Problems
Mohd Nazir Ahmad Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
Mohd Noor Mamat Senior Lecturer
Centre for Islamic Thought and Understanding, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
Siti Fatahiyah Mahamood Lecturer
Centre for Islamic Thought & Understanding, INTEC Shah Alam:
Mashitah Sulaiman Lecturer
Centre of General Studies, Islamic Science University of Malaysia: [email protected]
Yarmouk University Arabic Digitial Library
Innovation and development of Information Networking and Database Related to Islam
Dr. Mohammad A. Sariareh
A PRESENTATION OF YARMOUK UNIVERSITY ARABIC DIGITIAL LIBRARY
BY
DR. MOHAMMAD A. SARIAREH
LIBRAY DIRECTOR
YARMOUK UNIVERSITY IRBID-21163
JORDAN
Before this change libraries were with limited access. "Users were primarily limited to those who can physically travel to the library building. They would come to the library, consult the card catalog, and, if available, get access to the books they wanted" Tonta, Yaşar (2008). This change of the role of libraries has necessitated a change in the role of librarians as well. Boock, Michael (2008) asserts, "Support staff in technical services departments recognize that their jobs are drastically changing." One more characteristic of digital libraries is "The ‘‘digital’’ nature of digital libraries allows automatic assessment and enforcement of those quality properties, thereby supporting prevention and elimination of quality problems, which may be more difficult in physical libraries" Goncalves, Marcos Andre, et al (2007).
The advent of computers, in general, and information technology, in particular, has led to inevitable changes in the way library information needs to be preserved, handled, presented, and searched. This library technology has advanced research to a great extent, especially in the West where electronic databases are provided online for researchers. However, these databases confine themselves to western journals and other information materials.
It is axiomatic that the only problem with western databases is, in most cases, money, having in mind that some places also have connection problems. Libraries that can afford such databases can provide them to students and researchers in their institutions or
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communities. However, there is a problem with the Arabic content because it is not available in the same way. Therefore, researchers who need to find information in Arabic journals have to spend much time, effort, and money doing so. They actually hunt for such information, and as a matter of fact, they miss a good deal as a result of this way of search. The importance and advantages of the digital library have been realized by many people in the field in comparison with the disadvantages of conventional ones. Silva, Lena Veiga et al (2006) state,
Many are the factors that contribute to this, including:
(1) the imbalance between publishers’ prices for journal licenses, which grow much faster than inflation, and the low budget of research and university libraries;
(2) the impossibility of authors to promote and share their own work with peers and therefore obtain the necessary scientific acknowledgment, due to copyright transfers to the publishers; and
(3) the enormous delays between submission and the actual publication of the work in the literature.
At the Library Department at Yarmouk University, we embarked on a pioneering project in which we, more or less, imitate some western publishers, but in digitizing journals, books, and theses published by educational institutions and similar educational bodies in the Arab world. This paper sheds light on this project.
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2. IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL LIBRARIES
Though conventional libraries still have their significant role in research institutions, digital libraries prove to also be as significant and are actually providing unsurpassed services to researchers.
But first, what would a digital library mean? Xie, Hong Iris (2008) cites many different definitions for a digital library, one of which is provided by the ARL as
The common elements of a digital library definition identified by the Association of Research Libraries (1995) are more acceptable to researchers of digital libraries:
_ The digital library is not a single entity.
_ The digital library requires technology to link the resources of many.
_ The linkages between the many digital libraries and information services are transparent to the end users.
_ Universal access to digital libraries and information services is a goal.
_ Digital library collections are not limited to document surrogates: they extend to digital artifacts that cannot be represented or distributed in printed formats.
Lesk, M., et al (2005) provides a comprehensive overview of the advantages of digital libraries. Rimmer, Jon (2007) addresses the importance of digital libraries saying, "In particular they offer us
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convenient, fast access to a far wider selection of materials than we might expect in a physical library, often with additional facilities that enhance our interaction with the materials and allow us to engage with artefacts in more advanced ways (e.g. full text search)."
Digital libraries provide access to a far greater number of researchers, sometimes even off-campus. So, digital libraries play a much greater role in advancing research in quantity and quality. It is a well-known fact now that institutions with digital libraries (with digital local or purchased materials) have greater number of publications. Deegan and Tanner (2002) argue that researchers mostly prefer digital formats because they offer much faster access.
