiveness to needs Search engine is faster than Dbase queries Flat files provide lower threshold to tool use Collection builders don’t use OAI correctly Data translation services are a must Browse is important

15 Lessons Learned: News & Lists Both highly used Control and monitor lists prevent spam; look at multiple subscriptions open and closed lists Host lists for community projects who don’t have the infrastructure Community members rather send to DLESE than use the news posting tool

16 Technical Specifications Lucene search engine that creates a searchable index Java based web-apps (using Tomcat) discovery, cataloging, sharing metadata (OAI), collection manager JSP tags for user interface Majordomo for lists LDAP for registration (registration is not required)

17 New Developments Starting to use RSS news feeds Creating web services Supporting annotation of resources

18 Screen Captures Follow Intentionally Blank

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