562

Chapter LVIII
Digital Libraries Overview
and Globalization
Soh Whee Kheng Grace
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Abstract

Library digitization on a global basis is essential in the twenty-first century. The digital library develop-
ment initiatives in most countries depend substantially on their national libraries. This chapter focuses
on an overview of how national libraries of 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region are involved in
digital library initiatives. Most libraries participate in the collaborative efforts to build digital librar-
ies with support from their government. Some focus on digitization and preservation activities, while
others concentrate on digitization standards. Requirements for digital library implementation from a
global perspective are essential. With the understanding of the current situation in Asia Pacific, we can
understand the readiness of national libraries aiming for globalization in this part of the world, and
action can be taken to achieve the aim. The globalization of digital libraries is what the world should
be heading towards as we enter the next century.

INTRODUCTION work transmission. It is also an organization that

There are many definitions of digital libraries,
and the concept of digital libraries is invoked in
various contexts. It might refer to the system in
which a collection is located, or it could refer to the
organization underlying a collection. Therefore,
the digital library is a system that stores mass
digital information resources in different formats
and allows their access by end users through net-
provides the resources to select, structure, access,
interpret, distribute, and preserve the integrity and
usability of collections of digital works so that they
are available for use by a specific community or
set of communities (Digital Library Federation,
2004; Zhou, 2005).
It is essential for libraries worldwide to aim for
globalization in the twenty-first century. When
countries around the world exchange digital in-

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Digital Libraries Overview and Globalization
formation, it increases worldwide relations (Ani
& Biao, 2005). An interconnected global digital
library can contain the unique cultural treasures
of various countries, and by offering free access,
it would help people understand one another better
(Billington, 2005). The term “globalization” im-
plies that it is a worldwide phenomenon. Therefore
it plays a great role contributing economically,
socially, culturally, and politically in the world
society. It also increases the cooperation among
many nations (Iwe, 2005).
The Internet is commonly used today; there-
fore, libraries should overcome the limitations of
physical distance to deliver information through
online means. Bultmann, Hardy, Muir, and Wictor
(2006) state that digitization improves access to
material, saves storage space and minimizes the
handling of originals, which helps in the preserva-
tion of material. Undertaking digitization initia-
tives will attract new users and support distance
learning (Baba, 2005). Tedd and Large (2005)
added that digitization processes are becoming
more affordable and effective, therefore digital
libraries are being established worldwide, and
many countries are digitizing their collections
(Bultmann et al., 2006). It is, therefore, the right
time for libraries to aim for globalization. In the
next section, an overview of how the national
libraries of countries in the Asia-Pacific region
are involved in digital library development initia-
tives is discussed.
OVERVIEW OF ACTIONs
There are 58 countries in the Asia-Pacific region
(Foo & Theng, 2005), and these include countries
in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and
Oceania. This section focuses on 14 countries,
mainly four in East Asia—China, Japan, Korea,
Taiwan; two in South Asia—India and Sri Lanka;
six in Southeast Asia—Indonesia, Malaysia, Phil-
ippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam; and two
in Oceania—Australia and New Zealand.
East Asia
China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan are advancing
in their digital library initiatives and digitization
efforts. They have collaborated or cooperated
with their partners internally. More work in the
international arena should be encouraged.
National Library of China
(http://www.nlc.gov.cn)
China has been undertaking a number of digital
library projects since 1996. The China National
Digital Library (CNDL) project (http://www.nlc.
gov.cn/ndlc/index.htm) is one of the collabora-
tive projects that the National Library of China
(NLC) is leading. Its partners include libraries,
universities, research institutions, and Internet-
based companies (Liu & Zhang, 2001). The NLC
aims to construct the largest collection of Chinese
resources of excellent quality to provide efficient
services to both China and the world through the
nation’s backbone networks and international
principle technologies (Zhou, 2005). The China
Academic Library and Information System (CA-
LIS) is a nationwide academic library consortium
(http://www.calis.edu.cn). Its resource and infor-
mation service network involves the cooperation of
libraries and organizations, such as NLC, Online
Computer Library Center (OCLC, USA), the Brit-
ish Library and National Institute of Informatics,
Japan (Yao, Chen, & Dai, 2004).
