http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/buzz/research/ Recent content in Research on Ariadne Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/henshaw-et-al/ Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/henshaw-et-al/ Overview of the UK Medical Heritage Library ProjectThe aim of the UK Medical Heritage Library (UK-MHL) Project is to provide free access to a wealth of medical history and related books from UK research libraries. There are already over 50,000 books and journal issues in the Medical Heritage Library drawn from North American research libraries. The UK-MHL Project will expand this collection considerably by digitising a further 15 million pages for inclusion in the collection. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/maclellan-rvw/ Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/maclellan-rvw/ Collection development is a key skill taught in library schools around the world, it represents one of the business as usual elements in most librarians' roles, certainly in any I have undertaken. Getting your collection development right is a skill that takes lots of practice: like knowing which items to add to enhance your library stock; and which ones to remove to ensure that breadth of collection is not damaged; whilst making the collection inviting and easy to navigate. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/caperon/ Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/caperon/ Mobile devices such as smartphones, iPads and tablet computers are rapidly proliferating in society and changing the way information is organised, received and disseminated. Consequently the library world must adopt mobile services which maximise and adapt to these significant technological changes. What do library users want from mobile services? How can libraries adopt new, innovative mobile initiatives? How can libraries use their advantage of being technological intelligence centres to forge and create attractive new mobile services that meet the needs of users effectively, since many such users are now armed with smartphones when commencing their academic experience? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/editorial/ Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/editorial/ The requirement to make a business case to maintain or establish a service or a project is a familiar process for many of us working in Libraries.  Many libraries are asked to justify their very existence on a regular basis.  Some succeed, others unfortunately do not. We all seem to be doing more with less, and 'lean' is how we normally describe our staffing level. 14 months ago we made a case to top level University administration for an initiative around citations improvement, seeking funds for investment in a service to improve publication performance and citations analysis. 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/73/white/ Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/white/ I was an early starter in the world of metadata. Within hours of arriving at the offices of the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association in Euston Street, London, in 1970 to start a career as an information scientist I was writing my first abstract. ‘Writing’ is the correct verb as my A3 abstract would be typed up on an IBM golfball typewriter for production. At the bottom of this form was a section called ‘Index Terms’ and it was made very clear at the outset that mistakes in the abstract were regrettable, but mistakes in indexing were unforgivable. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/jenkins/ Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/jenkins/ 2013 marked the 10th anniversary of SUNCAT. Back in 2003, SUNCAT (Serials Union CATalogue) started as a project undertaken by EDINA [1] in response to an observed need for better journals information in the UK, which was identified in the UKNUC report [2]. In August 2006, SUNCAT became a full service, and is now an established resource that contains serials records, including more and more e-journals information, of an ever-increasing number of libraries. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/lawton-flynn/ Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/lawton-flynn/ This article will focus on how open access publishing may add value to a number of health and social care professionals and their work in the health services. The results of two recent surveys are explored in relation to the research activity, barriers and awareness about open access publishing by health and social care professionals (HSCPs) working in the Irish health system. The majority of peer-reviewed research is published in subscription journals, which are only accessible to those in institutions, or those willing or able to pay subscription fees. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/sanders-rvw/ Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/sanders-rvw/ Following a body of work that includes The University of Google: Education in the (post) Information Age (2007) [1] and Digital Hemlock: Internet Education and the Poisoning of Teaching (2002), Brabazon has developed a central position within the debate surrounding technology and pedagogy, although there is very little that is centrist about Brabazon's writing. Developing Contextual ThemesWith Digital Dieting: From Information Obesity to Intellectual Fitness (2013) Brabazon’s primary research interests in media, information and digital literacies are extended even further into the core issues binding contemporary Higher Education (HE) and learning in a world surrounded by an excess of online information, and the political framework that surrounds it. 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/guy-et-al/ Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/guy-et-al/ In the past, discussions around Open Education have tended to focus on content and primarily Open Educational Resources (OER), freely accessible, openly licensed resources that are used for teaching, learning, assessment and research purposes. However Open Education is a complex beast made up of many aspects, of which the opening up of data is one important element. When one mentions open data in education a multitude of questions arise: from the technical (what is open data? 