Workshop objectives
The
implementation of nowadays Digital Libraries is more demanding than in
the past. Information consumers are facing with the need to access ever
growing, heterogeneous, possibly federated Information Spaces while
information providers are interested in satisfying such needs by
sharing rich and organised views over their information deluge. Because
of their fundamental role of information production and dissemination
vehicle, Digital Libraries are also expected to provide information
society with services that must be available 24/7 and guarantee the
expected quality of service. This scenario leads to the development of
“Very Large Digital Libraries” in terms of number
of Information Objects and Collections to be made available, users to
be served and potentially distributed resources needed to implement
such systems. Such systems have to confront with new challenges in a
context having scalability, interoperability and sustainability as
focal points.
Interestingly, however, there is no clear and well-accepted definition
of Very Large Digital Library (VLDL). Some, in an attempt to give one,
blur the separation between Very Large Databases (VLDBs) and VLDLs and
regard the latter as VLDBs storing Digital Library content. Since in
databases the adjective “Very large” strictly
refers to “size of content”, the implication is
that, similarly, VLDLs ought to be DLs storing digital content beyond a
given storage threshold. Despite being intuitively correct, this
explanation does not fully satisfy DL practitioners. Indeed, DL content
design paradigms cannot be conceptually separated by the relative
functionalities as it happens for DBs. DLs are of use to peculiar user
communities whose functionality needs, best practices and behaviour are
well-accepted DL systems requirements. As captured by the DELOS
reference model for DLs, user management, content management,
functionality management, and policies are equally important in the
definition of a DL. Accordingly, as demonstrated by real DL system
experiences, VLDLs should be described as DLs featuring “very
large features” in one or more of such aspects. The goal of
this workshop is to provide researchers, practitioners and application
developers with a forum fostering a constructive exchange among all key
actors in the field of Very Large Digital Libraries. The workshop will
also be the opportunity to answer the open questions that had arisen
during VLDL first successful edition at ECDL 2008 (ref. VLDL2008
Workshop Report, published in SIGMOD Records 2009).