Xie and Matusiak introduce several different definitions of digital libraries in their book, Discover Digital Libraries: Theory and Practice. One of the most workable definitions of a digital library I found was the one by (Bishop, et al., 2003) that digital libraries are “sociotechnical systems – networks of technology, information, documents, people, and practices”.
Like others in my LIS 658 class, I relate strongly to the Bishop definition. I work at Dell Technologies, a company of some 140,000, we generate a lot of information, most of it digital. There is no way anyone will know it all. It’s not easy to find, use, leverage or even track. And based on my earlier work as a search engine guy, I know that it’s not just the individual’s search results that can be interesting. If two people get overlapping results, they may have related interests. In fact, their queries may be related and possibly even their personas. This represents an strong opportunity to support various kinds of networking for purpose. It’s the kind of serendipity that Google tries to foster in the lunch lines (Links to an external site.).
In my mind, a digital library is fairly amorphous. My own digital library has over 1100 datasets and 8B rows of data, which get refreshed just about every week. It is the result of a vast amount of computational energy. Sadly, not many know how to leverage it. So it needs to be documented. Currently, that is the project that is occupying a large portion of my time. In the KM class (LIS 658), one would have a discussion of tacit (contextual) and explicit knowledge (Polanyi). To me, that’s an interesting definition but not very pragmatic. It’s almost purely philosophical. It does not do a very good job of considering the background of the audience member or the direction from which they are approaching the question. Tacit knowledge that isn’t germane isn’t relevant. So who cares?
A digital library must be able to expand (and contract) in its own collections, as well as add linkages to new collections without missing a beat. I think the Bishop definition comes pretty close to that. In Bishop’s definition, the idea of people and know-how is implicit. (I think it’s in the ‘…practices’ section of the definition). I think the emphasis of the Bishop definition is in how people intend to acquire information and turn it into knowledge.
Dr. Joo asks if the definition well expands different types of libraries. I rather doubt it that it’s all-encompassing. However, I think it’s a very workable, pragmatic definition of a digital library and for all the definition’s shortcomings, it s better than something philosophical but not the least bit actionable (if you haven’t figured it out by now, that kind of thing drives me up the wall). My big problem with definitions and descriptions of tacit knowledge is that they are inherently recursive and limitless (in a mathematical sense – the need to document something never ends. I mean, do I have to describe how to breathe?) and therefore, they are inherently philosophical and not very practical.
I don’t disagree with the idea of tacit vs. explicit knowledge at all (Polanyi, 1966). What bothers me is that there is no defining end point. Ultimately, then, the driver of the end point of any definition or description is the author’s energy, time, and resources that they are willing to devote to the issue. So what was the point of the philosophical discussion? I don’t know the answer to that
And why do bishops wear that funny hat? I don’t know the answer to that, either.
978-0-12-417112-1, I., Xie, I.,, Matusiak, K. & Elsevier (ed.) (2016). Discover Digital Libraries: Theory and Practice. ISBN: 978-0-12-417112-1
Bishop AP, Van House NA, Buttenfield BP. Digital Library Use: Social Practice in Design and Evaluation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2003.
Polanyi, M. & of Chicago, U. (ed.) (1966). The Tacit Dimension.
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