Digital Libraries and Information Retrieval

The main objective of any Digital Library (DL) is to fulfil the needs of its users. A primary necessity is to make digital objects accessible using a computer network. A crucial part for Digital Libraries is that its information is managed, persistent and reliable. A Digital Library consists of digital collections, a working environment, and technology and services.A general problem is Information Discovery; how to find information in the Internet world. Digital Libraries comprise diverse collections of digital objects representing text, sound, maps, videos, photos etceteras. The use of metadata to describe digital objects will be discussed. Metadata is often divided into three categories: descriptive, structural and administrative, and hence supports additional work tasks than the classical IR. Different metadata formats (MARC, Dublin Core, and others), the IFLA model and the Resource Description Framework (RDF) are presented.