How to Build a Digital Library

Given modern society's need to control its ever-increasing body of information, digital libraries will be among the most important and influential institutions of this century. With their versatility, accessibility, and economy, these focused collections of everything digital are fast becoming the "banks" in which the world's wealth of information is stored. How to Build a Digital Library is the only book that offers all the knowledge and tools needed to construct and maintain a digital library-no matter how large or small. Two internationally recognized experts provide a fully developed, step-by-step method, as well as the software that makes it all possible. How to Build a Digital Library is the perfectly self-contained resource for individuals, agencies, and institutions wishing to put this powerful tool to work in their burgeoning information treasuries. * Sketches the history of libraries-both traditional and digital-and their impact on present practices and future directions * Offers in-depth coverage of today's practical standards used to represent and store information digitally * Uses Greenstone, freely accessible open-source software-available with interfaces in the world's major languages (including Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic) * Written for both technical and non-technical audiences * Web-enhanced with software documentation, color illustrations, full-text index, source code, and more

Ian H. Witten, a professor of computer science at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, directs the New Zealand Digital Library research project. He received an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University, an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Calgary, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Essex University. Dr. Witten has published widely on digital libraries, machine learning, text compression, hypertext, speech synthesis and signal processing, and computer typography and has written several books David Bainbridge is a senior lecturer in computer science at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1991 as the class medalist in Computer Science and holds a PhD in Optical Music Recognition from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. An active member of the New Zealand Digital Library project, he manages the group's digital music library, Meldex, and has collaborated with several United Nations Agencies, the BBC, and various public libraries