Why Ariadne?
John MacColl, project manager, explains the rationale behind Ariadne.
Introduction
The
UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN)
and the University Library of the University of Abertay at Dundee
have been
funded to publish a bi-monthly newsletter in parallel hard copy and
electronic format for use over the World Wide Web. The newsletter
will be aimed primarily at subject librarians and other working
librarians in academic libraries, and will have two aims. It will describe
and evaluate sources and services available on the Internet of potential
use to librarians and information professionals. It will also report to
the library community at large on progress and developments within the
Electronic Libraries Programme
of FIGIT and ISSC information services,
keeping the busy practitioner abreast of current developments.
Aims
The aims of the Ariadne project are:
- To provide an authoritative Internet
publication for UK HE librarians.
- To provide accurate timely reports
about ISSC services and Electronic
Libraries Programme projects.
- To develop experience in electronic publication
which may be capable of being shared with the library community.
- To provide a 'debating space' for issues of
fundamental importance to the future of the academic library profession
arising from the development of networked information services.
Description
We believe that many librarians in HE find it difficult to keep
abreast of multiplying Internet resources and with technological
and service developments, and would benefit from a well-produced,
comprehensible digest of Internet information resources and
technological developments. An increasingly valuable core of information
services is funded by the ISSC, and we believe that librarians
and the ISSC alike would benefit from a regular critical digest
of service developments and enhancements. This would be a valuable
information resource for librarians, and would further the development
of a shared identity for the ISSC services. It is also likely that
the Electronic Libraries Programme will significantly impact the
scope and direction of library services over the next few years.
It is important that all librarians understand how these changes
are likely to influence their working environments.
The fluidity of the Internet as a communications and publishing
medium has created an urgent need among academic librarians for
an authoritative publication. We intend that Ariadne should meet
that need.
By providing a mix of news, comment and reports as well
as considered, well-researched analyses, Ariadne will be considered
a 'middleweight' publication, ideally positioned to take on the
role of an authority and opinion former.
In addition, we consider that the World Wide Web offers a 'third
dimension' to newsletter publishing. References can be linked directly
to the publications they list; new data sources can be accessed at
one key-press; image data for which the printed newsletter has no
space, or which would be too costly to produce, can be called on
to the screen; colour images can be provided where the print version
may only show grey-scale images; correspondence for which the print
version editor has no space can be reproduced in full; software
products can be evaluated or downloaded; correspondence and
feedback on articles can be 'threaded' thematically, etc. We intend
that the Web version of Ariadne should extend and complement the
print version, and should also serve as an experiment for a new mode of publishing.
Background
Many of the recommendations of the Follett Report related to ways
in which the use of information technology in the electronic library
can help to alleviate some of the problems of university libraries
today. The
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) established
the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) as a direct response to
the Follett Report. The programme has a budget of about £15 million
over 3 years, and its objectives include the use of IT to improve
delivery of information through increased use of electronic library
services, to allow academic libraries to cope better with growth,
to explore different models of intellectual property management,
and to encourage new methods of scholarly publishing.
This is one of the successful projects resulting from that call,
in the Training and Awareness Programme Area.
Material on this page is
copyright Ariadne/original authors.
This page last updated on July 15th 1996