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D-Lib Magazine
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This month marks a change for D-Lib Magazine: our first issue devoted to one topic, in this case collection-level description. Certainly the topic warrants such attention. As the papers gathered by Dr. Paul Miller amply illustrate, practitioners in many separate but related areas are trying to determine how to provide access in a cost-effective fashion to the myriad of items found in the world�s libraries, archives, and special collections. These papers highlight the practices in each discipline and the efforts underway to convert organizational schemes developed for the world of objects into electronic equivalents. A further round of user evaluation should help us determine whether collection-level description is a useful filtering tool when searching large quantities of disparate materials. Evaluation may also tell us whether hierarchical description may have relevance beyond the library, archives, and museum communities that are exploring it. D-Lib Magazine�s first experiment with a theme issue works because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Paul Miller recognized that the individual contributions would be more meaningful when read as part of a whole, and developed the issue based on this conviction. We would welcome suggestions for other special issues that would similarly advance the digital library field. Peter B. Hirtle Copyright© 2000 Corporation for National Research Initiatives |
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DOI: 10.1045/september2000-editorial
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