Section II: Problem Statement

Introduction

Ockham is an attempt to address some of the problems and challenges in a rapidly changing digital library environment. Specifically, Ockham is trying to solve problems including but are not limited to:

• bringing authoritative collections and records to the tops of searches

• creating, maintaining, and disseminating quality data and information

• developing and distributing open tool sets making their mechanisms and algorithms public

• encouraging the creation of new knowledge

• exposing collections and services

• facilitating the peer-review process

• facilitating ways to reuse data and information

• implementing filters for qualifying information

• making it easier for digital libraries to share their data/information ultimately duplicating it for preservation purposes

• proposing methods and protocols for digital library interoperation

• saving the time of the reader

Put another way, Ockham hopes to improve the ways libraries provide services and collections considering a globally networked environment and changing user expectations.

Traditional libraries

The emergence of the concept of the digital library has provided numerous opportunities to explore the potential of new digital information services and new types of digital content. At the same time, the vast number of new types of digital library systems, tools, and software has brought to the forefront the complexity of designing systems that can deal with heterogenous collections of information and a quickly growing number of new systems and services, while at the same time allowing legacy services provided by the traditional library community.

Collection development in a traditional library setting has been a fairly stable activity until recently. With the emergence of new forms of publishing (such as blogs), new formats of information (such as learning objects), new creators of collections (such as institutional repositories), and new methods of accessing information (such as portals), collection development is undergoing a paradigm shift. Libraries not only need new tools and systems which allow them to access, acquire, and interact with digital information, but they need systems designed to allow for what Lorcan Dempsey calls 'The Recombinant Library'[1].

Look at traditional libraries. What do they do? What are their core processes? In short, they:

• collect data, information and knowledge through collection development and acquisitions processes

• organize the collected data/information by cataloging it

• disseminate the organized data/information through various public services (i.e. reference, circulation, bibliographic instruction, etc.)

• preserve the historic record through conservation, preservation, and special collection departments

• sometimes evaluate the data/information by suggesting one set of materials over others after learning about patron needs

For the most part, the processes outlined above have surround tangible items, most notably books and journals. Unfortunately, the traditional implementation of the processes outlined above do not work as well in a digital environment especially considering changing user expectations. Ockham suggests a framework for facilitating these same processes in digital library environments.

Changing user expectations

The globally networked computer environment has significantly changed people's expectations regarding the value of and access to data, information, and knowledge. In order to continue to be relevant libraries have been adapting to these changes, but the progress is slow.

For example, in the mid-1980's the library profession became anomorated with mediated online searching. Through dial-up connections librarians accessed bibliographic information traditionally found in printed indexes. At the same time, library card catalogs were increasingly being digitized providing access points to collections beyond author, title, and subject terms.

In the early 1990's the same bibliographic information accessed through dial-up was becoming available on CDROM's. Again, libraries embraced the new technology, networked the CDROM's, and told their patrons, "You don't need to come into the library as much any more, nor do you need someone to mediate your searches." Similarly, the online catalogs where increasingly accessible from office computers.

By the mid- to late-1990's TCP/IP were well on their way to becoming the dominate networking protocols and access to remote computers stretched beyond the local network. The network became global. By creating HTML pages accessible through HTTP servers, it became practical to share and access information across the globe. People were no longer limited to their local library, but had access to literally hundreds, if not thousands, of libraries. At the same time, libraries had less and less of a monopoly on the printed word. Enormous numbers of people, institutions, and companies were becoming information producers scurting around the traditional printed publishing model. Information was increasingly digital and available through a Web browser. Things traditionally found in typical library reference materials (i.e. names, addresses, telephone numbers, definitions, maps, pictures, newspaper and encyclopedia-like articles, statistics, directions, etc.) were easily found on the Internet. Libraries started experiencing significant decreases in reference questions and gate counts.

Additionally, not only did the accessibility of data and information increase, but the techniques for finding it changed too. Throughout the past two decades, digital information searching techniques have moved away from highly structured Boolean logic and fielded queries to free text searching with relevance ranking results. While there are advantages and disadvantages to both techniques, free text searching and relevance ranking are seen by most people as easier to use.

All of these things, combined with the fact that the Internet has become available in our homes, has significantly changed the way people think about information. They experience the simplicity and breadth of information accessible through Google. People use Amazon.com, enjoy reading the reviews, and are willing to pay extra money to have selections delivered to their home or office the next day. People appreciate the convience and accessibility of the information found through the Internet, and they expect the same sort of convience and accessibility from traditional information institutions – libraries.

In a nutshell...

In a nutshell, learners, teachers, and scholars are looking around, experiencing the changing information landscape, and saying, "Library, why can't you provide these same sorts of things as Google and Amazon.com?" The answer to this question is, "We can", but the process involves taking a long hard look at the core functions of libraries and re-tooling/reshaping the way libraries do things.

Ockham proposes sets of responses to these and other problems. It embraces the established practices and principles of traditional librarianship and applies them to a globally networked environment. Along the way specific tasks and specific practices will need to be tweaked, altered, supplemented, or even abandoned but the end goals of building authoritative collections and providing useful services are retained. It is the processes and techniques used to achieve these goals that need to be modified, not necessarily the goals. These are the problems Ockham addresses.