To develop the Chinese Pilot Digital Library
(CPDL) project, the NLC aims to cooperate with
nine public libraries in China. The objective
is to unify distributed resources and construct
standardized digital libraries. There is ongoing
research and they have made good progress on
metadata standards (Liu, 2004; Zhou, 2005). The
CNDL, CALIS and CPDL are funded by national
investment, which is under the Chinese govern-
ment (Zhou, 2005). The NLC adopts modern
technology, leads the standardization of the digi-
tization of libraries, and works to provide online
563

services (Library Society of China, 2006). There
is ongoing research work on various standards
and specifications for digital libraries. The next
focus is to plan to retrain librarians to become
digital librarians (Zhou, 2005).
National Diet Library, Japan
(http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/index.html)
The only national library in Japan is the National
Diet Library (NDL). It has been cooperating with
libraries in various projects, and is supportive
of the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) “Virtual
Memory of the World” project. The NDL’s digital
library contains approximately 55,000 digitized
volumes of books published during the Meiji
period (1867–1912), of which the copyright has
expired. Its collection includes rare books and
information on Diet session proceedings. This
digital library has a search function but it offers
only a Japanese interface and there is no distinction
between government and nongovernment publica-
tions in its database. An online exhibition of its
digitized collection (http://www.ndl.go.jp/consti-
tution/e/) contains the digital images and texts of
government documents, diplomacy records, and
political figures’ diaries. It is displayed in both
English and Japanese but no search function is
available (Koga, 2005).
The Web Archiving Project (WARP) is the
NDL’s main project since it started in 2002. It is
supposed to collect selective Japanese Web content
but several government agencies have not allow
their Web sites to be included in WARP (http://
warp.ndl.go.jp). At present, it provides snapshots
of archived content and lacks a search function
for its government Web contents (Koga, 2005).
Currently, the NDL is working on principles
for legislation for acquiring and providing the
networked electronic publications. The issue on
how to develop standards for metadata creation
is also one of the priorities of NDL (Yokoyama,
2006).
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Digital Libraries Overview and Globalization
National Library of Korea
(http://www.nl.go.kr)
National Library of Korea (NLK) aims to become
a world library by 2010. One of its goals is to be the
global portal and gateway for library and informa-
tion centers (Hee, Duk, & Young, 2006). The NLK
is publicizing the establishment of the National
Digital Library (NDL), which is funded by the
government (Hee et al., 2006; Lee, 2006a). The
NDL (http://www.dlibrary.go.kr) contains digital
publications and online information resources
that would meet the user demand for service and
improve efficiency in searching for information
(Lee, 2006a). In addition, the NLK has become
the key organization to develop an integrated
national digital library system that connects seven
major domestic institutes, including the NLK, the
National Assembly Library, Korea Research and
Development Information Center, Korea Educa-
tion and Research Information Service, Science
Library of Korea Advanced Institute of Science
Technology, Korea Institute of Industry and
Technology Information, and Library of Court.
The NLK has also proposed a basic model of a
digital library that provides one-stop information
service for users, and builds databases for article
indexes and abstracts, which includes complete
bibliographies and full-texts for the visually im-
paired (Bae, Jeong, Shim, & Kwak, 2007).
As for standards, the NLK is using a standard-
ized tool, Korean Machine Readable Cataloguing
(KORMARC) Rules, as a Korean standard for
processing publication information. The Dublin
Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) Metadata de-
scription (ISO 15836) as a descriptive format is
used by the NLK for digital resources to build
the Online Archiving and Searching Internet
Sources (OASIS). It has agreed to set up a meta-
data center to maintain the metadata registry and
provide guidance for reusing various metadata.
