wiki/notebook/2020-04-14-18-28-55.org
Gabriel Arazas b088086b06 Merge evergreen notes into the notebook
Now, it's all under the notebook umbrella. Seems to be appropriate as it
is just my notes after all.

I also updated some notes from there. I didn't keep track of what it is
this time. Something about more learning notes extracted from my
"Learning how to learn" course notes and then some. Lack of time and
hurriness just makes it difficult to track but it should be under
version control already.
2021-07-21 16:28:07 +08:00

2.3 KiB

Maintain your own digital library

It is flexible in purpose: you can use it as a personal knowledge base, digital novelties collection, and/or project repository.

A digital library should have the following features:

  • Easy to maintain (e.g., modifying File metadata, adding more digital objects) which is the top priority.
  • Catalog the files using open standardized tools and specifications if available.
  • Provide an easy and reliable search interface with rich metadata.

Instituition libraries such as Internet Archive and ArXiv are the go-to examples for a long sustaining digital library. On the other hand, personal digital libraries are basically personal information management systems where your resources are stored: documents, notes, references, and media files.

How to create one?

I have been thinking of creating a digital library for myself. These are the tools I've been using for my experiment:

  • Zotero as my reference management library.
  • Exiftool for annotating my files with metadata.
  • Recoll as the search interface.
  • Org-Mode with org-roam as my personal wiki/knowledge base.

There are a couple of minor things such as Buku as my bookmarks manager, lf as a file explorer, mpv for multimedia, and Firefox as my web browser.

The digital library does not have to be integrated as the established libraries, you just have to loosely connect a system with each of the components of your library. My digital library are fragmented with each component located in its own directory (e.g., Zotero data directory is in $HOME/Documents/references, books and documents are at $HOME/Documents/books, wiki at $HOME/writings/wiki) but it is a non-problem for me and it is easy to solve if it's a problem.