[Web4lib] digital library manual

[Eric Lease Morgan]

I am happy and proud to announce the availability of a digital  
library manual called Designing, Implementing, and Maintaining  
Digital Library Services and Collections with MyLibrary. See:

   http://dewey.library.nd.edu/mylibrary/manual/


About the book and who should read it

The book is a manual, and its purpose is to outline the principles  
and processes necessary to implement digital library collections and  
services. It uses MyLibrary as an example but the principles and  
processes can be applied to just about any digital library system or  
application.

The manual is intended to be read by administrators who need to know  
what and how many resources to allocate to a digital library. It is  
intended to be read by librarians who are responsible for collecting  
and organizing content as well as ensuring the library's usability.  
The manual is intended to be read by systems administrators who are  
in charge of providing the technical infrastructure for the system.  
Last but not least, it is intended for programers who will use the  
underlying Perl API to provide services against the collection.


What the book contains and who helped write it

The book's 200+ pages is distributed in two volumes and freely  
available in HTML and PDF formats. Co-written by seventeen excellent  
authors, the book elaborates upon digital library topics including  
information architecture, content standards, user-centered design,  
fundamental computer technologies, techniques for initial  
implementation & ongoing maintenance, and of course the MyLibrary  
Perl application programmer's interface. Here is an outline of the  
book's contents:

   * Designing, Implementing, and Maintaining Digital Library
     Services and Collections with MyLibrary by Eric Lease Morgan
     (University of Notre Dame)

   * Pioneering Portals: A History Of MyLibrary at NCState by
     Keith Morgan (North Carolina State University)

   * Information architecture

     o First Principles of Information Architecture: "On
       your Mark. Get set. Go!" not "Fire, and then Aim." by
       Eric Lease Morgan (University of Notre Dame)

     o Facets and Terms in MyLibrary by Tom Lehman
       (University of Notre Dame)

   * The Importance of Content Standards in Digital Libraries
     by Leslie Johnston (University of Virginia Library)

   * User-centered design

     o Usability Testing: a Key to User-centered Designs by
       Terry Huttenlock (Wheaton College)

     o Surveys by Tom Lehman (University of Notre Dame)

     o Focus Group Interviews by Megan Johnson (Appalachian
       State University)

     o Attracting Users by Michael Yunkin (University of
       Nevada, Las Vegas)

     o Card Sorting by Terry Nikkel and Shelley McKibbon
       (Dalhousie University Libraries)

     o Paper Prototyping by Nora Dimmock (University of
       Rochester)

     o Low-cost Recording of Usability Tests by Martin
       Courtois (Kansas State University)

     o Communicating Usability Results by Brenda Reeb
       (University of Rochester)

     o Case Studies by Hal Kirkwood (Purdue University),
       Leslie Johnston (University of Virginia Library), and
       Alison Aldrich & Vishwam Annam (Wright State
       University Libraries)

   * Underlying technologies

     o What is XML, and Why Should I Care? by Tod Olson
       (University of Chicago)

     o What are Relational Databases, and Why Should I Care?
       by Vishwam Annam (Wright State University Libraries)

     o What are Indexers and Why Should I Care? by Peter
       Karman

   * Implementation and Maintenance by Eric Lease Morgan
     (University of Notre Dame)

   * MyLibrary Tutorial by Eric Lease Morgan (University of
     Notre Dame)

   * The MyLibrary Perl API by Robert Fox (University of
     Notre Dame)


Colophon

The book is licensed under the GNU Public License and is an example  
of open access publishing. Author's have retained copyrights to the  
things they have written. The manuscript was marked up in DocBook XML  
and transformed into HTML and PDF files using XSLT stylesheets,  
xsltproc, and fop.

Questions, comments, corrections, criticisms, and clarifications are  
more than welcome. Send them to mylib-doc at dewey.library.nd.edu.

--
Eric Lease Morgan and Team MyLibrary Manual