LIS 538 - Digital Libraries (IT)

Course Outline

Winter  

Calendar Description:

The goal of this course is to introduce students to the concept, development, types and trends of digital libraries. This course will focus on the creation, organization, access, use, and evaluation of digital libraries with a view to socioeconomic and cultural issues.

Objectives:

By the end of the course students should be able to:

• Gain a critical understating of the concept of and approaches to digital libraries
• Demonstrate an understanding of the issues of information representation, organization, access and retrieval in digital libraries
• Develop methods and skills to analyze and evaluate the major components of digital libraries
• Identify and discuss technical, social, economic and cultural implications of digital libraries
• Develop a small digital library using open source software

Methods:

A combination of lectures, small group discussions, in-class and computer-based exercises, and computer demonstrations will be used throughout this course. Where possible, guest lectures and/or special presentations will also be included.

Course relationships:

Pre-requisites: LIS 501, 502, 503. LIS 505 is highly recommended.

Class participation (10%) N/A

Individual participation for the benefit of the class as a whole. The purpose is for all students to join comfortably in the process. Factors to be considered include, but are not limited to, attendance, preparation, small group interaction, general class contribution, cooperative work outside of class, the reading assignments, and a optional one-paragraph self-assessment of class participation (to be submitted by e-mail by April 15th).