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/72/liu-adie/ Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/liu-adie/ The concept of alternative metrics as indicators of non-traditional forms of research impact – better known as ‘altmetrics’ – has been gaining significant attention and support from both the scholarly publishing and academic communities. After being adopted by many publishing platforms and institutional repositories within the past year, altmetrics have entered into the scholarly mainstream, emerging as a relevant topic for academic consideration amidst mounting opposition to misuse of the Journal Impact Factor. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/ozono-et-al/ Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/72/ozono-et-al/ The ShaRe Project (Shared Repository Project 2008-2009), which aimed to promote the concept of consortial repositories and facilitate their implementation, has made a significant contribution to the rapid growth of institutional repositories (IRs) in Japan. Following precedents including White Rose Research Online (UK) and SHERPA-LEAP (UK), 14 regional consortial repositories have been set up on a prefectoral basis across Japan*. Their success is demonstrated by the fact that as many as 92 bodies have set up IRs despite having no institutional hardware of their own. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/editorial2/ Tue, 16 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/editorial2/ As I depart this chair after the preparation of what I thought would be the last issue of Ariadne [1], I make no apology for the fact that I did my best to include as much material  to her ‘swan song’ as possible. With the instruction to produce only one more issue this year, I felt it was important to publish as much of the content in the pipeline as I could. 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/tonkin-rvw/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/tonkin-rvw/ In her introduction to this collection, Hagar [1] – who coined the term ‘crisis informatics’ [2] - begins by providing the following definition of the term ‘crisis’ (taken from Johnston, The Dictionary of Human Geography,  2002 [3]) - ‘an interruption in the reproduction of economic, cultural, social and/or political life’. This book discusses crises as diverse as wartime disruption, earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, viruses and terrorist activity. As a central theme, the concept of crisis is broad. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/white-rvw/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/white-rvw/ I’ve been working in information consultancy for over 35 years and not regretted for a moment my choice of career. It’s taken me to over 30 countries and the opportunity to work with an amazing array of organisations in temperatures ranging from 47C to minus 25C. I’ve had project meetings on the top floor of the United Nations building, on a boat anchored in the harbour at Cannes, a luxury hotel in Oman and in a London convent. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/jennings-rvw/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/jennings-rvw/ Marketing Your Electronic Resources immediately strikes the reader as a very practical book.  With wide margins for notes and easy reference, a large section giving examples of best practice, and the main text extending over just 100 pages, this book is designed for busy practitioners.  For many librarians tasked with marketing, this kind of work forms a small part of the whole of their role and this short, practical guide is pitched very much at this type of reader. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/will-rvw/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/will-rvw/ Powering Search is a comprehensive review and synthesis of work that has been done over the past 50 years on the use of thesauri to make searching for information more effective. The book does not discuss the principles and practice of construction of information retrieval thesauri in any detail, but concentrates on the search process and on the user interface through which a searcher interacts with a body of information resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/rafiq-rvw/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/rafiq-rvw/ The Information Society offers a detailed discussion on the concept and dynamics of the information society from a historical perspective to the present era of information societies. The book offers in-depth discussion and analysis of how information has been accumulated, analysed and disseminated in the past, and focuses on great shifts in the paradigm of human communications that have taken place in the history of mankind.  It offers a detailed account of the development of human communication, mass media, Internet, Web 2. 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/murphy-rvw/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/murphy-rvw/ Despite the economic adversity faced by many academic bodies and their libraries, there are still some institutions lucky enough to be in a position to refurbish, extend or commission a new building. University Libraries and Space in the Digital World is undoubtedly for the many people involved in such projects, but is quite clearly designed for a wider readership too. This is a good thing, as it would be hard to think of a library user or staff member who is not affected by the issue of library space. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/kelly-et-al/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/kelly-et-al/ Initiatives to enhance Web accessibility have previously focused on the development of guidelines which apply on a global basis. Legislation at national and international levels increasingly mandate conformance with such guidelines. However large scale surveys have demonstrated the failure of such approaches to produce any significant impact. We review previous critiques of the limitations of such approaches and introduces a new scenario – content for people with learning disabilities – in order to illustrate the limitations of resource-based standards. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/rumsey-jefferies/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/rumsey-jefferies/ In 2012 the University of Oxford Research Committee endorsed a university ‘Policy on the management of research data and records’ [1]. Much of the infrastructure to support this policy is being developed under the Jisc-funded Damaro Project [2]. The nascent services that underpin the University’s RDM (research data management) infrastructure have been divided into four themes: RDM planning;managing live data;discovery and location; andaccess, reuse and curation.The data outputs catalogue falls into the third theme, and will result in metadata and interfaces that support discovery, location, citation and business reporting for Oxford research datasets. 