Lee, Sul H. (2007) talks about the importance of best practices, standards, and knowledge storage to facilitate discovery and sustainability of digital materials while meeting the scholarly needs of research.
Tsakonas, Giannis and Christos Papatheodorou show the interaction of different components within digital libraries. They cite Fuhr, et al. (2004) who demonstrate this kind of interaction in a suggested model (figure is shown below), namely, Interaction Triptych Framework was used (ITF). They indicate
[It] is a theoretical model that attempts to integrate knowledge and experience from the fields of information behaviour and human computer interaction. ITF is based on the concept of DL components interaction. Each DL is consisted by three main components, namely system, content and user. Each
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component interacts with the other two and each interaction defines an evaluation axis, which is considered as the resultant of a set of descriptive attributes of that interaction. In particular the interactions between the three components (i.e.
the evaluation axes) are defined as usability, usefulness and performance and each of them is a resultant of a number of attributes, which are considered as evaluation variables.
Interaction triptych framework
Buckland, Michael K. (2008) assert that digital libraries provide self- service to patrons. They say
Libraries could reduce operating costs by avoiding the key
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the public catalog, by shelving books in accession order, by ending open access, and by not lending. But it is the investment in these amenities that empowers users to serve themselves, enables the library to accommodate much more library use, and makes the library more attractive to the community served.
Consider any actual reference library and compare the number of different people who can use a reference library collection simultaneously with the number of patrons that could be served simultaneously by the reference staff.
There is much that we can account for to show the importance of digital libraries, in general, and Arabic ones, in particular. There is ample research in Arabic journals and theses, but it is not easily accessed. In reality it is limited to those who have access to physical libraries, and even those spend much valuable time and effort to dig information in such library resources.
3. GOALS OF THE PROJECT
This project is intended to fulfill these goals on the long run:
I. Building the digital content of Arabic materials:
a. Gathering and digitizing all the journal issues in the collection of the Library Department at Yarmouk University as a starting point;
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b. digitizing journal issues received from the institutions willing to participate in the project, especially members of the Arab Universities Association;
c. digitizing all works published by Yarmouk University as a starting point,
d. digitizing works published by other institutions, especially members of the Arab Universities Association;
e. digitizing all MA and Ph.D. theses in the collection of the Library at Yarmouk University as a starting point;
f. digitizing all reports published by Yarmouk University or any institution willing to participate in this project; and
g. bridging gaps between otherwise non-communicating areas in the world where there is non-accessible information to researchers in each part.
II. Advancing research in institutions:
a. providing researchers with the digital content via the internet, thus, saving researchers much of their time, effort, and money;
b. reducing the waiting time of publications, when they are immediately provided in this database to weeks or even days, instead of waiting for months or years (i.e. they are made available as soon as they are published;
c. reducing, or even, eliminating duplication of topics. So researchers will build on what has been published rather than reaping it;
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d. providing related studies in an easy and quick way to researchers;
e. encouraging authors to publish their articles and books with participating institutions;
f. Remote access can provide researchers with such journals and materials wherever they are. So they can work on their papers even if they are outside campus, thus, utilizing their time even when they are at home or abroad; and
g. The search engine provides researchers with a very efficient tool to look for needed material with ability to limit the search to minimum;
h. Reading the abstract about a work makes it easy for the researcher to determine the relatedness of this work to his/her research;
i. Reducing the chances of plagiarism in research when material is equally available to researchers, students, and evaluator and supervisors.
III. Statistical research facts about institutions and researchers (Citation Index):
a. providing statistical accounts about research and publications in participating institution when they are included in the database showing how active these institutions are (usage statistics);
b. providing statistical accounts about researchers by having an account of how many research papers, books, etc. they have published so far;
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c. providing statistical facts about usage of databases by researchers in different institutions to show how active they are in research; and
d. researchers in different parts of the world can actually see how active institutions are form the size of their publications in the database.
IV. Financial support:
a. The database will be available for paid subscriptions which means that participating institutions will get some royalties for their materials, so journals will find a constant source of financial support;
b. Royalties may extend to reach authors of books and theses in participating institutions;
c. The project insures self-support which means that it will not be a burden on Yarmouk University for its financial needs, except the initial cost which very much recoverable from paid subscriptions.
