This session was based on the experience of NED’s Democracy Resource Center (DRC), including the creation of a Digital Library on Democracy for the World Movement for Democracy's Network of Democracy Research Institutes (NDRI). It covered five specific topics: “Effective Research Strategies for Activists”; “Steps to Create a Digital Library on Democracy”; “Practical Considerations in Building a Digital Library”; “Rights Management and Copyright Considerations”; and “Creating Your Own Digital Library.”

 

Effective Research Strategies for Activists (or online searching). This portion of the training covered the use of boolean logic on search engines, identifying effective information sources, and ways to get the best results from Web searches.

 

Steps to Create a Digital Library on Democracy.  This discussion was based on the experience NDRI, which included a description of the project, the model for the NDRI database, exploration of Columbia University’s CIAO Database, and sources of funding for digital library projects.

 

Practical Considerations in Building a Digital Library. This portion of the training included the definition of a digital library, considerations in scanning materials, storage options, automating library databases, and “controlled vocabulary.”

 

Rights Management and Copyright Considerations. This provided an overview and introduction to copyright law and licensing agreements, as well as alternative licensing arrangements, such as Creative Commons.