Digital Library Collections

I have just finished my project for creating a digital library.  Check it out. 

https://sites.google.com/site/torquaylibrary/home

I also have a length discussion paper attached to the website.

In some ways I think I got a little too consumed with this assignment.  Searching for electronic resources and creating electronic records for them and designing an organizational format to share them was the general thrust of the project.  In an effort to end up with a usable resource for my school, I wanted to be all things to all people.  I had a both students and teachers in mind. I was also very focused on electronic content.  I did pay lip service to videos and some book resources but I wanted mostly to augment my library collection. This is no small task.

The effective organization of electronic resources is incredibly laborious.  Without access to an OPAC that allows you to put your records into a MARC record database, the creation and maintenance of digital libraries is nearly impossible for a busy part time teacher-librarian.

Cataloguing of websites is incredibly difficult.  Some websites are very eclectic in terms of their focus or intended audiences.  Certainly cataloguing of websites requires the use of many more subject headings than we use for more standard physical print resources we catalogue for our libraries.  It seems that some web resources need to be parsed down into sub-sections which are catalogued separately.

Depending on the content being catalogued the use on more and more non-standard subject heading may be required.  Web page cataloguing seems to be a mixture of folksonomy and standardized subject cataloguing.