Ariadne: Web Magazine for Information Professionals

Welcome to Ariadne, Web Magazine for Information Professionals

Ariadne Carries On - The editor writes of the next coils in Ariadne's thread, and bids farewell.

Feature articles from the current issue

In Issue 71 you will find the following feature articles:

The Performance-based Funding Model: Creating New Research Databases in Sweden and Norway - Leif Eriksson describes how the introduction of Performance-based Research Funding Systems (PRFS) has created new forms of research databases in Sweden and Norway.

eMargin: A Collaborative Textual Annotation Tool - Andrew Kehoe and Matt Gee describe their Jisc-funded eMargin collaborative textual annotation tool, showing how it has widened its focus through integration with Virtual Learning Environments.

The Wellcome Library, Digital - Christy Henshaw and Robert Kiley describe how the Wellcome Library has transformed its information systems to support mass digitisation of historic collections.

Developing a Prototype Library WebApp for Mobile Devices - Jason Cooper and Gary Brewerton describe the development of a prototype WebApp to improve access to Library systems at Loughborough University for mobile devices.

DataFinder: A Research Data Catalogue for Oxford - Sally Rumsey and Neil Jefferies explain the context and the decisions guiding the development of DataFinder, a data catalogue for the University of Oxford.

Improving Evaluation of Resources through Injected Feedback Surveys - Terry Reese suggests a novel approach for providing intercept survey functionality for librarians looking to simplify the gathering of user feedback for library-provided materials.

Hita-Hita: Open Access and Institutional Repositories in Japan Ten Years On - Ikuko Tsuchide, Yui Nishizono, Masako Suzuki, Shigeki Sugita, Kazuo Yamamoto and Hideki Uchijima introduce a number of ideas and projects that have enhanced the progress of the Open Access movement and institutional repositories in Japan over the last ten years.

Implementing a Resource or Reading List Management System - Gary Brewerton takes us step by step through the various stages of implementing a Resource or Reading List Management System for your institution.

Mining the Archive: eBooks - Martin White looks through the Ariadne archive to track the development of ebooks.

The Potential of Learning Analytics and Big Data - Patricia Charlton, Manolis Mavrikis and Demetra Katsifli discuss how the emerging trend of learning analytics and big data can support and empower learning and teaching.

KAPTUR the Highlights: Exploring Research Data Management in the Visual Arts - Leigh Garrett, Marie-Therese Gramstadt, Carlos Silva and Anne Spalding describe the exploration of the importance and nature of research data in the visual arts and requirements for their appropriate curation and preservation.

Augmented Reality in Education: The SCARLET+ Experience - Laura Skilton, Matt Ramirez, Guyda Armstrong, Rose Lock, Jean Vacher and Marie-Therese Gramstadt describe augmented reality in education case studies from the University of Sussex and the University for the Creative Arts.

Engaging Researchers with Social Media Tools: 25 Research Things@Huddersfield - Graham Stone and Ellen Collins investigate whether 25 Research Things, an innovative online learning programme, could help researchers understand the value of Web 2.0 tools.

Bring Your Own Policy: Why Accessibility Standards Need to Be Contextually Sensitive - Brian Kelly, Jonathan Hassell, David Sloan, Dominik Lukeš, E A Draffan and Sarah Lewthwaite highlight the risks of attempting to standardise easy-to-read language for online resources.

In addition Issue 71 carries a selection of event reports as well as a wide range of reviews.


