http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/buzz/copyright/ Recent content in Copyright on Ariadne Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/ili-2014-rpt/ Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/ili-2014-rpt/ Zoë reports from day one of the conference and Garth reports from day two. Day 1 : 21 October 2014I attended day one[1] of Internet Librarian International 2014 as I was sharing the conference with my colleague, Garth Bradshaw. This was the first large conference I had attended since returning to the profession following a break from librarianship; my review reflects my thoughts following an absence of eight years from the profession, a long time in our fast moving world. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/ball-fowler/ Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/ball-fowler/ The Hartley Library at the University of Southampton has in excess of 15,000 bound PhD and MPhil theses on 340 linear metres of shelving. Consultation of the hard-copy version is now restricted to readers making a personal visit to the Library, as no further microfiche copies are being produced by the British Library and no master copies of theses are lent from the Library. Retrieval of theses from storage for readers and their subsequent return requires effort from a large number of staff. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/editorial/ Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/editorial/ Change Is the Only ConstantIssue 72 is the product of a long period of almost constant change. In the last issue, Richard Waller waved adieu as the outgoing editor, explaining the circumstances around the change in the Editorial for Issue 71 [1]. Richard has left some very large shoes to fill in terms of the quality of articles and the guidance for authors in producing readable and relevant material.  The change is apparent when we look at the context in which Ariadne is now operating: the University of Bath Library has taken the reins, well aware of the regard in which the publication is held by its readers - a wide community with the unifying theme of information use, management and dissemination at its heart. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/oar-2013-rpt/ Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/oar-2013-rpt/ Brisbane, Queensland, Australia was the host location for the second Open Access and Research 2013 conference [1]. The conference was held at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Gardens Point campus over 31 October – 1 November 2013. QUT has over 45,000 students and has a wide range of specialist research areas. There are two research institutes: The Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI) which is a collaborative institute devoted to improving the health of individuals; and the Institute for Future Environments (IFE) which is a multidisciplinary institute focusing on our natural, built and virtual environments, and how to find ways to make them more sustainable, secure and resilient. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/tsuchide-et-al/ Mon, 15 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/tsuchide-et-al/ In Japan, Chiba University established the country's first institutional repository, CURATOR [1] in 2003. Since then, over the last 10 years or so, more than 300 universities and research institutions have set up repositories and the number of full-text items on repositories has exceeded one million [2]. All the contents are available on Japanese Institutional Repositories Online (JAIRO) [3] operated by the National Institute of Informatics (NII) [4] in Japan. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/skilton-et-al/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/skilton-et-al/  Augmented reality, a capability that has been around for decades, is shifting from what was once seen as a gimmick to a bona fide game-changer. [1] Augmented Reality (AR) has been listed in the Horizon Reports, key predictors of the potential impact of new technology on education. The 2011 Report [1] sparked the idea for an innovative project - SCARLET: Special Collections using Augmented Reality to Enhance Learning and Teaching. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/robinson-rvw/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/robinson-rvw/ McClure and Purdy bring together a mix of perspectives, from librarians and lecturers to professors and programmers, to give voice to the very timely concern in Information Literacy (IL) teaching, that we are not equipping our students for the future as we hoped. So-called NextGen students are engaging with information online in their personal, social and educational lives in ways that are shaping new approaches to and conceptions of research. At the same time, those teaching IL, whether librarians or writing instructors, are basing lesson plans and interventions on traditional pedagogies, arguably unfit for a research landscape so altered by the pace and change of information technologies. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/eclap-rpt/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/eclap-rpt/ The beautiful city of Porto was the host location for ECLAP 2013 [1], the 2nd International Conference on Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment.  Porto is the second largest city in Portugal after Lisbon and home of the Instituto Politécnico do Porto (IPP), the largest polytechnic in the country, with over 18,500 students. IPP has 7 different faculties, the School of Music and Arts - Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espectáculo (ESMAE) [2] - is one of the two original schools established when IPP was founded in 1985. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/henshaw-kiley/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/henshaw-kiley/ Online access is now the norm for many spheres of discovery and learning. What benefits bricks-and-mortar libraries have to offer in this digital age is a subject of much debate and concern, and will continue to be so as learning resources and environments shift ever more from the physical to the virtual. In order to maintain a place in this dual environment, most research libraries strive to replicate their traditional offerings in the digital world. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/oppenheim-rvw/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/oppenheim-rvw/ Paul Pedley is a name that needs no introduction to aficionados of copyright textbooks, being the author of several such books published by Facet Publishing in the past (and reviewed by Ariadne [1][2][3][4][5]).  His latest effort, The E-copyright Handbook, attempts to cover the fast-moving and complex world of electronic copyright, using an interesting approach.  Rather than the traditional way of such books, describing the media and describing the rights granted to copyright owners, the way the law applies to each media type, exceptions to copyright and so on, his approach is a mixture but with some emphasis on activities, as a glance at the chapter titles shows: Introduction, Content Types, Activities, Copyright Exceptions, Licences, the Digital Economy Act, Enforcement and The Hargreaves Review. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/ifla-2012-08-rpt/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/ifla-2012-08-rpt/ The Sunday newcomers session chaired by Buhle Mbambo-Thata provided us with some insight into the sheer magnitude of IFLA (as most people seem to call it) or the World Library and Information Congress (to give the formal name) [1]. This year’s congress had over 4,200 delegates from 120 different countries, though over a thousand of these were Finnish librarians making the most of the locality of this year’s event. IFLA offers hundreds of session covering all aspects of librarianship, from library buildings, equipment, rare books and manuscripts to legal issues and new trends. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/white/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/white/ My career has spanned 42 years in the information business. It has encompassed 10,000-hole optical coincidence cards, online database services, videotext, laser discs, and CD-ROMs, the World Wide Web, mobile services and big data solutions. I find the historical development of information resource management absolutely fascinating, yet feel that in general it is poorly documented from an analytical perspective even though there are some excellent archives. These archives include the back issues of Ariadne from January 1996. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/online-2012-rpt/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/online-2012-rpt/ Online Information [1] is an interesting conference as it brings together information professionals from both the public and the private sector. The opportunity to share experiences from these differing perspectives doesn’t happen that often and brings real benefits, such as highly productive networking. This year’s Online Information, held between 20 - 21  November, felt like a slightly different event to previous years. The conference had condensed down to 2 days from 3, dropped its exhibition and free workshops and found a new home at the Victoria Park Plaza Hotel, London. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/schmoller/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/schmoller/ Ariadne: Seb, please tell us a little about yourself. I’ve lived in the same house in Sheffield since 1976, having moved here from London via Cambridge in 1975. Between 1978 and 2002 I worked in Further Education. I did two main things. Between 1978 and 1996 I mainly ran and developed courses for trade union representatives under the auspices of the TUC Education Service. Between 1996 and 2002 when I was made voluntarily redundant in a reorganisation, I was The Sheffield College’s Learning Technology Development Manager, responsible with others for developing Learning To Teach On-Line (LeTTOL) [1], an early online course about how to be on online tutor. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/cox-et-al/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/cox-et-al/ For many UK HEIs, especially research-intensive institutions, Research Data Management (RDM) is rising rapidly up the agenda. Working closely with other professional services, and with researchers themselves, libraries will probably have a key role to play in supporting RDM. This role might include signposting institutional expertise in RDM; inclusion of the topic in information literacy sessions for PhD students and other researchers; advocacy for open data sharing; or contributing to the management of an institutional data repository. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/coetsee/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/coetsee/ The Phytomedicine Programme is a multidisciplinary and collaborative research programme investigating therapeutically useful compounds present in plants growing in South Africa.  The programme was started in 1995 and was transferred to the Department of Paraclinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria in 2002. In 2007 it was designated as a National Research Foundation Developed Research Niche Area [1]. The Faculty Plan (2007-2011) of the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria lists Phytomedicine and ethno-veterinary medicine as one of the six research focus themes that will contribute to the realisation of the Faculty’s newly formulated vision statement relevant to its research programme. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/taylor/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/taylor/ I’ve been working with repositories in various ways for over five years, so I have, of course, attended the major international conference Open Repositories before. I have never actually presented anything or represented a specific project at the event, though. This year was different. This year I had a mission -  to present a poster on the DataFlow Project [1] and to talk to people about the work we had been doing for the past 12 months and (I hoped) to interest them in using the Open Source (OS) systems we had developed during that period. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/cw12-rpt/ Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/cw12-rpt/ On the 21 and 22 March 2012 I attended a workshop which was unlike the stolid conferences I was used to. In the space of two sunny days I found I had spoken to more people and learnt more about them than I usually managed in an entire week. Presentations were short and focused, discussions were varied and fascinating, and the relaxed, open format was very effective in bringing people from differing disciplines together to consider a common theme. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/darlington/ Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/darlington/ A great deal of information is accessible on the World Wide Web which might be useful to both students and teachers. This material, however, is of variable quality and usefulness and is aimed at a wide spectrum of users. Moreover, such material rarely appears accompanied by guidance on how it may be most effectively used by potential users. To make information more usable it must be made more readily discoverable and there should be clear – and preferably machine-readable – indications of its provenance and quality and the legitimate uses to which it may be put. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/gramstadt/ Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/gramstadt/ Funded by the Deposit strand [1] JISC Information Environment programme and led by the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS), a Research Centre of the University for the Creative Arts, Kultivate will increase arts research deposit in UK institutional repositories. Through community engagement with the Kultur II Group [2] and technical enhancements to EPrints, Kultivate is sharing and supporting the application of best practice in the development of institutional repositories that are appropriate to the specific needs and behaviours of creative and visual arts researchers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/lafortune-rvw/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/lafortune-rvw/ This book examines how academic libraries are realigning themselves with the university of the 21st century, which is increasingly becoming a digital learning environment. The expectations of the Google generation, the interdependence of teaching and research, and the changing roles of library staff  and technology all play a fundamental part in this environment–and to lead the discussions in this book, the editors have called on 18 experts and practitioners. The result is 16 chapters that provide a range of viewpoints on how academic libraries will participate in and support digital learning environments. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/editorial2/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/editorial2/ I am pleased to introduce you to the content of Issue 68, and to have the opportunity to remind you that you have a far larger number of channels into the publication’s content. You can do so by using the Archive (for back issues), Authors or Articles tabs on the front page to search for material or information (in addition to the general search field top right) or you can casually browse the material offered by Today’s Choice, view the passing articles in the Gallery block to the right, or drill down into the Gallery from its tab. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/impact-rpt/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/impact-rpt/ The IMPACT Project (Improving Access to Text) [1] was funded by the European Commission back in 2007 to look at significantly advancing access to historical text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) methods. As the project reaches its conclusion, one of its key objectives is sharing project outputs. The final conference was a 2-day event held over 24 - 25 October 2011 at the British Library in London where it demonstrated findings, showcased tools and presented related research in the field of OCR and language technology. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/escidoc-rpt/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/escidoc-rpt/ eSciDoc is a well-known open source platform for creating eResearch environments using generic services and tools based on a shared infrastructure. This concept allows for managing research and publication data together with related metadata, internal and/or external links and access rights. Development of eSciDoc was initiated by a collaborative venture between FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure and the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) and was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/rin-foi-rpt/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/rin-foi-rpt/ Since 2008 the Research Information Network (RIN) has organised a series of workshops dedicated to the dissemination of knowledge about the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) 2000. In previous years these workshops have centred on how the legislation could be used as a research tool [1]. In response to a growing media focus on the Higher Education (HE) sector, this year’s workshops (held at Manchester, UCL and Strathclyde universities respectively) sought not only to continue to raise awareness but also to address the potential impact of the legislation on universities in their capacity as ‘public bodies’. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/azzolini-rvw/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/azzolini-rvw/ Since networked information technology has initiated a breathtaking transformation of knowledge practices, librarians have had a generous supply of thought leaders whose lifetime experience has permitted them to issue credible translations of the 'writing on the wall'. Recently, however, there seems to be many more analysts (and soothsayers) and much more anxious observation and published interpretation of such writing. And the message comes in a red ink, in bold, and with distinct portent, when not downright ominous. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/scaife/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/scaife/ When I started as Technical Services Librarian at the Institute of Education (IOE) in September 2009, one of the first tasks I was given was to do something about all the broken links in the catalogue. Link rot [1] is the bane of the Systems Librarian’s life and I was well aware that you had to run fast to stand still. It is characterised by the decay of a static URL which has, for example, been placed in a library catalogue to reference a relevant Web site resource which has subsequently been moved to a different server or else removed altogether. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/dcc-2011-03-rpt/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/dcc-2011-03-rpt/ The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) is staging a series of free regional data management roadshows to support institutional data management, planning and training. These events run over three days, presenting best practice and showcasing new tools and resources. Each day is designed for a different audience with complementary content so that participants can attend the days that best meet their needs. Presentations from both the second roadshow in Sheffield and the first one in Bath in November 2010 are on the DCC Web site [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/reading-exp-db-rpt/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/reading-exp-db-rpt/ I was invited down to the Open University (OU) Betty Boothroyd Library in Milton Keynes for the launch of the UK Reading Experience Database (UK RED) [1]. I had been asked to attend to talk about the LOCAH Project and Linked Data, but I was also looking forward to learning about the RED Project. This was the first of two launch days, and was designed for librarians, archivists, and information managers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/guy/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/guy/ In 2007 Lorcan Dempsey coined the phrase ‘the amplified conference’ [1]. He used the term to refer to how event outputs (such as talks and presentations) were being amplified ‘through a variety of network tools and collateral communications’. The term ‘amplified event’ is now fairly well recognised within the academic and cultural heritage sectors and is used as an umbrella expression for many practices and technologies that allow not only those external to an event to participate but also those who are actually there to get more out of the event. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/beyond-pdf-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/beyond-pdf-rpt/ 'Beyond the PDF' brought together around 80 people to the University of California San Diego to discuss scholarly communication, primarily in the sciences. The main topic: How can we apply emergent technologies to improve measurably the way that scholarship is conveyed and comprehended? The group included domain scientists, researchers and software developers, librarians, funders, publishers, journal editors - a mix which organiser Phil Bourne described as 'visionaries, developers, consumers, and conveyors' of scholarship. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/collmann/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/collmann/ The collapsable, portable electromechanical Virtual 3D (V3D) Object Rig Model 1 (ORm1) (Figures 1, 2, 3) was developed to meet an obvious need found after an important Australian cultural artefact - a nineteenth-century post-mortem plaster head-cast of the notorious bushranger Ned Kelly [1] - was Apple QTVR-imaged (QuickTime Virtual Reality) using a large static object rig at the University of Melbourne over 2003/4. The author requested that this moving and hyperlinked image be constructed as a multimedia component of a conjectured cross-disciplinary undergraduate teaching unit. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/editorial/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/editorial/ With institutions searching to increase the impact of the work they do, and conscious of the immediate impact of any event they organise, many will be interested to read of 10 Cheap and Easy Ways to Amplify Your Event in which Marieke Guy provides a raft of suggestions to enhance the participants' experience of and involvement in, the event they are attending. For the unconvinced, they will be pleased to hear it is all Lorcan Dempsey's fault when in 2007 he made reference to the 'amplified conference', but as Marieke points out, the suggestions in her article do not amount to a dismissal of professional events teams but, rather, constitute a range of strategies they might wish to adopt in an environment where the expectation is of doing more with fewer resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/coetsee/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/coetsee/ The Phytomedicine Programme of the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria is a multidisciplinary and collaborative research programme investigating therapeutically useful compounds present in plants growing in South Africa [1]. The programme investigates problems in the wide area of infections, especially microbial and parasitic infections in the process of training postgraduate students. They co-operate with many specialists in other areas in the application of extracts and isolated compounds to improve the health and productivity of plants, animals and humans. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/pennock-clark/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/pennock-clark/ The impact of the digital age upon libraries has been profound, changing not only the back office, services, and the range of materials available to users, but also the public face of libraries and the relationship between the library and its users. Within this changed relationship, collaboration, participation, and online social networks play an increasingly important role in the user experience, especially in large university and national libraries. At the same time, a shift is taking place in the type of collection items held in libraries, and the percentage of born-digital materials acquired is increasing on a daily basis. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/oppenheim-rvw/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/oppenheim-rvw/ With a title like that, one would expect a primer, introducing all the key concepts of information science to someone studying the topic for the first time at undergraduate or Masters' level, and possibly for the interested layman. Such a book would be a worthy successor to Chris Hanson's Introduction to Science Information Work, and Roger Meetham's Information Retrieval, both of which were first published about 40 years ago. Sadly, however, this book does not fulfil the promise of its title. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/open-culture-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/open-culture-rpt/ The Europeana Conference is a free annual event which highlights current challenges for libraries, museums, archives and audio-visual archives and which looks for practical solutions for the future. It connects the main actors in cultural and scientific heritage in order to build networks and establish future collaborations. The Europeana Open Culture 2010 Conference [1] was the third annual conference and the biggest so far. It focused on how the cultural institutions can create public value by making digital, cultural and scientific information openly available. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/ili-2010-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/ili-2010-rpt/ Thursday 14 OctoberTrack A: Looking Ahead to ValueA102: Future of Academic LibrariesMal Booth, University of Technology Sydney (Australia)Michael Jubb, Research Information Network (UK)Mal Booth from the University of Technology Sydney started the session by giving an insight into current plans and projects underway to inform a new library building due to open in 2015 as part of a major redeveloped city campus. As this new building should be able to respond to demands for many years to come, Mal emphasised how important it is to consider the future users as well as library and technology developments. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/blue-ribbon-uk-2010-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/blue-ribbon-uk-2010-rpt/ On Thursday 6 May 2010 an historic event took place. The event allowed people to express their opinions on potential future action in a highly significant area. No, not the British general election, and I'm sure the concurrence of dates was unintentional! This event was the Blue Ribbon Task Force Symposium on sustainable digital preservation and access, held at the Wellcome Collection Conference Centre in London [1]. The symposium, companion event to the national conversation which took place in Washington DC in April 2010 [2], provided an opportunity for stakeholders to respond to the recent Blue Ribbon Task Force report. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/rafiq-rvw/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/rafiq-rvw/ Digital Information offers an overview of the digital landscape based on the heterogeneous perspectives of multiple stakeholders contributed by the experts from Higher Education, publishers' community, information professionals, and legal experts. This overview presents seven well written chapters by an international team of experts who have contributed well to the debate of digital information in the context of order or anarchy. The book seems to answer the million-dollar question of today's information world: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/taylor-teague/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/taylor-teague/ The Royal National Institute of Blind People National Library Service (RNIB NLS) was formed in 2007 as a result of a merger between the National Library for the Blind (NLB) and the Royal National Institute of Blind People’s Library and Information Service. It is the largest specialist library for readers with sight loss in the UK. RNIB holds the largest collection of books in accessible formats in the UK and provides a postal service to over 44,000 readers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/wrn-repos-2010-05-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/wrn-repos-2010-05-rpt/ More than 60 delegates convened at the Rose Bowl in Leeds on 7 May 2010 for this event to explore the developing relationship and overlap between Open Access research repositories and so called 'CRISs' – Current Research Information Systems – that are increasingly being implemented at universities. The Welsh Repository Network (WRN) [1], a collaborative venture between the Higher Education institutions (HEIs) in Wales, funded by JISC, had clearly hit upon an engaging topic du jour. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/datacite-2010-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/datacite-2010-rpt/ Over 7-8 June 2010 DataCite held its First Summer Meeting in Hannover, Germany. More than 100 information specialists, researchers, and publishers came together to focus on making datasets visible and accessible [1]. Uwe Rosemann, German Technical Library (TIB), welcomed delegates and handed over to the current President of DataCite, Adam Farquhar, British Library. Adam gave an overview of DataCite, an international association which aims to support researchers by enabling them to locate, identify, and cite research datasets with confidence. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/holley/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/holley/ In late 2009 the National Library of Australia released version 1 of Trove [1] to the public. Trove is a free search engine. It searches across a large aggregation of Australian content. The treasure is over 90 million items from over 1000 libraries, museums, archives and other organisations which can be found at the click of a button. Finding information just got easier for many Australians. Exploring a wealth of resources and digital content like never before, including full-text books, journals and newspaper articles, images, music, sound, video, maps, Web sites, diaries, letters, archives, people and organisations has been an exciting adventure for users and the service has been heavily used. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/day-rvw/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/day-rvw/ Until it joined with the Library Association in 2002 to form the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), the Institute of Information Scientists was a professional organisation for those primarily working in scientific and technical information work. The chapters in this volume were first published in 2008 as a special issue of the Journal of Information Science to commemorate the founding of the institute in 1958. In accordance with this, many of the chapters provide a retrospective - sometimes even anecdotal - overview of developments in information science in the UK since the 1950s. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/segbertelbert-fuegi/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/segbertelbert-fuegi/ In November 2008, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a grant to Stichting eIFL.net to help the National Library of Mongolia (NLM) create a strategic plan in the course of 2009. eIFL.net [1] is an international not-for-profit organisation with a base in Europe and a global network of partners. It works with libraries around the world to enable sustainable access to high-quality digital information for people in developing and transition countries [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/oppenheim-rvw/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/oppenheim-rvw/ This is the fifth edition of what is, obviously, a very successful title. The previous edition was published in 2004, and five years is a long time in copyright law and practice, so it was felt no doubt that a new edition was due. However, as I will explain at the end of this review, that decision may have been unsound. The book follows its normal format of a series of questions regarding UK copyright law and practice, with brief answers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/whalley-rvw/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/whalley-rvw/ My Word! is an attention-grabbing title for a book on plagiarism by an academic anthropologist and teacher. Although written entirely from a North American perspective, many bells will ring here for all concerned with teaching and education. Do not, however, expect a set of ideas or rules to prevent (!) or reduce plagiarism. Susan Blum suggests that the real problem of academic dishonesty, of which plagiarism is a part, arises primarily from a lack of communication between two distinct cultures within the university setting. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/editorial/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/editorial/ Readers of last year's issues will possibly have been aware of a small initiaitive on Ariadne's part to give practitioners with in the archives field the opportunity to voice their views on developments in their airspace. You may recall in Issue 61 an open and sincere investigation by Michael Kennedy into his views of the wider involvement of non-professionals in the generation of information for archival entries. In Cautionary Tales: Archives 2. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/davis/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/davis/ It seems fair to say that the lion’s share of work on developing online tools for reference and citation management by students and researchers has focused on familiar types of publication. They generally comprise resources that can be neatly and discretely bound in the covers of a book or journal, or their electronic analogues, like the Portable Document Format (PDF): objects in established library or database systems, with ISBNs and ISSNs underwritten by the authority of formal publication and legal deposit. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/newsline/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/newsline/ UKeiG Intranet's Forum: ERM's Knowledge Sharing Platform – February 2010UKeiG Intranet's Forum: ERM's Knowledge Sharing Platform: A chance to see one of the world's top 10 best intranets Free informal Intranets Forum meeting for UKeiG members ERM, 2/F Exchequer Court, 33 St. Mary Axe, London EC3A 8AA Friday 26 February 2010, 4.00 - 5.30 p.m. http://www.ukeig.org.uk/ Environmental Resources Management (ERM), the world's leading environmental consultancy firm was recognized in a recent survey by Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) as having one of the world's top 10 best intranets. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/tonkin/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/tonkin/ Due in large part to the appearance since mid-2006 of increasingly affordable devices making use of e-Ink technology (a monochrome display supporting a high-resolution image despite low battery use, since the screen consumes power only during page refreshes, which in the case of ebooks generally represent page turns), the ebook has gone from a somewhat limited market into a real, although presently still niche, contender. Amazon sold 500,000 Kindles in 2008 [1]; Sony sold 300,000 of its Reader Digital Book model between October 2006 and October 2009. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/callaghan-et-al/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/callaghan-et-al/ The previous article about the Overlay Journal Infrastructure for Meteorological Sciences (OJIMS) Project [1] dealt with an introduction to the concept of overlay journals and their potential impact on the meteorological sciences. It also discussed the business cases and requirements that must be met for overlay journals to become operational as data publications. There is significant interest in data journals at this time as they could provide a framework to allow the peer-review and citation of datasets, thereby encouraging data scientists to ensure their data and metadata are complete and valid, and granting them academic credit for this work. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/ili-2009-rpt/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/ili-2009-rpt/ Internet Librarian International [1] brought together librarians and information professionals from 33 countries including China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria and Australia as well as Europe and North America, to discuss and debate the latest developments under the conference theme 'value, versatility and viability'. Conference Chair Marydee Ojala emphasised that today's challenge for libraries and librarians lies in maximising the value of the internet for users, while proving the value of services to communities, and the theme of innovation was common to many speakers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/stracchino-feng/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/stracchino-feng/ An overview of the first phase of developing a digital repository for multimedia resources at York University has recently been outlined by Elizabeth Harbord and Julie Allinson in Ariadne [1]. This article aims to provide a technical companion piece reflecting on a year’s progress in the technical development of the repository infrastructure. As Allinson and Harbord’s earlier article explained, it was decided to build the architecture using Fedora Commons [2] as the underlying repository, with the user interface being provided by Muradora [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/newsline/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/newsline/ 5th International Digital Curation Conference – Moving to Multi-Scale Science: Managing Complexity and DiversityMillennium Gloucester Hotel, Kensington, London 2-4 December 2009 http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/dcc-2009/ The International Digital Curation Conference is an established annual event reaching out to individuals, organisations and institutions across all disciplines and domains involved in curating data for e-science and e-research. The Digital Curation Centre, which is responsible for organising the Conference, will be hosting a full day of workshops on 2 December including Disciplinary Dimensions of Digital Curation: New Perspectives on Research Data; Digital Curation 101 Lite Training; Citability of Research Data; and Repository Preservation Infrastructure (REPRISE). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/bevan/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/bevan/ The National Library of Wales has recently published a new Strategy for the Web [1] which integrates Web 2.0 with the existing Web portfolio and seeks to provide an approach to Web 2.0 which is focused on the organisation. Rather than centring on technical developments, this paper outlines a strategic research approach and discusses some of the outcomes which may speak to others seeking to engage with emerging Web technologies and approaches. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/strsp-rpt/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/strsp-rpt/ I recently attended the Back to School event [1] run by the Repositories Support Project (RSP)[2] at Matfen Hall [3], Northumberland, where I gave a workshop on metadata and also attended the second and third days of the event as a delegate. I was sorry not to be able to attend the sessions on the first day, but arrived in time for dinner so was able to meet the delegates and other presenters. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/gray/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/gray/ Those involved in Higher Education (HE) may have started to sense the approach of Institutional Repositories (IRs). Leaving aside the unfortunate nomenclature, IRs are becoming a fact of life in many educational institutions. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has invested £14million in the Repositories and Preservation Programme [1] and the recent Repositories and Preservation Programme Meeting in Birmingham [2] celebrated the end of over 40 individual repository projects under the Start Up and Enhancement [3] strand. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/jisc-digi-content-rpt/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/jisc-digi-content-rpt/ In the bucolic setting of the Cotswolds, on one of the hottest weeks of the summer, 200 delegates gathered to discuss the future of online content and to examine why UK universities need a sustainable digital content strategy to deliver successfully accessible learning and research materials for the future. Over two days, the delegates heard from a series of keynote speakers in plenary sessions and attended breakout ‘strand sessions’ on five different themes: Managing Content; Content Development Strategies; Content in Education; User Engagement; and Looking into the Future. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/newsline/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/newsline/ JISC Digital Media Course: Introduction to Image MetadataILRT, 8-10 Berkeley Square, Bristol, BS8 1HH Wednesday 9 December 2009 Full-day course: 10.00 - 16.30 http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/training/courses/introduction-to-image-metadata/ AimThis course is designed specifically to help you consider how to effectively incorporate metadata into the fabric of your image collection, through explanation, discussion and practical activities. AudienceAnyone new to describing and cataloguing images. Some previous knowledge of metadata will be useful but not essential. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/or-09-rpt/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/or-09-rpt/ I recently attended the annual Open Repositories 2009 Conference [1] in Atlanta, Georgia which hosted 326 delegates from 23 countries. For myself, as the SWORD [2] Project Manager, the event proved to be very worthwhile. My colleague Julie Allinson and I were both able to give a plenary presentation on the first day and a half-day workshop on the final day. Much of the conference addressed developments surrounding the Fedora, DSpace and EPrints systems that have occurred over the last year. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/allinson-harbord/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/allinson-harbord/ The University Library & Archives' first venture into digital repositories was as part of the White Rose partnership in the original SHERPA Project [1]. Leeds, Sheffield and York universities have had a research partnership for some years and the library services became a consortial partner in SHERPA in 2002 to set up a joint e-prints repository called White Rose Research Online (WRRO) [2] . During the project which ran from 2002-2006, advocacy about Open Access and the need for wider dissemination of research outputs got underway at York. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/takle/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/takle/ The National Library of Norway is in the process of establishing itself as a digital national library and of taking on a key role in the country’s digital library service. The most ambitious outcome of this positioning is that the National Library has comprehensive plans to digitise its entire collection. The digital national library has been given the name NBdigital, and its objective of establishing itself as a digital library is also reflected in the institution’s practices. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/russell/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/russell/ EThOS 1 opened up access to UK doctoral theses in January 2009. It is a service by and for the research community. Although EThOS is still in beta version, it is already changing the way theses are accessed and is helping to raise the visibility of UK research. BackgroundDoctoral theses represent a special category of research writing and are the culmination of several years of intensive work. Traditionally difficult to access, they have as a result remained underused; so modernising access to research theses has been on the Higher Education agenda for many years in line with the changing characteristics of the working environment: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/editorial/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/editorial/ I am grateful to Marieke Guy not least since she still manages to write for Ariadne when she has her own blog [1] on remote working to maintain. Having begun her series of articles with A Desk Too Far?: The Case for Remote Working, a treatment of the organisational issues surrounding the suitability of remote working as a business case, which she followed with a wealth of information on supportive technologies entitled Staying Connected: Technologies Supporting Remote Workers, Marieke returns, not exactly full circle, but back to an organisational perspective in her third contribution A Support Framework for Remote Workers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/morris/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/morris/ The University of Southampton has around 22,000 students across six campuses: five in the city of Southampton and one in Winchester. It is a broad-based, research-intensive institution, a member of the Russell Group of UK Universities. The University comprises three Faculties: Faculty of Engineering, Science and Maths; Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences, and the Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences. Within the three Faculties, there are currently 21 academic Schools which are responsible for the delivery of education. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/impact-2009-rpt/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/impact-2009-rpt/ The first conference of the IMPACT (Improving Access to Text) Project was held at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands (KB) in The Hague on 6 and 7 April 2009. A total of 136 participants from over 30 countries attended. The main focus of the event was on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies and their use in supporting the large-scale digitisation of historical text resources. It was also an opportunity to introduce the IMPACT Project to a wider audience and to describe some of its initial results. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/waaijers/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/waaijers/ Now that publications are increasingly being enriched with databases and audio-visual elements, the need for non-proprietary review systems – that is, peer review systems that do not require the assignment of copyright to the organiser of the peer review i.e. the publisher - is becoming ever-more pressing. Although there is a steadily growing number of peer-reviewed Open Access journals [1] and an active Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association [2], the supply fails to keep pace with the demand. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/tonkin-strelnikov/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/tonkin-strelnikov/ The IEMSR, a metadata schema registry, exists to support the development and use of metadata standards; in practice, what does this entail? Metadata is not a recent invention. It dates from at least the time of the Library of Alexandria, at which hundreds of thousands of scrolls were described using a series of indexes retaining various characteristics such as line count, subject classification, author name and biography. However, specific metadata standards, schemas and vocabularies are created on a regular basis, falling into and out of favour as time passes and needs change. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/vernooy-gerritsen-et-al/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/vernooy-gerritsen-et-al/ Since 2006, the EU-sponsored DRIVER Project has aimed to build an interoperable, trusted and long-term repository infrastructure. As part of the DRIVER Project, a survey was carried out in order to obtain an overview of repositories with research output in the European Union in 2006 [1]. This study was updated by an expanded survey in 2008, in which 178 institutional research repositories [2] from 22 European countries participated. In this article we will present the most important results [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/law/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/law/ By Scottish standards, Strathclyde is a new university, being a mere two hundred years old. It is a large university with 20,000 students, some forty departments covering most disciplines other than medicine and a huge programme of continuing professional development (CPD). Set up as 'a place of useful learning' it has always specialised in the applied disciplines – business, engineering, professional training (teachers, lawyers and social workers) and has set out to be quite different from its better-known competitors. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/chaudhri/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/chaudhri/ Efforts to create standard metadata records for resources in digital repositories have hitherto relied for the most part on the simple standard schema published by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) [1], the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, more commonly known as 'simple Dublin Core' [2]. While this schema, by and large, met the aim of making metadata interoperable between repositories for purposes such as OAI-PMH [3], the explicit means by which it achieved this, a drastic simplification of the metadata associated with digital objects to only 15 elements, had the side effect of making it difficult or impossible to describe specific types of resources in detail [4]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/newsline/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/newsline/ JISC Digital Media (formerly TASI) Training ScheduleFour brand new courses are on offer for the 2009 season dealing with: Finding free images onlineEditing and managing images using Photoshop Lightroom 2Audio Production (recording lectures, seminars, interviews and podcasts)Digitising analogue video recordings.Courses are already filling up fast and several courses now have multiple dates to accommodate demand. Spring 2009 Programme:10 March 2009 Introduction to Photoshop Lightroom 2 http://www.tasi.ac.uk/training/training-photoshop-lightroom.html 19 March 2009 Copyright and Digital Images http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/eckes-segbert/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/eckes-segbert/ The European Film Gateway (EFG) [1] is one in a series of projects funded by the European Commission, under the eContentplus Programme, with the aim of contributing to the development and further enhancement of Europeana - the European digital library, museum and archive [2]. Officially launched on 20 November 2008, the prototype Europeana service provides access to about four million digital objects from archives, audio-visual archives, museums and libraries across Europe. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/brady/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/brady/ MrCute is an acronym of Moodle Repository, Create, Upload, Tag, and Embed and is a repository system for the Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It will enable the content uploaded to online course areas on the VLE to be shared with other users and used in more than one location by more than one person. The original MrCute was a JISC-funded project by Worcester College of Technology (United Kingdom) in partnership with Learning Objectivity UK. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/cig-2008-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/cig-2008-rpt/ Cataloguers from all over Europe travelled into Glasgow to attend the conference, subtitled “Classification and subject retrieval in the 21st century: you can’t make jelly without a mould”. The conference provided sessions with talks on both wide-ranging and detailed aspects of cataloguing, combined together into seven sessions distributed over the three days. All notes of the presentations are available online. [1] Said the spider to the fly: Identity and authority in the semantic web The keynote address was given by Gordon Dunsire from the Centre for Digital Library Research [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/waaijers-et-al/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/waaijers-et-al/ The view that the results of publicly financed research should also be publicly accessible enjoys broad support in the academic community. Where their own articles are concerned, however, many authors hesitate to circulate them openly, for example by publishing them in Open Access journals or placing them in their institution’s repository. They ask themselves whether that will not be at odds with the copyright rules and whether they will gain – or perhaps even lose – prestige. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/editorial/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/editorial/ In her second Get Tooled Up article on the subject of remote working Staying Connected: Technologies Supporting Remote Workers, Marieke Guy takes a look at the many technologies that support remote working, from broadband to Web 2.0 social networking tools. Readers may also be interested to read her blog on remote working which I am definitely finding interesting [1]. I am greatly indebted to Marieke, who as many IWMW delegates will attest, is indisputably one of Life's finishers and who, in her delivery of both this article and its predecessor 'A Desk Too Far? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/davies/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/davies/ Europeana - the European digital library, museum and archive - is a two-year project that began in July 2007. It will produce a service giving users direct access initially to some two million digital objects, including film material, photos, paintings, sounds, maps, manuscripts, books, newspapers and archival papers, rising to a target of 10 million by 2010. The development of the Europeana service is a flagship activity of the European Digital Libraries Initiative [1] [2], designed to increase access to digital content across four identified key domains (libraries, museums, archives and audio/visual archives) is now gaining momentum. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/milne-tuck/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/milne-tuck/ ‘The purpose of legal deposit is to ensure that the nation’s published output (and thereby its intellectual record and future published heritage) is collected systematically and as comprehensively as possible, both in order to make it available to current researchers within the libraries of the legal deposit system and to preserve the material for the use of future generations of researchers’ [1]. In his Alexandria article of 2004, Dr Clive Field, Director of Scholarship and Collections at the British Library (2001-2006), provided a detailed account of the Legal Deposit Libraries Bill and its progress through Parliament to the statute book. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/newsline/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/newsline/ TASI Courses for Remainder of 2008TASI (the JISC Advisory Service for still images, moving images and sound) has a few places left on its autumn/winter training programme. http://www.tasi.ac.uk/training/training.html 14 November 2008 Optimising your Images using Adobe Photoshop21 November 2008 Introduction to Image Metadata27 November 2008 Essential Techniques in Digital Image Capture28 November 2008 Advanced Techniques in Digital Image Capture03 December 2008 Digital Photography - Taking Control of your SLR11 December 2008 Scanning with the CLA Licence12 December 2008 Copyright and Digital ImagesThe following newly released course has just been added to the programme: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/eresearch-australasia-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/eresearch-australasia-rpt/ The following overview of eResearch Australasia 2008 by Ann Borda is intended to give a sense of the diversity of the programme and key themes of the Conference at a glance. A selection of workshops and themes are explored in more detail by fellow contributing authors in the sections below: Bridget Soulsby on the 'Data Deluge', Gaby Bright on 'Uptake of eResearch' and Tobias Blanke on 'Arts & Humanities eResearch'. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/ipres-2008-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/ipres-2008-rpt/ iPRES 2008, the Fifth International Conference on Digital Preservation, was held at the British Library on 29-30 September, 2008. From its beginnings five years ago, iPRES has retained its strong international flavour. This year, it brought together over 250 participants from 33 countries. iPRES has become a major international forum for the exchange of ideas and practice in Digital Preservation. The theme of the conference was ‘Joined Up and Working: tools and methods for digital preservation’. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/hannabuss-rvw/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/hannabuss-rvw/ Books are not mushrooms and do not grow in the dark: we tend to know they're there and we know the frame within which they work. Copyright Compliance is one in a useful line of books about information law from Paul Pedley and others, published by Facet Publishing (which is owned by CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, formerly The Library Association). This in turn is part of a wider interest and trend in legally orientated books for library and information practitioners, one that is very large indeed if we factor in studies of law and ethics in fields like software, patents, Internet, e-commerce, and telecoms. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/newsline/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/newsline/ Minding the Skills Gap: A Workshop for Key Training ProvidersLeeds University Business School 3 September 2008 Over the last few years, researchers have enthusiastically embraced new technologies and services that allow them to discover, locate, gain access to and create information resources on their desktops. Yet there is evidence to suggest that their research information skills and competencies have not kept up with the rapid pace of change. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/or-08-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/or-08-rpt/ This was the third international Open Repositories Conference, the previous two being held in 2007, San Antonio, Texas [1] and in 2006, Sydney [2], so Europe was the third continent to host the event. Southampton was gloriously sunny for the five days of the conference (1-4 April), so there was no need to use the disposable plastic macs that were provided in the delegate bags. The event tends to attract people who have either already set up digital repositories in their institutions, are thinking about it or are interested in various aspects of repositories. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/jisc-powr-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/jisc-powr-rpt/ A university’s Web site is typically an honest reflection of the university, which is often an uncomfortable state of affairs for its managers. I was reminded of this as I negotiated my way from Senate House’s cycle bays to the Dr Seng Tee Room at the University of London. Having arrived in time, Reception – one person behind wood and glass – thought I was looking for Dr Seng Tee. A 404 [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/ukmw08-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/ukmw08-rpt/ Following the success of the inaugural event last year [1], the Mashed Museum day was again held the day before the Museums Computer Group UK Museums on the Web Conference. The theme of the conference was 'connecting collections online', and the Mashed Museum day was a chance for museum ICT staff to put this into practice. The Mashed Museum DayEarlier this year I received an email that read: You are invited to a day of coding, thinking and idea sharing with a select group of museum colleagues. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/gatenby/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/gatenby/ Libraries’ collections fall into three parts: physical, digital and licensed. These are managed by multiple systems, ILS (Integrated Library System), ERM (Electronic Records Management), digital management, digital repositories, resolvers, inter-library loan and reference. At the same time libraries are increasingly co-operating in collecting and storing resources. This article examines how to identify data that is best located at global, collective and local levels. An example is explored, namely the benefits of moving data from different local systems to the network level to manage acquisition of the total collection as a whole and in combination with consortia members. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/brace/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/brace/ The VIF ProjectThe Version Identification Framework (VIF) [1] Project ran between July 2007 and May 2008 and was funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee, (JISC) under the Repositories and Preservation Programme [2] in order to help develop versioning best practice in repositories. The project was run by partners, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) [3], the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) [4], the University of Leeds [5] and Erasmus University Rotterdam [6]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/henty/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/henty/ The growing capacity of ICT to contribute to research of all kinds has excited researchers the world over as they invent new ways of conducting research and enjoy the benefits of bigger and more sophisticated computers and communications systems to support measurement, analysis, collaboration and publishing. The expanding rate of ICT development is matched by the numbers of people wanting to join in this funfest, by growth in the amount of data being generated, and by demands for new and improved hardware, software, networks, and data storage. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/williams-et-al/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/williams-et-al/ Personal collections such as those kept in the British Library have long documented diverse careers and lives, and include a wide variety of document (and artefact) types, formats and relationships. In recent years these collections have become ever more ‘digital’. Not surprisingly, given the inexorable march of technological innovation, individuals are capturing and storing an ever-increasing amount of digital information about or for themselves, including documents, articles, portfolios of work, digital images, and audio and video recordings [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/newsline/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/newsline/ UKeiG Courses over May – October 2008Searching the Internet: Google and BeyondKaren Blakeman Friday 16 May 2008 University of Liverpool http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2008/May/beyondgoogle.html Searching the Internet: Google and BeyondKaren Blakeman Wednesday 11 June 2008 King’s College London, Guy’s Campus http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2008/June/beyondgoogle.html UKeiG Annual SeminarWeb 2 in action - making social networking tools work to enhance organisational efficiency Thursday 12 June SOAS, London Understanding metadata and controlled vocabularies - the key to integrated networkingStella Dextre Clarke http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/maccoll/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/maccoll/ RLG Programs became part of OCLC in the summer of 2006. In November of last year, RLG Programs announced the appointment of a European Director, John MacColl. This article explains the rationale behind the combination of RLG with the OCLC Office of Research, and describes the work programme of the new Programs and Research Group. It argues for co-operation as the necessary response to the challenges presented to research libraries as the Web changes the way researchers work, and it lays out a new programme dedicated to research outputs, which will have significant European Partner involvement. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/vandeventer-pienaar/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/vandeventer-pienaar/ Knowledge exchange is critical for development. 'Bridging the knowledge divide' does not only refer to the North-South divide. It also refers to the divide between richer and poorer countries within the same region as well as to the divide between larger and smaller organisations within one country. Lastly it refers to the divide between those individuals who have access to an environment that allows for rapid knowledge creation and those less fortunate. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/hannabuss-rvw/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/hannabuss-rvw/ The second edition of Digital Copyright is the print-book counterpart of the original e-book and, as such, will sell particularly well to libraries where training (and self-updating) is taken seriously and to educational establishments where people are trained for 'the profession' (this is so hybrid now that perhaps no one book on information law can satisfy everyone - think of electronic communications law, Internet law, computing law, and the like, and specialist authors like Ian Lloyd on IT law). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/mcn-rpt/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/mcn-rpt/ The Museum Computer Network (MCN) celebrated its 40th anniversary during its annual meeting, this year held at the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza. In 1967, museum professionals in New York City gathered to discuss the utility of computers in museum settings. This initial meeting provided the seed for what would become the Museum Computer Network [1]. 40 years later, 310 delegates from 14 countries and 32 states in the US gathered to take stock of successes and issues in the networked museum. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/newsline/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/newsline/ UkeiG Course: Information Law for Information ProfessionalsInformation Law for Information Professionals: What you need to know about Copyright, Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Accessibility and Disability Discrimination Laws CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE 19 February 2008, 9.30-16.30 Course outline In particular, four key legal areas currently affect the work of many information professionals in the digital environment - copyright, data protection, freedom of information, and disability discrimination and accessibility. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/mchugh-rvw/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/mchugh-rvw/ Linda Braun is an educational technology specialist who is an enthusiast for podcasting - in all its formats - and the reasons why it should and how it could be used. The book is slanted towards education but the ideas and suggestions in it could appeal to a wider audience. Although written primarily with American readers in mind (the specific references tend towards American Web sites) this is not to discount the relevance of the book for an international audience. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/manuel-oppenheim/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/manuel-oppenheim/ The development of an increasing array of tools for storing, organising, managing, and searching electronic resources poses some interesting questions for those in the Higher Education sector, not least of which are: what role do repositories have in this new information environment? What effect is Google having on the information-seeking strategies of students, researchers and teachers? Where do libraries fit within the information continuum? And ultimately, what services should they look to provide for their users? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/newsline/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/newsline/ TASI Workshops in November & DecemberThere are currently places available on the following Nov/Dec workshops: 14 November 2007: Image Capture - Level 3, Bristol15 November 2007: Introduction to Image Metadata, Bristol23 November 2007: Image Optimisation - Correcting and Preparing Images, Bristol30 November 2007: Building a Departmental Image Collection, Bristol4 December 2007: Colour Management, Bristol13 December 2007: Photoshop - Level 1, Bristol14 December 2007: Photoshop - Level 2, BristolFull details of these and all TASI workshops are available from the Training page http://www. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/fp6-2007-rpt/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/fp6-2007-rpt/ Digital preservation has become an area of strategic importance for the European Union in recent years. This has been reflected in the investment of €17 million in co-funding three major digital preservation projects under call 5 of its Framework Programme 6 in September 2005. Planets (Preservation and Long-term Access through NETworked Services) [1], CASPAR (Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval) [2] and DPE (DigitalPreservationEurope) [3] are all co-ordinated by British organisations: Planets by the British Library, CASPAR by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (formerly CCLRC) and DPE by the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) at the University of Glasgow. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/waaijers/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/waaijers/ While Cream of Science (Keur der Wetenschap), Promise of Science and the HBO Knowledge Bank (HBO Kennisbank) are among the inspiring results of the DARE Programme for the period 2003-06, what is more important in the long run is the new infrastructure that enables Dutch Higher Education and research institutions to provide easy and reliable open access to research results and teaching material as quickly as possible. Such open access ought to be the standard in a knowledge-driven society, certainly if the material and data have been generated with public funding. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/alpsp-rpt/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/alpsp-rpt/ The provision of scholarly information is undergoing well-documented change, affecting libraries, publishers and researchers. The Association for Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) presented a one-day seminar to discuss these changes and their impact, with perspectives on the near future from an academic librarian, society publishers, a scientific researcher and library technology providers. The seminar looked ‘at what the library will look like in the future, and how publishers will need to adapt to keep pace with rapid change, not only to the online content that they provide to their scholarly users, but to the way they retrieve and deliver it’ [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/groenewegen-treloar/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/groenewegen-treloar/ This paper describes the work of the ARROW Project to meet the requirements of the forthcoming Research Quality Framework (RQF). The RQF is an Australian Federal Government initiative designed to measure the quality and impact of Australian research, and is based partly on the existing Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) held in the UK. The RQF differs from the RAE in its reliance on local institutional repositories for the provision of access to research outputs, and this paper will explain how it is envisaged that this role will be filled, and the challenges that arise from this role. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/wallace-et-al/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/wallace-et-al/ At Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) the Spoken Word [1], a project in the JISC / NSF Digital Libraries in the Classroom (DLiC) programme [2], was conceived in 2001-2002 in response to a set of pedagogical and institutional imperatives. A small group of social scientists had, since the 1990s, been promoting the idea of using 'an information technology-intensive learning environment' to recapture some of the traditional aspirations of Scottish Higher Education, in particular independent, critical and co-operative learning [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/vandergraf/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/vandergraf/ What is the current state of digital repositories for research output in the European Union? What should be the next steps to stimulate an infrastructure for digital repositories at a European level? To address these key questions, an inventory study into the digital repositories for research output in the European Union was carried out as part of the EU-financed DRIVER Project [1]. In this article the main results of the inventory study [2] are presented and used to formulate a European agenda for the further establishment of an infrastructure for digital repositories for research output. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/iwmw-2007-rpt/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/iwmw-2007-rpt/ Torrential rain, thunder and lightening provided the backdrop to the Institutional Web Management Workshop [1], held this year at the University of York. Dramatic as they were, the conditions did not in any way dampen the enthusiasm of the delegates over the three days. The programme this year consisted of plenary sessions, discussion groups, parallel sessions and the famed social events. New this year was the IWMW Innovation Competition, where participants were invited to submit lightweight examples of innovative uses of Web technologies as well as the IWMW logo. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/mckay/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/mckay/ If institutional repositories (IRs) were all that their proponents could have hoped, they would be providing researchers with better access to research, improving institutional prestige, and assisting with formal research assessment [1][2][3]. The reality, though, is that IRs are less frequently implemented, harder to fill, and less visible than their advocates would hope or expect [4][5][6]. While technical platforms for IRs, such as DSpace [7] and ePrints [8] have seen an abundance of research, little is known about the users of IRs, neither how they use IR software, nor how usable it is for them. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/newsline/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/newsline/ Building Trust in Digital Repositories Using the DRAMBORA Toolkit Pre-SOA Conference Workshop: Building Trust in Digital Repositories Using the DRAMBORA Toolkit 27 August 2007, 11.00-16.00 The Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/drambora-belfast-2007/ Running from 11.00am to 4.00pm, this practical tutorial will provide a contextual overview of the need for an evidence-based evaluation of digital repositories and offer an overview of the DCC pilot audits to date. The tutorial will then move on to demonstrate how institutions can make use of the DRAMBORA toolkit to design, develop, evaluate, and refine new or existing trusted digital repository systems and workflows. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/rsp-summer-sch-rpt/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/rsp-summer-sch-rpt/ The Repositories Support Project (RSP) is a major initiative from JISC to support the development and growth of the repositories network in the UK [1]. With its first major event the RSP team offered 23 prospective and new repository managers from Higher Education institutions across the UK the opportunity to participate in an intensive 48-hour repository summer school. Held at the inspirational and delightful Dartington Hall in Devon, this three-day residential course delivered a comprehensive overview of the practical challenges and solutions to effective repository implementation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/manuel-oppenheim/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/manuel-oppenheim/ Much can be learned from looking back and reflecting on events in the repository arena over the past few years. Repository systems, institutional managers, repository managers, advisory organisations and repository users have all come a long way in this short time. Looking back acts as a way of grounding prior activity in the present context. It can also provide invaluable insights into where repositories are headed. The activity of deliberating on past events may be of value to a range of individuals engaged in repository activities. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/brack-rvw/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/brack-rvw/ Greg Notess has brought together techniques and strategies for Web search training not only from his own experience but also from a number of well known Web search trainers; readers will recognise the names of Joe Barker, Paul Barron, Phil Bradley, John Ferguson, Alice Fulbright, Ran Hock, Jeff Humphrey, Diane Kovacs, Gary Price, Danny Sullivan, Rita Vine, and Sheila Webber. As the author notes, 'Teaching web search engines is complex', and this book is an attempt to recognise the diversity of approaches by offering different styles, techniques and examples. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/editorial/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/editorial/ Having emerged from the political arguments of the 1990s about what culture could be funded and whether it was better to fund soccer or opera, we have moved into an age where, in the UK at least, there are arguments as to what actually constitutes British culture. Fortunately more people are deciding to do culture for themselves than remain passive witnesses to the pundits' debate. The place where they are doing it is online and they are not waiting to see whether their offering attracts the experts' approval - and sometimes, admittedly, one might argue more's the pity. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/newsline/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/newsline/ Introduction to Federated Searching Technology & DevelopmentsDate: 11 May 2007 Venue: Conference Room, Southport College, Mornington Road, Southport, PR9 0TT Delegate Fee: £50.00 This one day conference is aimed at further education library and information. As electronic content and sources of information, provided by academic libraries, become greater and vaster, the need for federated searching technologies has increased. This seminar will introduce delegates to the concepts of federated searching (also known as meta-searching) of library content, and will illustrate some of the current developments and initiatives within this field. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/brophy-et-al/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/brophy-et-al/ Cultural heritage has an important role to play in today’s society. Not only does it help us to understand our past but it also has an impact on social development, the economy and education. Developments in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have provided new opportunities for the manipulation of cultural heritage. Digitisation of cultural material has widened access beyond the boundaries of traditional memory institutions and has provided scope for adding value to collections. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/jisc-conf-rpt/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/jisc-conf-rpt/ Opening Keynote AddressThe 2007 JISC conference began with a welcome from JISC Executive Secretary Dr Malcolm Read who thanked the more than 600 delegates for attending the conference, held for the fifth year running at the ICC in Birmingham. JISC Chairman Professor Sir Ron Cooke outlined JISC’s achievements over the last year, including the launch of the UK Access Management Federation [1], the launch of JISC Collections [2] as a mutual trading company and the launch of SuperJANET5 [3], the upgrade to the JANET network which quadruples its capacity. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/2-dcc-conf-rpt/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/2-dcc-conf-rpt/ The International Digital Curation Conference is held annually by the Digital Curation Centre [1] to bring together researchers in the field and promote discussion of policy and strategy. The second conference in this series [2], with the theme 'digital data curation in practice', was held between 21-22 November 2006 in Glasgow. Day OneOpening Keynote AddressHans Hoffman of CERN gave the opening keynote address. The e-Science 'revolution' is being both pushed by advances in technology and pulled by demands from researchers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/allinson-et-al/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/allinson-et-al/ In May 2006, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [1] approached UKOLN [2] and the Eduserv Foundation [3] to collaborate on the development of a metadata specification for describing eprints (alternatively referred to as scholarly works, research papers or scholarly research texts) [4]. A Dublin Core (DC) [5] application profile was chosen as the basis of the specification given the widespread use of DC in existing repositories, the flexibility and extensibility of the DCMI Abstract Model [6] and its compatibility with the Semantic Web [7]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/hilton-thompson/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/hilton-thompson/ Society trusts libraries and archives to ensure that the report we read or the information we rely on for research will still be available when next we need it. The digital world presents new challenges of acquisition and life cycle management for libraries, archives and readers. This article looks at the first steps taken by the Wellcome Library to include born digital material [1] into its collections. Plans for the Future The Wellcome Library acknowledges that digital material will form part of its collections in the future. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/newsline/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/newsline/ Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) Training Programme Either: Birmingham, Bristol or London, 8 February to 27 April 2007 http://www.tasi.ac.uk/training/ The TASI programme of practical hands-on training includes three brand new workshops: Digital Photography - Level 2 Provides an introduction to the effective operation of a digital SLR, explaining how the camera's manual controls can be used to improve photography. The course also explains how to illuminate small 2D and 3D objects using tungsten studio lights. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/hannabuss-rvw/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/hannabuss-rvw/ When you see a retail centre in a town, it is natural to wonder how central it really is : is it merely a claim? So when words like 'essential' appear in book titles, we again wonder whether it is really so. Years of publishers' blurbs and puffs induce irony, especially as we look along shelves of books with similar titles (and claims), above all for students and young professionals - essential psychology, essential statistics, essentials for Continuing Professional Development, essential law. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/gierveld/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/gierveld/ Institutional Repositories (IR) are a result of the vision to collect, secure, and provide access to scholarly publications in a novel, digital way, mostly initiated by the institutional library. Various factors have contributed to the emergence of these repositories, including technological innovations which allow a new form of collection management of a university's output, the desire to counteract the 'serials crisis', and the opportunity of promoting wide dissemination and quick access to publications. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/korn-oppenheim/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/korn-oppenheim/ Creative Commons [1] is helping to instigate cultural change: it is empowering rights holders with the knowledge and tools to decide under what terms they wish third parties to use their creations, whilst permitting users easy and user-friendly means to use content lawfully without the necessity of requesting permission. The release of the Creative Commons licences has inspired a global revolution, supported by a sub-culture with its own identity, ideology, activities and membership [2] and the spawning of other model licences developed with a similar philosophy, such as Science Commons [3], Patent Commons [4] and Creative Archive [5]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/suzuki-sugita/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/suzuki-sugita/ Hokkaido University launched its project to construct an institutional repository in early 2004. After a year of discussion, planning and preparation, we started soliciting content in July 2005. Within a year of that start, we had assembled a depository of approximately 9,000 documents. It is named the Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers (HUSCAP)[1]. Eight thousand of these documents are digitised collections of faculty journal back issues that have been published over the many years of Hokkaido University's history. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/search-engines/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/search-engines/ I’m sure that there must be some sort of wise old saying along the lines of ‘the loudest noise starts with the quietest whisper’. This is something that I’m experiencing a lot at the moment - as I spend time on the Internet, or teaching, or even just talking to people I’m beginning to hear a little whisper along the lines of ‘What’s up with Google these days?’ This is not a line from the experts - it’s just ordinary people who are beginning to wonder if Google is… well - running out of steam. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/guy/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/guy/ In February of this year an article was published by Steven Andrew Mathieson in Guardian Unlimited on public sector wikis [1]. Mathieson proclaimed the rise in creation and use of wikis by UK state sector organisations. This article will look objectively at this apparent rise and will consider whether wikimania has truly hit the public sector. Setting the Scene In the Web 2.0 world those of us working with the Web now live, there is an increasing awareness of changing audiences and expectations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/whalley/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/whalley/ Although they were not called e-books at the time, Michael Hart’s Project Gutenberg started digitising existing print on paper editions for public access in the 1970s. Since then, the term e-book has come to have a variety of meanings and related concepts. Here I want to explore the direction associated with my day job as a researcher and teacher within the UK Higher Education system. My viewpoint may thus be somewhat idiosyncratic compared to Ariadne’s normal clientele but I am particularly interested in the information technologist’s role as an intermediary between academic author and student reader. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/cris-2006-rpt/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/cris-2006-rpt/ This conference marked the 15th anniversary of euroCRIS. In 1991 current research information systems were housed on mainframe computers and mainly used for administrative report purposes. CRIS (Current Research Information Systems) now supply data for research management and assessment on a local and national scale, and are at the core of optimal presentation of research information itself. In keeping with the Hanseatic traditions of Bergen, research information traders gathered from the known world to share and improve their practice. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/dpc-web-archiving-rpt/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/dpc-web-archiving-rpt/ The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) [1] ran its first Web archiving forum in 2002, when archiving the Web was still a relatively unexplored concept for most organisations. This second Web-archiving forum sought to review and update on national and international activities since then and provided delegates with an excellent opportunity to exchange experiences and identify emerging areas of research and future developments in Web archiving activities. Session 1: Technical Aspects The first session focused on technical aspects of archiving Web content. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/jisc-cni-rpt/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/jisc-cni-rpt/ Encapsulating the events of such an information-rich event as the JISC / CNI conference can be a tricky task, but the next few lines will, we hope, deliver a flavour of the occasion as well as a summary of a few significant themes. No single overarching theme dominated the event and indeed everyone we spoke to over the two-day event expressed a different opinion as to what they thought were the really important issues. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/murray/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/murray/ The role of the integrated library system is, and always has been, to help manage the effective delivery of library services. This has traditionally been anchored on the management of the catalogue and physical collection. The core business and service model could be described as ‘Acquire - Catalogue - Circulate’. This is increasingly no longer the case. While the physical collection remains a critical aspect of the library service, it is just one of a number of ‘atomic’ or ‘granular’ services presented by the library. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/newsline/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/newsline/ UKeiG Training: Developing and managing e-book collectionsThe UK eInformation Group (UKeiG), in co-operation with Academic and National Library Training Co-operative (ANLTC), are pleased to present a course entitled 'Developing and managing e-book collections', to be held in Training Room 1, The Library, Dublin City University, Dublin 9 on Tuesday, 12 September 2006 from 9.30a.m. to 4.30p.m. Course OutlineThis course opens the door to a new electronic format. In the last six years, there has been an unprecedented growth in the publishing of e-books with an increasing array of different types available for all sectors. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/dunning/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/dunning/ An article by Dan Greenstein and Jennifer Trant in an early edition (July 1996) of Ariadne introduced readers to the aims and organisation of the fledging Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) [1]. Exactly ten years on from that, as the AHDS undergoes a systematic review by its funders, it seems appropriate to take stock of how the AHDS has evolved, comparing its current position with that envisaged for it when the organisation commenced work in the 1990s. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/rumsey-rvw/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/rumsey-rvw/ This timely publication has arrived at a point where a number of UK Higher Education (HE) establishments have set up, have started, or have at least considered setting up their own institutional repository (IR). This is a new area for all involved, many experiences so far have been ground-breaking and there are few (if any) IRs which would describe themselves as mature. Not only is the technology developing rapidly, but user needs are continuing to be determined and institutions are expanding the ways in which an IR can serve their needs. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/dpm-rpt/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/dpm-rpt/ Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology is commonly portrayed as a mechanism for restricting access to and use of digital content. On the contrary, a properly implemented Digital Policy Management infrastructure will facilitate the widest possible use of digital content, supporting the interests of library users, libraries and rights owners. 'Access and use policies' are a traditional element in the management of every library collection. There are many reasons why every item in a library collection may not be accessible to every library user; and the uses to which different items may be put are frequently not uniform across the complete collection. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/burbridge/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/burbridge/ The FP6 PrestoSpace Project [1] aims to develop systems that will permit quick, efficient and economically accessible preservation of analogue media [2]. Stream UK has built on the knowledge gained from three years of working on this project along with expertise from over seven years encoding within the industry to develop a complete encoding factory solution, based on the PrestoSpace project where the focus is on developing a semi-automated 'preservation factory' approach to preservation of audio-visual collections aimed at driving down the cost of digitising the archive below the 1€ per minute level. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/tonkin/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/tonkin/ Despite the stability of many key technologies underlying today's Internet, venerable workhorses such as TCP/IP and HTTP, the rise of new candidate specifications frequently leads to a sort of collaborative manic depression. Every now and then, a new idea comes along and sparks a wave of interest, the first stage in the Internet hype cycle. Transformed with the addition of a series of relatively content-free conceptual buzzwords, the fragile idea is transmitted between and within communities until disillusionment sets in, when the terminology becomes an out-of-date reminder of a slightly embarrassing era that tomorrow's computer industry professionals will laugh about over a pint of beer. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/robertson/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/robertson/ With the wider deployment of repositories, the Open Archives Initiative - Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is becoming a common method of supporting interoperability between repositories and services. It provides 'an application-independent interoperability framework based on metadata harvesting' [1]. Nodes in a network using this protocol are 'data providers' or 'service providers'. Although repository software supporting OAI-PMH is not overly complex [2], without programming skills or access to technical support, implementing and supporting a repository is not an entirely straightforward task. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/jisc-conf-rpt/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/jisc-conf-rpt/ On 14 March 2006 we found ourselves back at the Birmingham International Convention Centre (ICC) for the 2006 JISC Conference. The annual conference [1] is both an opportunity for JISC to platform the variety of activities it funds and for delegates to learn about the full range of JISC's work by participating in seminars, debates, workshops and demonstrations. This report tries to capture the air of the event through a series of session snapshots. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/jisc-repositories-rpt/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/jisc-repositories-rpt/ The JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) Digital Repositories Programme [1] held its second Programme meeting towards the end of March. Following in the collaborative tradition set by last October's joint Programme meeting with the Digital Preservation and Asset Management Programme [2], this gathering was themed around the cluster groups established by the Digital Repositories Programme [3] and included many guests from other JISC areas of work and beyond. These clusters seek to encompass many of the diverse issues being considered across the Digital Repositories Programme, including the different repository types (e-Learning and Scientific data), the infrastructural and technical issues (Integrating infrastructure and Machine services) and the social, cultural and legal topics (Legal and policy, Personal resource management strategies and Preservation). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/royan-rvw/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/royan-rvw/ There is no shortage of guides to the delivery of e-services in learning centres, although often their emphasis is on academic rather than local authority institutions [1]. In the public library field, it could be argued that more than enough journal articles and monographs on the topic have already been churned out in the 8 years since the publication of New Library: the People's Network [2]. Is there really room on the shelves for one more? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/law/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/law/ Training as a mediaeval historian encourages one to look backwards before looking forwards. In doing so it is difficult to overestimate the impact of technology push. The combination of increased speed, increased power and increased storage has transformed the opportunities available to the community at large and academics in particular. Twenty years ago we saw the first CD-ROMs with 650Mb capacity; today a standard entry-level PC will have 80Gb of storage, while 200-1000Gb is not uncommon. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/warwick-2005-rpt/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/warwick-2005-rpt/ Over recent years it has become clear that accessing and preserving digital data is increasingly important across a wide range of scientific, artistic and cultural activities. There has been a growing recognition of the need to address the fragility and accessibility of the digital information collected in all aspects of our lives. Access to digital information lies at the heart of the scientific and technical innovation vital for modern economies. A two-day workshop took place over 7 - 8 November at the University of Warwick to address these issues and to map out a future research agenda for digital curation and preservation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/maccoll/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/maccoll/ Introduction: A ‘Googly’ for Libraries?A googly, or a ‘wrong’un’, is a delivery which looks like a normal leg spinner but actually turns towards the batsmen, like an off break, rather than away from the bat. (BBC Sport Academic Web site [1]. Search result found in Google).How should we understand Google? Libraries still feel like the batsman at whom something has been bowled which looks familiar, but then turns out to be a nasty threat. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/e-theses-rpt/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/e-theses-rpt/ Doctoral theses contain some of the most current and valuable research produced within universities, but are underused as research resources. Where electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) are open access, they are used many times more often than paper theses that are available only via inter-library loan. Many universities and other organisations across Europe are now working hard to make ETDs more openly available and useful. In an attempt to co-ordinate this activity, an invitation-only workshop was held at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in January, to see what could be learned from existing examples of best practice and to see how the participants might work together in the future. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/newsline/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/newsline/ Web Tools for EU Research Projects Tuesday 7 February 2006 - Cambridge, UK EU research projects share lots of information and involve joint working amongst organisations from many different countries. There are many software tools which can support them, from shared workspaces to resource planning and reporting tools, from electronic meetings to web content management. But which tools are effective for EU research projects? Management tools for coordinating a construction project are rarely suitable for the more uncertain world of research. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/dempsey/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/dempsey/ We have recently come through several decennial celebrations: the W3C, the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, D-Lib Magazine, and now Ariadne. What happened clearly in the mid-nineties was the convergence of the Web with more pervasive network connectivity, and this made our sense of the network as a shared space for research and learning, work and play, a more real and apparently achievable goal. What also emerged - at least in the library and research domains - was a sense that it was also a propitious time for digital libraries to move from niche to central role as part of the information infrastructure of this new shared space. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/carr/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/carr/ User-focus in the Academic LibraryIt may seem odd to say it but, even in a self-respecting part of the information world like the academic library, users have not always been at the centre of the practitioner’s professional attention. Over thirty years ago, the writer heard a long-serving Head of Reader Services (in a major university library that will remain nameless) announce, after the redecoration of his library’s main catalogue hall had completely obliterated the library’s original hand-painted directional signs, that ‘if our students are bright enough, they should still be able to find their way around the place’! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/vanderkuil/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/vanderkuil/ ResultsCream of Science: The ChallengeOne of the key challenges of the DARE Programme [1] is to encourage scholars to deposit digital versions of their research output in a university archive (institutional repository) that, in turn, can make this output accessible on the Internet. With this in view, a project called Cream of Science was initiated in the summer of 2004. One of the prime aims of Cream of Science is to unlock top quality content to the scientific community and make it more easily and digitally accessible. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/day-rvw/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/day-rvw/ The Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) is an important annual publication containing review articles on many topics of relevance to library and information science, published on behalf of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST). Since volume 36, the editor of ARIST has been Professor Blaise Cronin of Indiana University, Bloomington. The twelve chapters in volume 38 are divided into three sections, dealing with theory, technology, and policy. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/greig-nixon/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/greig-nixon/ DAEDALUS [1] was a three-year project (August 2002-July 2005) based at the University of Glasgow and funded by JISC's Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) Programme [2]. The project established a number of different services for research material at the University of Glasgow. This approach enabled us to explore an institutional repository model which used different software (ePrints, DSpace and PKP Harvester) for different content, including: Published and peer-reviewed papersPre-prints, grey literature and thesesAdditional services were also developed including an open access e-journal (JeLit) and a subject-based repository for the Erpanet Project (ERPAePRINTS). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/project.html Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/project.html Starting the ChallengeCream of Science is ‘invented’ during a meeting of the DARE partners in the summer of 2004, while discussing different strategies to increase the volume of DARE repositories and to increase the awareness of scientists. August 2004The Cream Project starts with preparatory work done by DARE programme management. This results in a planning document that is sent to the DARE partners who quickly respond with their commentary. It becomes clear that the actual work will be delegated to the university libraries. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/dcc-1st-rpt/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/dcc-1st-rpt/ The conference aimed to raise awareness of key issues in digital curation and to encourage active participation and feedback from the relevant stakeholder communities. The conference attracted an impressive range of keynote speakers and focused on the following areas: the work of the Digital Curation Centre (DCC)the concepts and principles of digital curationglobal curation policiessocio-legal issues, sustainability, user requirements and the research agendaThe participants were a mix of researchers, curators, policy makers and representatives from funding agencies that are engaged, or have an interest, in the creation, use and management of digital data. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/editorial/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/editorial/ While as a fully paid-up cynic I could be forgiven for fingering the metaphorical revolver on sighting a technology evangelist, the evangelist in question has an excellent track record as Ariadne readers will know. Paul Miller in his article Web 2.0: Building the New Library would seem to lift our eyes above the merely technological and in a series of 'Principles' underpinning Web 2.0 provides us with a set of aims with which relatively few might argue violently - on the face of it. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/notay/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/notay/ There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that people learn better when visual and sound materials are used in a teaching context. Researchers from a range of disciplines have also suggested that visual materials are of great value either as a core focus or to support the research process. For example, studies looking at the effect of visual materials in education have explored how both short-term and long-term memory is associated with the different hemispheres of the brain, but also which kind of information is best retained through the use of images. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/newsline/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/newsline/ PV 2005: Ensuring long-term preservation and adding value to scientific and technical data Royal Society of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK 21-23 November 2005 This conference is the third of a series on long-term preservation and adding value to scientific data. Topics covered include: 1. Ensuring long-term data preservationState of the art of data archiving and access techniques, for example: What standardisation has to offer (in the form of feedback from experience)Adapting archiving techniques to the different categories of information handled, such as scientific data, technical data, documents, sounds and imagesSystem architecture in the context of constant technological developments2. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/thomas-rothery/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/thomas-rothery/ Much of the work around institutional repositories explores one specific function of repositories: to store and/or catalogue scholarly content such as research papers, journal articles, preprints and so on. Ariadne has reported on many of these developments [1] [2] [3]. However, as stressed by the JISC senior management briefing papers [4] for Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE), repositories can be a tool for managing the institution's learning and teaching assets too. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/hoorn/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/hoorn/ Intellectual Property Rights have become increasingly powerful and far-reaching. This has grown to be the standard opening line of papers in the field of law addressing issues of copyright for scientific research and scholarly publishing [1]. Concerns are expressed about the likelihood of preserving the public domain in the Internet era [2]. Currently new ways to safeguard the values and the entire potential of scholarly publishing and communication are being explored within the framework of existing copyright law. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/oss-watch-rpt/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/oss-watch-rpt/ When people get together and talk about open source, there are three things that come into the conversation early on. Firstly, they argue about open source licences; secondly, they ask "but is it really free?"; and thirdly, they state that "it's all about the community". That last one is definitely worth unpacking further. When a new project starts, or an existing project is being assessed, everyone will ask "what sort of community does it have? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/gerhardt/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/gerhardt/ Last April the BBC, together with Channel 4 Television, the British Film Institute and the Open University, launched the Creative Archive Licence. It was a small act, but it could prove to be a momentous step in how we use moving image and audio in our public and cultural life. Personal MediaTake the example of Jim, who runs a small charity to support patients - and their families - with multiple sclerosis. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/newsline/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/newsline/ TASI Offers Workshops over Summer and Autumn Months The JISC-funded Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) is offering a number of workshops in the coming months, of which two below are given as examples. Building a departmental resource 11 August 2005 This workshop aims to demonstrate the steps for creating, maintaining and delivering an image collection. Through a range of hands-on activities, attendees will investigate suitable Image Management Systems (IMS), be introduced to Metadata, and consider its practical application. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/chapman/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/chapman/ The launch of Revealweb [1] on 16 September 2003 was a big step forward for anyone with visual impairment in the UK. For the first time, they had access to a Web-based union catalogue of resources in accessible formats and information about the producers and suppliers of these materials. Until that point there had been no single place which provided information accessible by everyone; in effect, these people were second-class citizens in the information world. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/hannabuss-rvw/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/hannabuss-rvw/ Everyone is talking about digital and electronic rights these days. Rightly so. A wealth of legal advice is available in works like Simon Stokes's Digital Copyright : Law and Practice [1] which alert us to the many directions in which things are moving - digital rights management, ecommerce, virtual learning environments, software copyright, licences and contracts. This professional table d'hôte indicates what information professionals are assumed to know. This is not just 'copyright in the information age' any more - that is far too generalised : now people need advice on practice and procedures, the 'how' now that the 'what' is widely known. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/prudlo/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/prudlo/ In recent years initiatives to create software packages for electronic repository management have mushroomed all over the world. Some institutions engage in these activities in order to preserve content that might otherwise be lost, others in order to provide greater access to material that might otherwise be too obscure to be widely used such as grey literature. The open access movement has also been an important factor in this development. Digital initiatives such as pre-print, post-print, and document servers are being created to come up with new ways of publishing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/newsline/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/newsline/ Netskills Workshops in May 2005Web: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/ Netskills will be running the following workshops at North Herts College in Letchworth Garden City in May 2005: 10 May : e-Assessment: Tools & TechniquesFocuses on the tools available for creating e-assessment and the practical techniques required to use them effectively. The tools are considered both in terms of their functionality as well as their interoperability with other systems. 11 May: Design Solutions for e-LearningThis workshop examines how to design pedagogically effective e-learning to enhance traditional forms of teaching and learning. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/uksg2005-rpt/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/uksg2005-rpt/ IntroductionDoes More Access Mean Less Library?Commercial Scholarly Publishing in the World of Open AccessWalking Away from the Big Deal: the Consequences and AchievementsAll or Nothing: Towards an Orderly Retreat from the Big DealsThe IReL Experience: Irish Research Electronic LibraryExperimenting with Open Access PublishingThe Impact of Open Access Publishing on Research LibrariesPublic Access, Open Archives: A Funder's PerspectiveVLEs: Setting the SceneThe Implementation of a VLE: Not So Virtual After AllHow Usage Statistics Can Inform National Negotiations and StrategiesThe Library View of Usage MetricsChange and Continuity in a World of InformationSnap, Crackle and Ultimately Pop? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/brack-rvw/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/brack-rvw/ This book is the result of efforts by the library at the University of Surrey (and the University of Surrey Roehampton) to improve library provision for researchers, and it is also based on the experience of 'front-line' library staff in their day-to-day interaction with academic staff and students. Anyone who has worked on a library help-desk or information point will recognise the content of this book, and will be pleased to find that there is now something that researchers can use to help themselves, all put together in a slim volume. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/fraser-rvw/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/fraser-rvw/ The picture on the cover of Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing by Andrew M. St. Laurent is a 19th century engraving of a shootout at a railway in the American West. What early conclusions should we draw from that less than innocent image? Leaving aside men with guns in the Wild West, Understanding Open Source is an in-depth study of software licences commonly used with the release of open source or free (as in speech) software. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/editorial/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/editorial/ Tomorrow, 31 January 2005 will be the moment of truth for those institutions among some 100,000 public authorities which received a request for information on the first operative day of the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the United Kingdom. For by tomorrow they must have responded to the request within 20 working days. No doubt many senior administrators in HE and FE institutions up and down the country will be wondering how many requests their institution has really received, as opposed to the number that have actually been reported - at least one aspect of the legislation that will not have endeared itself to them, quite understandably. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/metcalfe/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/metcalfe/ Imagine a world where software is free. For the moment, let's not split hairs about this. In this imagined world software costs virtually nothing to obtain. And you are free to do things with this software - free to study how it works (which means getting access to the underlying code, not just the binaries or executables); free to modify that code to suit your needs and/or improve it; free to re-distribute that modified code. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/dunning/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/dunning/ The Web statistics tool which measures hits on the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) Web site [1] provides some telling information. The most common search engine keyword by which users discover the AHDS is not 'computers', 'humanities', 'research' or 'arts', but that old bugbear 'copyright'. Although the Arts and Humanities Data Service advises on a wide range of issues, such as data capture, metadata and funding proposals, copyright is just as popular a reason for users to arrive at the Web site. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/parkes-rvw/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/parkes-rvw/ This is the 5th collection of papers from the biennial Libraries Without Walls Conference (LWW5). Reference to the preceding 4 volumes published in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002 respectively is rewarding to see how discourse and practice has developed. Access collaboration is now commonplace; 135 institutions are members of the UK Libraries plus access scheme, 157 are signed up for Sconul Research Extra. The Peoples Network has put 4000 Internet centres into public libraries, Athens passwords and off-campus access to databases has provided access to a growing collection of electronic content. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/foster-rvw/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/foster-rvw/ In 2000, John Feather concluded the 3rd edition certain that libraries would endure as concrete entities due to the investment of time and money they represent and as bookstores. In this latest edition he is no longer sure, describing the library as no longer a location, but a concept and asking such tough questions as what place do librarians occupy in the context of these new developments and what challenges to our fundamental attitudes and skills must we overcome as we adapt to changing times. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/coelho-rvw/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/coelho-rvw/ One question this book doesn't answer is how many hours the author spent researching it. From the point of view of the reader I can assure you that you can get lost in its richness and spend weeks investigating the sites and resources listed in it. Many people are sceptical about Web directories because they go out of date so readily but this issue has been addressed by the author as well through the companion Web site. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/chapman/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/chapman/ The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique machine-readable identification number, defined in ISO Standard 2108, which is applied to books. As a result of electronic publishing and other changes in the publishing industry, the numbering capacity of the ISBN system is being consumed at a much faster rate than was originally anticipated when the standard was designed in the late 1960s. While we will not run out of ISBNs tomorrow, it will happen before too long and plans are already in hand to provide a solution before the crisis point is reached. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/newsline/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/newsline/ Hyper Clumps, Mini Clumps and National Catalogues...The JISC-funded CC-interop Project completed its work during 2004 and now is holding an event to disseminate the key findings of the project. The project built on the work of the successful eLib Phase 3 "Clumps" projects and investigated three broad areas to inform about interoperability between physical and distributed union catalogues. Find out about: how distributed and large physical union catalogues can interact, including the building of a distributed catalogue capable of accepting remote Z39. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/vanderkuil/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/vanderkuil/ The SURF Programme Digital Academic Repositories (DARE) is a joint initiative of Dutch universities to make their academic output digitally accessible. The KB (National Library of the Netherlands), the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) and the NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) also cooperate in this unique programme. DARE is being coordinated by the SURF Foundation [1]. The programme will run from January 2003 until December 2006. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/godby/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/godby/ A Metadata Standard for Learning ObjectsAs learning objects grow in number and importance, institutions are faced with the daunting task of managing them. Like familiar items in library collections, learning objects need to be organised by subject and registered in searchable repositories. But they also introduce special problems. As computer files, they are dependent on a particular hardware and software environment. And as materials with a pedagogical intent, they are associated with metrics such as learning objectives, reading levels and methods for evaluating student performance. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/edina-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/edina-rpt/ EDINA [1] held its first general information event for the Higher and Further Education communities on Tuesday 11 May 2004. EDINA Exchange took place in the National E-Science Centre at the University of Edinburgh. The day began with an introduction by EDINA Director Peter Burnhill, who took us through the programme for the day, and highlighted some of EDINA's notable recent achievements. The morning session then began with presentations on the various subject and resource type clusters in which EDINA is active. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/hook-rvw/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/hook-rvw/ Building and maintaining Web sites and intranets are no longer simple, unimportant tasks that can be relegated to an IT department. The 2nd edition of Peter Griffiths' Managing Your Internet & Intranet Services not only recognizes this, but argues that perhaps it is LIS professionals who are best suited for managing Web sites and intranets. On the surface this book appears to be very useful - it is written from the LIS perspective, and focuses on the management side of Web development rather than the technical how-to. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/hannabuss-rvw/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/hannabuss-rvw/ Like climbing Everest, information law is now a highly competitive field. The first edition of this work, edited by Chris Armstrong alone, appeared from Facet in 1999. It reflected the preoccupations of the mid-1990s, captured changing law like Internet regulation and database rights, and showed a growing understanding of information liability and the need properly to interpret contracts. It was good to return to what is clearly an overhauled text in the form of the second edition, this time edited by Chris Armstrong and Laurence Bebbington, well-known for his legal column in the UKOLOG Newsletter. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/pals-conf-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/pals-conf-rpt/ PALS [1] is the ongoing collaboration between UK publishers (ALPSP [2] and the Publishers Association [3]), and Higher/Further Education (JISC). PALS aims to foster mutual understanding and work collaboratively towards the solution of issues arising from electronic publication. This was a 'hot issue' conference [4], on a topic - institutional repositories - that has seen much interest, lots of activity and experiment. The general direction of the concept is not yet clear, but at least some of the issues are being exposed and are beginning to be clarified. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/coyle/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/coyle/ It is common to hear members of the digital library community debating the relative merits of the two most common rights expression languages (RELs) - the Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) and the rights language developed for the Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) and recently adopted by the International Organization for Standardization [1] - and which is preferable for digital library systems. Such debates are, in my opinion, premature and should be postponed until this community has developed a clear set of requirements for rights management in its environment, including rights expression, the encoding of license terms, and file protection. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/hey/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/hey/ The University of Southampton has been one of the pioneers of open access to academic research, particularly, in the tireless advocacy of Professor Stevan Harnad and in the creation of the EPrints software [1], as a vehicle for creating open access archives (or repositories) for research. These activities have been supported by a long-standing programme of research into digital libraries, hypermedia, and scholarly communication. In the early days, before the vocabulary of open access issues was so well developed, we talked of the 'esoteric literature' - the 'not-for-profit' academic literature - and the Faustian bargain that the authors made with the publishers [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/hill/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/hill/ The last ten years have seen a huge investment in the creation of electronic resources for use by researchers, students and teachers. Increasing amounts of money are being spent now on providing portals and virtual learning environments (or learning management systems) for use within institutions and organisations, or for people focusing on particular subject areas. A portal is defined by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as - " - a network service that brings together content from diverse distributed resources using technologies such as cross searching, harvesting, and alerting, and collates this into an amalgamated form for presentation to the user. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/eprints-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/eprints-rpt/ The workshop was aimed at those interested in setting up institutional e-print servers where the outputs of their organisation (journal articles, papers, reports etc) could be published, stored and searched via a central institutional server. The event was fully booked which perhaps indicates that universities, colleges, academics and librarians are increasingly recognising the value of the e-print publishing model. The day was run by ePrints UK [1] (in conjunction with SOSIG), an RDN [2] project which aims to offer a new national e-print subject service by pulling together information from institutional servers and presenting it by subject discipline (via the RDN hubs). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/brack-rvw/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/brack-rvw/ The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook has been written aiming to fill the gaps in Internet users' knowledge by providing a better understanding of what is out there, and by illustrating useful starting points, in order to help users find their way to the most useful 'nooks and crannies' in this global information resource. Randolph Hocks' years of experience as an information professional, trainer, and reference librarian have shown him that far too many people rely on a single search tool (currently Google, as research and personal experience have demonstrated [1]) and are unaware of the other possibilities; searchers are in need of guidance and education. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/prue-rvw/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/prue-rvw/ The World Wide Web has emerged as one of the key platforms for the development and communication of information. From complex, high-tech organisations like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) [1], through to community sites such as Abington Trails [2], a Pennsylvanian community trails group, the Web has provided effective access to a global audience of billions. Behind each site, lies a person responsible for its creation currency and operability - the Webmaster. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/mackie/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/mackie/ DAEDALUS [1] is a three-year project based at the University of Glasgow funded under the JISC Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) Programme [2]. The main focus of the project has been developing institutional repositories to hold content ranging from peer-reviewed published papers to theses and working papers. Separate repositories have been developed for published material [3] and other material [4]. This article will detail some of the strategies we have adopted in gathering existing content for the institutional repositories we have developed at Glasgow. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/newsline/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/newsline/ The Joint Technical Symposium (JTS) - 24-26 June, TorontoThe Joint Technical Symposium (JTS) is the international meeting for organisations and individuals involved in the preservation and restoration of original image and sound materials. This year, JTS is scheduled to be held in Toronto, Canada, June 24-26, 2004. Preliminary program information is now available on the JTS 2004 website. See: http://www.jts2004.org/english/program.htm For more information please see the website or contact the organization responsible for coordinating the event on behalf of the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA): http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/powell/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/powell/ Over the last eighteen months or so, the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has been funding some collaborative work between the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) Hubs [1] and Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) Centres [2]. The primary intention of these subject-based RDN/LTSN partnerships was to: Develop collection policies that clarified the relationships between the two sets of activities.Enable the sharing of records within and beyond partnerships using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/jones/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/jones/ The Theses Alive! [1] Project, based at Edinburgh University Library and funded under the JISC Fair Programme [2], is aiming to produce, among other things, a software solution for institutions in the UK to implement their own E-theses or Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) online submission system and repository. In order to achieve this it has been necessary to examine existing packages that may provide all or part of the solution we desire before considering what extra development we may need to do. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/woldering/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/woldering/ The European Library (TEL) Project [1] completed at the end of January 2004. The key aim of TEL was to investigate the feasibility of establishing a new Pan-European service which would ultimately give access to the combined resources of the national libraries of Europe [2]. The project was partly funded by the European Commission as an accompanying measure under the cultural heritage applications area of Key Action 3 of the Information Societies Technology (IST) research programme. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/wynne-rvw/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/wynne-rvw/ This book, first published in the United States by Neal-Schuman, brings together revised and updated papers originally presented at the Third Annual Virtual Reference Desk Conference held in Orlando, Florida in 2001. As such it has an almost entirely American focus although most of the issues addressed are equally relevant to libraries elsewhere. The papers are organised into six sections. The intention is to reflect the stages followed in establishing any new service - from identifying the need, to project inception, implementation and evaluation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/hannabuss-rvw/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/hannabuss-rvw/ Any work on the information society attracts that ambivalent reaction that it might be trite and it could be seminal. But, with the logic that nothing that becomes cliché can be other than centrally relevant, above all when published by a professional body, (which should know these things), Challenge and change promises well. It aims for professional practice and academic study and will stand side-by-side with works like Feather’s Information society (2000) and Dearnley and Feather’s The wired world (2001) as particularly relevant to students on information/library courses, and new and prospective trainees and practitioners. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/jukes-rvw/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/jukes-rvw/ Surprisingly, it appears to be a fact that many people involved in systems work in libraries have fallen into the position accidentally. At least, this seems to be the case in America. The author of The Accidental Systems Librarian believes that “anyone with a solid foundation in the practices and principles of librarianship and a willingness to confront changing technology can serve effectively in a library technology position” without any formal computer training. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/jisc-lis-2003-09-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/jisc-lis-2003-09-rpt/ The Crime and Punishment seminar was organised by the Joint Information Systems Committee Legal Information Service (J-LIS) [1] in London, September 2003.  This event aimed to provide information about the risks, vulnerabilities and liabilities that might arise from the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in Further and Higher Education. It also planned to suggest some strategies for determining the right balance between the aim of reducing risk, vulnerability and liability and the need to retain the value added to education by the free flow of information and communication. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/nixon/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/nixon/ DAEDALUS [1] is a three-year JISC-funded project under the FAIR Programme [2] which will build a network of open access digital collections at the University of Glasgow. These collections will enable us to unlock access to a wide range of our institutional scholarly output. This output includes not only published and peer-reviewed papers but also administrative documents, research finding aids, pre-prints and theses. DAEDALUS is also a member of the CURL (Consortium of University Research Libraries) SHERPA Project [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/duke/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/duke/ Subject Gateways act as a main point of access to high-quality resources on the Web. They are resource discovery guides that provide links to information resources which can be whole Web sites, organisational home pages and other collections or services, themed around a specific subject, such as the physical sciences or humanities. At their core is a catalogue of rich metadata records that describe Internet resources - subject specialists identify and select the resources and create the descriptions. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/eevl/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/eevl/ EEVL is the Hub for engineering, mathematics and computing. It is an award-winning free service, which provides quick and reliable access to the best engineering, mathematics, and computing information available on the Internet. It is created and run by a team of information specialists from a number of universities and institutions in the UK, lead by Heriot Watt University. EEVL helps students, staff and researchers in higher and further education, as well as anyone else working, studying or looking for information in Engineering, Mathematics and Computing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/garrod/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/garrod/ “I suspect that more words are being published about the ebook phenomenon in print than have actually been placed into ebooks so far.” [1] Clifford Lynch made this observation back in June 2001 in his seminal paper The Battle to define the future of the book in the digital world. At the end of 2003 Lynch’s words still strike a chord here in the UK, as conferences, articles and workshops on the ebook ‘phenomenon’ continue to feature on a regular basis. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/editorial/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/editorial/ These days zoologists view with increasing alarm the disappearance of species in this world, to the point where they fear their extinction will predate their discovery. This is no less true for linguists who are witnessing the same phenomenon in terms of dying languages and dialects. A parallel therefore can be drawn with the situation as detailed by Deborah Anderson. She is most concerned by the progress made by historic scripts such as Egyptian hieroglyphs towards inclusion in the Unicode Standard and fears that unless efforts in this area are maintained, certain historic scripts may fall into the abyss, being denied exposure to the many through the enormous access afforded by the Internet. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/lindholm/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/lindholm/ The story behind Engine-e [1], a recently created robot-generated Web index, is best told by starting in 1994 with the development and maintenance of EELS (Engineering Electronic Library, Sweden) [2], a manually indexed quality-controlled subject gateway in Engineering. EELS was accompanied by the experimental robot-generated index, “All” Engineering [3], created within the DESIRE framework [4]. The solution used already in “All” Engineering is similar to that of Engine-e, but with some distinct differences. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/biome/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/biome/ BIOME is currently participating in a major project to enhance interoperability between the BIOME core database and those being created by our cognate Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) Subject Centres. The partners in the project are the Resource Description Network (RDN) Hubs BIOME and ALTIS and five LTSN centres: Bioscience; Health Sciences and Practice; Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism; Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine; and Psychology. The overall aim of this project is to provide members of the health and life science communities in the UK with richer and easier access to learning and teaching resources and to act as a starting off point for future Hub/LTSN Subject Centre collaborations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/newsline/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/newsline/ Reveal[September 2003] The Reveal Web site, launched on 16 September 2003, brings together information about services and resources for visually impaired people from organisations across the United Kingdom. Reveal is an information resource where you will be able to find books in Braille and Moon, audio books and digital talking books, tactile diagrams and other accessible format materials, find out who produces, loans or sells accessible materials, and find information about the different accessible materials. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/oa-forum-ws-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/oa-forum-ws-rpt/ Welcome and IntroductionRachel Heery, UKOLN, University of BathDelegates were welcomed and reminded that this was the fourth and final in a series of workshops which have been organised by the Open Archives Forum Project. Rachel Heery explained that the project was a supporting action funded by the European Commission to bring together EU researchers and implementers working in the area of open access to archives. Fourth Open Archives Forum Technical Validation Report Birgit Matthaei, HU Berlin Technical validation based on Resource Database http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/openurl-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/openurl-rpt/ The JIBS User Group [1] holds regular workshops on issues relating to the use and development of electronic resources by the Higher Education community. The OpenURL was selected as a topic as JIBS perceived a growing interest in this issue, as shown by correspondence on email lists such as lis-e-journals, and the increasing uptake of OpenURL resolvers by the community. For example, the number of UK HE subscribers to SFX has risen from 5 in 2001 to 20 in 2003. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/planet-sosig/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/planet-sosig/ Social Science Online - National Seminars on Internet InformationIt is becoming increasingly hard to keep up with the ever-changing world of online information resources, and yet these resources have a vital role to play in higher and further education teaching and research. The JISC Resource Guide for Social Sciences and SOSIG, in collaboration with LTSNs (Learning and Teaching Support Network), are providing a series of one-day events for all those involved in teaching and researching in Higher and Further Education in the social sciences. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/public-libraries/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/public-libraries/ Question: How many librarians does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Er,.. Change? You can’t beat the old jokes can you, and this variation on an old theme provided some light relief to delegates on day two of this year’s annual Public Library Authorities event [1]. Who said librarians can’t take a joke? Most people managed a snigger, but then it was après lunch. This year’s event had the emotive title: Hearts and Lives. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/search-engines/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/search-engines/ There have been several additions to the world of search engines over the summer, and I thought I’d do a quick round-up of them to see how they perform. ZapMeta | Netnose | Wotbox ZapmetaZapMeta [1] is a multi-/meta-search engine that has been around since 2002, but I must confess that it has only just come to my notice. The home page is very spartan and reminds me of the way in which Google used to look when it first came out. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/andrew/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/andrew/ With the rapid uptake of digital media changing the way scholarly communication is perceived, we are in a privileged position to be part of a movement whose decisions now will help to decide ultimately future courses of action. A number of strategies have recently emerged to facilitate greatly enhanced access to traditional scholarly content, e.g. open access journals and institutional repositories. In this spirit of promoting access to scholarly resources, JISC has funded a number of projects under the banner of its Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) Programme [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/anderson/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/anderson/ Many digital versions of texts–whether they be the plays of Aeschylus, or stories from this week’s Times–can now be accessed by a worldwide audience, thanks to the Internet and developments in international standards and the computer industry. But while modern newspapers in English and even the Greek plays of Aeschylus can be viewed on the Internet in their original script, reading articles that cite a line of original text in Egyptian hieroglyphs is more problematic, for this script has not yet been included in the international character encoding standard Unicode. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/martini/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/martini/ One of the aims of all JISC 7⁄99 projects has been to explore technologies that are generic in nature in support of improved learning and specifically, to “Identify the generic and transferable aspect of the development projects”. In pursuit of this aim, the MARTINI Project has been specifically standards-driven. One of the standards that we have employed is the IMS Enterprise Person Object Model for representation of student information. As has been discovered, however, there are two fundamental obstacles to overcome with the use of the IMS standard; one, the standard only covers a small subset of the information any institution holds about a student, and two, there is a diverse array of systems and architectures that hold this data within each institution. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/day-rvw/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/day-rvw/ The Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST ) [1] will already be familiar to many readers of Ariadne. It is an important annual publication containing review articles on many topics of relevance to library and information science, published on behalf of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) [2]. Volume 36 is the first volume to be edited by Blaise Cronin of Indiana University, in succession to Martha Williams who edited ARIST from volumes 11 to 35. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/jisciesr/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/jisciesr/ The JISC Information Environment Service Registry (IESR) is a pilot project that has been funded by the JISC for 14 months until December 2003, under its Shared Services Programme. The Information Environment [1] aims to provide users of electronic resources in higher and further education in the UK with easy access to high quality information and learning resources. The JISC already provides numerous resources but these are unfortunately not used to their full extent, as many users are unaware of their existence and the means of access to them. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/tna/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/tna/ OriginsWilliam of Normandy, having conquered England, decided in 1086 to take account of his new territory. The result was the Domesday Book (actually more than one), which now resides in the National Archives [1]. For the BBC, the 900th anniversary in 1986 presented an opportunity to produce a television series, hosted by Michael Wood. A more unusual production was to use the combination of computer and video known as interactive video to produce a kind of modern-day equivalent of William’s survey. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/eevl/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/eevl/ EEVL is the Hub for engineering, mathematics and computing. It is an award-winning free service, which provides quick and reliable access to the best engineering, mathematics, and computing information available on the Internet. It is created and run by a team of information specialists from a number of universities and institutions in the UK, lead by Heriot Watt University. EEVL helps students, staff and researchers in higher and further education, as well as anyone else working, studying or looking for information in Engineering, Mathematics and Computing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/editorial/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/editorial/ Welcome to the July 2003 issue of Ariadne. I have to confess to an interest in preservation issues and so I feel a timely lesson comes to us all in the shape of the rescue of the BBC Domesday Project videodiscs. Jeffrey Darlington, Andy Finney and Adrian Pearce have put together their compelling account of how all the data gathered by the Domesday Project in the mid-1980s was rescued at the last moment. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/public-libraries/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/public-libraries/ “Unless public services cooperate, broadband Britain will be going nowhere” [1]. “Libraries are sleepwalking to disaster: it’s time they woke up” [2]. Warnings, predictions of failure or even extinction seem to be a recurring theme on email lists, news alerting services, think-tank reports and in the media. Some refer to public sector failings in general, whilst others attempt to raise the collective public library conscience and consciousness, and galvanise people into action. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/justadist/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/justadist/ The PORTAL Project [1], funded under the JISC’s Focus on Access to Institutional Resources, (FAIR) Programme [2], aims to explore a range of issues relating to the deployment of institutional portals within the UK tertiary education sector [3]. In issue 35 [4], Liz Pearce discussed the ‘Stakeholder Requirements for Institutional Portals’ report [5] which formed Work Package 3 of the project. Building on both the data and the analysis of Work Package 3, the recently published report ‘Stakeholder Requirements for External Content in Institutional Portals’ [6] focuses on the issues surrounding the inclusion of external resources within institutional portals. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/mimas/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/mimas/ The Joint Information Systems Committee [1] was founded by the Higher Education Funding Councils in 1993. It quickly established its sub-committees, one of which, the Information Systems Sub-committee (ISSC), reflected JISC’s interest in networked information services and datasets. At its May 1993 meeting, the ISSC designated Manchester and Bath as National Data Centres. (EDINA became a JISC-designated national data centre a few years later). Over the last ten years there have been advances to the Information Systems infrastructure within universities enabling new and advanced use of online information within research and teaching. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/powell/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/powell/ This largely graphical article attempts to explain the JISC Information Environment (JISC IE) [1] by layering a set of fairly well-known services, projects and software applications over the network architecture diagram [2]. The JISC Information Environment (JISC IE) technical architecture specifies a set of standards and protocols that support the development and delivery of an integrated set of networked services that allow the end-user to discover, access, use and publish digital and physical resources as part of their learning and research activities. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/maccoll-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/maccoll-rpt/ This event was organised jointly by UKOLN and the National e-Science Centre (NESC) [1]. Liz Lyon, Director of UKOLN, gave the introduction, reminding us that this was the second UKOLN-NESC workshop. The first happened about a year ago, bringing together the digital library and Grid computing communities for the first time. The presentations were as follows: Building a Semantic Infrastructure - David De RoureWhy Ontologies? - Jeremy RogersPublishing and Sharing Schemas - Rachel Heery and Pete JohnstonImplementing Ontologies in (my)Grid Environments - Carole GobleKnowledge Organisation Systems - Doug TudhopeConcluding Remarks - Carole GobleBuilding a Semantic InfrastructureIn his introductory talk, Building a Semantic Infrastructure, Professor David De Roure of the University of Southampton, provided a history lesson at a gallop on the Grid and the Semantic Web. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/biome/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/biome/ The Wellcome Trust and BIOME are pleased to announce the launch of psci-comlit, a new bibliographic database that can be found on the psci-com gateway. The database has been developed to provide a searchable source of journal, newspaper and book references on science communication, public engagement with science and the wider issues of science in society. Accessing psci-comlit is free of charge. The database was created and is being continually expanded by the Wellcome Library in collaboration with the BIOME team. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/newsline/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/newsline/ The British Library’s ground-breaking secure Electronic Delivery ServiceJune 2003 The British Library previewed its new and ground-breaking secure Electronic Delivery Service at the SLA 94th Annual Conference in New York in June . Fully available from October 2003, the new service means that almost anything from the Library’s huge collections - whether born digital, in print or in microform - can be securely delivered to a desktop within two hours if needed, with born digital material available for instant delivery. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/planet-sosig/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/planet-sosig/ Developments in Economics and Business Education Conference (DEBE)The DEBE conference, held jointly by Economics LTSN and Bized, will take place on September 15-16 2003 in Edinburgh. The conference will comprise a mix of papers, workshops and poster sessions around the themes of Curriculum and contextAssessment and monitoringClassroom practice and student engagementCase studies, role-playing and simulationsLearning approachesInformation and Communications Technology (ICT)Interdisciplinary studiesOnline registration for the conference is available. New Journal for Learning and Teaching in the Social SciencesLATISS (Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences) is a new refereed journal that aims to use the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, politics, international relations and social policy to reflect critically on learning and teaching practices in higher education and to analyse their relationship to changes in higher education policies and institutions. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/guy-rvw/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/guy-rvw/ Tales of identity theft and computer hacking used to be the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters, but in our increasingly techno world they are commonplace. It was only the other month that Bristol pensioner Derek Bond was held at a Durban police station for over two weeks by the FBI after a major fraudster stole his identity. Carole Lane’s research guide Naked in Cyberspace has its roots in our increasing fear of the proliferation of online personal data. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/hunter-rvw/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/hunter-rvw/ William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience [London 1794 & 1826], Octavo Edition, 2003 - isbn 1-891788-89-2 A number of works of literature in the past were published in expensive and idiosyncratic formats, highly illustrated and occasionally coloured by hand. And sometimes the editions of these works vary substantially one from the other. Some were never in printed editions at all, but remain in manuscript. These items are difficult and enormously expensive to reproduce in print, and the cost of the process limits the size of the audience willing (or able) to pay for the reproduction edition. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/search-engines/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/search-engines/ Weblogs are becoming increasingly important these days and it’s becoming harder to spend any time on the Web without seeing references to people’s weblogs or being invited to ‘read my weblog’ [1] This is all well and good of course, but there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding not only what these creatures are, but how they can best be used - and of course, how to find them and once you have found them, how to search them. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/browning/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/browning/ The JISC-funded programme ‘Building Managed Learning Environments (MLEs) in HE’ [1] was of three years’ duration and concluded in July 2003. The aim of the programme was to explore developments that test, evaluate, and prove (or in some circumstances disprove) the generic deployment of technology in support of improved learning. The programme has developed good practice and shared ideas and experiences across FE and HE sectors. The specific objectives were to: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/iwmw2003-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/iwmw2003-rpt/ This year’s event [1], subtitled “Supporting our Users”, was held during a spell of gloriously sunny weather at the University of Kent’s campus at Canterbury, which has stunning views of the city and the cathedral. As a result of feedback from last year’s event, I had been invited to join the Programme Committee to help provide input on the needs of the research user (the academic researchers, postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students who use institutional web services). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/bath-profile-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/bath-profile-rpt/ The genesis of the Bath Profile occurred at a meeting in Bath Spa during August 1999. It sought to address a wide range of issues pertaining to the effectiveness of the search and retrieval processes between Z39.50 client and server services. Over the ensuing months, members of the relevant communities created an ISO-recognised profile specifically intended to have international application. In June 2000, Release 1.1 of the Bath Profile gave precise semantic definition to the abstract search types used by Z39. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/iprws-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/iprws-rpt/ The Intellectual Property Rights workshop was organised by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) on behalf of the X4L [1], 5⁄99 [2] and FAIR [3] Programmes and was a well attended and thought-provoking event. It was also timely, as many of our projects, in both higher and further education, begin to deal with the larger IPR issues which we are all facing. Copyright is becoming more complex and there are many unresolved issues about relationships and ownership, whether in the context of Learning and Teaching or of other institutional resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/romeo/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/romeo/ The Open Archives Initiative’s Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) enables the ‘disclosure’ of metadata by Data Providers and the harvesting of that metadata by Service Providers. Although there is nothing to stop commercial providers from utilising this open-source protocol [1], it has its roots in the open access community and as such is used by many open archives. These include subject-based archives such as ArXiv [2], CogPrints [3], and the increasing number of Institutional Repositories, many of which have been established as a result of funding via the UK JISC FAIR (Focus on Access to Institutional Repositories) programme [4]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/web-focus/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/web-focus/ WWW 2003 was the 12th in the series of international World Wide Web conferences organised by the IW3C2 (the International World Wide Web Conference Committee). The international WWW conferences provide an opportunity for the Web research community to describe their research activities. Other tracks at the conference cover areas such as cultural resources, e-learning, accessibility, etc. In addition W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium) gives a series of presentations which describe many of the new Web standards being developed. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/web-watch/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/web-watch/ The initial survey of search engines used on UK University Web sites was carried out during July and August 1999 and the findings were reported in Ariadne issue 21 [1]. Since then the survey has been updated approximately every six months, which allows trends to be identified. In this article we review the trends since the initial survey was carried out. Current FindingsThe most recent update to the survey was carried out in June 2003. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/lyon/ Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/lyon/ This article presents some new digital library development activities which are predicated on the concept that research and learning processes are cyclical in nature, and that subsequent outputs which contribute to knowledge, are based on the continuous use and reuse of data and information [1]. We can start by examining the creation of original data, (which may be, for example, numerical data generated by an experiment or a survey, or alternatively images captured as part of a clinical study). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/pearce/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/pearce/ The PORTAL Project [1], funded under the JISC's FAIR Programme, aims to explore a range of issues relating to the deployment of institutional portals within the UK tertiary education sector. An introduction to the PORTAL Project was provided by Ian Dolphin, Paul Miller and Robert Sherratt in Ariadne Issue 33 [2]. The project began in September 2002 and work is well underway on the project's diverse work packages. Work Package 6, 'Standards for the Description of Portal Users', is now available [3] and both technical and research work is ongoing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/eevl/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/eevl/ EEVL is the Hub for engineering, mathematics and computing. It is an award-winning free service, which provides quick and reliable access to the best engineering, mathematics, and computing information available on the Internet. It is created and run by a team of information specialists from a number of universities and institutions in the UK, lead by Heriot Watt University. EEVL helps students, staff and researchers in higher and further education, as well as anyone else working, studying or looking for information in Engineering, Mathematics and Computing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/waller/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/waller/ Long before the first Roman scrawled (possibly a term such as "detritus") in the margin of something he was reading, people had been making annotations against something they had read or seen, however uncomplimentary. It is more than likely that the first annotation occurred the moment the person making it was able to find a suitable implement with which to scrawl his or her opinion against the original. Annotating may be defined as making or furnishing critical or explanatory notes or comment. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/harnad/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/harnad/ Being the only country with a national research assessment exercise [1], the UK is today in a unique position to make a small change that will confer some large benefits. The Funding Councils should mandate that in order to be eligible for Research Assessment and funding, all UK research-active university staff must maintain (I) a standardised online RAE-CV, including all designated RAE performance indicators, chief among them being (II) the full text of every refereed research paper, publicly self-archived in the university's online Eprint Archive and linked to the CV for online harvesting, scientometric analysis and assessment. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/newsline/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/newsline/ The 7th Institutional Web Management Workshop :Supporting Our Users[April 2003] The 7th Institutional Web Management Workshop will take place at the University of Kent on 11-13th June 2003. The theme of this year's workshop, the seventh in the series, is Supporting Our Users. The Institutional Web Management Workshop series is organised by UKOLN's UK Web Focus and its aim is to support members of institutional Web management teams within the UK Higher and Further Educational communities. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/search-engines/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/search-engines/ The Internet moves quickly, and no more so than when looking at search engines. In the last few months (or even weeks) there's been a lot of movement, with some major changes in the field. Consequently, rather than just look at one search engine in detail, or a particular subject area, I thought it might be useful to play catch-up in this issue of Ariadne; hopefully you'll be aware of all these news stories, but in case you've actually got a life and don't sit glued to your computer screen, some of them may be new to you. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/butters/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/butters/ EDNER - the formative evaluation of the UK higher education sector's Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) - is a three-year project being undertaken by the Centre for Research in Library & Information Management (CERLIM) at the Manchester Metropolitan University and the Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technology (CSALT) at Lancaster University.  One strand of the project is to undertake an evaluation of the JISC Subject Portals.  As part of that work a systematic investigation of portal features was undertaken in the summer of 2002 to help develop a profile of features of JISC, institutional, and commercial portals. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/nixon/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/nixon/ DAEDALUS [1] is a three year JISC funded project under the FAIR Programme [2] which will build a range of Open Archives Compliant (OAI) digital collections at the University of Glasgow. These collections will enable us to unlock access to a wide range of our institutional scholarly output. This output will include not only published and peer-reviewed papers but also administrative documents, research finding aids, pre-prints and theses. DAEDALUS is also a member of the CURL SHERPA project [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/london/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/london/ This conference was set up 'to consider the central importance of moving images and sound to our heritage and present-day culture, the necessity of adequate funding for the archives that preserve such materials, and asks why there is a lack of any coherent infrastructure for moving image and sound archives in the UK'. In fact the real subtext of this conference was the race to save 100 years worth of material. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/newsline/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/newsline/ DOCUSEND PROJECT MANAGERDocusend <http://www.docusend.ac.uk> is a national three-year project which began in May 2002 and is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The key project objective is to develop a journal article request and delivery broker service. The Docusend partners include the ten university libraries which comprise the Lamda electronic document delivery service <http://lamdaweb.mcc.ac.uk>, with King’s College London as the lead site. Docusend is part of the JOIN-UP project cluster <http://edina. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/geneva/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/geneva/ CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research is the world’s largest particle physics centre. It is located just outside of Geneva on the French-Swiss border. CERN is also the birthplace of the World Wide Web, created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990. About the ConferenceThe workshop was organized by LIBER, SPARC-Europe and CERN Library and sponsored by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), OSI (Open Society Institute), and ESF (European Science Foundation). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/sherpa/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/sherpa/   JISC announced its FAIR Programme (Focus on Access to Institutional Resources) in January of this year. The central objective of the Programme is to test ways of releasing institutionally-produced content onto the web. FAIR describes its scope as: “to support access to and sharing of institutional content within Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) and to allow intelligence to be gathered about the technical, organisational and cultural challenges of these processes. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/newsline/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/newsline/ Following the success of the previous two Public Library Web Managers Workshops, UKOLN is proud to announce the third workshop to be held at the University of Bath in November 2002. This event offers the chance to step back, look at the bigger picture, and see how public library websites fit into the government's plans to make all services electronically available by 2005. To quote the DTLR consultation paper: e-gov@local, e-Government is about 'putting citizens and customers at the heart of everything we do' . http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/collection-workshops/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/collection-workshops/ With the increasing emphasis being placed on improving access to the content of research resources in the UK, the importance of collection description as a means of ensuring that access has received a great deal of attention in recent years. The resultant debate that has surrounded the concept of collection description has been particularly fuelled by the work of the Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) and the many projects it has sponsored over the past three years [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/netlab-conference/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/netlab-conference/ Every future must have a pastHow did you celebrate your tenth birthday? Perhaps by making a nice birthday cake with all your favourite ingredients to share with your friends? NetLab [1], the research and development department at Lund University Libraries [2], celebrated its tenth anniversary in April 2002 with a three-day conference in Lund, Sweden [3]. This gâteau consisted of topics on digital library development, divided into five pieces: “Semantic web and knowledge organisation”; “Interoperability and integration of heterogeneous sources”; “Visions, future issues and current development”; “The Nordic situation”; and the surprise session “Tension between visions and reality”. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/newsline/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/newsline/ The JISC has published the following circular (JISC Circular C06/02) to the community[3 July 2002] A call for number of projects designed to give the UK experience of emerging technologies in the authentication and authorisation area, based on open, vendor-independent standards. Institutions have a period of six weeks to respond. The deadline for full proposals is 12 noon on Thursday 18th July 2002. An electronic copy of this circular can be found on the JISC website at: http://www. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/public-libraries/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/public-libraries/ I have decided to be highly topical in this edition’s Public Library column. I have chosen as my topic -finger on buzzer - the recently published Audit Commission Report: Building Better Library Services. It has, after all, caused a bit of a stir. Just when you thought it was safe to abandon the rolling stacks and had won the battle to be regarded as ‘cool’ and ‘sexy’ with all those flat screen terminals, scanners, and keen silver surfers, a brickbat is lobbed at your firewall, and, goodness gracious me, its books that are important after all! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/eprint-archives/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/eprint-archives/ This article outlines the aims of the e-prints archive at the University of Glasgow and recounts our initial experiences in setting up an institutional e-prints archive using the eprints.org software. It follows on from the recent article by Stephen Pinfield, John MacColl and Mike Gardner in the last issue of Ariadne [1]. The Open Archives Initiative [2] and the arguments for e-prints services [3] need little introduction here and have been ably covered by previous articles in Ariadne and elsewhere. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/www2002/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/www2002/ WWW2002 [1] was the 11th annual World Wide Web Conference, held this year in Tourist Hell (Waikiki), Hawaii. WWW2002 ran over three days, with 10 refereed tracks including one on the Semantic Web, and six ‘alternate’ tracks. All the papers from the conference are available online in html [2]. You might also like to look at the RDF Interest group chatlogs and blog pages for the days covering the conference [3] and I also have some photos [4] as does Dave Beckett [5]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/web-archiving/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/web-archiving/ Web sites are an increasingly important part of this country’s information and cultural heritage. As such, the question of their preservation through archiving becomes one which organisations need to be increasingly aware of. This event, organised by the newly-created Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), brought together key organisations in the field of web archiving in order to assess the needs of organisations involved in the field to archive their and others’ web sites, to find areas of agreement, to highlight good practice, and to influence the wider debate about digital preservation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/newsline/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/newsline/ JISC/CNI Conference 2002Following the success of previous conferences held in London and Stratford The Joint Information Systems Committee and the Coalition for Networked Information are proud to announce the 4th International Conference, that will be held at the Edinburgh Marriott on 26th and 27th June. The conference will bring together experts from both the United States and the United Kingdom with keynote addresses from speakers from OCLC, SCRAN and CNI. Parallel sessions will explore and contrast major developments that are happening on both sides of the Atlantic. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/eprint-archives/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/eprint-archives/ This article outlines some of the main stages in setting up an institutional e-print archive. It is based on experiences at the universities of Edinburgh and Nottingham which have both recently developed pilot e-print servers(1). It is not the intention here to present arguments in favour of open access e-print archives – this has been done elsewhere(2). Rather, it is hoped to present give an account of some of the practical issues that arise in the early stages of establishing an archive in a higher education institution. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/invisible-web/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/invisible-web/ Chris Sherman and Gary PriceThe Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can’t seeCyber Age Books, 2001. ISBN 0-910965-51-XPrice: $29.95I first became interested in the Invisible Web after seeing Chris Sherman and Gary Price talking at the Internet Librarian International Conference in March this year. In their words “The Invisible Web consists of material that general purpose search engines cannot or will not include in their collection of Web pages.” If currently available resources from search engines are the tip of an iceberg, the Invisible Web is all that lays beneath the surface of the water. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/digilib/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/digilib/ The notion that we are living through times of great change in the communication of information and the transmission of texts is a truism which will bring a weary look to most professionals with any kind of involvement in the area. The digital age, the information age, the electronic age – we’ve all heard these terms so many times and have sat through innumerable discussions, and seen even more documents, trying to sort out what it all means. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/editorial/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/editorial/ Welcome to the December/January issue of Ariadne. A focus of this issue of Ariadne is the Open Archives Initiative and the wider implications of the techniques and technology associated with it. A major impetus behind the take-up of the OAI idea is the wish to make research available more widely and more quickly than before, and also to counter the problems created by the nature of existing academic publishing. As David Pearson writes in our lead article on digitization strategy, ‘…. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/newsline/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/newsline/ Multimedia Archive Preservation - a practical workshopOrganised by IASA, FIAT, PRESTO, ECPA … and more! 22-24 May 2002 in London, UK Overview: 80% of audio and video archive content is at risk, according to the results of EC project PRESTO. Unless preservation procedures are funded and implemented - quickly - unique heritage and commercially valuable material will be lost. This workshop will provide, in a concentrated three days, the combined experience of ten major European broadcast archives, and the new technology developed by PRESTO. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/oai-chan/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/oai-chan/ Although the World Wide Web is less than a decade old, it already has had a profound impact on scientific publishing and scholarly communication. In particular, open standards and low-cost networking tools are opening many possibilities for reducing and even eliminating entirely the cost barriers to scientific publications. (1) One development that has great potential value for poorly-resourced countries is “open archiving”, or the deposition of scholarly research papers into networked servers accessible over the Internet. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/ref-books/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/ref-books/ Reference books have been ‘published’ on the web for some years. Several hundred dictionaries are freely available. Many specialist encyclopaedias and subject reference works have been converted to become experimental web services(1).This wave of reference publishing follows no concerted plan. There is no formal market for these services and perhaps there never was an expectation of profit. The early development of the web has been like this. Most of the notable achievements lacked a clear commercial motivation and this has led to the extraordinarily rich and varied choice that the web provides. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/maccoll/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/maccoll/ This report covers a selection of the papers at the above conference, from those which I chose and was able to attend in a three-strand conference held over three days (with two additional days for workshops, which I did not attend). It includes the three keynote papers, as well as the paper which won the Vannevar Bush award for best conference paper. The conference was held in Roanoke, Virginia, in the Roanoke Hotel and Conference Center, which is owned by Virginia Tech (located in Blacksburg, some 40 miles away). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/gardner/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/gardner/ What are Web Services?The term web services has gaining visibility in recent months, there has been a W3C workshop on web services [1] and the big industry players such as IBM, Microsoft and Sun have been announcing their web services strategies. So what’s it all about and should you be involved? This article aims to be a starting point for answering these questions. Well, the term web services is fairly self-explanatory, it refers to accessing services over the web. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/kirriemuir/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/kirriemuir/ This article discusses some of the issues that arise when an academic department, unit or institution moves from possessing a few digital library projects and services, to possessing an integrated digital library centre. The article is based on: the experiences of the author, who has worked in four digital library centres (according to the definition in the next section) in UK higher education.replies from various people who have been employed by digital/electronic library projects and services over the past decade, to emailed questions about various aspects of digital library centre cultureexamples of incidents or case studies of things that have occurred within UK digital library centresIt does not prescribe a 'one model fits all' plan for all budding digital library centres. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/wilson/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/wilson/ Many months after reading and hearing about their introduction in the US, portable electronic books are now becoming available in the UK. Franklin’s eBookMan [1] is available online from bestbuy.com and amazon.com and from some high street retailers, the goReader is available for purchase via their Web site [2], a variety of ebook reading software can be downloaded to PDAs for free via the Internet, and some Pocket PCs are being sold pre-installed with Microsoft Reader [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/pinfield/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/pinfield/ Managing the development and delivery of electronic library services is one of the major current challenges for university library and information services. This article provides a brief overview of some of the key issues facing information professionals working in higher education institutions (HEIs). In doing so, it also picks up some of the real-world lessons which have emerged from the eLib (Electronic Libraries) programme now that it has come to a close. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/newsline/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/newsline/ JISC publishes three important documentsThe Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) promotes the innovative application and use of information systems and information technology in Higher and Further education across the UK. The JISC has published three new documents. These are the draft 3-year Collection Strategy, the Collections Development Policy and the Final Report from the JCEI (JISC Committee for Electronic Information) Charging Working Group Collection Strategy The JISC will continue to procure and make available on a subscription basis a collection of high quality electronic resources of relevance to learning, teaching, and research in higher and further education. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/c4u/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/c4u/ C4U is a personal link checker that will check for changes to web pages according to parameters you set, can access password protected sites and through which you can preview changes to see whether they are significant. As a personal productivity tool I recommend it, though some aspects of its design could be improved. We all want to keep up to date with the minimum of effort. There are quite a few options available: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/web-watch/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/web-watch/ In 1997 UKOLN received funding for a project known as WebWatch [1] . The aim of the WebWatch project was to develop and use automated robot software to analyse Web sites across a number of public sector communities. After the project funding finished UKOLN continued to provide WebWatch surveys across communities such as UK Higher Education Web sites. However once the initial WebWatch software developer left it was decided to adopt a slightly different approach - rather than continuing to develop our own WebWatch robot software, we chose to make use of freely-available Web-based services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/minotaur/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/minotaur/ Roberts et al., in Building a "GenBank" of the Published Literature [1] argue compellingly for the following three pleas to publishers and authors: It is imperative to free the refereed literature online. To achieve this goal, the following should be done: Established journal publishers should give away their journal contents online for free. (In the biomedical sciences, they can do this by depositing them in PubMedCentral [2])Authors should submit preferentially to journals that give their contents away online for free (even boycotting those that do not). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/web-watch/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/web-watch/ Is your University home page big, bold and brassy? Is it colourful and interactive, making use of new technologies in order to stand out from the crowd? Or is it mean and lean, with a simple design providing rapid download times and universal access? This survey of the size of the entry points for UK University and College entry points seeks an answer to these questions. The MethodologyThis report is based on use of two Web-based tools: NetMechanic and Bobby. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/johnston/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/johnston/ After the Big Bang In her presentation to the JISC Technology Watch seminar in February, Dr Diana Oblinger of the University of North Carolina employed the metaphor of "the Big Bang" to characterise the impact of recent and ongoing rapid technological, social and economic change [1]. The last five years have witnessed major shifts in the way the commercial sector markets and delivers its products and services, and the results of those changes are only beginning to "coalesce" into recognisable patterns. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/hylife/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/hylife/ HyLiFe (The Hybrid Library of the Future), one of the five Hybrid Library Projects in eLib’s Phase 3 formally ended as a project at the end of 2000. Distinctive features of HyLiFe include its diverse consortium, its non technological approach and its emphasis throughout on evaluation. By drawing on evaluation findings in HyLiFe’s six partner sites, it has been possible to identify ten steps which need to be observed en route to successful Hybrid Library implementation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/news/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/news/ The Bridgeman Art Library acquires photographic archive of the Hamburg Kunsthalle Museum, GermanyThe Bridgeman Art Library announced today its acquisition of the photographic archive of the Hamburg Kunsthalle. All of the museum’s works will be available through Bridgeman on an exclusive basis, providing image users with a rich source of German art. Highlights from the museum’s four great galleries include a collection of magnificent mediaeval panel paintings, masterpieces by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich and important works by Paul Klee, Max Beckman and Edvard Munch. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/review/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/review/ Christine L. Borgman, From Gutenberg to the global information infrastructure: access to information in the networked world. Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, 2000. xviii, 324 pp. £27.95. ISBN 0-262-02473-X. Christine Borgman’s book From Gutenberg to the global information infrastructure was published in March 2000 in the Digital Libraries and Electronic Publishing series edited by William Arms. The book is an excellent introduction to a wide range of issues related to the development of digital libraries and to what is called here a ‘global information infrastructure. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/maccoll/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/maccoll/ This 1-day conference was the third in a series of events organised by the Hybrid Libraries projects funded by JISC via the eLib Programme, and supported by the DNER. The prior two events had been held at the British Library, in November 2000, and Manchester Metropolitan University, in the previous week. The event was late in starting due to heavy snow having delayed several of the delegates. Indeed, many of those who had intended being in Edinburgh had to call off altogether. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/chris/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/chris/ Philip Hunter asked for an assessment of the achievements and legacy of the eLib Programme 5 years on. It is a strange experience trying to summarise a huge enterprise, covering more than 5 years involving hundreds of people, and costing in excess of £20M, in a couple of thousand words. I immediately abandoned any thought of comprehensiveness, any formalised evaluation, or even any serious attempt at history. Instead this is a highly personal commentary on some of the highlights for me as Programme Director of the Electronic Libraries Programme (known as eLib) with a reflection on some of the less overtly successful things – again highlights where 20:20 hindsight showed we could have done better. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/clumps26/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/clumps26/ This article is an end of project review of the Large Scale Resource Discovery strand of the eLib Phase 3 Programme. Four ‘clump’ [1] projects were funded, CAIRNS, M25 Link, and RIDING are regionally based, and Music Libraries Online (MLO) is subject based. One question that this article aims to answer is ‘Have the clumps projects been a success?’ The following sections highlight some of the many issues that the four projects have looked at and the progress that has been made. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/editorial/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/editorial/ Welcome to Ariadne issue 26. In this issue Ariadne welcomes the new Director of UKOLN, Dr Elizabeth Lyon. Previously, Liz Lyon was Head of Research & Learning Support Systems in Information Services at the University of Surrey, where she was founding Director of the Centre for Learning Developments (CLD) and was also responsible for Library IT systems, audio-visual services and administration. CLD comprised four Units promoting and supporting new Learning Technologies, Skills Developments and Applied Research & Development. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/exam-papers/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/exam-papers/ The George Edwards Library at the University of Surrey is close to completing a project for providing on-line access to the University’s exam papers for members of the University. Although other institutions are already providing electronic access to their exam papers, the system designed for use at Surrey is believed to be innovative in a number of ways. The overall achievements are: Simple and efficient method of delivery of electronic exam papersWill makes papers available to multiple users 24 hours per day from any site with Internet access on or off campusA non Java version for those who require itUse of Adobe Acrobat PDF to view papersAbility to watermark papers if required by SchoolsConforms to Dublin Core metadata standards (for more information see the Dublin Core site at http://purl. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/review/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/review/ Digital Imaging: A Practical Handbook is very much a 'how to' guide for those about to embark on a digitisation project, and it offers a complete picture of the workflow process of a digital imaging project from its inception to the final maintenance and archiving of the end product. It is aimed at information professionals and librarians managing such a venture, but is also of value to researchers and students. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/kate-robinson/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/kate-robinson/ This workshop had a very full programme and made an early start. The day began with an enthusiastic welcome to the British Library by Lynne Brindley, who spoke about whether in hindsight the British Library could have been re-designed as a building, or as a digital resource. She went on to describe the value of the physical presence of a building and its role as a showcase for the importance of libraries. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/subject-gateways/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/subject-gateways/ This brief paper outlines some of the features of the policy environment which led to the setting up of the influential 'subject gateways' as part of the Electronic Libraries Programme. It has the modest and partial ambition of putting some of the discussions of the time on record. It should be read as a companion piece to two other articles. The first, Law 1994, develops the historical context for the emergence of the data centres, a central component of JISC information infrastructure, and collaterally discusses the broad thrust of JISC's developing informational activity. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/cartoon/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/cartoon/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/editorial/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/editorial/ The Higher Education (HE) community interest in information technology remains very much the same as it was when the web first appeared: networked access to high quality (and quality assured) information resources. Current activities in the UK (the RDN, the DNER, HERO, etc) are logical developments of these core interests. But in the few years which have passed, the concept of how such information ought to be accessed and what the nature of the interface might be (at both superficial and deep levels) has been discussed in various digital library forums and refined into a number of practical demonstrator applications and projects (the various hybrid library projects, the Agora project, etc). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/technostress/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/technostress/ Defining Stress“Stress” has become the defining malaise of modernity. Until around twenty years ago, the term was used exclusively to refer to the “fight or flight” mechanism in a specific medical context. Today, however, the word has undergone radical semantic widening. Like “nerves” in the nineteenth century, “stress” is now used by individuals to explain a huge number of maladies and by journalists, advertisers and cultural pundits as a convenient hook upon which to hang any number of social ills. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/review/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/review/ Cataloguing, long respected as the prime task of librarians, declined somewhat in status in the 1970s, when libraries became conscious of the need to serve users more directly than by merely providing finding tools; also, a need to change the image of librarians (represented by the middle-aged female cataloguer) was perceived to be important. More recently, the growth of the Internet has led to increasingly desperate cries for the imposition of some order on the vast quantities of unstructured information that it made accessible, and to attempts at doing so. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/search-engines/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/search-engines/ In one of my earlier columns I looked at the different ways in which it was possible to find information about individuals on the Internet. I thought that for this issue I'd revisit the concept of finding a particular type of information, but instead of looking for people, I'd look for images instead. When I refer to 'images' here, I'm not really talking about small icons, coloured balls or page dividers that web designers like to use on their websites; there are thousands of such libraries available for this purpose, and they can easily be located - simply go to one of the many Yahoo! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/jisc-cni/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/jisc-cni/ The conference was opened by Professor Maxwell Irvine, Chair of the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), who extended a familiar transport metaphor to talk of the route maps and driving instructors needed to ensure the effective use of the information superhighway, observing that the JISC's DNER (Distributed National Electronic Resource) can be seen as the "overall integrated transport policy". He went on to highlight the international collaboration and partnerships which will be needed to bring true coherence to networked information. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/cartoon/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/cartoon/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/in-vision/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/in-vision/ IntroductionUntil recently, visually impaired people (VIP) were poorly served by the library and information provision that is routinely available to sighted people. They have relied to a great extent on specialist voluntary organisations transcribing a limited range of materials into accessible formats. This situation is changing with advances in technology and recent initiatives on social inclusion. Increasingly visually impaired people will be able to locate and use information independently, as sighted people already do. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/convergence/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/convergence/ The pastVideo games have been around for a lot longer than most people realise. Many people can remember playing games on their ZX Spectrum (1982), or even their cartridge-based Atari VCS (1978). However, before these systems came into being there had already been a decade of video game development, mostly based in the US and Japan. The first recognised games console was the Magnavox Odyssey [1] in 1972. This US-produced machine sold around 100,000 units in three years, and at the time was considered to be revolutionary. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/epress/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/epress/ The Electronic Publishing Resource Service (EPRESS)[1] is developing an online database system to aid the administration of electronic journals and make information available to a distributed Editorial team. Having identified labour as the greatest contributing cost toward electronic journal publication, EPRESS aims to reduce the burden by automating many of the functions of the Editorial Assistant and the publisher. This article demonstrates the scope of journal services and illustrates the ways in which the administrative chores are reduced to increase the efficiency of the publishing process. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/editorial/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/editorial/ Readers of this issue may have arrived expecting to read an article on the forthcoming DNER service; an article which was heavily trailed in issue 22. My apologies to you if you are among them. However, the pace of development of the DNER over the past few months has been so great that we decided, late in the editorial process, to postpone the publication of an article on the subject until issue 24. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/bl-isp/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/bl-isp/ The rapid growth in services offering free Internet access to users dialling into the Internet is well known. The market leader, Freeserve, has signed up over 1.5 million customers and has been followed by TescoNet, WH Smith, Currant Bun, etc. But did you know that in September the British Library launched British Library Net, the first free Internet service to be provided by a public sector body in the UK? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/biome/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/biome/ The Hub for Internet Resources in the Health and Life Sciences, as part of the Resource Discovery Network (http://www.rdn.ac.uk/) Looking for quality Internet resources in the health and life sciences? BIOME will provide access to quality resources in agriculture, food, forestry, pharmaceutical sciences, medicine, nursing, dentistry, biological research, veterinary sciences, the natural world, botany, zoology, and much, much more... Due to be launched in Spring 2000, BIOME will build on the experiences, skills and content of the established OMNI service, and expand to cover all areas within the health and life sciences. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/ariadne-reader/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/ariadne-reader/ The ARIADNE Project was born in September 1995, and the first meeting of the participants from the two partner sites of Abertay Dundee and UKOLN took place in a restaurant after a one-day meeting at the Library Association, in the couple of hours between the Dundee editors leaving the meeting and having to leave for the overnight train from King’s Cross. In our time-limited discussion, we drafted out a shape for the print and web versions of ARIADNE, defining regular feature titles and listing ideas and contacts to be pursued. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/oxford-mellon/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/oxford-mellon/ In 1998 the University of Oxford initiated a nine-month study into its digitization activities: past, present, and future. The 'Scoping Study' as it has now become known, was funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation and completed its findings in July 1999. This paper briefly outlines the reasons behind the study, its methodology and how this might be applied to other institutions, the main results, and the planned next stages. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/eevl/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/eevl/ South Africa may have been cut off from the rest of the world during the years of the Apartheid era, but it is now very much a part of the networked world, and is trying hard to make up for lost time. South Africa has a wired population of over 1 million, and awareness of the commercial possibilities of the internet is relatively high. South Africans have for some time been heavy users of modern communications systems and especially mobile phones, the international cricketer Alan Lamb being one of the best-known advocates in recent years, and many were quick to see the possibilities of the internet in breaking their isolation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/editorial/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/editorial/ Ariadne continues to develop and make friends in the the world. Shortly, if all goes well, every word published in Ariadne during the past four years will be available in a US education fulltext database, distributed on a world-wide basis. This is a mark of the significance of Ariadne's contribution to the discussions surrounding digital library initiatives, both in the UK and the US. An Ariadne reader, 'Delivering the Electronic Library' has been put together by Lyndon Pugh, John MacColl and Lorcan Dempsey and published in an edition published principally for distribution to UK institutions of Higher Education. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/epanet/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/epanet/ The civilizations of the ancient Near East produced the world's first written texts. In both Egypt and Mesopotamia, recognizable texts begin to appear in the late fourth millennum B.C.[1] A well developed system of numerical tabulation combined with a varied and sophisticated repertoire of sealings and seal impression is evident even earlier across a wide geographical range in Western Asia[2] and evidence from recent archaeological discoveries in Egypt promises to push the origins of writing even further into antiquity. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/metadata/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/metadata/ In May 1997, the present author produced a short article for this column entitled "Extending metadata for digital preservation" [1]. The article introduced the idea of using metadata-based methods as a means of helping to manage the process of preserving digital information objects. At the time the article was first published, the term 'metadata' was just beginning to be used by the library and information community (and others) to describe 'data about data' that could be used for resource discovery. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/planet-sosig/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/planet-sosig/ The purpose of this article is to introduce The Question Bank contents and situate the resource in the context of its Information Space, that is its relationship to other projects that aim to make social surveys more accessible. I have the subsidiary aim of using this text to present the choices and decisions that need to be identified, preferably before undertaking the introduction of a medium sized web-based information resource. I aim to be decidedly non-technical, however many of the problems the Question bank team has overcome have been solved because of the increasing flexibility that newer software offers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/das/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/das/ Public libraries serve their communities by fulfilling seven basic roles, including knowledge archival, the preservation and maintenance of culture, knowledge dissemination, knowledge sharing, information retrieval, education, and social interaction [1]. Each of these roles offers the general public the opportunity to recognize and view libraries as an integral part of a democratic society where access to free information has been (and still is) both expected and demanded. By comparison, community networks also have similar ideals for serving the public. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/dunning/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/dunning/ Picture, just for a moment, a scholar wise in the books of the world but new to technology. Having heard about this 'Internet' business she goes to one of these search engines to try and find some resources relevant to her field of study. She offers the phrase 'medical ethics' (that being her field of study) to one rather garish and excitable search engine, but, after a delay of a few seconds, is proffered seemingly random links and enigmatic descriptions. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/dempsey/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/dempsey/ The Information Society Technologies programme within the EU's Framework Programme Five supports access to, and preservation of, digital cultural content. This document describes some common concerns of libraries, archival institutions and museums as they work together to address the issues the Programme raises. This accounts for three major emphases in the document. First, discussion is very much about what brings these organisations together, rather than about what separates them. Second, it describes an area within which a research agenda can be identified; its purpose is not to propose a programme of work or actions, rather a framework within such a programme might be developed. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/search-engines/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/search-engines/ AltaVista relaunchI don’t know how many of you were aware that AltaVista [1]was going to relaunch, so it may have come as something of a surprise if you visited after October 25th only to find the general appearance had changed. It was even a surprise for those of us who use it regularly! The re-launch has led to lots of confusion, many unhappy people and lots of comments, so before continuing with the rest of the column this month I’ll do my best to set the record straight about what is happening with the engine. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/disinhe/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/disinhe/ Over the years many guides have been produced to assist those choosing suitable assistive technology for individuals with disabilities. These guides have usually been available in book format and are rarely updated on a regular basis, and if updates are available the user has to pay for the privilege of remaining informed. In recent years there have been efforts to produce information on the Internet. However, this information tends to be presented as little more than an on-line catalogue with brief descriptions of individual items. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/reside/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/reside/ The ResIDe Electronic Library (http://www.uwe.ac.uk/library/itdev/reside) was first developed as the ResIDe Electronic Reserve at the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) in 1996. Originally funded under the eLib Programme (http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib), the Electronic Reserve was created as a research tool to explore such issues surrounding the implementation of an electronic reserve as copyright and collection management control mechanisms. Uniquely, in the electronic reserve strand, lead partners were the library and a faculty (the Faculty of the Built Environment) of the same academic institution and ResIDe sought, specifically, to examine issues relating to the mounting of multi-media documents supporting Built Environment studies. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/tiny-tv/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/tiny-tv/ Before you will be able to play the resources listed in this article, you should be equipped with the latest versions of at least two pieces of software: the G2 RealPlayer, and the Microsoft Media Player. Some of the resources listed will work with older versions of these applications, but if you have the latest versions, all of them will run properly. Some clips have been encoded by the suppliers with the latest codecs precisely to encourage users to upgrade to these latest versions of streaming media players. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/web-cache/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/web-cache/ Service UsageIn May 1998 (the end of the last academic year) the National Caching Service was receiving over 27,000,000 requests and shipping around 250 GBytes of data on a busy day. In recent weeks we have exceeded 40,000,000 requests and shipped over 400GBytes per day and these figures are likely to increase in the coming months. Over 150 institutions currently use the service and this number too is set to increase as Colleges of Further Education and other organisations begin to use us. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/web-focus/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/web-focus/ Many readers of this article will be involved in setting up new web sites, possibly for European or nationally-funded projects, for internal, institutional projects or perhaps for community projects. As the size of the web grows there is an increasing awareness of the need to be pro-active in promoting web sites - we can no longer simply sit back and expect visitors to arrive at our new site. This article describes a variety of approaches which can be taken to the promotion of a web site. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/web-mirror/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/web-mirror/ On 1st August 1999 the UK Mirror Service [1] replaced HENSA as the JISC [2] funded mirror service for the UK academic community. The new service is run by the same teams at Kent and Lancaster that supported the HENSAs, but it is not merely a revamp of the HENSA sites; there are some fundamental changes. This article takes a look at the implementation of the service and our plans for the future. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/web-watch/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/web-watch/ In September 1999 the author ran a 90 minutes hands-on session on Managing Your Institutional Web Gateway [1] at the JANET User Support Workshop which was held at the University of Plymouth. The materials for included a series of exercises in which the participants were asked to go to their own institutional home page, find the main page which contains links to external web resources and comment on the resource. After reviewing their own web site, they were then asked to look at a number of other university web sites and repeat the exercise. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/at-the-event/aliss.html Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/at-the-event/aliss.html The 1999 Annual Conference & AGM of ALISS (Academic Librarians in the Social Sciences) was held at the University of Wales at Bangor 30 June-1 July. The conference theme was the very current and increasingly important one of provision for non-traditional students in academic libraries. Indeed, the concept of flexibility and diversity in learning and the great variety found in today’s student population in the age of lifelong learning was highlighted at breakfast - before the conference actually started. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/subject-gateways/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/subject-gateways/ This information paper was written by the National Library of Australia to describe the scope and intent of four of Australia's national subject gateways: Agrigate [2], the Australian Virtual Engineering Library (AVEL) [3], EdNA Online - the website of the Education Network of Australia (EdNA) [4], and MetaChem [5]. The four criteria shaping subject gateway development were identified as an operational framework, standards & guidelines, quality of service delivery, and scope. They have been mapped to the characteristics of the Australian subject gateways as described below. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/bized/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/bized/ The HubFrom 1 August Biz/ed is continuing resource discovery for the subject areas business, economics and management under the auspices of the Social Science, Business and Law Hub funded by JISC through the Resource Discovery Network Centre [1]. SOSIG [2] will act as an umbrella to a number of catalogues including Biz/ed’s. Biz/ed will continue to have its own interface and look and feel, and Biz/ed’s records will continue to form the economics and business sections of the SOSIG hub. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/disinhe/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/disinhe/ The web is one of the most rapidly developing media for communication and information storage and retrieval available today. Many people with extra-ordinary needs (such as users of palm-tops, legacy systems, and car-based systems, as well as disabled people using special technology) are restricted from access to the information available on the web, due to poor design caused by both a lack of information and sources of good advice for developers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/digiwilf/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/digiwilf/ PH How did the WWW1 JTAP seminars get started? SL A long time ago we did a set of Hypercard stacks on Isaac Rosenberg, which I converted for the web in January ‘95, and then when the JTAP call came out I thought that we could expand the tutorial and make four tutorials. And then we had all the archive nearby: we thought we would tackle the idea of creating both online tutorials and a digital archive which lecturers could use. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/ecms/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/ecms/ Technology issues are of utmost importance in Electronic Copyright Management Systems (ECMS). In fact, these technologies can in part determine the success or failure of these systems. In a traditional environment, consumers enjoy buying with efficient systems and security. This is even truer in the Internet. Thus the need to develop and deploy technologies that are efficient and can assure security. This work covers these technology issues, illustrating the following points in an objective way: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/eevl/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/eevl/ It is fairly common practice for anyone writing about a service or project with which they are involved to emphasise its benefits, popularity and plus points, and so perhaps the title of this article EEVL ‘not a success’ may seem a little abstruse and may even have grabbed your attention. If that’s the case, let me explain what I mean by “EEVL ‘not a success’”. I do not mean that EEVL [01] has been unsuccessful. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/editorial/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/editorial/ This is the twenty first issue of Ariadne. Our first issue was published in January 1996, under the editorship of John Kirriemuir. Twenty one issues is not exactly a birthday, but nevertheless a significant milestone: I'm reasonably sure that when the idea of a web magazine was first floated in 1995, it was not imagined that it would still be around five years later. There are five main articles in this issue, each covering aspects of library networking which have to be synthesised effectively if we are to achieve the kind of seamlessly interconnected and useful electronic resources which the community is aiming at. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/planet-sosig/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/planet-sosig/ Social Science Business and Law HubWe are pleased to announce that as of August 1999 SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway), the UK’s number one place to find social science information on the Internet will be expanding its service. SOSIG provides a browsable and searchable database of thousands of high quality Internet resources of relevance to social science researchers, academics and practitioners. The gateway will draw on the expertise of a number of specialist organisations within the social sciences to help build its database of resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/search-engines/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/search-engines/ FAST - new but better?FAST - Fast Search and Transfer ASA was established on July 16th 1997 and the search engine (1) arose out of a project initiated at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, Trondheim. Their system is powered by Dell Systems and they have an impressive grouping of partners, such as 3Com, CompuServe, Corbis, Lycos, and almost inevitably, Microsoft and Sun. The aim of FAST is to index the entire web by the end of this year; they expect to be able to index one billion documents and beyond. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/pubmed/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/pubmed/ In my opinion, there is no real question that completely paperless systems will emerge in science and in other fields. The only real question is “when will it happen?” We can reasonably expect, I feel, that a rather fully developed electronic information system … will exist by the year 2000, although it could conceivably come earlier. F. Wilfrid Lancaster (1978) [1] Predicting the future is very dangerous. Wilfrid Lancaster’s 21 year old comment may seem unduly optimistic when it mentions the arrival of ‘completely paperless’ systems, but the Internet and the World Wide Web would appear (almost) to be his ‘fully developed electronic information system’. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/web-editor/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/web-editor/ I work in a discipline where scholars are as likely to be interested in a three-quarter-century-old article written in an obscure journal with a circulation of a thousand copies as they are in a lavish and masterly new publication of an international exhibition of never-before-seen artifacts. The archaeologies of scholarship on the ancient Near East are complex and arcane. The skills required to interpret them are taken for granted on the assumption that university students should already know how to use a library (as any schoolboy knows. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/unix/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/unix/ mod_perl [1] has to be one of the most useful and powerful of the Apache modules. Beneath the inconspicuous name, this module marries two of the most successful and widely acclaimed products of OSS, the Apache Webserver [2] and Perl [3]. The result is a kind of Web developers Utopia, with Perl providing easy access to, and control of, the formidable Apache API. Powerful applications can be rapidly created and deployed as solutions to anything from an office Intranet to Enterprise level Web requirements. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/public-libraries/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/public-libraries/ Since the publication of the hugely influential New Library: the People’s Network, [1] and the follow-up document detailing the plans for rolling out the network, Building the New Library Network, [2] we have seen a whole range of government policy documents and initiatives stressing the importance of the role of the public library in the developing “information society” [3]. Public libraries are increasingly being recognised and heralded as ideal local delivery points for a range of national programmes addressing lifelong learning, access to IT skills and services and the delivery of government services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/web-cache/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/web-cache/ Why are UK universities using Web caches?Whenever a student or academic tries to connect to a Web page, there is a significant chance that another person has already viewed the same Web page in the not too distant past. If a Web page is based on a US machine, it can be slow and expensive to load directly from the US, so it is worth saving a copy of the Web page on a UK-based ‘Web cache’ (which is sometimes called a ‘proxy cache’, to distinguish it from the cache on the user’s hard drive). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/web-focus/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/web-focus/ The "Institutional Web Management: The Next Steps" workshop took place at Goldsmiths College, London on 7-9 September 1999. This was the third annual event for institutional web managers which has been organised by UK Web Focus. The first workshop was held over 2 day (16/17 July 1997) at Kings College London. As described in the workshop report published in Ariadne [1] the event attracted a total of 95 participants. The workshop provided a valuable opportunity for web editors to meet their peers at other institutions and compare experiences. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/webwatch/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/webwatch/ In the previous issue of Ariadne an analysis of 404 error messages provided on UK University web sites was carried out [1]. In this issue an analysis of indexing software used to provide searches on UK University web sites is given. Although the WebWatch project [2] has finished, UKOLN will continue to carry out occasional surveys across UK HE web sites and publish reports in Ariadne. This will enable trends to be observed and documented. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/nt-explorer/ Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/21/nt-explorer/ IIS has been around for quite some time now. IIS 2.0 can be found on the Windows NT 4.0 Server installation CD-ROM. This version of IIS was pretty basic, and changing advanced settings usually involved messing around with the Windows registry. Version 3.0 was little different from 2.0, but it did see the introduction of server-side scripting through the use of the innovative Active Server Pages [1]. By contrast, version 4. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/clumps-workshop/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/clumps-workshop/ In attempting to establish the requirements of users in the context of the four e-Lib Clump Projects we decided to take a two-pronged approach. Firstly we tried to look at some typical user profiles and see what their search requirements were likely to be. Then we related this to what we found when we did some actual searches. This article will provide the reader with some pointers to the relative merits or otherwise of the projects. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/dugdale/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/dugdale/ The 10th CTI-AFM Annual Conference was held during beautiful spring weather on 8 - 9 April in the historic setting of the Old Ship Hotel in Brighton. There was nothing traditional, however, about the papers that were presented. They constituted a stimulating collection of reports of ongoing research and teaching practices. All-in-all, a fitting set of papers for the last CTI-AFM Conference before the advent of the new Subject Centres that are being planned for next year. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/ecms/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/ecms/ The theme covered by this article is currently a matter for discussion in the digital library arena. Since the birth of the first digital libraries, publishers, authors and information consumers have been debating the best ways to manage access to information. It is within this context that this work is intended to make a small contribution. It illustrates the following points in an objective way: Copyright issues and Electronic Copyright Management Systems (ECMS);Advantages and disadvantages that result from the use of ECMS;Some conclusions and future perspectives. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/eevl/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/eevl/ Following the success of the subject gateways, developed as part of the eLib programme, JISC will fund a three-year programme which will expand the subject gateways model to cover all subject areas on a broadly faculty-hub basis. As part of this Resource Discovery Network (RDN), EEVL [01] and Heriot-Watt University successfully bid to establish an Engineering, Mathematics and Computing (EMC) 'Hub' (a focused collection of gateways). The EMC Hub, which will be funded from 1st August 1999, will develop services in these three subjects, expanding existing services and bringing online new ones. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/editorial/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/editorial/ Welcome to the newly redesigned Ariadne. The new interface was created to improve the appearance of Ariadne both on screen and when printed: the latter is particularly important now that Ariadne is published only in electronic format (since issue 19). The old 1996 design was generally very servicable from the point of view of structure and navigation, but it had a number of features which, with the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, introduced un-necessary complications to the editorial process: these have now been redesigned. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/ims/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/ims/ “IMS is a global coalition of academic, commercial and government organizations, working together to define the Internet architecture for learning.” Excerpt from the IMS project website [1]. IMS was originally a US-based organisation but now wishes to be seen as an international effort. In the UK, the JISC is an investment partner and a UK IMS centre has been set up [2]. Recently, I attended two UK IMS events: the IMS Developer Workshop (March 23 - 24 1999, Bath) and the IMS/eLib Concertation Day (May 4 1999, London). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/jisc-assist/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/jisc-assist/ JISC ASSIST (Activities, Services and Special Initiatives Support Team) is an “awareness raising” unit set up because the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee)[1] recognises that “the opportunities presented by IT are outstripping the ability of the sector to assimilate and exploit them.”[2] This article is by way of an introduction to what will be a regular feature of ARIADNE which will highlight current, and future, JISC plans and activities and how these are assisting HEIs grapple with the many information and technology related challenges that are influencing the shape of HE for future generations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/jisc-content/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/jisc-content/ Most readers from within the UK Higher Education (HE) community will no doubt be aware of the National Electronic Site Licence Initiative. However, for readers from outside this sector who do not yet know the full details, and for readers who do not know the latest news about the Initiative, the first part of this article seeks to detail NESLI’s aims and objectives, and achievements so far. Although the Initiative is primarily focused on the UK HE community, the second part of this article seeks to discuss the possible benefits which may accrue for the library and information community as a whole. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/metadata/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/metadata/ The Metadata Workshop held in Luxembourg on the 12 April was the third in an ongoing series of such meetings. The first Metadata Workshop was held in December 1997 and included a tutorial on metadata provided by UKOLN, some project presentations and break-out sessions on various metadata issues [1, 2]. The second workshop, held in June 1998, concentrated more on technical and strategic issues [3]. Around 50 people attended the third workshop, mostly drawn from organisations involved in European Union funded projects supplemented by a few Commission staff. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/mailbase/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/mailbase/ The Millenium will also mark the tenth anniversary of the Mailbase Service which is the premier provider of mailing lists for the UK HE community. Mailbase began in 1989 as a pilot project to help and encourage non-technical staff to use computer networks. It now provides the best current "push" communication technology (email messages) combined with an up-to-date and continually up-dated interface to services such as searching, archiving and owner interaction/control via the Web. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/news/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/news/ Publication of the Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonweal th AgenciesThe Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies is now available on the National Archives of Australia Website at: URL: <http://www.naa.gov.au/govserv/techpub/rkms/intro.htm> This standard describes the metadata that the National Archives of Australia recommends should be captured in the recordkeeping systems used by Commonwealth government agencies. Compliance with the Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies will help agencies to identify, authenticate, describe and manage their electronic records in a systematic and consistent way to meet business, accountability and archival requirements. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/omni/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/omni/ This article describes some of the findings of an informal study of access to the Internet for information professionals working within the UK public funded health sector e.g. hospital libraries, NHS trusts, and other public funded medical libraries. The problemThe OMNI service [1] receives a steady number of inquiries from a large and diverse number of people. Many of these inquiries are from members of the public requiring medical and health information; in these cases, as we are not medically qualified or legally covered, we have to politely point out that services such as OMNI are meant to complement their General Practitioner, not to replace him or her. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/planet-sosig/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/planet-sosig/ The Resource Guide for the Social Scienceshttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/subject/socsci/  Karen Ford describes the new Resource Guide for Social Scientists, which aims to provide a user-friendly overview of the electronic services available for UK social scientists. The Resource Guide for the Social Sciences is a pilot project funded jointly by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The project aims to provide staff and students in higher education with an overview of the exciting but often overwhelming range of electronic services available to them and to promote effective use of the resources for research and learning purposes. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/bopac/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/bopac/ This article attempts to draw some practical lessons for those involved with clumps (or thinking about them) from our experiences on the BOPAC2 project [1]. BOPAC2 was a British Library funded project, that was investigating the problems of large and complex retrievals from Z39.50 [2] searches especially from multiple targets. Although the funded stage of BOPAC2 is over the system is still under development and available on the web and I would urge people to try the sort of examples I will mention below (and give us feedback). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/public-libraries/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/public-libraries/ Dear LorcanIt is my view that, to appreciate what is happening in libraries today, we need to keep two contextual factors firmly in mind. Though these are telling on the library world, it is far too easy to underestimate their significance if we limit ourselves to consideration only of library matters. The first is an apparently inexorable shift away from public towards private provision of goods and services throughout society. There are lots of reasons for this (Thatcherism, globalisation, the end of the Cold War in victory for the West), but it is crucial for librarians to acknowledge the consequences of what has been called the ‘neo-liberal consensus’ for their long (and short)-term future. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/search-engines/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/search-engines/ Finding peopleThe Internet is about a great many different things, but when it really comes down to it, the Internet is about people. People creating websites, putting up content, writing emails, posting to newsgroups and interacting with each other. Since that the basis on which the whole of the Internet works, I thought it might be quite interesting to have a look at ways we have of being able to find all of these people, using a variety of different types of search engines. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/disinhe/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/disinhe/ Over four percent of students in Higher Education have registered as having one or more disabilities, but the actual number of students may be closer to ten percent. Communications and Information Technology (C & IT) has an important part to play in supporting both staff and students with disabilities, and staff in Institutions clearly need to be aware of their moral and legal obligations, and know how to set up processes and practices to provide such support effectively and efficiently. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/unix/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/unix/ You've just obtained a new application that will run networked over an Internet. How do you know its secure? How do you know that its code doesn't contain any oversights that may lead to a system compromise? You probably don't, especially if its a large application. Unintentional holes may be introduced to applications with as little as a one line coding oversight, such as copying data between two memory locations without checking the bounds of the data first (such a crack can be leveraged through a so-called 'stack overflow' exploit). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/web-editor/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/web-editor/ Information Science & Web ManagementWhen web services began in Higher Education institutions, the majority of those employed to manage them were technical people. Experience in UNIX, CGI programming and Apache were prerequisites. But as web sites have grown into huge vortexes of information, those with the skills to help identify & satisfy the information needs of client groups have become increasingly valued. Recent adverts in the national press for web administrators/editors/masters have emphasised skills in ‘the gathering, analysis and presentation of information’ [1] ‘effective communication’, ‘team leadership’ and ‘information management’; skills either directly taught in or fostered by courses such as Information and Library Science (ILS). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/tolimac/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/tolimac/ As networked information services continue to expand, libraries need to reinforce their key intermediary role between information providers and end users to achieve a double objective: facilitate user access to electronic services distributed through the Internet and guarantee payment to providers. TOLIMAC (Total Library Management Concept) is designed as a management tool that allows libraries to manage and control user access to electronic information. It enables electronic information providers to agree institutional contracts based on actual use of their services, as it provides guarantees on request authentication and on payment for information delivery. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/web-focus/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/web-focus/ The Eighth World Wide Web Conference (WWW8) was on a smaller scale than in the past few years. The numbers of delegates seemed to be down, and there was no accompanying exhibition. The conference appeared to be refocussing on the web research community, with delegates from commercial companies more likely to be software developers than marketing types. This refocussing also seemed to be reflected in the conference papers, which, as a number of people commented, seemed to be of a higher quality this year. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/web-mirror/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/web-mirror/ The National Mirror Service will supersede the HENSA services in August to become the primary mirror service for the academic community. This will be a new, improved and more integrated service brought to you by the Universities of Lancaster and Kent and funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The Director of the new service is Dr Tim Hopkins, Reader in Computer Science at the University of Kent. The service will be based primarily upon the web, although access via FTP will still be available. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/404/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/404/ What are the ten most visited pages on your website? Your main entry point, no doubt. And possibly your search page, a site map or other navigational aids. A greeting from your Vice Chancellor may be a popular page - or is it more likely to be a Student's Union Society page, or a personal home page? All of these are possibilities, but isn't a frequently visited - if not popular - page missing from this list? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/nt/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/nt/ This column is intended to bring users' attention to the value of employing Windows NT server technology within their institution. This issue covers Active Server Pages (ASP) - one of the most useful benefits of having a Windows NT based web server. Most web developers will encounter ASP through its inclusion with Microsoft's Internet Information Server [1] - the most popular Windows NT web server software. Internet Information Server is free, although you have to purchase a licence for Windows NT Server. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/bobcatsss99/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/bobcatsss99/ The 7th International BOBCATSSS Symposium on Library and Information Science was held in the modern Istropolis Congress Center in a somewhat damp and foggy Bratislava in Slovakia, 25-27 January. Although the gloom outside was lifted by the enthusiasm of the many young delegates, this year’s conference was a disappointment. In particular, the somewhat muddled 3-pronged themes of ‘Learning Society’, ‘Learning Organisation’ and ‘Lifelong Learning’ were not often addressed directly. The opening remarks stressed the importance of learning throughout life. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/bized/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/bized/ Biz/edIntroducing Biz/edBiz/ed [1] is a free, subject-based information gateway service providing access to quality-assured Internet resources in business and economics. It is managed from the Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT) [2] based at the University of Bristol. The core service was originally targeted at the needs of staff and students up to first year undergraduate level. However, funding under the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) [3] has enabled Biz/ed to encompass research users and those developing and using materials for more advanced courses in the HE sector. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/cache/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/cache/ The UK JANET Web Caching Service, managed jointly by the Universities of Manchester and Loughborough, provides an efficient, state-of-the-art, caching facility for the UK Academic and Research community. Its primary objectives are to reduce unnecessary duplication of network traffic between the community and the Web, and to minimise the time taken to download Web pages from remote sites. The former results in a more cost-effective use of limited and expensive bandwidth; whilst the latter facilitates a more productive use of the Web. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/editorials/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/editorials/ This is the first issue of a purely electronic Ariadne, which has been produced without the assistance of a print editor (Lyndon Pugh) and production manager (John MacColl), both of whom contributed substantially to the commissioning side of the operation. In addition, UKOLN is this month launching a second electronic magazine, Exploit Interactive. We are therefore grateful to Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus) for a good deal of editorial assistance for this issue, in addition to his usual contribution, and also to the many contributors who supplied material well ahead of the deadline. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/minotaur/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/minotaur/ There are several questions, which have been puzzling me since July 1997. That was the month I started using OSS (Open Source Software) and I have to thank Apple for pushing me in that direction. Apple was not making stable operating system software then. So, along with several thousands of the faithful, I jumped ship. Didn’t move to the evil empire - having already found that by avoiding Microsoft products you did not create too many problems for yourself! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/rowlatt/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/rowlatt/ SEAMLESS is a two year research project, funded by the British Library, which aims to develop a new model for citizens’ information - one which is distributed, and based on partnerships and common standards. The objectives of the SEAMLESS project are to: build strong and sustainable partnerships between the various information providers operating in the regiondevelop and implement common standards (technical and informational) so as to achieve interoperability between their systems and datadevelop a SEAMLESS interface which will allow simultaneous querying of distributed information sources (whether stored in a database, made available on a website, or in word processed documents) and return all the information back to the user in a unified listfacilitate electronic communication between the information providers and their customers, and between the various participating agenciesdevelop a current awareness/alerting service for users (second phase)Currently the project team (Essex Libraries, Fretwell Downing Data Systems Ltd. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/search-engines/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/search-engines/ Internet Sleuth It’s always an interesting challenge writing a new column for a magazine, be it an electronic or hardcopy publication, particularly if the column itself isn’t new, as is the case here. I’ve always been an enthusiastic reader of the things that Tracy Stanley (previous regular contributor to this column - Editor) has written, and I’ll do my best to also bring you something of interest. I’d like to begin by pointing you towards a search engine that I use on a regular basis, called the Internet Sleuth (to be found at http://www. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/disinhe/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/disinhe/ There is a growing need for teaching and learning technology to be more accessible to students and staff with disabilities. The changes in the DSA (Disability Discrimination Act) which will come into force in October this year and the new European Human Rights Legislation which will be with us by the year 2000 all makes it imperative that designers of educational web sites, CD ROM software and all other technological developments take note of this new (at least to the UK) wave of legislation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/unix/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/unix/ Email Use at UKOLNUKOLN is a small research group based at the University of Bath. Software used by UKOLN staff probably reflects staff usage through the University, and is probably not too dissimilar to usage at other UK universities - most staff use a PC running MS Windows 95 or Windows NT and use Microsoft Office applications, although there are a number who prefer Unix systems are make use of X-Windows or Linux on their PC. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/web-focus/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/web-focus/ The WebWatch project [1], which was based at UKOLN, involved the development and use of a variety of tools to analyse web resources and web servers. During the early development of the software, individual summaries (particularly of outliers in the statistical data) were often required in order to check that the software was working correctly. Initially summaries were obtained using simple Unix scripts. For example the urlget script displayed the HTTP headers for a resource as illustrated below: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/catriona/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/catriona/ Background to the Survey The CATRIONA II project is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) through its Electronic Libraries (eLib) programme. The main objective of the project is to investigate approaches to the creation and management of electronic resources at Scottish universities. In the first phase of the project, an in-depth survey was conducted into electronic resource creation at six institutions. This ‘Resource Creation’ survey found that high volumes of quality electronic teaching and research material exist within institutions (90% of staff report that they have created such material), but that it is not generally available (only 31% say they have some accessible material). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/cedars/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/cedars/ In recent years, libraries have been fortunate to have increasing access to new and innovative digital resources. A number of factors contribute to this trend: advances in networking technology and the growth of the JANET network mean that UK libraries can deliver more information more quickly directly to their end-users; an influx of funding following on from the Follett Report has provided libraries with an opportunity to experiment with and integrate new technologies into the services they provide; the emergence of consortium purchasing (i. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/knowledge-mgt/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/knowledge-mgt/ Over the last twelve months Knowledge Management (KM) has become the latest hot topic in the business world. There has been a phenomenal growth in interest and activity, as seen in many new publications, conferences, IT products, and job advertisements (including a post advertised by HEFCE). Various professional groups, notably HR professionals, IT specialists, and librarians, are staking their claims, seeing KM as an opportunity to move centre stage. People often used to describe librarianship as the organisation of recorded knowledge, so perhaps our time has come? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/revill/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/revill/ Having read recent government reports, and returning now to the position of being a mere user contemplating a forty four year career in education for librarianship, libraries and (one must now add) information services, it strikes me that little has changed over the years. The problems the profession faced in the 50s and 60s are still with us. There are still many politically-charged questions that we are unable to answer convincingly, including how much it costs to provide library services for each successfully educated chemist, physicist, sociologist, geographer …… and how big the book (materials) fund should be, other than, of course, by asking “How much have you got? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/examnet/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/examnet/ Abstract The ExamNet project offers access to past De Montfort University examination papers in electronic form. Exam papers from the past three semesters have been scanned and indexed and are available to all students, members of staff and researchers within De Montfort University via the World Wide Web. This article discusses why and how the system was implemented and offers guidelines for library and information systems developers at other educational institutions who may be considering setting up a similar service. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/tasi/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/tasi/ The Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) was established by the Joint Information Systems Council (JISC) to advise and support the Higher Education community on the digital creation, storage and delivery of image based information. The objectives of TASI are to: share and promote technical expertise and standards within the academic and public sectors enable the academic community to develop digital archives of good quality image-related materials to support effective teaching and research by providing comprehensive information and advice. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/what-is/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/what-is/ Users of the Web are familiar with URLs, the Uniform Resource Locators. A URL is a locator for a network accessible resource. Such a locator can be considered an identifier for the resource that it refers to. Depending on the interpretation of identification, various different attributes of a resource could be considered as an identifier for that resource. However, what comprises a functional resource identifier depends upon the context in which that identifier will be used. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/elib-review/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/elib-review/ "The Vice Chancellor may take some time in replying to your query regarding the effectiveness of cultural change, as I have to print out his email, and transcribe and re-key the reply for him. Health and safety regulations here mean that we dissuade him from using his computer whenever possible" That quote isn’t a snippet from this weeks Laurie Taylor column on the back of the Times Higher, but my favourite email from three years of being involved with eLib. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/alac98/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/alac98/ "I pressed F1, but you didn’t come over to help." "If they are clicking they are looking for information. If they are typing we tell them to stop because they are using Hotmail." "The most important issue in electronic delivery is printing." …Just a few quotes from the American Library Association conference in Washington DC at the end of June. Why was I at ALA? Well, like a lot of you who go to the Online Exhibition in December I entered various free draws without much thought for them. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/main/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/main/ This article does not tackle its subject from the theoretical perspectives and careful evaluation of the merits and demerits of different organisational models, such as one might find in a textbook on management. Rather does it seek to introduce some of the basic issues and concepts by drawing on the experience of organisational change at the University of Birmingham, where a fully converged Information Services has been in operation since October 1995, with an annual turnover of £12 million and 270 fte staff. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/news/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/news/ The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter For Librarians & Information Specialists Now in its second year of publication, The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter For Librarians & Information Specialists covers issues such as privacy for web sites, copyright collectives and print and electronic copying, the European copyright scene and reviews of copyright web sites for libraries, museums and archives. A print newsletter, with email alerts between issues, subscribers are also entitled to a free subscription to the electronic newsletter Copyright & New Media Legal News. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/ukolug/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/ukolug/ Celebrating a significant birthday, this conference featured retrospection as well as prediction and picked up on some of the repeating patterns inherent in electronic information and retrieval systems. Charles Oppenheim began with a retrospective on the birth and development of UKOLUG (Birth of a Generation), commenting on the importance of archives despite having been there himself - his memory and the official record differing somewhat alarmingly. He conveyed the sense of frantic activity during the early years of online and the ability that UKOLUG had to shape the emergent industry - a theme picked up the next day by John December who was to challenge librarians to shape the web. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/view-hill/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/view-hill/ 50,000 years ago, so archaeological evidence says, Neanderthal Man carved on the tooth of the Woolly Mammoth. In 2600 BCE scribes were employed in Egypt and the oldest existing document written on papyrus is from 2200 BCE. In AD 105 T'sai Lun invented paper and by 600 books were printed in China. By 765 picture books were printed in Japan. By 950 folded books appeared in China and in Europe in 1453 Johannes Gutenberg used moveable type for printing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/events/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/events/ IntroductionA conference on Electronic Access: Archives in the New Milennium was held at the Public Record Office (PRO) [1], Kew, on 3-4 June 1998. The Conference was held as part of the UK Presidency of the European Union. Present (over the two days) were about one hundred and twenty delegates representing a large number of organisations based in the European Union, countries in east-central Europe and the Russian Federation. The conference opening speech was given by Geoff Hoon MP who is Parliamentary Secretary to the Lord Chancellor. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/heron/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/heron/ In August 1998, the HERON (Higher Education Resources Online) project will begin to create a resource bank of teaching and learning support materials for higher education. Funded by eLib and overseen by the CEI (Committee on Electronic Information) the entire resource will have copyright clearance and will be based on a consortium of the universities of Stirling, Napier and South Bank, with Blackwell’s Information Services and Blackwell Retail Ltd. It will draw on the combined technical, marketing and project management skills of both the university and the private sector. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/delos/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/delos/ Since 1996 the DELOS Working Group [1] has organised a series of workshops with the intention of promoting research into the further development of digital library technologies. Castelo dos Templários, Tomar The sixth workshop in the DELOS series was held in the Hotel dos Templários, Tomar (Portugal) on the 17th - 19th June 1998 [2]. Tomar is a small town about 140 km. north of Lisbon and is famous for its Templar castle and the magnificent Convento de Christo, an UNESCO World Heritage Site [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/main/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/main/ The imperative for widening access to educational opportunity and attainment shows no sign of abating if recent national reports inter alia : Dearing, Kennedy and Fryer are considered indicators of interest. These reports, and government exhortation in United Kingdom, encourage delivery through vision, strategic thinking and resource application. This, together with the Prime Minister’s announcement of an additional half million students in further and higher education by 2002, suggest it is timely to consider the role of the library support services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/digital/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/digital/ The latest estimate of the number of Web sites worldwide is almost 2.25 million [1]. It is part of the job of many of us - librarians or information managers - to select what our users will find useful from this mass of information. How do we decide whether or not to add details of an Internet site to our resource guide or Web page? What criteria should we use when recommending Internet resources to an individual or class? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/view-hill/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/view-hill/ Birkbeck CollegeAn institution owing its origins to a 19th Century Mechanics’ Institute, yet with 40% of its work at postgraduate level, a high research rating and only 5% of its fte drawn from full time students is a place where you might reasonably expect a pragmatic mix of the old and the new in its attitude to widening access. You would not be disappointed as Philippa Dolphin begins to describe her approach to the issue. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/what-is/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/what-is/ BackgroundThe What Is …? article in the last edition of Ariadne gave an introduction to XML, the Extensible Markup Language [1]. XML has been developed to overcome HTML’s lack of extensibility - with XML you will be able to define your own element tags. We have already seen a variety of communities defining element tags for use within their community, such as MathML [2] and MusicML [3]. Besides lacking extensibility, HTML is also limited in its hyperlinking functionality. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/digital/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/digital/ During the supporting study the authors consulted various stake-holders in the creation, distribution and use of digital materials. A number of recommendations arose from this study and are presented in this paper. These recommendations are not official policy and represent the authors’ views of one possible way forward for ensuring that potentially valued digital materials are preserved for future study and use. How the study originatedThe JISC-funded study on ‘Responsibility for long term preservation and access to digital materials’ extended beyond rights holders to include all stakeholders in the production, exploitation, distribution and preservation of digital materials (see Figure 1 below). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/news/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/news/ Government response to New Library: The People’s Network.On April 16th the Government issued its response to New Library: The People’s Network. Accompanied by statements by Tony Blair and Margaret Beckett, the statement was generally welcomed by the LIC and the LA. “New Library: The People’s Network” the Government’s Response identified the potential library service contribution to some major policy objectives. These included education, public access to information, social inclusion and the modernisation of public services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/builder/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/builder/ BUILDER is an eLib Hybrid Library project based at Birmingham University. It aims to develop a working model of the hybrid library to support both teaching and research through providing unified access to a wide range of printed and electronic information sources, local and remote, using a standard Web-based Intranet interface. It is known as The Birmingham University Integrated Library Development and Electronic Resource (http://builder.bham.ac.uk) and the model will be based on a series of six inter-related modules which will be developed for and applied across six subject areas. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/cover/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/cover/ Project PATRON (Performing Arts Teaching Resources ONline) has been designed to deliver digital audio, video, music scores and dance notation across a high speed network to the desktop. The JISC eLib Programme project is based in the Library at the University of Surrey. Many of the resource materials are in the short loan section and one of the aims is to investigate ways of improving access to reserve materials, such as music CDs and dance videos, for staff and students. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/routes/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/routes/ ROUTES is a gateway developed by the Open University Library as part of the Network Access Project (NAP). The project is funded by the Open University’s Office for Technology Development, and will run until April 2000, whereupon the work will be integrated into normal Library functions. ROUTES is part of the OU Library’s strategy to develop electronic library services, and is one of several Library research projects which aim to exploit new technologies and applications. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/search-engines/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/search-engines/ <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//SoftQuad//DTD HoTMetaL PRO 4.0::19971010::extensions to HTML 4.0//EN” “hmpro4.dtd”> New search engines appear all the time on the web. Usually there is little to choose between the tools available other than the largely cosmetic differences of interface design However, every so often a new search engine comes along which seems to promise to take us to the ‘next level’ of web searching in terms of capability and functionality. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/tapin/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/tapin/ TAPin is now in the final stages of a wide dissemination process, culminating in the publication of The Impact Study. The main aim of the project was to enhance the expertise of academic staff in the exploitation of networked information resources while also underpinning the network competencies of library and academic staff. The IT cultures within specific disciplines were researched, and the extent and nature of IT resources in the collaborating institutions were then established as a means of facilitating the development and delivery of materials. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/ccc/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/ccc/ The Web and legal deposit Paul Auchterlonie, University of Exeter Library (J.P.C.Auchterlonie@exeter.ac.uk) asked: From what I have read of your column in Ariadne, any downloading and storage by an ordinary library of material from a Web site is a straightforward infringement of copyright, unless the agreement of the copyright owner is obtained in advance. However, if this permission is granted, are there any other laws, preventing the library from making material produded on a Web site or in e-journal form available to its readers in hard-copy? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/eddis/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/eddis/ The eLib programme categorises EDDIS as a document delivery project, but the concept is broader. EDDIS is an acronym for electronic document delivery, the integrated solution meaning the integration of document discovery, location, request and receipt into a seamless operation for the end user. It also means integration with library mediation and management work flow in which requests may be supplied as electronic documents or hard copy either for retention or return. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/catriona/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/catriona/ Key questions The CATRIONA II eLib-funded project is in the process of examining approaches to the creation and management of electronic research and teaching resources at Scottish universities, looking in particular at the following key questions: To what extent are academics creating electronic RAE-level research material?; To what extent are they creating electronic teaching material of value beyond the local institution? Is the material in deliverable and usable form and is it accessible? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/netskills-corner/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/netskills-corner/ Paul Garrud, Issue 8 of Ariadne, looked at how multimedia might be used online in a medical context (patient education), and started from the premise that “ one shouldn’t neglect the presentation and visual impact of educational packages because they engage the user’s motivation, attention and aesthetic sense”. Paul nicely encapsulates in one sentence the difficulties of designing with multimedia in mind. In Issue 12 of Ariadne Brian Kelly discussed how widely some of the newer Web technologies are being used in UK university and HE college home pages. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/news/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/news/ National Networking Demonstrator Project for archives launchThe Archives Sub-Committee is organising a meeting to launch the NNDP which it has instigated and funded through the Non Formula Funding of Specialised Research Collections monitoring programme on 18 March. The Meeting is open to archivists and interested parties and is intended to be a platform for public review of the project’s developments. The NNDP aims to implement cross-searching of multi-level archival data, originating from numerous sources, primarily but not exclusively in the HE sector, as presented in a wide variety of formats (from EAD, to fielded data in a MODES system, to catalogue entries in Word 6). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/cni-conf/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/cni-conf/ The US Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) held its Fall Task Force Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota on the 26⁄27 of October. As JISC’s International Liaison I had the opportunity to attend and did so despite reports of record low temperatures! Minneapolis is a very cold city (even by the standards of a Canadian) and I was grateful to CNI that they didn’t decide to hold the Fall meeting at the beginning of December as they did in 1996. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/editorials/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/editorials/ In addition to the articles mentioned by Lyndon Pugh in the print editorial, Ariadne, the web version has several articles and features to interest even the most world weary. Oliver de Peyer reminds us all what it is like to be on the receiving end of the ‘end-user’ revolution whereas Brian Kelly looks forward to the latest dynamic HTML. Also on offer is timely advice from Jon Knight on the problems encountered when using networked CD ROM redirectors with Windows 95 or NT, Walter Scales looks at bad and good web design and Rachel Heery explains RDF. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/web-focus/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/web-focus/ Background to HTMLHTML was designed primarily to define the basic structure of documents. Documents contained headings (<H1>, <H2>, etc.), paragraphs (<HP>), list items (<LI>), etc. Web browsers, such as Netscape and Internet Explorer could then display the document structure, with headers displayed in a large font, list items with bullets, etc. HTML’s simplicity was instrumental in the Web’s early growth in popularity. Web pages could be produced very easily, since there was no need to master a complicated language. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/ccc/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/ccc/ Reproduction of Table of Contents Nicholas Joint, Andersonian Library, University of Strathclyde, asked: This puzzles me- it is clearly a breach of copyright to digitise tables of contents from journals and circulate them to library users as a form of current awareness service without explicit prior permission from the copyright holder for each Table of Contents (TOC). The table of contents is effectively the first complete article in a journal and has to be treated as such. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/headline/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/headline/ HEADLINE (HYBRID Electronic Access and Delivery in the Library Networked Environment) is one of the Hybrid Libraries projects funded under the eLib Phase 3 programme. Starting in January 1998 and running for three years, the project aims to develop and implement a working model of the hybrid library in a range of real-life academic situations. The project partners are the London School of Economics, the London Business School and the University of Hertfordshire. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/news/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/news/ The Next UKOLN Conference, Summer 1998Information landscapes for a learning society is the title of the next UKOLN conference, to be held at the University of Bath from 29th June - 1st July 1998. It is the third in the Networking and the Future of Libraries conference series and marks the 21st anniversary of UKOLN and its antecedent organisations at the University of Bath. The conference will be opened by Brian Lang, Chief Executive of the British Library, with the closing address by Clifford Lynch, the Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) in Washington. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/editorials/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/editorials/ In this edition of the Web version of Ariadne there are two “at the event” reports: one from Lisa Gray of OMNI, looking at the Online 97 exhibition in Olympia in December from the biomedical perspective. Philip Hunter reports from a European Library Telematics conference held in Warsaw under the auspices of the local FEMIRC in the first week of December. Among the regular columns Brian Kelly outlines the benefits of associate membership of The World Wide Web Consortium (W3c) in his Web Focus corner. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/web-focus/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/web-focus/ Launch of the W3C-LA InitiativeOn Wednesday 3rd December Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist who invented the World Wide Web, was one of the guest speakers at a meeting held in London to mark the launch of the W3C-LA, an initiative funded by the European Union’s Esprit programme aimed at leveraging the Web for European Industry. The meeting [1] provided an opportunity for W3C staff members to summarise recent developments to web protocols. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/consortium/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/consortium/ Billed as an opportunity to explore the complex issues involved in forming consortia and negotiating site licences, the subtitle of this one-day seminar was What do we really want? The short answer from the delegates may have been we don’t really know. This was reason enough for over 150 of us to attend and grapple with some new concepts and terminology. The increasing impact of consortia and site licensing upon all those involved in scholarly communication was reflected by the varied background of the delegates, with representatives from a wide range of publishers, information intermediaries and information providers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/ccc/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/ccc/ Questions raised by The Royals Fytton Rowland, Lecturer, and Programme Tutor for Information and Publishing Studies, Department of Information and Library Studies, Loughborough University, asked a series of questions sparked off by the publication of Kitty Kelly’s book about the royal family [Charles] Assuming the UK courts state the book is defamatory, in my view the answers to Fytton’s questions are: 1. If I go to the USA, buy a legitimate copy of the book in a bookshop, and bring it back to the UK in my suitcase, am I infringing any law, and could customs confiscate it? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/news/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/news/ EC funds second phase of TOLIMAC library smart card projectMonday, October 20th, 1997 Contact: Françoise Vandooren, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bibliotheques, Av. Franklin Roosevelt 50, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgique Tel: 32 2 650 23 80 Fax: 32 2 650 41 86 email: fdooren@ulb.ac.beor Contact: Anne Ramsden, International Institute for Electronic Library Research De Montfort University Milton Keynes, Hammerwood Gate, Kents Hill, Milton Keynes, MK7 6HP Tel: 44 1908 834924 Fax: 44 1908 834929 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/on-demand/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/on-demand/ On Demand Publishing in the Humanities [1], apart from being the most acronymically challenged of eLib’s progeny, was one of the earliest projects to start, and will shortly conclude. The project deliverable was the creation of a set of electronic modules for Humanities students, combining lecturers’ materials with copyright materials provided by publishers. One of the interesting things about doing research is the way that one is occasionally ambushed by one’s result. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/public-libraries/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/public-libraries/ New Library: the People’s Network has had an overwhelmingly positive reception. Caveat and qualification may exist but they have been submerged in enthusiasm, gratitude even, for the vision the report presents of a renovated public library service and the specific recommendations by which it might be achieved. Its content succeeds in making its readers feel positive about the future of a strong social institution, committed to the communication and preservation of knowledge, imagination and learning in all their manifestations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/editorials/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/editorials/ It’s new faces all round, as we welcome both Philip Hunter at UKOLN and Lyndon Pugh to the Ariadne team. We hope you find us all, and more particularly the articles, to your liking. This issue of the web version has its usual crop of features in addition to all the material that you can read in your printed copy. Charles Oppenhiem answers even more copyright queries and Lorcan Dempsey looks at the latest report on networking public libraries, while the Librarians’ Resources section takes a look at the all new NISS service. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/bulisc97/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/bulisc97/ The Bournemouth University Library & Information Services Conference, 1997, was organised and hosted by David Ball at the Talbot Campus between 27th and 29th August. The title of “New Tricks 2” reflected the interesting in new developments in library automation and digital resources. The theme of comparing eLib and Telematics funded projects was a very interesting and useful one with a surprising amount of synergy. The three days were organised in the familiar format of a half day for registration, introduction and conference dinner; a second day for the bulk of presentations structured in a two-tier manner with general themes for the individual sessions; and a final half day for summing up and debate. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/main/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/main/ Charles Handy, the management guru, tells us: Thirty years ago most people thought that change would mean more of the same, only better. That was incremental change and to be welcomed. Today we know that in many areas of life we cannot guarantee more of the same … [we] cannot even predict with confidence what will be happening in our own lives [1]. The sense of uncertainty engendered by rapid and unpredictable change is as evident in Higher Education (HE) as in politics, the National Health Service, the media, or in business and commerce. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/conference/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/conference/ One month before the Dearing Report was published, when the findings of the National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education still amounted to no more than an insistent trickle of leaks, a major conference considered digital libraries in a rapidly changing HE sector. Beyond the Beginning: The Global Digital Library, held in London on 16-17 June, was co-ordinated by UKOLN and represented a joint effort by JISC, the US Coalition for Networked Information, the BLRIC, CAUSE - the Society for academic computing staff in the US, and the Council of Australian University Librarians. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/ccc/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/ccc/ Old photos From Dr. Raymond Turley, Southampton University: I am still confused about the position of elderly photographs following relatively recent changes to UK copyright law. I have yet to see a reasonably definitive statement of what the situation now is, and the last time I looked into the matter, it seemed that in some cases in order to determine whether or not an old photograph is in copyright (or likely to be so), you had to be aware of how it might be treated under the law of another EU state! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/dl97/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/dl97/ The ACM conference on Digital Libraries is, despite its short life, the premier conference for the field. This year the computer scientists, librarians and all those in-between travelled to Philadelphia in Pennsylvania for ACM Digital Libraries ‘97 [1]. The conference, from 23-26 July, took place in the Doubletree Hotel [2] in downtown Philly and was co-located with the more technical SIGIR ‘97 [3]. All of the usual conference elements were present with 28 papers, 2 invited talks, tutorials, workshops and a session for posters/demonstrations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/edbank/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/edbank/ The Open University Library working with Routledge Publishers and the Open University (OU)'s School of Education and Rights Department aims to create, maintain and run a database of digitised teaching materials to support remote (off campus) students in teacher training. In order to achieve our aim Edbank [1] requires: teaching materialspermission to store electronically those sections of "text" (within these materials) that belong to third parties - rights clearancesan appropriate database and a means to make it accessible. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/edd/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/edd/ Following the original Electronic Document Delivery (EDD) trial using Blackwell’s Uncover Service, a number of recommendations were made which led to an investigation into other document delivery services available on the market. The criteria used to decide which services would best suit the needs of the user, and the University of Bath Library staff who would be carrying out the trial are outlined in the first article of this two-part series (Williams). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/libtech/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/libtech/ Four eLib projects: three electronic reserve projects, ResIDe [1], ACORN [2], PATRON [3], and one on-demand project, SCOPE [4], introduced and led a discussion about the difficulties/problems facing those who wish to digitise, store and disseminate copyrighted information. Each project outlined their own specific copyright problems and approaches to solving them; giving examples of their experiences, their successes, failures and lessons learnt. They emphasised that they were unable to give anyone any clear advice on how to approach requests for copyright clearance or how to solve their own specific problems, but they were able to report what they had done, what conclusions they had drawn in the context of their own projects and experiences and give tips, for example, about identifying copyright owners, contacting them, writing letters, sending out reminders, dealing with royalties and with refusals. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/babel/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/babel/ Welcome once more to the Library of Babel. [1] At today’s lunch we will be discussing some of the economic issues raised by our uniquely comprehensive acquisitions programme, and a possible solution. First, the problem. This Library’s goal, as those who have visited previously will know, is to acquire or otherwise collect and (eventually) to catalogue all expressions of human knowledge. We have previously discussed questions raised by the huge outpouring of grey and darker material through the new electronic media, and will have to return to these. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/editorials/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/editorials/ This is my first attempt at editing an issue of Ariadne, the Web Version. I hope you find it up to stratch! Unsurprisingly, as this is the first issue since the long vacation, this issue is particularly strong in conference reports in the At The Event section. Thanks to Christine Dugdale and Jackie Chelin there is even a report from Libtech ‘97, which has only just finished as I write this editorial. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/web-focus/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/web-focus/ About The Workshop Excellent; good opportunity to update knowledge and meet other, A much needed workshop. Very useful to hear from speakers and finding out about other sites from discussion groups. Same again next year please! , Extremely useful and timely . Just three of the comments received from participants of the workshop on Running An Institutional Web Service. The workshop was held at King’s College London from lunchtime on Wednesday, 16th July until lunchtime the following day. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/sunsite/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/sunsite/ Few topics in librarianship seem as "hot" these days as digital libraries, and yet for all the heat being generated there is little light. What are digital libraries? How are they built? How are they maintained and preserved? How will they be funded? These questions and more abound, while answers are few and far between. We don't have all the answers, but we're a great place to start looking for them. 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/10/bubl/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/bubl/ BUBL Basics BUBL provides a national information service for two audiences: the higher education community in general, and the library and information science community in particular. The BUBL Information Service was relaunched on 23 March 1997. The new URL is http://bubl.ac.uk/ BUBL is now based entirely at Strathclyde University Library. It moved from UKOLN in Bath during the first quarter of 1997. BUBL is not an acronym. Although it began as the BUlletin Board for Libraries back in 1990, it has been trying to drop this label for the past three years. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/cultural/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/cultural/ As part of the eLib programme's overall evaluation activities, a recent eLib Supporting Study has been investigating something called 'Mobilisation effects of eLib activities on cultural change in higher education' (HE). This article describes what on earth that title means, and what we've been finding out about the 'culture' of eLib. The study, funded by JISC, is managed by the Tavistock Institute and ends this July. Among our activities, we've interviewed various key people in eLib, and examined project and programme deliverables for views and evidence about cultural change issues. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/clifford/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/clifford/ Z39.50 has been around for a long time, now - why do you think it has not been assimilated into networked retrieval applications and technologies to the extent of e.g. CD-ROMs, the Web? I think that Z39.50 is now well established for large, if you will, mainframe or server-based systems. Certainly, those folks who wonder what real Z39.50 systems are in use could look at institutions like the University of California, where we have had it in production for a number of years, and we're using it every day to provide access to our community of close to a quarter of a million people, to resources mounted at places like OCLC and RLG. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/copyright/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/copyright/ Digitisation of copyright works and other protected objects has many benefits for the user not least in terms of ease of access, however, for the rights owners it can represent both an opportunity and a threat. It allows materials to be distributed speedily on the networks, increases accessibility and opens up new markets, and yet there is also the danger of loss of sales through unauthorised use and exploitation of these same materials. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/dublin/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/dublin/ The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (the Dublin Core) [1] is a 15 element metadata set that is primarily intended to aid resource discovery on the Web. The elements in the Dublin Core are TITLE, SUBJECT, DESCRIPTION, CREATOR, PUBLISHER, CONTRIBUTOR, DATE, TYPE, FORMAT, IDENTIFIER, SOURCE, LANGUAGE, RELATION, COVERAGE and RIGHTS. As we begin to consider some initial implementations using the Dublin Core we need to consider how best to manage large amounts of metadata across a Web-site. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/ercoms/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/ercoms/ The ERCOMS [1] project, one of eLib’s electronic short loan projects, focuses on electronic copyright management. The partners in the project are the International Institute for Electronic Library Research [2] at De Montfort University [3], the Library and GeoData Institute at Southampton University, and The Open University Library. The Project takes advantage of current Web technologies, in the form of Java programs, mod-Perl and mSQL database tools, to facilitate the development of a generic copyright management system for Web- based electronic reserves. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/edd/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/edd/   The BackgroundIn November 1994 members of the library staff met to discuss the feasibility of setting up an experiment in Electronic Document Delivery (EDD). This was a result of the continued increase of periodical prices above the rate of inflation; the increasing difficulty in subscribing to core journals caused by price increases and the need to create more space in the Library. The Deputy Librarian produced statistics which showed that 102 journals subscribed to by the Library cost over 800 pounds each i. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/journals/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/journals/ Most staff and students in UK higher education now have online access to hundreds of academic journals, thanks to the HEFCs Pilot Site Licence scheme. Many more journals are also available in electronic form, access to which must be negotiated separately. The total number of electronic journals is now so large that the most ostrich-like of librarians can no longer ignore them. A recent posting to lis-elib maintained that "There will be 3000+ e-journals based on existing publications alone (i. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/omni-corner/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/omni-corner/ I have never been to any US city that is anything like Seattle. This is not as impressive as it sounds at first as I have only ever been to one other US city, and that was Washington DC, but I feel confident that Seattle is something out of the ordinary. It has weather worthy of comparison with the British summer. It has an efficient and friendly bus service, free within the downtown area. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/editorials/jm.html Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/editorials/jm.html In the mind of optimists, new computing and communications technologies are hard at work smoothing the path towards an ideal future. For pessimists, they combine to seduce us into activities which will ultimately ruin us because of the prevalence of foolish optimism. In our profession, it is possible to be either optimistic or pessimistic about the changes which are occurring. What we cannot simply assume, however, is that any of the key professional concerns of the last hundred years have simply disappeared from the agenda. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/british-library/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/british-library/ The British Library Research and Innovation Centre’s Digital Library Research Programme aims to help the library and information community formulate an appropriate and effective response to the challenge posed by the ‘digital library’. It also seeks to address the issues raised by rapid technological change for library staff and users, and to assess its relevance for the information needs of the wider community. We believe that few greater challenges face libraries and information services today. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/view-hill/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/view-hill/ The Authors’ Licencing and Collecting Society (ALCS) [1] has an international role in ensuring that UK authors are paid for the use of their works. As such, it is represented in various international groups, which means a healthy globe-trotting schedule for its recently appointed new Secretary General, Chris Zielinski. On the morning that we met in his office overlooking Oxford Street in London, he was in early, trying to catch up with mail which has accumulated during his most recent trip, to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) conference in Seville. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/web-focus/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/web-focus/ In April a former colleague of mine from Leeds University sent a message to me about a strange copyright statement she had come across on the web, and asked for my comments. I was also intrigued by the statement and, on 23 April, sent the following message to the lis-elib Mailbase list   A strange copyright statment (sic) at the URL http://clans.cla.co.uk/www/auths.html has been brought to my attention. It states that readers are not authorised to: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/acorn/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/acorn/ Project ACORN (Access to Course Readings via Networks) is one of eLib’s electronic reserve projects. It is a partnership between Loughborough University, Swets & Zeitlinger B.V., and Leicester University. Acorn Launch Having gained permission to digitise 211 (66%) of the journal articles requested from 54 (60%) of the publishers approached, ACORN is now preparing to launch on April 21st. Library staff training was undertaken in the week beginning March 3rd. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/cain/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/cain/ Many people remain hopeful that the violent conflict in Northern Ireland will end in the near future. ‘The Troubles’ represent the violent expression of the different constitutional, political, religious and cultural allegiances of the two main communities. It is recognised, however, that an end to the violence will not in itself heal the serious fracture in Northern Ireland society. The divisions in Northern Ireland have been present for over 300 years and will continue. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/elvira/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/elvira/ As regular readers of ‘Ariadne’ will know, the fourth annual ELVIRA conference has just taken place at Milton Keynes. The following article is based on my general impressions of the event. A more detailed and complete account can be found in the collected papers, which have been published by Aslib [1] . The ‘extended abstracts’ originally submitted for review are online at the ELVIRA Web site [2]. In the keynote address to the conference, Brian Cook (Griffith University, Queensland, Australia) identified the issues facing people working in the electronic (aka digital/virtual) library field. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/eurotext/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/eurotext/ Even in university libraries with a European Documentation Centre (EDC), students frequently experience difficulties in identifying and locating official publications on European Union (EU) policies. Competition between students for a single copy often leads to theft and vandalism. Fewer than half of the universities in the UK have an EDC and a database of the texts of the key documents for each EU policy would be a major contribution to teaching and learning about the European Union. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/ocean-rim/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/ocean-rim/ The Indian Ocean Rim Web Site [1] advances the scope of development studies researchers by providing access to material which has been difficult to obtain, and by offering a forum for researchers around the world, especially in the region, to network. The Virtual Library is fully searchable, containing documents (free from copyright) in full text, research abstracts, subscription details for journals and reports from countries within the region. The Indian Ocean Rim Region Site also provides researchers and students with a directory of Researchers and includes the opportunity to register their work, thus promoting the vast body of research currently within the region. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/midrib-launch/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/midrib-launch/ A picture paints a thousand words, and in the field of medicine, images are essential. The recent launch of MIDRIB (Medical Images Digitised Reference Information Bank) [1] , and the announcement of the Visible Human Dataset UK Mirror, have demonstrated JISC’s [2] determination to provide high quality content in this area for the UK higher education and research community. Medical images are extremely diverse in both their content and modality, and can range from illustrations of medical equipment, to radiological images, to 3-D objects. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/acorn-training/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/acorn-training/ The JISC-funded eLib project, Project ACORN [1] was set up to explore the mechanisms for establishing an electronic ‘short-loan’ collection of journal articles for undergraduate students. Having received permission to make 236 high-demand journal articles from the reading lists of the departments of Geography, Human Sciences and Information and Library Studies available to registered undergraduates over the University computer network, the next vital step was to prepare students to use the new service prior to its launch on April 21st. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/redd/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/redd/ REDD is the Regional Electronic Document Delivery Service. The service began life in 1995 as a co-operative project of three libraries in Brisbane, The University of Queensland, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology. A successful grant application was made to the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training to “develop and implement electronic technologies to enable rapid request, scanning (converting to digital images) and electronic delivery of materials via the Internet”. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/scope/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/scope/ The Scottish Collaborative On-demand Publishing Enterprise (SCOPE) [1] is investigating some of the copyright and logistical issues raised by on-demand publishing in academic libraries. We are producing course packs from digital files and developing an electronic resource bank of teaching and learning materials to be transmitted over the Internet and delivered online to staff and students at a consortium of 13 Scottish Higher Education Institutions. The Project team seeks to establish whether an electronic resource bank of journal articles and book chapters is more effective than traditional means of delivering teaching and learning materials. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/digitising/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/digitising/ The State Library of Victoria has dedicated itself to becoming a Library of the Future. It has embraced the possibilities that Multimedia has to offer and is working towards developing an on- line collection of digitised materials for the world to access. The establishment of the Multimedia Source Project is evidence of this and reflects the main role of the State Library which is to preserve the cultural heritage of the State of Victoria. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/babel/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/babel/ Good morning, and welcome to the Library of Babel. Many of you will have heard of this great institution of learning only through the melancholy brochure produced for us by Jorge Luis Borges [1] in 1941. As, however, you will discover in the course of our tours, it is in the nature of this Library that the more closely one searches for the details of its foundation, the more complication one finds. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/digitisation/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/digitisation/ The Australian Cooperative Digitisation Project, 1840-45 [1] (ACDP) is a collaborative project between the University of Sydney Library, the State Library of New South Wales, the National Library of Australia and Monash University Library funded through a Australian Research Council (ARC) Research Infrastructure (Facilities and Equipment) Program grant. This funding, unlike the Elib [2] projects or projects in the US sponsored under the auspices of the Commission for Preservation and Access or the National Digital Library Federation [3] is not directed to the funding of digital library initiatives. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/global-digital/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/global-digital/ This international conference, with the overall theme of “Realising the Digital Library”, will feature invited speakers from around the world, including Australia, Europe, Japan and the United States. The conference is being coordinated by UKOLN on behalf of JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee for the Higher Education Funding Councils), the British Library Research & Innovation Centre, CNI (the Coalition for Networked Information, Washington), CAUSE (the Association for Managing and Using Information Resources in Higher Education, Colorado) and CAUL (the Council of Australian University Libraries). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/down-your-way/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/down-your-way/   Based in Kensington, London, the Natural History Museum [1] is housed in a building of palatial size and architecture. The museum houses one of the largest collections of naturally- occurring objects in the world, its holdings running to 68 million objects, a collection so large that less than a tenth of one percent is on display at any one time. Every conceivable type of animal, plant and mineral is represented, as well as a surprisingly large collection of books, art (one of the largest collections of art on paper in the UK), journals and other literature. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/elvira/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/elvira/ Springtime in Milton Keynes means blossom on our famous shrubs, daffodils on our famous roundabouts, and at De Montfort the sound of busy people preparing for this year’s ELVIRA [1]. While the endless controversy rages over pronouncing the conference’s name (which stands for Electronic Library and Visual Information Research), all is progressing well. Whether pronounced with Vera Duckworth or the ‘Queen of Darkness’ in mind, ELVIRA’s an old lady now in relation to most digital library conferences. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/electronic-formats/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/electronic-formats/ Every day, subscribers to the the NewJour mailing list [1] receive notification of new Internet-available electronic serials. The NewJour definition of a serial covers everything from journals to magazines and newsletters; from the British Accounting Review to Ariadne, to The (virtual) Baguette and I Love My Nanny. Some days, a dozen or more publications are announced. As of 13th February 1997, the NewJour archive contained 3,240 items. Most of these electronic serials, or e-serials, along with most other electronic publications currently available on the World Wide Web, are stored and represented using one or more of a relatively limited number of document formats. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/electronic-reserve/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/electronic-reserve/ Monash University is one of the largest universities in Australia. It has six campuses, five in metropolitan Melbourne, of which the biggest is in the suburb of Clayton, approximately 30 kilometers from the Central Business District and one in the South Eastern region of the State (the La Trobe Valley). Its newest campus is located at Berwick a major population growth centre, south-east of Melbourne. The University obtained government support for establishing the Berwick campus in 1993 and it was decided from the outset that this new campus would rely heavily on electronic delivery of courses and course materials from the University's other campuses. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/oral-history/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/oral-history/ Like many national, regional and research libraries, the National Library of Australia (NLA) is actively facing a wide range of challenges associated with using digital technology to improve access to its collections. In at least one area this is not discretionary: the Oral History collections are intrinsically affected by technological change and without moving to digital, access to the collections will be lost as analogue audio technology loses market support. The NLA is implementing a strategy to bridge the difficult transition between fully analogue and fully digital environments. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/rudi/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/rudi/ RUDI (Resource for Urban Design Information) [1] began in January 1996 and is run jointly by the Engineering Research and Development Centre at the University of Hertfordshire, and the Library of Oxford Brookes University. RUDI is concerned with all aspects of urban design, but in particular physical design, within the Western cultural context. The project is funded for three years by JISC. The intention is for RUDI to become commercially self- supporting at the end of its grant period by attracting investment, subscription and sponsorship directly from users and contributors. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/resource-discovery/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/resource-discovery/ Resource Discovery at DSTCThe Resource Discovery Project is one of the major research units of the Distributed Systems Technology Centre (DSTC). The DSTC is one of over 60 co-operative research centres in Australia and is a Federally and commercially funded non-profit company. The DSTC has over 25 participating organisations which provide resources to the research program, including, direct funding, seconded staff, hardware and software, and importantly, research problems. The Resource Discovery Project was established in mid 1994 after the emerging problem of information discovery on large networks was identified as a crucial research area for Australian data networks. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/unique-identifiers/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/unique-identifiers/ On the afternoon of Friday the 14 March more than 50 people involved in electronic publishing met for a seminar reviewing recent developments in the unique identification of digital objects. Delegates included representatives of publishers, libraries and other organisations. The seminar was organised jointly by Book Industry Communication (BIC) and the UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN) with support from the eLib programme. A brief report follows: Introduction - Why we need identifiersBrian Green (BIC) and Mark Bide (Mark Bide and Associates) introduced the seminar with an overview of why the publishing industry needs identifiers [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/wire/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/wire/ What do do you? My job title is ‘Computer Officer’, and I do everything connected with computers. I am essentially third line support, as I was not brought up to tolerate fools. How did you get into this job ie what did you do before? I used to work in Electrical Engineering, working on data transmission systems over mobile radio links. Firewalls in Universities - essential security feature or inconvenience to open use of networked technologies? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/access-control/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/access-control/   AbstractThe growth of networking and the Internet has led to more and more information resources being funded centrally by JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Council) and provided from a single or limited number of locations to the whole of the academic community. Centralised networked services such as these have been a fact of life in commercial organisations for many years and this model is now being adopted by government agencies like the NHS. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/copyright-corner/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/copyright-corner/ In this paper I will discuss some of the major copyright issues that have arisen as a result of experiences of the eLib. This paper assumes readers are familiar with the basic ground rules about who owns copyright, what it is, the restricted acts that are given to the copyright owner, the exceptions such as fair dealing and the library copying provisions, the lifetime of copyright, and so on. I would just emphasise a couple of points of law. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/erims/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/erims/ Part of the eLib On-demand Publishing Programme, the ERIMS Project aims to test the viability and user environment for provision of reading materials, in electronic format, to a cross section of users in Management Studies. Management Studies information has provided an interesting context for the development, and study of use, of the ERIMS resource. On-line databases are heavily used, and taking periodical literature for example, two full-text systems are used in UK Business Schools: Business Periodicals On-Disc and General Business File. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/multimedia/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/multimedia/ The JISC Strategy [1] states: "The JISC recognises the growing importance of multimedia data and will promote measures to ensure such data is appropriately available and transmitted electronically." As part of this consideration, a meeting was organised by the British Universities Film and Video Council (BUFVC) [2] which is now funded through JISC. This consultation meeting was held at the National Film Theatre on 18 December and was attended by about 220 people. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/fytton/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/fytton/ The four functions of the scholarly journalIt has been recognised for many years (Ziman, 1968 [1]; Ravetz, 1973[2]; Meadows, 1980 [3]) that the dissemination of information is not the sole function of the scholarly journal literature. The paradoxical survival of this apparently archaic form of literature has depended on its multiple functions, which are essential to the orderly functioning of a scholarly community. The four chief functions are: Dissemination of informationQuality controlThe canonical archiveRecognition of authorsThe first of these has not necessarily ever been the most important. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/scran/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/scran/ The images that the year 2001 bring up are either seductively utopian or dimly dystopian from an information and technology point of view. Visionaries either see an information rich world with constant online access - built into your clothes in some scenarios - or HAL 9000 calmly saying, "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave." There is probably no doubt that we will have the technology, but can we build a bionic information system? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/web-access/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/web-access/ If it is true that patience is a virtue, blind people must be the most virtuous people on earth. Waiting is omnipresent in a blind persons life. The simple act of reading a newspaper can be a major undertaking. However this seemingly simple task is accomplished, it requires waiting; waiting for a family member or friend to be available, or waiting for the next scheduled meeting with a paid reader. Now, however, another option is available, this new innovation in the lives of the blind has provided something that is so intriguing that many blind and print impaired individuals have to " http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/lund/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/lund/     On 11-13 October 1996 I was fortunate to be invited to participate in the 10th annual Anglo-Nordic Seminar, held in Lund, Sweden. This annual event is co-organised by the British Library and their Nordic colleagues at NORDINFO. Each year the seminar is based on a particular theme and this year it was Networking. The event was preceded by an all day session called a "Metadata Information Day" http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/acorn/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/acorn/ Project ACORN (Access to Course Resources via Networks) began in August 1996 and its distinguishing features are firstly the involvement of Swets & Zeitlinger (the international periodicals subscription agency) in the project consortium, and secondly its sole focus on journal articles. The overall aim of the project is to develop a transferable model of the whole process of making short loan journal articles available electronically, and in particular to focus on the role of a third party agent in gaining copyright clearance and providing digital copies to libraries. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/adam/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/adam/ Funding for Networked Resource Discovery & Delivery SystemThe ADAM project has recently been awarded additional funding to procure a database system for the ADAM Service, up to a maximum of 30,000 GBP, following a bid to the Information Services Sub Committee (ISSC) of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). This will provide a number of significant benefits: The ability to more accurately describe complex resources (e.g. web sites, individual web pages etc. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/cranfield/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/cranfield/ I can only apologise for the brevity of parts of this report, and offer my excuses in the Sideline column in issue 7 of Ariadne (mid-January 1997). For reasons to be revealed there, I missed the first half of the Access v Holdings seminar, held at Cranfield University on 30th October 1996. [Out of the 38 delegates, I seemed to be the only one to arrive at Cranfield by public transport; perhaps they all knew something that I didn't! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/allerton/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/allerton/ The Allerton Institute is an annual conference series addressing user-centred aspects of library and information science, organised by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA. The conference, which this year took place from 27-29 October, is held in the disorientatingly English-stately-home-ish setting of the Robert Allerton House and Park near Monticello, Illinois. This lovely mansion and its landscaped wooded grounds were built around the turn of the century, and were later donated to the university. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/survey/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/survey/ The use of the World Wide Web (WWW) is increasing and is likely to continue to do so for the considerable future. The UK is served with a very good quality internal Internet backbone providing JANET (Joint Academic NETwork) users with a high level of bandwidth, resulting fast communications. Unfortunately, international connections from the UK are poor and it is clear that ways of addressing the limited bandwidth the UK has at its disposal have to be found. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/table/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/table/ Lawyers have a reputation for conservatism. Jokes still abound about the law professors who refuse to switch on the PC on their desk and defiantly handwrite all their work, then shamelessly thank their secretaries in prefaces for "deciphering unintelligible handwriting". Happily, such types are in a minority as the benefits of information technology are increasingly recognised in legal education and practice. The subject matter of law can be as diverse or as traditional as one wishes. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/british-library/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/british-library/ Further details on the call for proposals mentioned in this article can be found at: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/papers/bl/callforproposal.html The British Library Research and Innovation Centre has initiated a process of discussion and debate among those working in the field of digital library research. This discussion is intended to help gain some idea of which issues need to be addressed and to establish how the research programmes and funding agencies in the field might set their own priorities. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/burnside/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/burnside/ I remember my first history lessons as rather dull. At that time, teachers emphasised the importance of dates, as if those were the only facts that mattered, (looking back, I can see that these are the few 'facts' history has to offer). Though never an enthusiastic student, I managed to find something of interest in most subjects, but until a year before 0 Levels I contemplated the Tuesday afternoon double history period with foreboding. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/cartoon/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/cartoon/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/catriona/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/catriona/ This is an exciting period of growth in the development of electronic resources for teaching and research. Many examples of electronic resources for teaching and research such as lectures, slides and research papers are now readily available on the Web. However, a large proportion of the research and teaching material that is being created on computers is not yet available to the wider academic community. It is often only available to the creator and perhaps to local students. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/copyright/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/copyright/ On 24 October 1996, Lord Hamilton gave in a Scottish court a preliminary interdict (equivalent to injunction in English law) to prevent the Shetland News, an Internet based newspaper, from offering links from its WWW pages to those of its rival Internet newspaper, the Shetland Times. Right now, the Shetland News is appealing for funds to help fight the case in 1997. The wording of the interdict includes the following key text (I trust I am not infringing copyright by reproducing it): http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/sgml/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/sgml/ This article discusses a method by which documents marked up using Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML) can be used to generate a database for use in conjunction with the World Wide Web. The tools discussed in this article and those that were used in experiments are all public domain or shareware packages. This demonstrates that the power and flexibilty of SGML can be utilised by the Internet community at little or no cost. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/edina/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/edina/ Why W? Well, a lot has been said and done about W. W clients are cheap (free?) and easy to come by. End users like them, they have point-and-click graphical interfaces. But the problem for the national bibliographic data services is how to provide access to the databases held in text management software, like BasisPlus used by both BIDS and EDINA, in a way that allows users to build queries interactively, across several physical databases. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/editorial/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/editorial/ Ariadne: The compact edition.... Welcome to this, issue 6 of the Web version of Ariadne. Comparisons with the last edition will show a large reduction in the number of articles, features and stories. This is explained in the editorial for the last edition, but to recap, each edition of the Web version of Ariadne is split into two "happenings": An edition to appear at the same time as the parallel paper edition. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/technical-day/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/technical-day/ This long-awaited and well-attended concertation day had 35 'teccies' (slang for technical / systems / computer-orientated people) in attendance. A wide range of issues were discussed, probably too many for one day and certainty too many to be covered in this article. One of the main outcomes of the day was the identification of major issues, of interest to many projects, which warrant further discussion. It was an informal day allowing for a lot of attendee input and interaction. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/textbooks/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/textbooks/ Time’s up for the textbook?Don’t believe the hype. The high priests of Internet hysteria frequently predict the death of the traditional print media. But regardless of the technological problems - speed, speed and speed - that currently confront the Internet, there are compelling reasons why paper-based books and journals will always exist. BYTE - a computing magazine not known for Luddite tendencies - summed them up as portability, information density and character (1995). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/web-guild/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/web-guild/ Note: The Web Pages for the Queen's Webmasters Guild can be found at http://boris.qub.ac.uk/webmasters/ AbstractThis is a personal view of the events at the Queen's University of Belfast which have lead to the present mobilisation of all 'units' in contributing to the information service. The experiences described are of interest to any web site where a large number of people are involved. The 'gossamer' refers to a collection of flimsy webs, fragile because of their once uncertain life span on 'renegade' servers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/ilrt/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/ilrt/ The Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT) at the University of Bristol is host to more than seventeen funded projects at the forefront of learning and research technology, including four eLib projects ranging across the subject divide, from medicine to business to social science and beyond into generic issues. In this article we describe these four projects, SOSIG, ROADS, biz/ed and MIDRIB, as well as providing an overview of the Institute and its other projects. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/lindsay/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/lindsay/ Jeremy Bentham coined the term 'panopticon' in his proposal for a circular prison, whose cells were exposed to a central well in which the warders were located, allowing the prisoners to see all other prisoners and to be observed at all times without ever knowing when they were being watched. Bentham also promoted the idea of political economy as the greatest good for the greatest number. Drawing on his terminology as the basis for this article, I therefore propose the new term 'infopolecon' to describe the political economy of information. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/cover/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/cover/ Information is the foundation on which any strategic plan is based" stated Gareth Roberts, Vice- Chancellor of the University of Sheffield and Chair of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP), opening a conference of University Librarians, Computing Centre Directors and Directors of Information Services in Sheffield last month. Universities, like many large companies, now recognise that information is a resource which can be used to strategic advantage. While it is clear that no planning document could ever appear without it, it is only recently that universities have begun to develop strategies for the management of information in its own right. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/interface/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/interface/ Miriam Drake, Dean and Director of the Library and Information Centre at Georgia Institute of Technology, feels that librarians should concern themselves with making money for their libraries and confesses that most of her time is spent doing just that. The climate is changing and universities have to become more and more self-sufficient. In the US, says Drake, "...there will be more jobs created by small business than big. My advice to you is to identify and seek out the potential small business starters - and be very good to them. 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/borges/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/borges/ Although it may appear that it is only recently that we have discovered a need for automatic information filtering, the practice of automatically filtering a flow of information has been in use for over 30 years. The emphasis in systems since the earliest days has been on the speed of the filtering operation, ensuring that it is performed as quickly as possible. Because of the volume of information now being generated and the requirement to have this filtered, issues of quality or the relevance of information filtered for a user, are now becoming increasingly important. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/midrib/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/midrib/ The task of MIDRIB ('Medical Images Digitised Reference Information Bank') is to create a system for the creation, storage and networked delivery of image-related information. This involves a complex chain of events that takes an image from its raw form (such as a slide on a clinician's shelf) to the point where the user can retrieve it individually from a digital networked resource of potentially hundreds of thousands of items. In between it has to be captured in digital form and described so that it can be retrieved. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/mailbase/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/mailbase/ The National Mailbase Service has this month welcomed its 100,000th user! Mailbase is a national service which provides electronic discussion lists community and information sharing facilities for the UK higher education and research. It is based in the Computing Service at the University of Newcastle. Uniquely in the world of Higher Education, Mailbase was founded especially for communities who are relatively new to using the Internet and offers a high level of user support. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/minotaur/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/minotaur/ Nowadays, it seems as though the only people who haven't heard of the Internet and the World Wide Web are technophobic hermits who consider the radio to be a dangerously new invention. Indeed, the media bandwagon seems to have created hype of such a magnitude that the Web cannot possibly live up to the expectations people have been lead to have of it. Both the mainstream and the specialist press continue to laud the Web as the ultimate digital information system, a rather over ambitious claim. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/nls-casebook/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/nls-casebook/ A new addition to the NetLinkS website is the Current Practice Case Base: [http://netways.shef.ac.uk/rbase/intro.htm] This current awareness resource provides links to relevant sites demonstrating networked learner support (NLS) in the UK and abroad. As you are probably aware, NetLinkS is an eLib training and awareness project which aims to encourage the further development of NLS practice within UK higher education, through promoting the development of a networked professional learning community. NLS is the term we have adopted to refer to the use of networked technologies to provide training or other forms of help to users of electronic information resources. 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/6/public-libraries/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/public-libraries/ The Web pages described in this article can be found at: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/treasure/ Computers are becoming more prevalent in every aspect of our lives and with the development of networking technology this trend seems set to increase. Schools have recognised these trends and are introducing children to computers at as early an age as possible. If children's libraries are not to be left behind and more importantly are to continue in their role as literacy supporters they must begin to develop services which will also support these new electronic literacy skills. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/wild-thing/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/wild-thing/ Becoming a Gatekeeper, or, Creating Where the Wild Things Are: Librarian’s Guide to the Best Information on the Netby Marylaine Block, Associate Director for Public Services, O’Keefe Library, St. Ambrose University “Where the Wild Things Are: Librarians’s Guide to the Best Information on the Net” can be found at: http://www.sau.edu/cwis/internet/wild/index.htm When I first got onto the internet, I started systematically looking through All the Gopher Servers in the World, and it became clear to me immediately that there was so much there that nobody could ever be an expert on it–all anybody would ever know about it was just their own little corner of it. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/sosig/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/sosig/ Meeting end users’ needsAlthough the ‘bread and butter’ end user workshops in the Internet for Social Scientists portfolio are aimed at less-experienced netusers there are fewer absolute beginners now than there used to be. Libraries and faculties alike are establishing and developing provision of networked machines running WWW client software and some have their own excellent general Internet training programmes. Fewer sites rely on access to the Web via text-based browsers such as Lynx, with the majority of sites visited now running Netscape. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/sideline/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/sideline/ Dublin Airport - Tuesday. Chris and Ayesha hold back from grabbing the first taxi so they can indulge in a few swift puffs on their cigarettes. They needn't have bothered, the taxi driver is smoking anyway. Arrive at Trinity and agree to meet to find something to eat. Paul and Nick are driving a hire van with the BIDS stand via the Holyhead ferry and aren't expected until at least nine o'clock. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/performance/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/performance/ Performance measurement has been used as a research tool for many years, and as such has been used in some of the studies undertaken by UKOLN and its predecessor bodies (the Centre for Catalogue Research - CCR, and the Centre for Bibliographic Management). In the past few years, however, increasing demands for accountability to the public and to local and central government, combined with the requirements of compulsory competitive tendering, have led to performance measurement becoming an integral part of public sector management. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/irn/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/irn/ The Internet Resources Newsletter which is published by the Internet Resource Centre at Heriot-Watt University and edited by myself and Gordon Andrew is one of a large number of Internet current awareness services, but is different from most in that it concentrates on items of interest to academics, especially those in the UK who specialise in science, engineering, and the social sciences. Its raison d'etre is that it informs students and staff of Heriot-Watt about new and recent Internet resources of potential interest and provides news about developments in various networked resources such as BIDS, NISS, BUBL, EEVL, and SOSIG, but it is also written with an eye to a wider audience in the knowledge that whatever interest academics at Heriot-Watt may also interest academics and others elsewhere. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/tilburg/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/tilburg/ For two weeks, from 4 - 16 August 1996 at Tilburg University in The Netherlands,  a group of 60 librarians and information specialists from around the world was introduced to the strategic and practical issues relating to digital library developments. Participants came from as far afield as Japan and Costa Rica, but mostly from Western Europe, with a significant representation from the Netherlands itself. I was the only UK delegate, however three of the lecturers were from the UK including one from Ireland. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/view/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/view/ Sitting in the comfort of the kitchen in the basement of the Victorian terraced house which doubles as home and workplace, John Hatt explains how he came to be both a writer and publisher of travel books. It happened by accident. "I worked at one time as a publisher's rep, selling books around the country and doing some editing work. At one point I decided to take a sabbatical, and spent some months in Asia, Africa, and the US. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/wire/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/wire/ What do you do in the world of networking/libraries/WWW? I’m one of these “Networked Systems Officers” type people. “Technical support,” “System Administrator”, call it what you will, I’m the person that every organization has to fix problems, yell at when the network is down and keep forever occupied with unending lists of minor problems. To anyone who is in my position will know, it is a self sustaining job, for every attempt to fix anything results in two things breaking. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/bids/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/bids/ I will come clean straight away, First, after a couple of tries I found the BIDS Telnet interface pretty intuitive and second I am on record as being rather sceptical as to whether a web interface to BIDS could have the same degree of functionality as the Telnet interface. I will probably find, however, if I do a bit of searching in the archives, that similar points were raised at the time of the change from pad to Telnet access of the databases. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/cti/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/cti/ The mission of the CTI is "to maintain and enhance the quality of learning and increase the effectiveness of teaching through the application of appropriate learning technologies." The CTI is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and the Department of Education for Northern Ireland. The CTI has provisional funding to run until 1999 renewable on an annual basis. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/cartoon/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/cartoon/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/copyright/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/copyright/ Copyright is an exceptionally popular subject on the Web, as a simple search on Alta Vista or one of the Web Crawlers will show. The usual rag bag of articles, advertising announcements, academic sites and so on will be picked up by such searches. In this brief article, I want to draw attention to some of the sites that I find useful when wandering lost in cyberspace. The sites are in no particular order, and many of them are linked to each other. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/croatia/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/croatia/ I am going to speak about Croatia and the new information technologies implemented in the Croatian libraries. How are Croatian librarians coping with the consequences of the terrible war we had from 1991 to 1995? What can be done in the situation when the whole country is being restructured and where the priority list is so long? What makes the Croatian libraries so special? Croatia is the new state, established in 1990, recognised by the United Nations in 1992. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/dlib/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/dlib/ Shortly, D-Lib Magazine will go to press with our fourteenth monthly issue - and it is remarkable that even after a year, we are still using the language of print to describe something that only exists on the web. D-Lib is funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on behalf of the Information Infrastructure Technology and Applications (IITA) Working Group of the High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) program. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/desire/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/desire/ Desire is a large, pan- European co-operative development project to promote the use of the World Wide Web (WWW) in the European research community. The project has attracted substantial funding from the European Union's Fourth Framework Programme. The project is co-ordinated by SURFnet bv, the academic network provider in the Netherlands and has a total of 23 partners in 8 countries. Other major contractors are the University of Bristol,Lund University Library, Netlab (Sweden), UNINETT/AS (Norway), Origin bv (the Netherlands), the University of Newcastle upon Tyne,the Queen's University of Belfast and the Joint Research Centre of the European Union (Italy). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/elvira4/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/elvira4/ Next May, ELVIRA reaches its 4th annual conference. When the conference series started, the concept of the electronic library was still a novelty to many of us; now every self-respecting university, college and library is involved in developments in our field. ELVIRA 4 promises to be the most exciting conference yet, and also the most varied. The organisers are keen to encourage different types of submission and session, to fit the diverse needs of researchers and practitioners in electronic resource provision. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/editorial/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/editorial/ So why is this issue of the Web version of Ariadne so big, then? …was a question asked by several people who have watched this issue being constructed. The answer is, in one word, "awareness" (Ariadne does reside in the Training and Awareness section of the eLib programme). In a possibly noticeable change of direction, the Web version of Ariadne (WVA for short) will have a significantly heavier bias towards making its target audience aware of relevant and useful services and resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/european-libraries/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/european-libraries/ The European Libraries Programme - more properly, the Telematics for Libraries Programme - was conceived in the early 1980s with noble aims. The wealth and diversity of Europe's information resources were seen as considerable, but it was clear that these resources were not readily available to European citizens. Through the projects funded by what has now become the European Libraries Programme, new technology would be the tool that would be adopted to make this access possible, and therefore the European Parliament adopted the Schwencke Resolution calling for action by the Commission in the libraries sector. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/ftdl/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/ftdl/ The HEFCE has committed £8 million over the next two years to the Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL), a new initiative aimed at stimulating developments and promoting good practice across the higher education sector. This is the first time that the Council has linked the results of its quality assessment process to its allocation of funds to the sector. Only institutions judged to be providing high quality education were eligible to bid for project funds. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/helix/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/helix/ Image collections and resources are of immense importance for research, teaching and learning across a wide spectrum of subject areas. Images may be the primary research material or may inform and enrich research which is principally text based or experimental in nature. Research carried out over the last three or four years had addressed many of the problems associated with digitization, indexing and retrieval, distribution, staffing and management issues, and problems concerned with copyright and access controls. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/jisc/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/jisc/ Liberalisation of the UK Higher Education network, a drive for greater economy and efficiency, and the promotion of training and awareness, all emerge as key recommendations in the Five Year Strategy, 1996-2001 published by the Joint Information Systems Committee last month. In his Chairman's Preface, Professor John Arbuthnott spells out JISC's role as one of "facilitating, not dictating or managing" the use of IT across the sector. The document talks of the advance of the 'virtual university', with services such as electronic teaching materials, bibliographic and statistical datasets and full-text journals distributed to students in geographically remote areas or in their own homes and workplaces. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/libtech/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/libtech/ The exhibition was opened on the 4th of September by Jack Schofield, the editor of the online section of the Guardian newspaper. He gave a short speech, which included a witty section on the hassle caused by the frequent version updating of software; software where updates appeared every few weeks he named "dribbleware"! Also at the opening, the University announced the award of 462,000 pounds to the University of Hertfordshire, Cimtech Ltd and International Imaging Ltd to set up a digitisation centre that will convert more than one million pages of printed text a year into 'electronic libraries'. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/formations/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/formations/ Among the facilities available from the scholar's workstation of the future will be access to pre-prints collections with added value. Precisely what form such 'added value' will take remains to be seen, but it will address the current tendency for on-line pre-print depositories to become largely untamed wildernesses of relatively unstructured material, with wheat and chaff mixed in frustratingly unpredictable proportions. This is not universally the case, but pre-print collections can become dumping grounds for all manner of stuff and the bigger they get the more unreliable they often become as sources of efficiently accessed and valuable material. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/academic-media/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/academic-media/ MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship (MCJ) made its debut in April 1992 as a peer-reviewed electronic journal on the Internet. The concept for a peer-reviewed journal in academic media librarianship arose after an extensive literature search revealed very little regard for this specialty. There are several scholarly publications in librarianship, but none in the U.S. focusing exclusively on academic media librarianship. As Head of the Media Resources Center in the Health Sciences Library at the State University of New York at Buffalo, I thought about filling this void with an electronic journal. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/digital-researchers/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/digital-researchers/ Predicting the future is a risky business. On the one hand, the current instantiation of the Internet and the World Wide Web interfaces will one day become obsolete -- perhaps sooner than we think. On the other hand, some configuration of networked digital information technologies is here to stay. Moreover, many of the tools and behaviors that arise to tap the web's potential will migrate as the underlying technologies evolve. Thus, the Internet is far more than a set of data transfer protocols operating over a series of leased lines, packet switches, and servers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/newsagent/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/newsagent/ Information overload has created a need for information delivered to the desktop at a time, in a format and covering topics chosen by the user, not the provider. NewsAgent for Libraries started on April 1st 1996, and runs for two years. Located within the Electronic Journals strand of the eLib programme, the project will develop a personalised news and current awareness service for the LIS community. The main partners involved in the project are: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/open/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/open/ Everyone involved with scholarly journals has a problem with the Web. Readers wonder whether they will find what they want, and librarians want to bring some order to the Web's unregulated chaos. Authors are concerned with recognition, and publishers with how they can make money from the Web. The Web presents many new opportunities, especially for academic works. For those those who want to exploit the Web it is just possible that one approach, such as is being developed in the Open Journal project, could assist in providing a single solution to all of these problems. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/jime/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/jime/ The emergence of the internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) have potentially profound implications for scholarly practice, particularly in the submission, review, and publication of articles in journals. However to date, much of the impact of these new technologies on journals has been on digitising the products of journal publication; the scholarly processes involved in reviewing articles remain unchanged and unsupported. We are using computer-supported collaborative argumentation (CSCA) tools to rethink and redesign the process of scholarly debate at the heart of journal reviewing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/wolverhampton/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/wolverhampton/ Many of you are probably familiar with the WWW active maps of UK academic resources operated by the University of Wolverhampton's School of Computing and Information Technology. If you're not point your WWW browser at http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/ukinfo/uk.map.html before going any further. I thought it might be of interest to Ariadne readers to hear how and why these maps were created. Maps such as these provide a very high density of information in a fairly digestable form, a recent version had well over 200 links to institutions displayed on a single WWW page. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/subject-tree/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/subject-tree/ The exceptional growth of the World Wide Web over the last few years has brought with it an additional and ever-expanding source of information to those with access to the Internet. Building upon the work of many gopher servers, the WWW has quickly become the popular medium for provision of information on the networks. The development of intra-nets within businesses is a testament to the accessibility of the WWW model. However, the proliferation of Internet resources, from topical sites to electronic journals, has posed a significant challenge to the information profession. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/ukolug/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/ukolug/ UKOLUG's State of the Art Conference, held in Warwick in July, attracted nearly 200 delegates including representatives from academia, publishing and commerce. Day OneSir Brian Follett opened the conference with a talk about technology and libraries in 2000. He described the background to the Follett report and the current implementation strategy. In outlining his view of efforts to ensure the success of the libraries review he emphasised the importance of the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) and in particular the potential of the electronic journals in the research environment. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/iielr/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/iielr/ De Montfort University is one of the largest universities in Britain, with 29,000 students based on 10 campuses in eastern and central England. Major city locations are Leicester, Lincoln, Bedford and Milton Keynes. Given the distributed nature of the University, much use has to be made of the latest information and communication technologies: video-conferencing is used extensively in teaching, and in enabling teachers and researchers to meet and talk without leaving their own campus. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/surf/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/surf/   The SURF Foundation was established in 1987 to co-ordinate the implementation of a multi-year plan for the improvement of the application of information technology (IT) in Dutch universities, schools for higher vocational education and research institutes. In the course of its activities SURF has become a nationwide supplier of services. These services are primarily provided through its operating subsidiaries: SURFnet bv and SURFdiensten bv. SURFnet manages the computer network of the same name. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/ukerna/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/ukerna/ Computer networking forms the basis for a whole raft of new information technologies; electronic mail, world wide web, networked data services, electronic mailing list services, electronic journals, on-demand publishing, and electronic document delivery to name but a few. Staff who are required to run services based on such technologies obviously need an understanding of the underlying networking. An examination of computer networking course provision at higher education institutions reveals a plethora of courses on WWW browsing and html generation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/web4lib/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/web4lib/ The World Wide Web has quickly become an essential tool for librarians to communicate with their clientele, provide services, and build collections. Well over a thousand libraries around the world now have Web servers (according to Libweb, a directory of library-based Web servers at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Libweb/), and many have public terminals available for accessing the Web. Such a rapid deployment of this technology required rapid learning by the professionals who implemented it. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/elib/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/elib/ As autumn begins to paint her subtle colours across the English countryside the good folks at the Electronic Libraries Programme office find themselves raking in project annual reports. As part of the programme's evaluation strategy, all projects now up and running were required to submit a report by mid- August detailing progress to date and, more importantly, lessons learned thus far. The report was to include all the conventional contents of an annual report - facts and figures, but was also to include the projects preliminary evaluation results. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/table/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/table/ Is the Internet of any use to the study of the humanities? One clearly strong area is in the provision of electronic texts; there are now enough out-of-copyright literary, philosophical and historical works scattered around the Internet for it to be a rival to Wordsworth’s Classics. And Internet sites are increasingly doing more than just offering plain ASCII versions. Firstly, HTML can be used to establish connections between different sections of a text, and between a text and critical apparatus. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/cartoon/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/cartoon/ 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/4/cedar/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/cedar/ Almost in the very beginning …The seed which has grown into CeDAR - the Centre for Database Access Research was probably planted way back in 1973 at the early days of online searching. The Marconi Research Laboratories at Gt. Baddow in Essex had developed an Automated Ultrafiche Terminal capable of storing enormous quantities of information on high density microform. This device offered access for a wide variety of potential applications from telephone directories to criminal records, maps to images of grasses brought back by Darwin from Australia, learning programmes to literature abstracts. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/lucier/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/lucier/ Librarians in Higher Education will become market-oriented product and service developers operating in a partially commercial environment within the next few years, according to Richard Lucier, Librarian of the University of California at San Francisco. He believes that libraries can no longer afford to subsidise full access to information for all users. Lucier's Follett Lecture, presented at Leeds in June, described how his library had coped with major cuts in central funding, accompanied by significantly higher prices for scientific information. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/macau/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/macau/ <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN”> Macau and the Internet Down your very long way away: Macau In our occasional column featuring far-flung places, J. Correia, in his own words, fills us in on how Macau is embracing the Internet. Macau is a small territory on the southern coast of China, where the Portuguese and Chinese cultures have been co-existing in relative harmony since the 16th Century. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/follett/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/follett/ A packed lecture room in Leeds was the venue for the series' second birthday, when Richard Lucier gave his well-received talk The University as Library. Developed from an idea put forward by members of JISC's Follett Implementation Group on Information Technology (chaired by Lynne Brindley), the series began with Clifford Lynch's lecture on The Role of Libraries in the Networked Information Age. It has always been the aim to take the lectures to the audience. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/ilej/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/ilej/ The Internet Library of Early Journals (ILEJ) project aims to offer expanded access over the Internet to digitised page images of substantial runs of out of copyright 18th and 19th century journals and to evaluate them in terms of use and acceptability. A part of the eLib Digitisation Programme, the project has been funded for 2 years starting on 1 January 1996. It is being run by a consortium of 4 institutions - the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the John Rylands University Library of Manchester and the University Libraries of Leeds and Birmingham. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/impel2/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/impel2/ As its subtitle, 'Monitoring Organisational and Cultural Change' suggests, IMPEL2 is unlike most eLib projects as it is not developing a product or a service for the electronic library. As a Supporting Study of eLib it investigates the human implications of the electronic environment in UK Higher Education, the changing culture of organisations with the new demands of education and technology at the centre. The IMPEL2 team are based at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/nathan/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/nathan/ <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN”> Interface: Peter Nathan John MacColl talks to Peter Nathan, acting president and distinguished professor of Psychology at the University of Iowa. Peter Nathan, Acting President and Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Iowa, does not mince his words. “It is rare” opines Nathan, “for the price of journals to bear any relation to the cost of producing them. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/jilt/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/jilt/ The Journal of Information, Law and Technology is the first journal to be launched under the banner of the Electronic Law Journals project. The Electronic Law Journals project brings together the Law Technology Centre at the University of Warwick and the Centre for Law, Computers and Technology at the University of Strathclyde in partnership. The goal of this partnership is simply to revolutionise legal publishing. The underlying aim of the project is to present suitable articles that are heightened by hyperlinks and accompanying demonstrations where possible. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/jugl/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/jugl/ <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN”> 1996 JUGL Annual Conference The 1996 JUGL Annual Conference Emma Wright describes the 1996 JUGL (JANET User Group for Libraries) Annual Conference, held in Preston in early July . Emma works for the Netskills eLib project. Education on the Net This year’s JUGL Annual Conference and General Meeting was held at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/libtech/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/libtech/ Libtech International '96 has a set of Web pages at: http://www.herts.ac.uk/Libtech/libtech.htm Libtech International is organised by the the Library & Media Services department of the University of Hertfordshire and held on the University's Hatfield Campus in September each year. The event consists of a large exhibition and a conference programme, which consists of various seminars, lectures and workshops. Entry to Libtech '96 itself is free to attend; some of the seminars and workshops charge a nominal fee for admission. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/midrib/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/midrib/ MIDRIB is a project being undertaken by staff of St George s Hospital Medical School, London and the University of Bristol, in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust. Begun in April 1996, its aim is to create, maintain and deliver a comprehensive collection of medical images in digital form, for use in teaching and research. The project will gather the best of existing collections from respected professional sources, and draw them together into a coherent resource. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/copyright/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/copyright/ In previous papers for Ariadne, I have examined some general copyright issues for eLib projects, and copyright problems associated with Electronic Copyright Management Systems. In this paper, I want to look at some of the effects of Moral Rights legislation on electronic library developments. Moral Rights give the creator of some copyright works, including literary works, artistic works and films, three rights. The first is the right of the author of a work to be acknowledged as the author or creator. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/health/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/health/ That many of the challenges and difficulties (see the two lists below) facing medical information specialists, have potential solutions in the near future organisation of the World Wide Web, is widely accepted. The problem facing medical information specialists is how, in the context of the NHS, do we make the Web work for us?   Challenges to health librarianship in a changing NHS Primary care led NHS: with more health care taking place away from hospitals information services should be more available to primary care practitionersCreation of an evidence-based culture: decision makers are ready to consider using bibliographic information to inform clinical and policy decisions provided the information is made available effectivelySpecific difficulties facing health libraries http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/netlinks/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/netlinks/ <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN”> International Symposium 1st International Symposium on Networked Learner Support Sarah Ashton describes the presentations at the 1st International Symposium on Networked Learner Support, held in mid-June in Sheffield. Sarah is an MA in Librarianship student in the Department of Information Studies, at the University of Sheffield. The European Championships were well under way when 59 delegates descended on Sheffield for the 1st International Symposium on Networked Learner Support (17th and 18th June 1996). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/reside/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/reside/ The aim of ResIDe is to pilot an electronic reserve system or short loan collection aimed at students in the Faculty of the Built Environment (FBE). UWE Library Services and Faculty of Built Environment are working with the ESRC Data Archive, Museum of London, Institute of Housing and Ordnance Survey on this project. Why develop an electronic reserve system?Changes in patterns of teaching and learning have led to a decrease in academic staff/student contact hours and a greater reliance upon student centred learning. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/ahds/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/ahds/ Increasing scholarly use of computers and electronic resources raises a number of related challenges. Computer-based research produces digital data with significant secondary use value. Yet that value cannot fully be realised unless the data are created and described according to relevant standards, systematically collected, preserved, and reported to the widest possible community. The outpouring of digital resources which make up a growing share of our cultural heritage makes digital preservation an urgent cause. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/tapin/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/tapin/ The TAPin project is a project which aims to deliver early in the eLib programme. The first deliverable was the Interim Report featuring the six partner universities, each representing a unique segment of the HE community. TAPin includes new and old universities with a variety of IT infrastructures and network readiness. The Infrastructure Audit, IT Strategy Survey, and Academic Staff Audit touched the heart of information provision from a variety of perspectives. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/tltp/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/tltp/ The Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) is, to the best of our knowledge, the largest technology based initiative of its kind across the world within higher education. As a centrally funded initiative it provides us with an excellent example of the advantages of collaboration compared to the efforts of many individuals working in isolation. The programme is jointly funded by the four higher education funding bodies, HEFCE, SHEFC, HEFCW and DENI, who allocated 22. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/acts/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/acts/ ACTS is an acronym for Advanced Communications Technologies and Services, a programme under the European Community 4th Framework R &TD Programme (collaborative research and technology development in Europe). ACTS is one of the biggest European R&TD investments with around 120 projects in place. The DTI/EPSRC High Performance Interfaces & Protocols (HPIP) LINK programme is the complementary UK initiative. In the words of the Commissions overview: "ACTS is part of a new agenda - outlined in the European Union's White Paper on 'Growth, Competitiveness and Employment' - aimed at making direct contribution to Europe's economic and social development. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/copyright/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/copyright/ Part of the basic philosophy of the eLib programme is to explore issues to do with copyright, to engender culture change amongst librarians, users and copyright owners about copyright, and to explore novel contractual or technical means to overcome the difficulties that copyright poses. In this article, I look at some of the major project lines and the copyright issues that might be raised from them. On demand publishingThe major issue that has arisen is negotiating rights from publishers for scanning the material in that subsequently is offered under on demand publishing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/elvira/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/elvira/ Hurrah! Users enter the Metaverse.......in their anoraks? The third Electronic Library and Visual Information Research (ELVIRA) conference opened on 30th April. The conference was truly international with delegates and speakers from Japan, Australia and throughout Europe. The conference was as usual very well organised and in extremely comfortable surroundings. ELVIRA is held in Milton Keynes and as De Montfort University is one of the leading UK electronic library research Universities (they have just established the Institute of Electronic Library Research) the venue is wholly appropriate. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/george/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/george/ George Brett set up CNIDR (pronounced 'Snyder' – the Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval) in 1992, with a three year grant obtained from the National Science Foundation. CNIDR exists to promote and support the implementation of networked information discovery and retrieval tools through working with applications developers and through its involvement in producing networking standards. With the grant due to run out in October of this year, Brett decided it was time for a switch. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/elib/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/elib/ As mentioned in last issue’s Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) section, a wave of new projects has recently joined the programme. This now takes the number of projects to roughly 60, with the majority of UK universities, and many other research centres, organisations and companies, being involved in at least 1 project (some organisations have a stake in as many as four). A consequence of this increase is that many people, either directly working within a project, or less centrally as a project deliverable tester or eventual end-user, are interested in how their project and it’s supporting programme develop. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/loans/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/loans/ Short Loan Collections have long been a necessary evil in academic libraries. Sometimes called 'Reserve' or 'Heavy Demand' collections, they were developed as a compromise solution to the problem of providing sufficient copies of undergraduate texts to meet the demands of large numbers of students all requiring access to the same texts at the same time. Among the latest group of eLib projects to be funded are four in the new 'Electronic Reserve' area. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/sideline/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/sideline/ Trips from Aberdeen to most places take a long time. Not being one to turn down the rare opportunity to travel abroad in my library's interest, I journeyed for 12 hours via three Flughafens and four Bahnhofs, two planes and three trains to a conference on Electronic Publishing and Libraries in Bielefeld, Germany. It's very cold in Northern Germany in early February, much colder even than Aberdeen. The temperature outside did not rise much above -9oC during my visit. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/ucr/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/ucr/ New ways of addressing the ‘access versus holdings’ debate were explored in March at the annual meeting of the University, College and Research Group of the Library Association, held at New Hall College, Cambridge. The topics covered included electronic access, user education, the difficulties faced by distance learners, staff development, budget management and undergraduate access to networked learning resources. These issues were explored during an intensive three day programme of papers and workshops (and over the odd glass of wine). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/view/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/view/ Future Publishing, based in Bath, publishes 36 magazine titles covering sport, computing, music and leisure. In 1987, the year Rob Ainsley joined it as a staff writer, it published only three. Ainsley became features editor of Classic CD magazine when it began in 1990, and then took over as editor the following year. Early this year, he decided it was time for a change. Future had had its own promotional Web site for over a year, and Ainsley felt that it was time for the music titles to develop an Internet angle. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/copyright/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/copyright/ The owner of a copyright has the right to prevent others from selling, hiring out or renting, copying it in any form, performing the work in public, broadcasting the work on radio or TV, or amending ("adapting") it. These acts are the so-called restricted acts. Anyone who does any of these acts without permission is deemed to have infringed the copyright and can be sued for damages. Infringement is subject to the requirement that either all the work, or at least a " http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/elib/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/elib/ Recently, a wave of new projects under the umbrella of the Electronic Libraries Programme was announced. A consequence of this is that a large majority of the HE institutions in the UK are involved in at least one eLib project (is yours?), as well as many non HE organisations and institutions. Here, we give brief details of some of these new projects. In the Preprints/Grey Literature area, we have three projects: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/jill/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/jill/ So then, Jill; in the beginning… Well, I came here as part of the Network group, and was involved in writing assembler programs for the machines that actually helped to run the network on campus. I wrote the user interface part so I tended to be the one that documented how the network worked as far as local users were concerned. When it came to the JANET regional user groups being set up I was then the one who got collared to go to some of the meetings. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/netlaunch/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/netlaunch/ On 7th-8th February, John Kirriemuir attended the Netskills launch, which was combined with a Netskills training session; an overview of the event appears below. In addition, pictures of the launch (warning: very large files) are available. In this same edition of Ariadne, you can also find an interview with Jill Foster, the director of Netskills and Mailbase, as well as a more detailed description of the Netskills project. 7th February http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/seren/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/seren/ Traditionally, interlibrary loans in academic libraries has made extensive use of the collections of the BLDSC as the primary resource; an approach emphasised by the designation of certain large academic libraries as “backup” libraries to the BLDSC. In other sectors of the profession, notably among Health Libraries and Public Libraries, the position has been reversed: other comparable libraries have formed the main source, with the BLDSC acting as long-stop. The reasons for this are many, and not just financial; indeed, analysis recently in one regional loan scheme suggested that as at present funded loans are actually costing some member libraries more than would use of the British Library. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/paul/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/paul/ Paul Evan Peters is of a philosophical turn of mind. Even at breakfast, in his hotel in Hatfield where he was based for the LibTech Conference, he drops easily into a fluent analysis of the goals of the Coalition for Networked Information, the organisation which he founded five years ago. The CNI was formed to promote the creation of networked information resources which will advance scholarship and intellectual productivity. It draws upon a task force consisting of universities, publishers, hardware and software companies and library organisations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/bubl/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/bubl/ There is no doubt that BUBL retains its place as the Number One Internet resource for librarians. BUBL was one of the first of the major cooperative sites in our common subject area of the Internet, and is an impressive example of what can be accomplished by well organized, broad cooperation between colleagues. The support which it receives from its many sponsors, enabling it to employ dedicated staff, is well deserved, as is the high level of usage, both nationally and internationally.