Recognizing the need to promote the cooperation
of libraries and other institutions, the NLK joins
the DCMI affiliate program to aid in the active
utilization of metadata (Lee, 2006b).
Digital Libraries Overview and Globalization
National Central Library, Taiwan
(http://www.ncl.edu.tw/english/index.asp)
In Taiwan, many digital library initiatives have
become full-fledged projects (Urs, 2005). The
National Central Library (NCL) is the only
national library in Taiwan. Its “Remote Elec-
tronic Access/Delivery of Document Services”
(READncl: http://readopac.ncl.edu.tw/eindex.
htm) allows users to retrieve, copy, fax and e-mail
the indexes and full-text information of its rich
collection since 1998. Its collection has about
five million pages of text images. Furthermore,
the NCL cooperates with professional groups and
academic organizations to digitize content in spe-
cific disciplines (Ke & Hwang, 2000). Currently,
the NCL collaborates with the National Archives
in the National Digital Archives Project (Baba,
2005). This project involves the digitization of
its unique cultural heritage collections (Chen,
Chen, Chen, & Hsiang, 2002). It also involves the
digitization of public access resources, including
Chinese periodicals, newspapers and government
reports.
South Asia
The national libraries of India and Sri Lanka in
South Asia have also been undertaking digitization
work, and they see the importance of collabora-
tion both nationally and internationally. Though
there is still much work to be done, they have
had a good start.
National Library of India
(http://www.nlindia.org/modernisation.html)
In India, many reputable funded activities on
digitization initiatives are undertaken mainly
by academic and research-oriented institutions
both nationally and internationally. The National
Library of India (NLI) has been digitizing fre-
quently-used rare books and documents published
before 1900, as well as Indian publications on
compact discs. Currently, a total of 25 million
pages of selected books in Indian and English
languages have been recorded. Moreover, there
are also East India Company records, diaries and
materials on paper and palm leaves, but the digi-
tization activities are currently fragmented and
diversified. The government of India and major
research organizations are supportive of collabo-
rating with national and international agencies
on large projects, therefore several libraries are
taking part in digitization activities (Dasgupta,
2005). Few works are being headed by NLI.
The libraries undertaking digitization ac-
tivities face many problems and barriers. Most
projects are independent and involve one-time
effort. They lack well-conceived and carefully-
planned objectives. Besides, there is no policy
framework at the national level, and there is a
lack of well-trained personnel for digital works.
Technological problems include the lack of non-
standard technical activities and multiple Indian
language optical character recognition (OCR)
facilities. Furthermore, it is difficult to sustain
digitization efforts and digital libraries, due to the
lack of proper preservation policies (Dasgupta,
2005). The plan for India in the near future is to
extend the digitization efforts from books to other
sources. Research on Indian language technology
is ongoing. The aim is to create a central portal
for all the digital library efforts in India, and to
have new technologies for digitalizing sources
(Balakrishnan, 2006).
National Library of Sri Lanka
(http://www.natlib.lk)
The National Library of Sri Lanka (NLSL) is play-
ing a major role in the collection and preservation
of the nation’s intellectual heritage (Gangabadada-
rachchi & Amarasiri, 2006). It is collaborating
with the Department of National Archives for
the compilation of the National Bibliography,
and this is sponsored by the President’s fund.
The NLSL is also restoring the museum library
565

collection by working with the Department of
National Museums. This project is funded by the
Japanese government (Baba, 2005). Its current
work is to digitize the national library’s collec-
tion, and it has started a project on the develop-
ment of a digital library (Gangabadadarachchi &
Amarasiri, 2006).
Southeast Asia
The national libraries of developed countries in
Southeast Asia are collaborating with their part-
ners to provide easy access to information. As
for developing countries in Southeast Asia, the
development of digital libraries and the sustain-
ability of digitization efforts would require both
the support from their government as well as
international collaboration.