Book Review: Crisis Information Management	Emma Tonkin offers a review of a thought-provoking overview of crisis informatics. Read more ...
Book Review: Information Consulting - Guide to good practice	Martin White reviews a book written by three experienced consultants that seeks to support information professionals in setting themselves up as consultants. Read more ...
Book Review: Marketing Your Library’s Electronic Resources	Lizz Jennings reviews a concise and practical guide to marketing library e-resources which offers the busy professional a structured approach to planning a successful campaign. Read more ...
Book Review: Powering Search - The Role of Thesauri in New Information Environments	Leonard Will reviews a comprehensive survey of the literature on the use of thesauri in information search processes and interfaces. Read more ...
Book Review: The Information Society - A Study of Continuity and Change	Muhammad Rafiq offers us a detailed review of a work, now in its sixth edition, which examines the information society, its origin, development, its associated issues and the current landscape. Read more ...
Book Review: The New Digital Scholar - Exploring and Enriching the Research and Writing Practices of NextGen Students	Julia Robinson reviews a substantial and timely collection of essays related to the research and writing practices of NextGen students. Expressing a call for change in the way educators approach Information Literacy teaching, this book invites the reader to redefine, re-evaluate and reflect on what we think we know about students’ research practices today. Read more ...
Book Review: University Libraries and Space in the Digital World	Hugh Murphy reviews a collection of essays which charts the development and impact of the physical library space and its use in our digital world. Read more ...
ECLAP 2013: Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment	Marieke Guy reports on the second international conference held by ECLAP, the e-library for performing arts. Read more ...
Editorial Introduction to Issue 71	The editor introduces readers to the content of Ariadne Issue 71. Read more ...
Editorial: Ariadne Carries On	The editor writes of the next coils in Ariadne's thread, and bids farewell. Read more ...
JABES 2013	Marlène Delhaye reports on the two-day annual conference organised by the French Agence Bibliographique de l’Enseignement Supérieur (ABES) held in Montpellier, France over 14-15 May 2013. Read more ...
Making Citation Work: A British Library DataCite Workshop	Alex Ball reports on a workshop on practical data citation issues for institutions, held at the British Library, London, on 8 March 2013. Read more ...
The Tablet Symposium	Ryan Burns reports on a one-day symposium on tablet computers, e-readers and other new media objects held at the University of Sussex on 10 April 2013. Read more ...

'Magazine page' image: copyright, used under license from shutterstock.com

Here we offer preview summaries of forthcoming articles from our next (as yet unpublished) issue.

In addition, we from time to time post notes here about what we would like to cover if an author can be found.

For on-going updates on both forthcoming articles and topics for which we are seeking authors, please subscribe to our forthcoming articles RSS feed.

Forthcoming article: Shared Repositories, Shared Benefits: Regional and Consortial Repositories in Japan

An article by Takeo Ozono, Daisuke Ueda and Fumiyo Ozaki is in preparation which describes the work of the ShaRe Project and its influence upon the development of consortial repositories together with the benefits they have brought to Japanese institutions.

Have you seen?

Swans: calm and serene on the surface but what is going on underneath

Richard Green, Chris Awre and Simon Waddington describe how a digital repository can become part of the technical landscape within an institution and support digital content lifecycle management across systems.

Jason Cooper and Gary Brewerton describe the development of a prototype WebApp to improve access to Library systems at Loughborough University for mobile devices.

Hierarchy of wiki pages for the e-resources databank

Kate Robinson, Lizz Jennings and Laurence Lockton outline a low-cost solution to walk-in (visitor) access to licensed e-journals, drawing on their practice at the University of Bath with a wiki ERM and OPAC terminals.

Man With Kindle Close Up. Image courtesy of Tina Phillips FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Martin White looks through the Ariadne archive to track the development of ebooks.

The New Digital Scholar. Edited by Randall McClure and James P. Purdy

Julia Robinson reviews a substantial and timely collection of essays related to the research and writing practices of NextGen students. Expressing a call for change in the way educators approach Information Literacy teaching, this book invites the reader to redefine, re-evaluate and reflect on what we think we know about students’ research practices today.

Paul Meehan, Paul Needham and Ross MacIntyre explain the enormous time and cost benefits in using SUSHI to support rapid gathering of journal usage reports into the JUSP service.

Professor Kobus Eloff and Phytomedicine Programme students

Tertia Coetsee describes a community of practice for post-graduate students where RefShare is deployed for digital storage and retrieval, alongside Blackboard for the purposes of communication. She also describes the role of the information specialist in the programme.

