The present study was an attempt to investigate the use of semantic technologies to organize information in digital library software systems.
The present study was a practical one which employed a descriptive survey method. The study sample consisted of three digital library software systems entitled Pars Azarakhsh, Parvan Pajoh, and Payam Mashregh. Data were collected through a checklist including three sections: semantic technology architecture, tools and levels of implementation, and the types of information sources and their levels of use. The validity of the checklist was confirmed by experts. Cronbach’s alpha was also used to estimate the reliability of the checklist and the index turned out to be 0.94. Data were analyzed by the descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, and analysis of variance.
The results indicated that digital libraries with respect to the application of semantic technology were not in good condition; therefore, they need to take all the weaknesses identified in this study into consideration. Software for IT architecture requires layers of meaning beyond their original design. In addition, regarding the languages implemented, semantic technology had very poor performance and none of the tools had this new technology to develop and implement. The majority of the tools employed were also in the initial stage of recognition. In many cases, information sources were kept outside of the databases and they had only text files for full-text search. On the whole, the software systems studied here were at the same level although they sometimes surpassed each other.
The present study not only developed a checklist of the application of semantic technologies to organize information software digital library based on relevant literature and the experts, but also can make digital library software developers aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and the criteria and factors existing in this area in addition to the importance of each of them to help them in their own design and production in the future.