Contents
Enabling Access in Digital Libraries
A Report on a Workshop on Access Management
by Caroline Arms
February 1999
Summary of the Day's Activities
Judith Klavans, Director, Center for Research on Information Access, Columbia University
Donald Waters, Director, Digital Library Federation
Creation of an Authorization Database (Russell S. Vaught)
Reflections on the NISO DOI Rights Metadata Working Group (John S. Erickson)
Technical Assumptions
Issues Affecting User Acceptance
Where is the balance between two utopian visions?
What perspectives are needed?
Will there be slow evolution or a revolution?
Will economics govern acceptance?
Simplicity pays
- What kinds of role distinctions are necessary?
What rights and duties are expected?
What are the privacy issues?
How strong must the security controls be?
What kinds of accountability are necessary and what kinds of management data are needed?
How do we evaluate effectiveness of the system from user and provider perspectives?
Conclusions
Appendix A: Workshop Participants
Appendix B: Suggested Readings
Appendix C: Legislative Update
Appendix D: Definitions
The Digital Library Federation
On May 1, 1995, 16 institutions created the Digital Library Federation (additional partners have since joined the original 16). The DLF partners have committed themselves to "bring together—from across the nation and beyond—digitized materials that will be made accessible to students, scholars, and citizens everywhere." If they are to succeed in reaching their goals, all DLF participants realize that they must act quickly to build the infrastructure and the institutional capacity to sustain digital libraries. In support of DLF participants' efforts to these ends, DLF launched this publication series in 1999 to highlight and disseminate critical work.
DONALD J. WATERS
Director
Digital Library Federation