Open Archipelago. Designing Isles of Knowledge in the Web 2.0 Era

Libraries are the traditional depot of culture and knowledge. The concept of digital libraries (D-Lib) emerged consistently with the growth of the web society and the broader diffusion of ICT systems and services. This idea empowers both the aspects of traditional editorial products and the way of conceiving digital education: on the one hand it implies a transformation in the cultural heritage of libraries, increasing the presence of digital contents; on the other hand it shifts the habitual approach to knowledge by offering a more sustainable distribution, a fastest access and a different user-centered concept to better satisfy the needs of the people. Considering this scenario the paper would present the project Open Archipelago (OA) as a final delivery of a set of research activities oriented to offer an open source framework to innovate some aspects of fruition, distribution and management of editorial contents in libraries and in academic environments. The project offers to the users a different cognitive approach to a wide variety of electronic materials and a more sustainable way to distribute, share and organize knowledge especially in the public spaces of libraries, research centers and universities. Open Archipelago is based on a open source central system to index and to catalogue (and to store, in particular cases) Open Access materials, like digital versions of magazines, papers, books, etc. Connected to this main platform there are different end-user platforms called “islands” (clustered platforms as “islands” that creates the “archipelago”), in which such materials can be distributed through different typologies of devices (iPads, e-book readers, multimedia cards, USB keys, etc.) or consulted directly “on screen” (multimedia tactile screen) and partially printed according to the policies of the materials and of the hosting institution. The main idea behind this kind of network is to create an “archipelago” of platforms (kiosks with different features) to put each user in a participative, interactive and immersive environment based on digital contents and to empower the heritage of the knowledge encouraging the institutions to adopt and to distribute Open Access products with web 2.0 frameworks. Such configuration allows also to design specific guidelines in order to offer a low-cost, sustainable, scalable and modular solution to implement a system based on new low-consumption devices, on onlinetrusted Open Access resources and on self-automated settings of distribution based on web 2.0 platforms. The research focus started analyzing the issues related to the different approaches between digital natives and digital migrant in specific environments which offer edi-torial contents. One of the main topics that emerged was how to re-modulate the social inclusion for both these categories in the academic context giving a powerful and affordable solution in the hand of the institution. After a grounded analysis based on virtual ethnography research and on-field surveys and interviews, emerged mostly the aspect to reframe the practices to approach resources, not only in relation to the actual systems which offer the main index or/and an overall resume, but to access directly the whole content in few steps. The answer to these feedbacks, taking also into account the need not to overlap with the best practices in the international context, was to design a framework oriented towards a methodological and structural innovation in the field of D-Lib cultural heritage based on well-profiled Open Access resources.