Bandung Institute of Technology
Central Library, Indonesia
(www.itb.ac.id)
Urs (2005) stated that Indonesia has its first
Indonesian Digital Library Network (IDLN:
http://as.lib.itb.ac.id) when it collaborated with
the government and diverse sectors, together with
grant support from the International Development
Research Center (IDRC) of Canada, and the In-
donesian Foundation for Telecommunication and
Information Network (YLTI). This digital library
initiative began after the development of a Web
site for the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB)
Central Library (Sulistyo-Basuki, 2004).
National Library of Malaysia
(http://www.pnm.my)
With support from the government, Malaysia
has started a national program on digital library
development with a well-defined national frame-
work (Urs, 2005). The National Digital Library
System (http://www.mylib.com.my) is developed
by the National Library of Malaysia (NLM) to
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Digital Libraries Overview and Globalization
create a knowledge-rich society. This system
could facilitate the networking and sharing of
digital resources among all libraries (Shaifol &
Nasir, 2005). The NLM has also developed the
International Islamic Digital Library (http://www.
iidl.net) (Baba, 2005). With the collaboration of
the Department of Museums and Antiquity, and
the National Archives, the NLM has a portal on
Malaysia’s monarchy, which is the institution of
the King of Malaysia (http://www.yangdiper-
tuanagong.com). The National IT Council under
the Demonstrator Application Grants Scheme
(DAGS) funded this project (Baba, 2005).
Furthermore, the NLM and 22 academic li-
braries have joint digitization efforts. During the
process of digitization, most libraries face prob-
lems. They need manpower and training to carry
out the digitization work, as well as guidelines
and standards for digitization and the handling
of copyright issues (Shaifol & Nasir, 2005). As
a member of the steering committee, the NLM
was involved in formulating the guidelines for
the preservation of electronic records, which is
coordinated by the National Archives of Malaysia.
The next digital initiative for the NLM would be
to discuss collaboration efforts with the National
Archives, National Museum and the National Art
Gallery (Baba, 2005).
National Library of the Philippines
(http://www.nlp.gov.ph)
Philippine eLib (http://www.elib.gov.ph) is the
first public digital library in Philippines. This
collaborative project involving the National
Library of the Philippines (NLP), University of
the Philippines and government departments
provides 25 million pages of digitized Filipino
rare books, serials, government publications,
maps, photos, bibliographic records and online
databases of full-text journals (Phillippine eLi-
brary Project, http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/publica-
tion/cdnlao/054/544.html).
Digital Libraries Overview and Globalization
The NLP and its partners—the National Mu-
seum, Cultural Centre of the Philippines, Records
Management and Archives Office, National His-
torical Institute and Commission of the Filipino
language—are involved in the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations– Committee on Culture
and Information (ASEAN-COCI) project, which
handles the preservation of cultural heritage and
the dissemination of cultural materials among
ASEAN countries (Baba, 2005).
National Library Board (NLB),
Singapore (http://www.nlb.gov.sg)
To support the digital library infrastructure, the
National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore has
embraced e-learning through the delivery of con-
tent and programmes. Currently, the NLB’s digital
library offers access to two e-learning courses. It
hopes to increase its e-learning course repository
(Tan & Munoo, 2006). The NLB is collaborating
with the National Archives of Singapore (NAS)
and the Singapore National Museum, which com-
prises the Singapore History Museum, Singapore
Art Museum and Asian Civilization Museum, on
a number of cultural heritage projects, including
content digitization and cataloguing of the NAS
posters database (Baba, 2005). The NLB aims to
provide the world’s knowledge to Singapore and
creating real-time knowledge access. Therefore,
it would create the collaborative space and envi-
ronment, playing a leading role in the building of
Singapore’s collection of knowledge assets and
a supporting role to collaborators and partners
(“Library 2010,” http://www.nlb.gov.sg/CPMS.
portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=Library2010).