V. Management of Materials at libraries:
a. When Arabic journals are constantly provided online, there is no need for keeping or even acquiring print forms, thus, saving participating libraries some space and cost of air conditioning/ heating, etc.; This space can be used for some other purposes in the library;
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b. Libraries also do not need trained employees to handle and process journals;
c. With electronic forms, journals (and other such materials) cannot be tampered with by some indifferent users. So there would be no torn, marked, or missing pages;
d. There would be no delayed or missing issues for follow ups;
and
e. Remote off- or on-campus access reduces the number of journeys to the library just to get information from journals.
So staff can benefit from the database from their offices.
Even students can also use computer labs all over campus to access the database; some of whom may also enjoy off- campus access.
4. SINGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
The significance of this project stems form the following reasons, among others:
a. The fact that it is one, or even, the only one worldwide that provides digitized Arabic journals, books, etc. within a database with a single search engine.
b. The database is being constantly provided with related material.
c. The database is prepared by professional librarians and computer specialists.
d. The database is supported by a well-known institution.
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e. The project is approved and supported by the Arab Universities Association which includes about 150 universities.
f. The project embodies a win-win situation between Yarmouk University and publishers where both sides are winners.
g. The project provides published materials almost instantly.
This means that information is present in short time instead of waiting for years to be available for researchers becoming out of date before it is even published.
h. The project is an important tool for the development of education, especially higher education.
5. The Project
5.1 Green Light from University Officials
The Library Director held a meeting with the university president. He discussed the idea of the Arabic digital library in detail. He responded to all questions and inquiries. The main concern was whether we were capable of carrying out such a huge and pioneering project. The president accepted the idea and promised to provide all support. He realized the project will make Yarmouk University unique among others. And so we were given green light to embark with project.
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5.2 Targeted Material
As indicated in the previous sections, the project targets the following library resources:
a. Academic journals, especially those published by member universities of the Arab Universities Association, and also other academic bodies such as language academies, associations, etc. in the Arab world.
b. M. A. and Ph.D. theses approved by graduate schools in educational institution in the Arab world or any other institutions or even individuals.
c. Scholarly books published by member universities of the Arab Universities Association and any other interested institutions, or even individuals.
d. Reports or conference materials, especially those published by universities, governments, corporations, association, agencies, etc. and they like to include them in the project.
5.3 Project Software
Specialists in the library department held several meetings to set the required fields. We also studied and analyzed many similar systems for maximum benefits. A technical report was carefully prepared and forwarded to the Computer Center at Yarmouk University. After about two weeks, a group of specialist librarians, headed by the library director, and computer programmers, headed by the director of the Computer Center, held the first technical meeting. All aspects were thoroughly discussed and questioned
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professionally answered. The programmers designed an Oracle- based database. The Computer Center takes care of the license issue for the whole university.
5.4 Testing the Software
The library prepared some material to work with for the purpose of testing the software. All necessary components (journal title, names of authors, article titles, volume number, issue number, date of publication, range of pages, subject headings, etc. were typed in proper fields and sub-fields. Some journal issues were scanned as well, and articles were separated as single files. The test was successful. We kept meeting with programmers to take care of any problems which were minor. We reported our success to university officials who were also pleased with the achievement.
5.5 Project Hardware
The hardware for this project, so far, consists of the following components:
a. Heavy duty scanner provided by the Center of Excellence for the Jordanian Universities Public Libraries. The scanner is of acceptable capabilities: about 80 sheets per minute with double sided scanning with resolution of 150 dpi (black and white), grey scale and color scanning is also available, tray with 1000 sheets capacity, immediate PDF format storage, and many other useful settings.
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b. About 15 PCs, one with the scanner and the others are used for data entry, indexing, dividing scanned issues/books/theses to articles/chapters, and for double checking.
c. A heavy duty electric cutter, which actually belongs to the Department of Public Affairs, where the mint is.
d. Network which already exists in the new building of the library, and throughout campus.
e. Heavy duty server, which is not devoted for the project. The project still uses the university server. This is why we limited with data storage to only 20 GB. The Computer Center recommended devoting a special heavy duty server for the project.
5.6 Work Flow
5.6.1 Setting Teams
Several teams were established to take care of the different tasks:
a. Basic data entry team: People in this team key in data: book title; thesis title; journal title, names of authors, article titles, volume number, issue number, date of publication, and range of pages. Those people do not need to be professional librarians.
b. Subject headings: A team of trained librarians carry out this task. They follow a certain strategy that is similar to that of
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book cataloging in the library, which is mainly the Library of Congress (the Anglo-American) cataloging system.
c. Material Preparation Team: This team prepares the selected material for scanning and other tasks.
d. Scanning team: People in this team scan material and save it in PDF format.
