I chose to complete option two for assignment three and research four
digital libraries and four institutional repositories. I chose the
following collections: Hathi Trust Digital Library, Mountain West
Digital Library, Calisphere, Chronicling America, DSpace@Cambridge,
OAIster Database, and Econpapers.
This was a valuable exercise
because I learned about the different types of digital libraries and
repositories. First, I found it interesting that many had a certain
niche or Geographic area that they specifically covered. The lesson
here seems to be find an area that needs objects to be digitized and
become a leader in that area so users looking for that specific type of
information will look there. This strategy also allows the digital
libraries working similar areas able to pool their resources in one
database creating a powerful group of resources. There were other
examples where of large institutions, such as Universities, that had a
lot of resource under their control have undertaken digitization
projects for open access. I was surprised that most resources are
accessible with out providing a login in many cases but other cases
resources are kept only for certain users with permissions. Also it
was interesting (but not surprising) that all had important metadata
standards.
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