CAMRIS Digital Libraries

Digital Library (DL) software provides a convenient way of organizing information and making it available over the Internet. A collection of information comprises several (typically several thousand, or several million) documents. A document, in turn, is any information-bearing message in electronically recorded form. Documents are the fundamental unit from which information collections are built, although they may have their own substructure, and associated files. Documents generally comprise text, though they may be images, sound files, or video. A collection may contain many different types of documents. Each collection provides a uniform interface through which all documents in it can be accessed—although the way that documents are displayed will depend on their medium and format. A library generally includes many different collections, each organized differently—though there is a strong family resemblance in how collections are presented.
Making information available using this system is far more than just "putting it on the Web." The DL software allows the collection to become maintainable, searchable, and browsable. Prior to presentation, each collection undergoes a "building" process that, once established, is completely automatic. This process creates all the structures that are used at run-time for accessing the collection. Searching is based on various indexes involving full text and metadata. Browsing is based on various metadata and on phrase structures, and other information, abstracted from the full text of the documents. Support structures for both are created during the building operation. When new material appears it can be fully incorporated into the collection by rebuilding.		"One of the limiting requirements for the information handling processes is no longer the storage capacity in databases but the time required for information search and analysis. The discrimination of relevant and irrelevant information is one of the crucial points in information storage and retrieval" p. 16 Konstantinos Ergazakis, Konstantinos Karnezis, et al. (2002). Knowledge Management in Enterprises: A Research Agenda. Practical aspects of Knowledge Management - 4th International Conference, PAKM 2002, Vienna, Austria, Springer.
Using Greenstone as a DL tool To address the exceptionally broad requirements of digital libraries, the Greenstone system (www.greenstone.org) is public and extensible. It is issued under the Gnu General Public License and, in the spirit of open-source software, users are invited to contribute modifications and enhancements. Only through an international cooperative effort will digital library software become sufficiently comprehensive to meet the world`s needs. Currently the Greenstone software has been used by several United Nations agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, UNESCO in Paris, the United Nations University in Tokyo, and the Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) in Nairobi. It is used at sites throughout the world, and interfaces and collections exist in languages ranging from Portuguese to Chinese, from Maori to Arabic. Collections range from newspaper articles to technical documents, from educational journals to oral history, from visual art to folksongs.[1] A Greenstone Digital Library (GDL) is a powerful KM tool for information search and analysis, allowing to discriminate relevant and irrelevant information. The ability to retrieve and store information in an efficient and effective system is crucial to KM. For an example of a Digital Library produced by CAMRIS please click here. [1] Further details, and many examples, can be obtained over the Internet from nzdl.org.