11/15 Reading Responses

Digital Libraries: Challenges and Influential Work

I think that this article was focused and relevant to the current developments in digital information.  The DLIs that were discussed in the article were being developed while the Internet was still burgeoning, yet it seems that the DLI-1 and DLI-2 projects were still capable of producing discoveries and information that is useful for continuing developments in digital library technology.  The thirteen entities and institutions that were mentioned in the article as contributing to digital library initiatives seem to have continued to improve upon the developments of the first two DLI projects, and if international governments can continue to implement other digital library initiatives by providing funding, than I think that experts in other academic fields of study will be persuaded to provide contributions.   

Dewey Meets Turing: Librarians, Computer Scientists, and the Digital Libraries Initiative

The relationship between librarians and computer scientists seems to be something that has the potential to become more productive as digital information technology progresses.  I think that the two disciplines of library science and computer science are capable of mending many misunderstandings between the two disciplines.  I also think that librarians and computer scientists can improve their relationships with publishers to provide more efficient means of distributing information through newer technological means.  After reading this article, I think that the differences in the methods of information organization between librarians and computer scientists should continue to be examined.  It seems that the relationship between the disciplines of library science and computer science will improve as information technology progresses, and as the collaboration between the two disciplines continues to improve.   

Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age

I think that the implementation of institutional repositories within scholarly communities could allow for the improvement of academic searching capabilities, if academic institutions are willing to refine and improve the methods of creating institutional repositories.  Universities and other higher educational institutions could be served well by the development of institutional repositories, although as Lynch suggests in the article, many of these institutions could be served just as well if the services themselves of the repositories are offered.  If the costs of offering institutional repositories are reasonable for many academic institutions in the future, and these institutions are able and willing to contribute to the advancement of institutional repositories, then I think that institutional repositories could greatly improve academic information retrieval.