Digital library research 1997-2007: Organisational and people issues

Purpose – This review aims to provide a snapshot of digital library research of the past 11 years (1997-2007) that focuses on organisational and people issues, including those concerning the social/cultural, legal, ethical, and use dimensions. Design/methodology/approach – The review covers articles published in mainstream peer-reviewed library and information science/studies journals. The analysis was done by drawing on a sample of 577 articles published in both academic and professional LIS journals. Findings – The analysis reveals that there are several topics that are dominant in the sample. There are significant research streams into one or more aspects of digital library use and usability, organisational and economical issues, as well as legal issues. In comparison, there is very little research in the sample that addresses ethical issues and social/cultural issues. D-Lib Magazine tops the list as the journal with the highest number of articles published and in spite of some fluctuations, there was an overall upwards trend for journal publications in these research areas. The years with the largest numbers of works published in these areas in the study sample were 2004, 2005 and 2006. Research limitations/implications – It would be inaccurate to claim that the literature searches conducted in this study include every relevant journal article. They provide an extensive but not comprehensive sample. Also, to account for inconsistencies in indexing, a range of descriptors related to “digital library” was used in the searches in conjunction with other descriptors representing the various topics related to organisational and people issues. Nevertheless, this does not take into account journal articles that do not mention any of the digital library terms and yet, may discuss digital library themes. Hence, certain issues might have been under-represented in this study. Originality/value – This review and meta-analysis is the first that focuses on analysing digital library research that has a focus on organisational and people issues. Given the manifestos that digital libraries are to grow into socio-technical systems that function within an organisation and society, the subject area as a whole has also evolved over the years, with a move away from purely technical issues towards the application, use and effectiveness issues. Therefore, it is highly likely that research into these emerging issues will continue to grow and this review provides a preliminary overview of this important development as well as a point of departure to highlight gaps in the literature.