Archive for: E-Libraries

The first part of the paper is devoted to the complexity of cultural heritage and its interconnections with social, economic and political issues in a given society. The author presents various approaches to her subject including perspectives of architecture, art, history. The problems connected to possibilities, purpose and means of interpretation and presentation of cultural heritage are also discussed. The author further analyzes contemporary discourse of a cause-effect relationship of new media and cultural heritage, that so pretentiously questions the status of original and copy, as well the past-present relationship. The text as a whole is interwoven with discussions of theoretical and technical framework and methodological limitations built-in creation of virtual cultural heritage. The potentials and advantages of new media, but also the unavoidable restraints they impose are presented. Few instances of virtual reconstruction illustrate the process of integration of new media and cultural heritage as a very important present-time issue.

The most important role of academic libraries is to provide high-quality, credible and actual information resources for students, professors and scientific researchers. Academic librarians perform specific acquisition policy with selection process as a key purchasing method both for traditional and digital publications. To enable adequate level of learning and scientific research, academic professionals have to define priorities and then carefully apply strong selection criteria. Building digital collections demands permanent quality control which mustn’t turn into censorship. On the other side, it is very important to educate young population in ethical aspect of digital resources using. Some of the ethical dilemmas faced by librarians and users have arisen because of rapid information and communication technology development. The speed and efficiency of electronic information systems which include local and global networks, databases and processing programs, force users to confront entirely new rights and responsibilities which constitute so-called Internet ethics, computer ethics or information ethics. The core issues of information ethics include intellectual freedom, equitable access to knowledge, privacy protection and intellectual property. Library professionals have been concerned with these issues for centuries, but advances in information technology have made the academic population more aware of new challenges in ethical area.

The National Strategy on digitization and preservation of cultural heritage in Serbia is not yet created nor adopted officially in Ministry of Culture, but the National Library of Serbia (NLS) is developing the Digital Library of Serbia (DLS) from 2003. NLS has more than 100 digital collections of cultural heritage material and about two million of digital items. From 2005, when the NLS became the full partner of The European Library project (TEL), all its digital collections are included at the TEL portal. From 2008, when the portal of Europeana was launched, all digital collections of the NLS are integrated at this portal. Most precious digital collections of the NLS are also part of the World Digital Library (WDL), project established by Unesco and Library of Congress. Although there is still no official Serbian strategy of digitization of cultural heritage, memory of Serbia has already became part of Europe’s memory and memory of the world.