Andava eu a consultar referências primárias e depois de ler muitas referências a “What are digital libraries? Competing visions” de Christine L. Borgman, publicado em Information Processing and Management: an International Journal Volume 35 , Issue 3 (May 1999). Special issue on progress toward digital libraries, Pages: 227 – 243 ISSN:0306-4573, lá consegui o documento.
É um texto deveras lindo e historicamente muito exclarecedor:
A certa altura a Drªa Borgman (Department of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles) adianta o seguinte aparte:
As is evident from the defenitions presented in the next section, librarians tend to take a broad view of the concept of a `library’. Stated in general terms, they see libraries as organizations that select, collect, organize, conserve, preserve and provide access to information on behalf of a community of users. […]With the advent of computer networks and digital media, libraries will employ yet another delivery system for yet another form of media.
In this sense, the term `digital library’ connotes `the future library’, in which the institution is transformed to address the new environment in which it exists.
[…]
Most of the defenitions arising from the research community, especially those set forth by computer scientists, tend toward a narrower view of the concept of a `library’. Their emphasis is on databases and information retrieval and thus on collecting, organizing and providing access to information resources.[…] The narrow scope of the term `library’ follows from earlier uses in computer science research and practice in reference to any collection of similar materials.
[…[ To the computer scientists]] The term `digital library’ serves as a convenient and familiar shorthand to refer to electronic collections and conveys a sense of richer content and fuller capabilities than do terms such as `database’ or `information retrieval system’. […] Predictions by computer scientists of a declining role for librarians in a digital age (e.g. Odlyzko, 1995, 1997; Schatz, 1997) are predicated on a constrained view of the present and future role of libraries.Despite the tensions between these perspectives, the communities have not engaged in direct discussion to the extent that might be expected.
E agora para o que me deixou maravilhado:
On the research front, some in library and information science (LIS) take computer scientists to task for reinventing their research on organization of information, information retrieval, user interfaces and related topics; they are more likely to do so in conference discussion sessions or in private than in print, however. Computer science researchers counter that LIS researchers are bound by a narrow paradigm and pay insucient attention to computer science accomplishments.
[…]
The diversity of meaning of the term `digital library’ continues to be evident in conference programs, however, with odd juxtapositions of papers that bear more similarity in title than in content.
E depois então vêm as diversas tentativas de enquadramento do conceito “biblioteca digital” que tornam este artigo num dos mais citados a partir da sua publicação em 1999 (em termos de biblioteconomia digital praticamente a pré-história).
PS:as referências, as referências…
Odlyzko, A. M. (1995). Tragic loss or good riddance? The impending demise of traditional scholarly journals. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 42, 71±122.
Odlyzko, A. M. (1997). Silicon dreams and silicon bricks: the continuing evolution of libraries. Library Trends, 46(1), 152±167.
Schatz, B. R. (1997). Information retrieval in digital libraries: bringing search to the Internet. Science, 275(N5298),
327±334.