Page 10 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 42

SU Xinning / Opportunities and challenges faced by digital libraries in the big data era 009

literatures (referenced, co-referenced, reference coupled, etc.), between authors and literatures,
and between the use of literatures and scholars. These are not yet achieved by traditional digital
libraries. With the enrichment of academic resources, these resource constructors are likely to
outperform the traditional digital libraries, even replace the digital libraries founded in university
libraries and public libraries.
Therefore, digital libraries should pay attention to this trend, and consider the challenge from
resource construction business as an opportunity to another boom. They can learn from the
experience of resource constructors and start from resource acquisition, diversifying the categories
of digital library resources, strengthening the integration of various resources, exploring the
correlation between these resources, and organizing them properly. They can also discover the
value of the resources and make full use of data through in-depth mining on the acquired data and
its potential rules, and in-depth analysis of relevant data for its intrinsic value. Besides, digital
libraries must also learn from resource constructors in their experience in services, provide a
variety of services, and change the traditional passive (i.e. providing what users ask for) and
waiting (for users to raise the requirement) service mode.
In the big data era, we must have it in mind that everything of traditional digital libraries needs
a change to become more adaptable to big data, make full use of big data, get involved in big data,
and promote the influence of digital libraries in people’s study, life, work, and research.

2 Thinking by numbers of digital libraries

“Thinking by numbers” requires digital libraries to consider all kinds of problems from the angle
of big data, completely get involved in big data, increase the quantity of digital products, upgrade
service levels, solve problems in aid of big data technology, and become an essential part of “Internet
+”.

2.1 Digital library resource construction

In the big data era, digital libraries should adopt a different thinking in their resource constructions.
They should expand the resource scope, combine the resources with Internet resources, emphasize
complex trouble-shooting oriented resource integration and resource processing, and establish a
brand new view for resource construction.
(1) Expand the resource scope of digital libraries
The service quality and service level of digital libraries rely on digital resources. In fact, digital
libraries have focused on resource constructions, but only limited to literature resources, such
as books, journals, newspapers, dissertations, conference papers, patents, standards, technology
reports, etc. In the big data era, in addition to the digitalization of above literatures and increment