A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk A Standards Framework For Digital Library Development Programmes Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath URL UKOLN is supported by: This ‘gong’ gives an overview of work in progress for JISC

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 2 About Me Brian Kelly: UK Web Focus – a Web advisory post for UK HE and FE and cultural heritage communities Involved in Web work since January 1993, when helped set up UK HE's first (?) institutional Web service at Leeds University JISC representative on W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Based at UKOLN – a national centre of expertise in digital information management Funding by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council)

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 3 Background What do we have in common: Involvement in building digital libraries Awareness of importance of open standards?? Seeking to maximise interoperability across digital libraries (provided by bodies with loose affiliations with ourselves) We may also say we support open standards as a code for being anti-Microsoft!

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 4 Experiences of Supporting DL Programmes Background: Contributor to Standards Document for JISC’s eLib DL programme ( ) Contributor to Standards Document for JISC’s DNER (IE) DL programme (2000-) Contributor to Standards Document for NOF- digitise DL programme ( ) Things In Common: Expectation of use of open standards Failure to make use of open standards to expected level Things In Common: Expectation of use of open standards Failure to make use of open standards to expected level

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 5 Lessons learnt (standards) Difficulties in defining open standards Which is an open standard: Flash  PDF Java  MS Office format Difficulties in deploying open standards: Non-compliance HTML & CSS, RSS, XML, … Open standards may be flawed; fail to take off; … Lack of compliance testing Flexibility of real-world applications: Web browsers, scrapers, indexers, … appear to do a good job with flawed resources Users happy with proprietary solutions: Flash is popular … and we use PowerPoint, PDF, …

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 6 Lessons learnt (org. issues) Shortage of technical expertise and understanding in development community: Short term contracts Academic salaries Technical expertise in wrong areas Institutional concerns: Don’t want to be test bed for Comp Sci. research interests (e.g. cultural differences between Comp. Sci and IT Services) Want mature, tested solutions – which aren’t of interest to research community …

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 7 What do we do? How do we reconcile tensions between: Research community Digital library developers and maintainers Institutional needs Needs of the funders And end users There is a need to recognise contextual differences across different communities

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 8 External factors: Institutional issues (funds, expertise, policies, security…) External factors: Legal factors; cultural factors; external bodies EU NSF … Framework For Use Of Standards Context Community (HE/FE); Funding; resources; mainstream vs. developmental; … Policies Standards; architectures; accessibility; usability; OSS; project management; finance; Compliance External checking; penalty clauses ; self-assessment; developmental; learning My interests Digital Library programme

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 9 Implications Implications of this framework: DL service providers are keen on open standards There is a need to recognise bigger DL picture There is a need to take a layered approach to development of policies Service deployment has its own problems Comments welcome