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Defination :

A digital library or electronic library is a library in which a significant proportion of the resources are available in machine-readable format (as opposed to print or microform), accessible by means of computers. The digital content may be locally held or accessed remotely via computer networks. In libraries, the process of digitization began with the catalog, moved to periodical indexes and abstracting services, then to periodicals and large reference works, and finally to book publishing. Some of the largest digital libraries are purely digital having few if any physical holdings.

Process :

The  Digital Library  project will provide museums, libraries and other institutions holding moving image collections with the tools to create Web-based digital video libraries. Many museums and libraries have important video content that would be of great interest to their audiences but lack the necessary resources to address the many inherent challenges of building a digital video library. Using an iterative development process involving formative evaluation by project collaborators, this project will create and make available open source software tools that will enable organizations to create their own digital video libraries. The project products include:

• A digital video library toolkit. Components of the Toolkit will enable an organization to catalog and make available their digital video resources in their own Web-based digital library. The Toolkit will provide utilities for key features of a digital video library, such as keyframe extraction and the creation of storyboard previews, and administrative functions that enable features such as tracking how often individual video files have been viewed or downloaded.
• Documentation and tutorials. The Toolkit will be accompanied by how-to and reference guides, a tutorial that will demonstrate in detail how a museum or library considering adopting the Digital Video Library Toolkit can use it to create their own digital video library, and detailed guidelines on digitization, content selection, and metadata for video resources.

The diagram below presents a general overview of the our plans for the toolkit, divided into three main phases of the digital video library creation process.

The major tasks supported by the Toolkit in each phase are:

1. Preparation and Guidance: Many organizations are stymied in their efforts to create a digital library for their video resources because of the technical issues that have to be understood to make decisions about how to digitize their video. Our guidelines and tutorials on digitization, content selection, and metadata for video resources will assist organizations to more easily convert analog video, or existing digital video, into the most appropriate digital formats for their library.
2. Digitization: Digitized video will be stored as files on an organization's Web server and accessed via pointers (file addresses) stored in a Toolkit database.
3. Cataloging and Metadata: To be effectively accessed by end users of the digital library, video must be cataloged and indexed. The Toolkit will include an interface for cataloging video, based on a carefully developed metadata schema. Metadata produced through cataloging will be stored in a Toolkit database. Tools will also be available for importing metadata from other schemas.
4. Library Features: An administrative interface will provide access to tools and forms that enable an organization to create video previews such as storyboards and to customize the end user interface for their digital video library.
5. End User Experience: The digital video library interface produced by the Toolkit will be a Web site supported by the database. End users of the Web site will be able to search, browse, stream and download video resources.

          Contact STS for more information on our Digital Library systems.