A study to evaluate the digitization level of Korean libraries (part I)

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discover and enumerate the elements of the digital library and measure how much an individual library was equipped with the characteristics of the digital library accordingly. Design/methodology/approach – For this purpose several steps were taken. First, research on the characteristics and the representative services of the digital library were comprehensively reviewed. Second, examples of the library services that were being considered for the next generation digital library were investigated to compare with the conventional library services. Third, the elements of the conventional and the digital libraries initially extracted were examined by ten experts. These experts were composed of researchers and professors specializing in digital libraries, and career librarians who had worked in the digital library field for at least ten years. The elements were verified through discussions with them. Fourth, 19 university libraries, 16 public libraries, and 17 special libraries were selected in accordance with the verified elements of the conventional and the digital libraries to measure the digitization level of the libraries. Findings – The following is a summary of the evaluation of the first eight evaluation items, which are covered in Part 1 of this study. The remaining five items will be covered in Part 2. First, the digitization level of the acquisition element and classification and cataloguing was significantly high. Second, book collections excluding “digital video,” reference service, library program service, and space service showed significantly conventional characteristics. Third, in the element of circulation services, the item of lending books offline and returning the books scored 92.64 and the item of lending-returning with use of smart devices and social media obtained significantly low scores. Also, the average in using the book return desk for the circulation service was 81.39, much higher than using the automatic book return machine, which scored 18.61, by a wide margin. Fourth, in the element of user services, the digital item of providing support for mobile services related to the library resources demonstrated higher scores than the conventional item, but other items showed more conventional characteristics. In particular, the item of duplication services for material scored 94.99, but other items such as support for publication/bookbinding services using digital publication tools and devices obtained significantly low scores. Originality/value – This study is first study in the world to measure the level of digitization of the library. Therefore, hereafter, each library will be able to measure and determine its digital position based on these elements. Up to now, some research was performed in pursuit of extracting the elements of a library but it has relied solely on literature review. Comprehensive research had never been performed as in this study.

Comparing digital libraries with social media from the dual route perspective

“…3.1 Digital libraries and social media Digital libraries and social media have emerged as two prominent online information sources with different characteristics. Digital libraries manipulate digital data in any medium and exist in distributed networks (Borgman, 1999;Noh, 2016). Early digital libraries were mostly academic and research libraries (Kwanya et al, 2011) and digital libraries in universities have gone "from a curiosity to mainstream" over the last 30 years (Arms, 2012, p. 579).…”

A study to evaluate the digitization level of Korean libraries (part II)

“…The components that make up each element are presented in a chart and coded for easier analysis. Additionally, the results for the first eight of the 13 elements with respect to the digitization levels broken down by the type of library are presented and summarized (Noh, 2016).…”

“…Jochumsen et al (2012) compared the characteristics of the virtual and physical libraries according to the four dimensions of experience, involvement, empowerment, and innovation; Jochumsen et al (2012) compared the physical and virtual libraries, the individual usercentered and the local community-centered, the book and the creation libraries, and the portal and the archive libraries according to the four dimensions. In addition, researchers such as Hendrix (2010), Singh and Sharma (2015), Yoon (1997), Nam (2011), and Noh (2014, 2016 worked to determine the characteristics of a digital library; however, none of studies were performed to comprehensively extract the elements of the conventional and the digital libraries symmetrically as in this study, and none of studies ever developed the index of evaluating the digitization level to actually perform the evaluation. Additionally, the researchers claimed that the libraries having both characteristics must choose one side or the other in considering the effectiveness, rather than that the digital library was more effective than the conventional library.…”