5.6.2 Building the Database
a. The journals division makes records for each major library resource with its own serial number. If it is a journal, other necessary information is also set, such as frequency of publication, follow up receipt of issues, status in the work flow:
received or missing, scanned or not, etc. The record of journal includes: journal title, year of publication, volume number (if any), and issue number. No need for other teams to key in this information anymore.
b. Issues of selected journal/these/books are taken off the shelves to the mint in the Department of Public Affairs at the university to cut the binder using the electric cutter, secured with a rubber band, and finally forwarded to the scanning team. Electronically received materials skip the scanning process, but are subjected to the other steps.
c. The scanning team scans the prepared materials and saves them in specified folders. There is a major folder each type of material: journals, theses, books, reports. Within each major folder, there are sub-folders, for example, for each journal title, where there are also sub-folders for issues. Each issue is one
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PDF file which has a file name with year of publication, volume number, issue number: e.g. 2005-V3-N1)
d. Issues are then sent to another team to key in bibliographic information: article title, author(s) with the role (author, translator, editor, etc.), and page numbers. Once the typist presses "save," the record gets a unique serial number automatically. Each person has his/her user account number with a user name and password. The user number appears with every record established by this user.
e. Finished issues are then sent to people whose job is to go over every issue to extract each article/chapter. From a specific screen where those people access issue data, they copy the unique number and save the extracted article/chapter with it in a specific folder for that issue/ volume/ journal. If they discover any mistakes, spelling or otherwise, they correct them. They have to report such matter to the head of the Journals Department.
f. Then those issues are sent to the Indexing Division where there are highly trained people with long experience with cataloguing and indexing. They assign the major symbols for the topics of articles, such as L and LB, following the Anglo- American rules. This is useful for users to select in which subject areas they would like to limit their search, instead of searching in all topics.
g. Other people have the task of double-checking the accuracy of data entry. They correct mistakes and report them to the head of the Journals Division.
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h. No person in any team has access to the work of any other people whether in the same team or other teams. Only the Library Director has the privilege to accessing all users. He can also get reports from the system of statistics about every body on all teams.
i. All scanned materials are saved in more than one place (back ups), and can only be accessed by authorized people for security.
j. The head of the Journals Division collects all prepared materials and just drops them in a certain folder accessed by certain people in the Computer Center to add them to the database. They become available for people who have access to the database.
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5.7 Screens from the Project 5.8 DATA ENTRY SCREENS
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Resource information entry screen
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Article information within One Issue
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Article Entry Screen
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Indexing Screen
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Double Checking A Record
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5.9 Screens for the Researcher
CHOOSE TOPIC SCREEN
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SEARCH ENGINE BOXES
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SAMPLE DATA IN SEARCH ENGINE
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SEARCH RESULT
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FULL TEXT ARTICLE DISPLAY
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References
Boock, Michael (2008) Organizing for Digitization at Oregon State University: a Case Study and Comparison with ARL Libraries.
The Journal of Academic Librarianship, doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2008.07.001
Deegan, M., & Tanner, S. (2002). Digital Futures: Strategies for the information age. London: Library Association Publishing.
Fuhr, N., Tsakonas, G., Aalberg, T., Agosti, M., Hansen, P., Kapidakis, S., et al. (in press). (2004) Evaluation of digital libraries. International Journal on Digital Libraries, doi:10.1007/s00799-007-0011-z.
Goncalves, Marcos Andre, Barbara L. Moreira, Edward A. Fox, Layne T. Watson (2007) ‘‘What is a good digital library?’’ – A quality model for digital libraries Information Processing and Management 43 (2007) 1416–1437.
Lee, Sul H. (ed.) (2007). Digital Information and Knowledge Management: New Opportunities for Research Libraries Binghamton, NY: Haworth Information Press.
Lesk, M. (2005). Understanding Digital Libraries (second ed.).
Morgan Kaufman.
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Rimmer, Jon, Claire Warwick, Ann Blandford, Jeremy Gow George Buchanan, (2007) An examination of the physical and the digital qualities of humanities research. Information Processing and Management 44 (2008) 1374–1392.
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