Digital Library Applications

Doug Poff (doug.poff@ualberta.ca)
Associate Director, University Libraries

Sun Microsystems has designated SunSITEs worldwide to promote the growth and reach of the Internet. SunSITEs have a mandate to develop Internet access tools, to archive information of general interest, to provide regional content and to offer public-domain software repositories.

Since the inception of the program, Sun has recognized the importance of digital library applications. Indeed, the Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE has been among the pre-eminent centers for digital library development. Sun's support for digital libraries and collections has been re-affirmed in the designation of the University of Alberta as the third Canadian SunSITE. The first of many collaborative library initiatives to utilize the capabilities of the University SunSITE are described below.

Alberta Relais Project

Among the grand challenges of building the digital library, the most attention is focused on issues of large-scale digital conversion, management of large full-text repositories, and creation of meta-data frameworks to enable easy retrieval of digital objects. We know that the economic and logistical challenges of large-scale conversion of legacy print collections are enormous, yet there has been relatively little work done on more immediate day-to-day challenges. One of these challenges is to bridge the existing print universe to the capabilities of Internet-based delivery of library documents with a cost-effective, just-in-time digital delivery system.

The University of Alberta, through a partnership with Ottawa-based Relais International, has been working for the past three years on developing a high-volume digital document delivery solution. This solution utilizes web-based request systems, sophisticated selection algorithms for automatically locating and selecting document sources, high-speed scanning, and innovative workflow request management. The project has received international recognition, including a 1997 Canadian Information Productivity Award and the 1997 GIGAGroup Gold Cup for innovation in workflow-based applications.

Relais started as a prototype at the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information. The second-generation architecture was established here at the University, built around Windows NT and SQL Server, and the University of Alberta is currently planning the next generation of Relais scaled for consortium use. The new implementation of Relais will utilize the image server power of Sun hardware, and the database capabilities of Oracle to provide a high-volume document delivery system capable of supporting rapid electronic delivery of journal articles among the libraries of the four Alberta universities.

We see this evolution as critical to addressing the economics of the digital library through more effective resource sharing within traditional print collections, and in meeting user expectations for rapid access from the desktop to information in a distributed global library collection. (Note: Under current CANCOPY legislation, direct inter-library delivery of scanned image files to the user's desktop may not be permitted. The evolution of these systems must therefore involve network systems, document integrity, and copyright management solutions.)

The Alberta Relais Project is co-funded by the Alberta Government's Learning Enhancement Envelope, and the Library is pleased to be able to utilize the Sun SITE initiative to bring this project to fruition. It is our intent to begin the migration of Relais transaction management to the Sun/Oracle platform by the spring 1999, with the objective of completing a full-scale consortium implementation by the fourth quarter of next year.

Electronic Reserve Reading Room

Generally speaking, digital document delivery systems are currently geared to inter-library loan applications. These predominantly address collection sharing for higher-end research materials, on the assumption that heavily used core course materials will be available in local collections or increasingly through full-text electronic information services. Yet only a small portion of these core materials are available electronically.

How do we extend the power of digital document technology to improve access to high-use curriculum resources that serve the needs of undergraduate students? This challenge lies at the heart of the service model not just for the traditional student on campus, but for the distance education student who must currently rely on pre-assembled (and costly) course packages. We already know that the Reserve Reading Room constitutes a core collection of the most heavily used (and most physically vulnerable) materials in circulation; thus the Electronic Reserve Reading Room is essential to new educational delivery models.

Under the project leadership of the University of Calgary Library, the University of Alberta and Red Deer College are participating in the development of a digital reserve reading room system. This project brings together what we have learned in digital document delivery with the complex requirements of CANCOPY for providing immediate digital access to a rapidly changing menu of course materials.

While web-based demonstration reserve systems have been developed at many institutions (with or without copyright management capabilities), few of these have been built for large-scale usage. A robust Electronic Reserve Reading Room production environment requires workflow capabilities to manage tens of thousands of documents, sharing of these document objects across institutions in the provincial post-secondary system, and support for circulation among the over 50,000 students in our systems. The Alberta project seeks to address these production requirements.

The Electronic Reserve Reading Room project is working with a major library vendor to develop this capability, with the intention to utilize a specialized object-oriented database system and distributed image bases. The University of Alberta Library is planning to test this distributed image serving capability through the Sun SITE platform. This architecture will become increasingly important to the management of learning resources as more faculty in our institutions move to create course websites and rely increasingly on web-based management tools for providing 24-hour ubiquitous access to both formally published and personally created course materials.

The goal of the Electronic Reserve Reading Room project is to have a course prototype in place for the fall of 1999 that will support University of Calgary courses delivered at Red Deer College. A full implementation of the reserve system, with copyright management and distributed document image management, will follow thereafter.