Digital libraries interoperability issues

Abstract

Technological forces have and continue to change the global economy and the way of life in organizations and the world. The Internet and associated technologies have spurred evolutionary in traditional library, therefore digital library systems are being built in libraries. In addition, information retrieval is one of the key components of any digital library where it is the most fascinating and challenging area. Currently, digital libraries are widely disseminated over the Internet which allows users to send similar query for each digital library system separately and this is very cumbersome to the users. As such, it is desirable to provide a mechanism to foster interoperability between digital libraries. This mechanism would allow users to conduct searching across all systems with just one query. The paper explains issues that facilitate interoperability of digital libraries using semantic approach utilizing metadata. It would aid in developing semantic digital library as digital collections are made shareable among all education practitioners. © 2009 IEEE.