National Library of Thailand
(http://www.nlt.go.th)
The National Library of Thailand (NLT) has
reported its involvement in the National Cultural
Heritage preservation and conservation under the
Department of Fine Arts Policy. Participants of
this project include the National Archives and
Museum as well as private archives, museums,
and art galleries (Baba, 2005). Tedd and Large
(2005) gave an example of a digital library in
Thailand, belonging to the Child Institute Founda-
tion (http://www.childthai.org). The NLT offers a
bibliographic database of books and periodicals.
It plans to provide the digitized form of rare
books and manuscripts for users to view online
in the future. At present, the NLT’s resources are
difficult to access. The local government should
play an important role in digital initiatives (Sa-
laladyanant, 2006).
National Library of Vietnam
(http://www.nlv.gov.vn)
The National Library of Vietnam (NLV), located
in Hanoi, has started a project on digital libraries.
This project targets to provide published materials
in various formats to about five million overseas
Vietnamese. The NLV is working with the Viet-
namese Nom Preservation Foundation to digitize
old Chinese and Vietnamese manuscripts, and they
aim to put the digital copies of the collection on
an online database (National Library of Vietnam,
http://www.nla.gov.au/lap/Viet07_000.rtf). The
NLV has also started digitizing 50,000 pages of
doctoral thesis synopses (Nguyen, 2004)
The NLV has many projects in collaboration
with foreign partners. A project on bridging the
digital divide in 64 provincial/city libraries and
nearly 700 district libraries in Vietnam is be-
ing carried out together with the NLV, General
Sciences Library of Ho Chi Minh City and the
government. This project is funded by the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, and is expected
to lay the foundations for the funding from Global
Libraries Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. The NLV, the National Library of
Laos, the National Library of Cambodia and
other libraries have been digitizing old French
materials and this project is funded by the Gov-
ernment of France. It aims to offer easy access
567

for users through digital media and to provide
preservation of the originals (National Library
of Vietnam, 2007).
Oceania
In the Oceania region, national libraries of Aus-
tralia and New Zealand have developed a number
of digital libraries and there are ongoing projects
to enhance their online services. Both countries
are looking into metadata activities and areas that
will enhance their services.
National Library of Australia
(http://www.nla.gov.au)
The National Library of Australia (NLA), through
its digital library programs and initiation, coordi-
nation and promotion, has developed an important
digital library capability in the form of digital
collection sites and services (Gatenby, 2007; Urs,
2005). The NLA, the National Film and Sound
Archive and other cultural institutions have pro-
duced three portals. Picture Australia (http://www.
pictureaustralia.org) is the NLA’s image service,
which provides more than a million Australia-
related images from cultural institutions and
agencies, including libraries, museums, galleries
and archives (Baba, 2005; Gatenby, 2007). Music
Australia (http://www.musicaustralia.org) offers
online access to Australian music resources, in-
cluding digitized music, music scores, musicians,
composers, and a wide range of other music-related
materials (Baba, 2005). The Australia Dancing
portal (http://www.australiadancing.org) grants
users access to current and historical informa-
tion about dance in Australia. The NLA plans
to release People Australia in 2008—a database
containing biographical records of people and
organizations (Gatenby, 2007).
The NLA and National Archives are cooper-
ating in metadata activities (Baba, 2005). It also
collaborates with new partners, for instance,
Flickr to harvest metadata for Australia-related
568
Digital Libraries Overview and Globalization
pictures, and Google to make Libraries Australia
records accessible through its services. The NLA
has started a project to use open search protocol
for an integrated search of the collections of
Australian libraries and other cultural institu-
tions. To make the NLA collections visible in
the global context, its relationship with Google
and OCLC plays a major role. The current work
includes digitizing a greater range of sources and
providing access to full-text content, starting with
searchable Australian old newspapers. The NLA
has identified some enhancements in services for
the near future, for instance, improving the ac-
cessibility of online full-text resources and search
functionality, especially for extending integrated
searching (Gatenby, 2007).