Marieke Guy reports on the 78th IFLA General Conference and Assembly held in Helsinki, Finland over 11-17 August 2012.

Keep in touch!

Amber Thomas author profile

Amber Thomas has led work on open educational resources and repositories such as Jorum. She has overseen JISC’s projects on the technical and IPR issues which surround putting resources online. Amber not only has experience and expertise of Higher Education but also of Further Education with experience gained with Becta as content officer of the National Grid for Learning and the Ferl Online Service that provided support on information and learning technology (ILT) in Further Education.

Location tag: england

Profile last updated: October 2012

Jason Cooper author profile

Dr Jason Cooper has been a member of Library Systems at Loughborough University for 8 years. He develops and maintains a number of key systems for the Library.

Location tag: england

Profile last updated: June 2012

Lorcan Dempsey author profile

Lorcan Dempsey is the Vice President and Chief Strategist of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). He is a native of Dublin, Ireland, where he worked for some years in public libraries. He writes and talks about libraries and networked information. He is interested in the impact of changing patterns of research and learning on libraries, in libraries as public institutions, and in the architecture of digital information environments.

Lorcan Dempsey on Twitter: @lorcanD
Wikipedia entry on Lorcan Dempsey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorcan_Dempsey

Location tag: united states

Profile last updated: May 2012

Neil Jefferies author profile

Neil Jefferies, MA, MBA is Research and Development Project Manager for the Bodleian Libraries, responsible for the development and delivery of new projects and services. He was involved with the initial setup of the Eprints and Fedora Repositories at Oxford and is now working on the implementation of a long-term digital archive platform. Alongside his commitments to Cultures of Knowledge, Neil is Technical Director of the IMPAcT Project, Co-PI on the DataFlow Project, and an invited contributor to the SharedCanvas Project. He also represents the Bodleian on the Jisc PALS (Publisher and Library Solutions) panel.

Location tag: england

Profile last updated: July 2013

Karen Fitzgibbon author profile

Karen Fitzgibbon is currently the Deputy Head of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the University of Glamorgan. She was involved in the first phase of the Change Academy Project and became the project manager for the second phase of the Change Academy project 'Putting Assessment at the Heart of Learning'. She is also leading the Higher Education Academy First Year Experience Group which shares good practice on themed first-year student experience initiatives throughout institutions in Wales.

Location tag: wales

Profile last updated: July 2012

Liz Lyon author profile

Dr Liz Lyon is Director, UKOLN, University of Bath, and leads work to enable transformational change in digital libraries, data informatics and open science which supports the JISC Innovation Programme. She is Associate Director, Digital Curation Centre and leads the UKOLN Informatics Research Group which initiated innovative and influential JISC-funded data management and scholarly communications projects.

Location tag: england

Profile last updated: February 2012

Marie-Therese Gramstadt author profile

Marie-Therese Gramstadt is currently managing the KAPTUR Project (Jisc, 2011-13) working with Goldsmiths, University of London; The Glasgow School of Art; University of the Arts London; and University for the Creative Arts, to improve the management of arts research data. She is also a Researcher and Digital Cataloguer for the Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Archive (Jisc, 2011-13), making use of her MA in the History of Dress (Courtauld Institute of Art). Marie-Therese has recently re-joined the Crafts Study Centre to work on the SCARLET+ Project using augmented reality with the Muriel Rose Archive (Jisc, 2012-13). Previous projects include: Kultivate (Jisc, 2010-11), eNova (Jisc, 2011) and three Learning and Teaching Research grants (2010, 2010-11, 2011-12).

Location tag: england

Profile last updated: February 2013

Alan Hopkinson author profile

Alan Hopkinson works primarily in a consultancy role leading externally funded projects at Middlesex University Learning Resources. He is currently managing a project to modernise library and information science teaching in Armenia, Georgia and Uzbekistan and leading Middlesex input in improving information literacy in the Balkans as well as modernising library IT infrastructure in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzogovina. He is a member of IFLA's Committee on Standards established in 2012.

Location tag: england

Profile last updated: February 2012