Digital Libraries and Development Hussein Suleman - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Digital Libraries and Development

Hussein Suleman hussein@cs.uct.ac.za University of Cape Town Department of Computer Science Digital Libraries Laboratory @ Centre for ICT4D August 2015

Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

The Challenge

How do we build Digital Libraries to support Development in poor countries?

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Digital Libraries?

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

What Digital Libraries?

Timbuktu Manuscripts http://www.timbuktufoundation.org/Manuscripts/index.htm

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

What Digital Libraries?

Digital Imaging South Africa http://www.disa.ukzn.ac.za/

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

What Digital Libraries?

Bleek and Lloyd Collection http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

What is Development?

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

What is Development?

 Move towards industrialization

 (Aronson, 2006)

 Complex ongoing process

 (Walsham, 2005)

 Removal of unfreedoms

 (Sen, 1999)

 Human and Socio-Economic Development

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Development Agendas

 UN Millenium Development Goals  UN Millenium Declaration  South Africa

 National Development Plan (2012)  Growth Employment and Redistribution (1996)  Reconstruction and Development Plan (1994)

 Africa-wide

 New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)  ... [-------|------------------]

Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

UN Millenium Developmemt Goals

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

SA National Development Plan



The creation of jobs and the development of the economy



Development of the economic infrastructure: coal and gas, water, electricity and telecommunications



Environmental sustainability and management of environmental resources



Development of an inclusive rural economy



Regional and international trade



Housing and urban/rural planning



Education and training



Medical care



Safety and security



Building capacity for a developmental state



Fighting corruption



Nation building for a unified society

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Digital Libraries for Development

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

The Poor Country Context/Question

 Do we as poor countries need to innovate:

 more? differently? faster? more urgently?

 Do we build digital libraries differently in poor

countries?

 How do we build DLs for Development?  How do we do this so the whole world

benefits?

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Why A Different Perspective?

Urgency

 Some documents and storage media are

rapidly deteriorating.

 Some storytellers are the last in their

generations.

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Why A Different Perspective?

Skills and Education

 Typical archivists are not as highly skilled as

counterparts elsewhere.

 Digital media is still not the norm.  Education levels of general population hinders

preservation – end-user data curation is very difficult.

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Why A Different Perspective?

Funding

 Typically, there is little.  Many preservation projects are funded by

external agencies, but with restrictions on data accessibility.

 There is a desperate need to do more with

less.

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Why A Different Perspective?

Internet Bandwidth (Digital Divide)

 Non-existent in some places and poor

everywhere else.

 Preservation projects designed for high

bandwidth are not suitable.

 All online solutions must be bandwidth-friendly.

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

The Big Issues

 Efficient bandwidth use  Advanced technology  Appropriate technology  Local relevance  Modernization instead of Africanization  Global applicability of solutions  Minimalism of staff/money  Multicultural/multilingual inclusivity

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Some Design Principles

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Simple and Efficient Solutions

 Simple and consistent interoperability

standards

 Jorgina Paihama

 Simple architecture for archives

 Lighton Phiri [------------------|-------]

Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Reuse and Repurposing

 DSpace as CRIS/RIMS

 Craig Feldman/Darryl Meyer

 Archive annotations

 King'ori Maina [-------------------|------]

Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Appropriate Technology

 Mobile keyboards for text entry

 Sunkanmi Olaleye

 Mobile navigational of physical spaces

 Ayodeji Olojede [--------------------|-----]

Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Community Engagement

 Archive annotations

 King'ori Maina

 Mobile navigational of physical spaces

 Ayodeji Olojede [---------------------|----]

Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Other Approaches

 Advanced Technology

 Use local private cloud storage systems

 Lebeko Poulo

 Crowdsourcing for transcription

 Ngoni Munyaradzi

 Multilingualism

 Improve search engine ranking of mixed language content

 Mohammed Mustafa Ali

 |Xam Language Dictionary

 Kyle Williams, et al

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Lessons Learnt

 There are many common patterns in building

DL systems with a developmental focus.

 Good solutions are widely applicable.

 Bad solutions only work in few places.

 Many resource limitations (e.g., bandwidth,

staff skills) can be overcome through good design.

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Concluding Thoughts

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Digital Libraries Lab @ Centre for ICT4D

Concluding Thoughts

 Modern DLs focus on various different design

philosophies e.g., scalability.

 DLs driven by a development imperative require

attention to development goals (e.g., education) and development realities (e.g., bandwidth).

 Still a lot to be done ...  Open Systems, Open Source, Open Standards are

all useful elements ... to be discussed tomorrow!

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questions, comments, ...

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