National Library of New Zealand
(http://www.natlib.govt.nz)
The National Library of New Zealand (NLNZ)
is the leading agency for handling collabora-
tive projects. EPIC (http://www.epic.org.nz) is
a self-funded consortium of 179 libraries and
all schools in New Zealand for the purchase of
e-content (Rigby, O’Donovan, & Searle, 2006).
The Matapihi (http://www.matapihi.org.nz) is
a Web-based metadata gateway service to the
online digital collections. It provides a window
to people, places and events of New Zealand. It
enables cross-searching and selection of 75,000
records of pictures, sounds and objects. This
project is made available through the collabora-
tion of eight organizations: the NLNZ, archives,
libraries, museums and galleries in New Zea-
land (Baba, 2005; Rigby, et al., 2006). Through
the collaboration with other libraries, archives
and museums, the NLNZ and its partners have
increased confidence and skills, and they have
better collections, which could attract more users
(Rigby et al., 2006).
The NLNZ is currently working with the DCMI
Date Working Group to provide for the interoper-
able representation of commonly recorded dates
Digital Libraries Overview and Globalization
(Rigby et al., 2006). It has also been working on
the preservation metadata. The problems that the
NLNZ is facing include the lack of international
consensus on the preservation metadata, which
restricts the full implementation of a preserva-
tion metadata strategy at the library, and the lack
of a common standard, which gives rise to the
difficulty of moving resources from conceptual
development to practical implementation. Fur-
thermore, the project on preservation metadata
also requires funding (Knight, 2005).
RECOMMENDATIONS
From a global perspective, one must look into
the language and technology for digital libraries.
The requirements of users and services should
also be considered (Tedd & Large, 2005). It is
essential for countries to seek collaboration both
domestically and internationally in digital library
initiatives. This section briefly discusses these
areas of consideration.
Language is closely connected to the different
aspects of heritage, including culture, literature,
history, philosophy and education (Woldering,
2006). A global digital library that manages cross-
cultural communication requires the support of
a multilingual catalogue and search interfaces
(Gao, 2006). The global network of digital librar-
ies must be a network that appreciates and values
the multiple perspectives of distinct cultures,
and to achieve the vision of worldwide access
to information, knowledge must be created and
stored in formats and architectures accessible to
everyone (Mason, 2005). English could be used in
the globalization effort, as it is the language most
commonly used. Therefore, multilingual services
that can interface English with other languages are
essential (Xia, 2006). Most national libraries in
Asia-Pacific region see the need to have English
interfaces for their digital libraries; for instance,
the national libraries of Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia
and New Zealand have English interfaces. The
national libraries of China and Japan are working
to create an English interface.
The technology for digital libraries covers
a wide aspect. Tedd and Large (2005) classify
it into three areas. In term of standards and in-
teroperability, metadata, presentation standards,
digital object locators and protocols should be
considered. Another area on digital information
sources includes full-text materials, metadata
sources, multimedia materials, Web sites and
quality issues, suppliers of some digital informa-
tion sources and the creation of digitized sources.
The subject disciplines, curation and preservation
are to be considered too. For organizing access
to digital information sources, the software and
architecture, interface design, searching and
browsing functions should be taken into account.
Young, Horwood, and Sullivan (2006) included
technical infrastructure, middleware, and access
to resources between institutions as requirements
for consideration.
It is important to consider security, access
rights, liability, privacy issues, and intellectual
property rights when there is sharing of data
and transmission across national boundaries. For
successful distribution of information on either
the national or international level, the rights and
responsibilities of those who provide and use
the data should be clearly spelt out (Young et al.,
2006). Due to copyright laws, only books that are
noncopyrighted or those books that are permitted
by authors are digitized. Professor Raj Reddy
proposed a “Consortium for Compensating for
Creating Contents” scheme for authors (Balakrish-
nan, 2006). User and community needs are areas
of consideration too (Young et al., 2006). Librar-
ians have to meet the challenges of the changing
environment, in term of its cultural, technical and
professional relativities (Omekwu & Eteng, 2006).
