http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/authors/jon-knight/ Recent content in Jon Knight on Ariadne Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:23:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/78/editorial/ Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:23:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/78/editorial/ Ariadne has changed many times over its 20+ year life so far, and this year is no exception. When we inherited Ariadne at Loughborough we upgraded the Drupal based system that Bath had been using for some time and we have run with that for a couple of years. However we’ve found it increasingly time consuming to maintain for little gain to the journal - many of the Drupal blogging features we don’t need or use get regular updates and security patches for example. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/76/editorial/ Wed, 30 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/76/editorial/ In this issue of Ariadne, we have article covering a range of topics.Lidu Gong starts us off with a description of the "heart centred" approach to customer service in a Māori oriented academic library service in New Zealand. To help deal with cultural differences between Māori users and traditional "Western" library services, the library staff at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa college adopt an approach based on knowledge of the Māori people, their customs, beliefs and standards of interaction. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/75/editorial/ Sun, 17 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/75/editorial/ Back in 1994 the UK Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) was set up by the JISC, paid for by the UK's funding councils. One of the many projects funded by eLib was an experimental magazine that could help document the changes under way and give the researchers working on eLib projects a means to communicate with one another and their user communities. That magazine was called Ariadne. Originally produced in both print and web versions, it outlived the project that gave birth to it. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/75/editorsreview/ Sun, 17 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/75/editorsreview/ Ariadne is 20 years old this week and some editorial board members thought it might be useful to look back at how it came to be, how digital library offerings have changed over the years, and maybe also peer into the near future. To do this, we’ve enlisted the help of several of the past editors of Ariadne who have marshalled their memories and crystal balls. Back to the beginning. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/74/editorial/ Sun, 18 Oct 2015 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/74/editorial/ Welcome to issue 74 of Ariadne! This is the first issue of the magazine that we have hosted here at Loughborough University, with an editorial team spread over a number of institutions, after we took over the reins (and the software and database) from Bath University back in April. You might have noticed a few changes since the move that I’ll hopefully explain in this editorial. The largest change behind the scenes, and the one that took quite a lot of work from my colleagues Jason Cooper and Garry Booth, was the move from an older version of Drupal that Ariadne was hosted on in Bath, to the latest release. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/knight-et-al/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/knight-et-al/ The Loughborough Online Reading Lists System (LORLS) [1] has been developed at Loughborough University since the late 1990s.  LORLS was originally implemented at the request of the University’s Learning and Teaching Committee simply to make reading lists available online to students.  The Library staff immediately saw the benefit of such a system in not only allowing students ready access to academics’ reading lists but also in having such access themselves. This was because a significant number of academics were bypassing the library when generating and distributing lists to their students who were then in turn surprised when the library did not have the recommended books either in stock or in sufficient numbers to meet demand. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/knight/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/knight/ Many libraries have collections of CD-ROMs which they must deliver to their patrons in order to provide a well rounded information service. In many academic libraries and some larger public and company libraries some portion of the CD-ROM discs on offer are made available over local area computer networks. These networked CD-ROMs can then be used by the library’s patrons from workstations distributed throughout the library and indeed organisation. In order to provide network access to the CD-ROMs, there must be some form of networked CD-ROM server placed on the network. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/knight/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/knight/ Automation and electronic information services are not newcomers to the library world. Back in the 1960s the early library automation systems were already beginning to prove their worth and the development of the MARC record format was well underway. The intervening thirty years have seen the power and features provided by library automation systems improve tremendously, the advent of online services, CD-ROM databases, the rise and growth of the Internet and its associated World Wide Web and beginnings of a truly digital virtual library appear. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/acorn/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/acorn/ The Project ACORN [1] is an eLib [2] funded project looking at the provision of electronic short loan reserves in a University library environment. The project has three main partners; Loughborough University [3], Swets & Zeitlinger b.v. [4] and Leicester University [5]. This paper provides an overview of the ACORN system and a description of the technical implementation of the system in the Pilkington Library at Loughborough University. ACORN System Model The ACORN system model is the abstract model behind the real implementation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/trenches/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/trenches/ The World Wide Web is intended to be “an embodiment of human knowledge” [1] but is currently mainly an embodiment of only West European and North American knowledge resources. The reason for this is simple; despite the name, the development of the World Wide Web has until recently been very heavily oriented towards English and other Western European languages[2]. If you want to display a resource with an ideographic character sets from Asian languages for example then you have been forced to either use inlined images or localized, kludged versions of software. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/wire/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/wire/ So what do you both do? Martin: Couch potato and his trusty sidekick “toast man” - but which is which? Jon: We’re both “techies” on the ROADS project in eLib and the EU DESIRE project (which for us is basically “EuroROADS”). I do two days per week on ROADS and a day per week on DESIRE. ROADS and DESIRE are both concerned with the provision of access to network resources via Subject Based Information Gateways (SBIGs); these are services such as SOSIG, OMNI and ADAM. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/marc/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/marc/ In the last issue of Ariadne the basic layout of the MAchine Readable Catalogue (MARC) records [1] used by most library systems worldwide was introduced. The article also described the first release of a Perl module that can be used for processing MARC records. Since that article was published, a number of people have been in touch saying that they either were developing similar in-house MARC processing software or were planning on developing something similar for public usage themselves. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/marc/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/marc/ The MAchine Readable Catalogue (MARC) format is probably one of the oldest and most widely used metadata formats today. It was developed in the United States during the 1960's as a data interchange format for monographs in the then newly computerised library automation systems. In the following years the MARC format became a standard for export and import of data to library systems in much of the world and various national and vendor enhanced variations on the original MARC format appeared. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/mcf/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/mcf/ For many years librarians and computer scientists have been researching and developing metadata standards and technology. Although library OPACs are obviously commercially viable systems for maintaining metadata about hard copy resources, they are something of a niche market still. With the explosion in information provision on the Internet, this niche metadata market is set to explode itself, as an increasing number of companies develop a commercial interest in the provision and support for indexing, cataloging and navigating Internet resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/intranets/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/intranets/ If you open a computer magazine today, the chances are you will be confronted by articles and advertisements discussing how to set up a corporate intranet. The term intranet seems to have sprung up as if by magic in the last year or so and now many products are “intranet ready” or “intranet enabled”. But what exactly is an intranet and should libraries be making use of them? If one is being cynical (and being cynical when it comes to advertising is always a good idea! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/open-journal/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/open-journal/ I recently visited the ELib Open Journal Project at Southampton University (see <URL:http://journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/>). My hosts were Leslie Carr (the project manager) and Steve Hitchcock (one of the OJ researchers). The Open Journal project is part of the ELib electronic journals strand, but they have developed technology which may be of use to some of the Access to Network Resources projects. This trip report details some of the work that they showed me and also outlines some possible ways in which the Open Journal Project, ROADS and the other ANR services may be able to cooperate. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/securing-forms/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/securing-forms/ There are now many HTML FORMs in use in libraries of all types. These forms are usually the front ends to Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programs that implement such things as webopacs, electronic ILL requests and access to backend databases. Often these FORMs have to be authenticated to ensure that only valid library users can make use of the services. Web browsers and servers offer a number of a facilities for doing this authentication, each with different benefits and problems. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/caching/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/caching/ The Internet is obviously the current buzzword in many organisations and libraries are no exception. Academic libraries have long valued online access to their OPACs and the ability to provide search services of large scale remote databases. However the phenomenal growth in the World Wide Web (WWW) and the demands from an increasing number of people to get easy access to the wealth of information now available has meant that library network provisions are currently undergoing a rapid period of evolution. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/trenches/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/trenches/ Many libraries now make heavy use of CD-ROM titles. Today databases held on CD-ROMs cover practically all subjects and provide a way for a library to acquire a large quantity of regularly updated information. Coupled with the relatively cheap network equipment that is now available, these CD-ROMs should also be able to provide a very useful network resource for an entire library or even campus. However the current crop of CD-ROMs vary enormously in their ease of use in a networked environment. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/knight/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/knight/ If you work in a library systems unit, it can sometimes be a bit depressing reading the computer press. At a time when budgets are often fixed or falling and the expectations of patrons and other library staff are constantly rising, the last thing that the system team need is for the latest and greatest operating systems and applications to arrive demanding the latest hardware if they are to be usable. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/knight/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/knight/ Most people concerned with Electronic Libraries have by now marked up a document in the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), even if its only their home page. HTML provides an easy means of adding functionality such as distributed hyperlinking and insertion of multimedia objects into documents. Done well, HTML provides access to information over a wide variety of platforms using many different browsers accessing servers via all manners of network connections. However, it is also possible to do HTML badly.