Gorman (2006) encourages librarians to play a
major role in educating people, preparing library
users for productive global information use.
Collaborating with partners both domesti-
cally and internationally in digital libraries-
569

related projects would yield bigger and better
collections. It is more cost-effective with the
shared infrastructure, facilities, hardware and
software, and attracts more funding opportuni-
ties. Collaborative projects also promote the use
of cross-domain standards, benchmarking and
professional development and are good for raising
profiles and marketing. However, collaboration
requires common terminology to be used between
partners, prevention of tensions between organiza-
tional cultures, and the reconciliation of different
standards. It demands flexibility between parties,
innovation and commitment to reach a common
goal. It is crucial to manage collaborative projects
with effective communication and people skills
as well as an understanding of technology and
management practices (Rigby et al., 2006).
CONCLUSION
National libraries of developed countries in the
Asia-Pacific region are progressing well in their
digital library initiatives, and their governments
are supportive in funding the projects and in col-
laboration with other partners, both domestically
and internationally. Some national libraries of
developing countries have realized the importance
of reaching out to their people with digital infor-
mation, and are moving ahead in digital library
initiatives with international collaborative efforts
and funding.
In the Asia-Pacific region, almost 70% of the
populations have little or no connectivity to the
digital world (Foo & Theng, 2005). Though na-
tional libraries might be involved in digital library
initiatives, they might not have the capability to
serve their people with digital content, and the
people might not be able to afford the Internet
connection to access digital information. Foo
and Theng (2005) discussed the importance of
eliminating or closing the digital gap to improve
the current situation.
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Digital Libraries Overview and Globalization
Globalization has drawn the world closer to-
gether. Rich nations enjoy the benefit of digital
technologies but poor nations will be lagging
behind in this knowledge age. Researchers at
Harvard University and MIT have created a Web
site to help close the digital divide (Digital Divide.
org, 2007; Tedd & Large, 2005). But there are
many factors and issues to look into for closing
the digital gap. Governments and organizations
play an important role in promoting globalization
by promulgating beneficial policies and provid-
ing financial sponsorship (Xia, 2006) for the
construction of digital libraries. Therefore, the
aim for globalization of digital libraries depends
a great deal on collaborative work. With the sup-
port of governments, international agencies and
business entities, developing countries will have
funding and staffing to undertake digital library
initiatives (Byrne, 2005).
There are great challenges for countries in the
Asia-Pacific region to work towards globalization.
Currently, most national libraries are working
towards providing their people’s needs and have
yet to set goals and objectives to reach out to the
world with their information. However, current
efforts put into digitization by most Asia-Pacific
countries would reap their rewards in time to
come. It is not impossible for these libraries to
aim for globalization.
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key Terms
Consortium: A cooperative arrangement
among groups or institutions for a common
purpose.
Curation: The process of examining, testing,
and selecting digital information to be included
in a database collection.
Digital Divide/Gap: The imbalance in
resources and skills that create a gap between
those people with effective access to information
technology, and those without access to it.
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI):
An open organization engaged in the development
of interoperable online metadata standards that
support a wide range of purposes and business
models.
Infrastructure: The basic structure or fea-
tures of a system.
Interoperability: The ability of different
vendor devices to transmit data and exchange
information, while having the total capability
to process and act upon such information inde-
pendently. This relies heavily on international
standards.
Korean Machine Readable Cataloguing
(KORMARC): A Korean standard for the rep-
resentation and communication of bibliographic
information in machine-readable form.
Metadata: The structured data that describes
the characteristics of a resource. It is data about
data; a library catalog in digitized format.
Middleware: The connectivity software that
consists of a set of services that enables multiple
processes interacting with one or more machines
across a network.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR):
The digital translation of images of handwritten,
typewritten or printed text that is captured by a
scanner into machine-editable text.
Protocol: A set of rules or standards that
controls the connection, communication, and
data transfer between two electronic devices or
two computing endpoints.
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