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/stone-collins/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/stone-collins/ This article explores whether an online learning course can help academic researchers to become more familiar with social media tools, and seeks to understand how they can put them to use within their research and teaching activities. It does so by considering the development, implementation and evaluation of a pilot Web 2.0 course, 25 Research Things, an innovative online learning programme developed at the University of Huddersfield, which gives researchers a structured way to engage with selected Web 2. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/reese/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/reese/ Assessment of electronic resources has long proven a difficult challenge for librarians when looking to make collection development decisions.  Often, these decisions are made by looking at usage statistics provided by the vendor, and through informal conversations with selected faculty within affected disciplines.  The ability to capture point-of-use information from users remains a significant challenge for many institutions.  The purpose of this paper will be to suggest a novel approach to providing intercept survey functionality for librarians looking to simplify the gathering of user feedback for library provided materials. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/jabes-rpt/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/jabes-rpt/ In what has now become something of a tradition, the ‘Corum’ Congress Centre in Montpellier, France, hosted the twelfth in the series of the Journées de l’Agence Bibliographique de l’Enseignement Supérieur (ABES - Higher Education Bibliographic Agency) [1]. The main objectives of ABES are the development and maintainance of the shared catalogue of French academic libraries (Système Universitaire de Documentation, SUDOC) [2], the management of the theses processes and the administrative and financial support for group purchasing of e-resources for Higher Education. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/garrett-et-al/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/garrett-et-al/ KAPTUR (2011-13) [1], funded by Jisc and led by the Visual Arts Data Service, was a collaborative project involving four institutional partners: the Glasgow School of Arts; Goldsmiths, University of London; University for the Creative Arts; and the University of the Arts London. Research data have in recent years become regarded as a valuable institutional resource and their appropriate collection, curation, publication and preservation as essential. This has been driven by a number of internal and external forces, and all UK Research Councils now require it as a condition of funding [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/datacite-2013-rpt/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/datacite-2013-rpt/ On Friday, 8 March 2013, I attended the fifth in the series of DataCite workshops run by the British Library [1]. The British Library Conference Centre was the venue for this workshop on the theme 'Making Citation Work: Practical Issues for Institutions'. I counted myself lucky to get a place: the organisers had had so much interest they had started a reserve list for the event.  I could believe it as it was standing room only at one point, though an awkwardly placed pillar may have contributed to that. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/eriksson/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/eriksson/ The introduction of Performance-based Research Funding Systems (PRFS) models has helped to set the focus on scientific publishing since this is one of the major indicators for measuring research output. As a secondary result, it has also forced the countries that have introduced a model that is not solely based on citations to create a new form of research database; the national portal for scientific literature. Even in countries that have not adapted a PRFS model, these forms of portals are common. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/charlton-et-al/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/charlton-et-al/  ‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.’ Attributed to Albert Einstein In the last decade we have had access to data that opens up a new world of potential evidence ranging from indicating how children might learn their first word to the use of millions of mathematical models to predict outbreaks of flu. We explore the potential impact of learning analytics and big data for the future of learning and teaching. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/tablet-symp-rpt/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/tablet-symp-rpt/ The Tablet Symposium [1] brought together researchers and practitioners to examine questions about uses of tablet computers and e-readers across many walks of life, including academic, artistic, pedagogical, corporate and everyday contexts. As a co-organiser of the event, I was thrilled by the range of presentations that we were fortunate enough to be able to include in the symposium.  It was fascinating to see such a broad range of perspectives being applied to such a very focused object of study. 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/71/kehoe-gee/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/kehoe-gee/ In the Research and Development Unit for English Studies (RDUES) at Birmingham City University, our main research field is Corpus Linguistics: the compilation and analysis of large text collections in order to extract new knowledge about language. We have previously developed the WebCorp [1] suite of software tools, designed to extract language examples from the Web and to uncover frequent and changing usage patterns automatically. eMargin, with its emphasis on manual annotation and analysis, was therefore somewhat of a departure for us. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/kelly-et-al/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/kelly-et-al/ The idea that if we could only improve how we communicate, there would be less misunderstanding among people is as old as the hills. Historically, this notion has been expressed through things like school reform, spelling reform, publication of communication manuals, etc. The most radical expression of the desire for better understanding is the invention of a whole new artificial language with the intention of providing a universal language for humanity. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/thomas/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/thomas/ Wikipedia, the world’s fifth most-used Web site [1], is a good illustration of the growing credibility of online resources. In his article in Ariadne earlier this year, “Wikipedia: Reflections on Use and Academic Acceptance” [2], Brian Whalley described the debates around accuracy and review, in the context of geology. He concluded that ‘If Wikipedia is the first port of call, as it already seems to be, for information requirement traffic, then there is a commitment to build on Open Educational Resources (OERs) of various kinds and improve their quality. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/codata-2012-rpt/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/codata-2012-rpt/ CODATA was formed by the International Council for Science (ICSU) in 1966 to co-ordinate and harmonise the use of data in science and technology. One of its very earliest decisions was to hold a conference every two years at which new developments could be reported. The first conference was held in Germany in 1968, and over the following years it would be held in  15 different countries across 4 continents. My colleague Monica Duke and I attended the most recent conference in Taipei both to represent the Digital Curation Centre – CODATA's national member for the UK – and to participate in a track of talks on data publication and citation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/dobreva-rvw/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/dobreva-rvw/ Writing about information and the changes in the models of its production, distribution and consumption is no simple task. Besides the long-standing debate on what information and knowledge really mean, the world of current technologies is changing at a pace which inevitably influences all spheres of human activity. But the first of those spheres to tackle is perhaps that of information – how we create, disseminate, and use it. This book looks into the core of the changes in the last years, and is very much about the interplay of new technologies and how we humans deal with information in this changing technological 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/azzolini-rvw/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/azzolini-rvw/ Librarianship as a profession is confronting a growing demand to prove its worth. Library patrons expect utility. The organisations that fund them pre-suppose a contribution to their bottom lines. The calls for this proof come from librarians themselves as much as from their employers. And the tone of the questioning is persistent if not redundant. It can be distilled to a fundamental query: Can the library sustain its basic mission of effectively and efficiently fulfilling its users' information needs given the technological, social, and economic developments that are transforming how people interact with data, documents, and each other? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/white-rvw/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/white-rvw/ I have been a member of the information profession for almost 60 years, but then I started at a very young age.   Indeed I was a library assistant at the age of four.  My grandfather was the volunteer librarian for the small library in Clanfield, Hampshire, which opened up for a couple of afternoons each week.  My job was to stack the books up, and help him put them back on the shelves. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/aytac-rvw/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/aytac-rvw/ User Studies for Digital Library Development provides a concise overview of a variety of digital library projects and examines major research trends relating to digital libraries. While there are many books on user studies and digital library development, this work operates at the junction of these two domains and stands out for its insights, balance, and quality of its case-based investigations. The book brings together points of view from different professional communities, including practitioners as well as researchers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/maclellan-rvw/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/maclellan-rvw/ My initial thought upon seeing Using Mobile Technology to Deliver Library Services was available for review was that it was a topic of which I have limited knowledge – but part of its appeal was that I could learn about a new subject.  After I registered to review the book I then had second thoughts. I began to worry that the book would be too advanced for me. Part of the reason I know little about the topic relates to the fact that I have a simple mobile phone which only supports calls, texting and media messages. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/turner/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/turner/ At the moment organisations often make significant investments in producing Web-based material, often funded through public money, for example from JISC. But what happens when some of those organisations are closed or there  is no longer any money or resources to host the site? We are seeing cuts in funding or changes in governmental policy, which is resulting in the closure of some of these organisations. What happens to those Web resources when the organisations are no longer in existence? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/emtacl12-rpt/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/emtacl12-rpt/ The three-day conference consisted of eight keynote presentations by invited speakers and a number of parallel sessions. The main themes set out for this year’s conference were supporting research, organisational change within the library, linked open data and other semantic web applications in the library, new literacies, and new services/old services in new clothes, along with other relevant perspectives on emerging technologies. We attended the conference to gain an overview of organisational changes happening across the sector in relation to technological developments and to gather opinion on the relevance of the academic library within a digital society. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/editorial/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/editorial/ Welcome to Issue 70 of Ariadne which is full to the brim with feature articles and a wide range of event reports and book reviews. In Gold Open Access: Counting the Costs Theo Andrew explains the significance of the recent RCUK amendment to their Open Access policy requirements of researchers and the importance assumed by the cost of publishing the Gold Open Access route. Unsurprisingly, there is currently a great variability in such costs to research institutions, while, with few exceptions, publishers are as yet slow to impart what effect the move to charging for article processing will have on current institutional subscription costs. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/andrew/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/andrew/ Research Councils UK (RCUK) have recently announced a significant amendment to their open access (OA)  policy which requires all research papers that result from research partly or wholly funded by RCUK to be made open access [1]. To comply with this policy, researchers must either; a) publish in an open access journal, termed Gold OA, which often incurs an article processing charge (APC); or, b) ensure that a copy of the post-print is deposited in an appropriate repository, also known as Green OA. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/hydra-2012-11-rpt/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/hydra-2012-11-rpt/ Hydra, as described in the opening presentation of this event, is a project initiated in 2008 by the University of Hull, Stanford University, University of Virginia, and DuraSpace to work towards a reusable framework for multi-purpose, multi-functional, multi-institutional repository-enabled solutions for the management of digital content collections [1]. An initial timeframe for the project of three years had seen all founding institutional partners successfully implement a repository demonstrating these characteristics.  Key to the aims of the project has always been to generate wider interest outside the partners to foster not only sustainability in the technology, but also sustainability of the community around this open source development. 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/tpdl-2012-rpt/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/tpdl-2012-rpt/ The 16th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL) 2012 [1] was another successful event in the series of ECDL/TPDL conferences which has been the leading European scientific forum on digital libraries for 15 years. Across these years, the conference has brought together researchers, developers, content providers and users in the field of digital libraries by addressing issues in the area where theoretical and applied research meet, such as digital library models, architectures, functionality, users, and quality. 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/lewis-et-al/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/lewis-et-al/ This article describes the motivations behind the development of the ResourceSync Framework. The Framework addresses the need to synchronise resources between Web sites.  Resources cover a wide spectrum of types, such as metadata, digital objects, Web pages, or data files.  There are many scenarios in which the ability to perform some form of synchronisation is required. Examples include aggregators such as Europeana that want to harvest and aggregate collections of resources, or preservation services that wish to archive Web sites as they change. 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/meehan-et-al/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/meehan-et-al/ A full-scale implementation of the Journal Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP) would not be possible without the automated data harvesting afforded by the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) protocol. Estimated time savings in excess of 97% compared with manual file handling have allowed JUSP to expand its service to more than 35 publishers and 140 institutions by September 2012. An in-house SUSHI server also allows libraries to download quality-checked data from many publishers via JUSP, removing the need to visit numerous Web sites. 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/lyons/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/lyons/ It is indisputable that the use of e-resources in university libraries has increased exponentially over the last decade and there would be little disagreement with a prediction that usage is set to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. The majority of students both at undergraduate and post-graduate level now come from a background where online access is the de facto standard. Add to this the ubiquity of mobile devices in the form of netbooks, tablets and smart phones and it is apparent that a considerable percentage of the service provision from libraries does and will continue to involve on-line resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/gartner/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/gartner/ Parliamentary historians in the United Kingdom are particularly fortunate as their key primary source, the record of Parliamentary proceedings, is almost entirely available in digitised form. Similarly, those needing to consult and study contemporary proceedings as scholars, journalists or citizens have access to the daily output of the UK's Parliaments and Assemblies in electronic form shortly after their proceedings take place. Unfortunately, the full potential of this resource for all of these users is limited by the fact that it is scattered throughout a heterogeneous information landscape and so cannot be approached as a unitary resource. 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/70/eurocris-2012-11-rpt/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/70/eurocris-2012-11-rpt/ euroCRIS membership meetings [1] are held twice a year, providing members and invited participants with updates on strategic and Task Group progress and plans, as well as the opportunity to share experience of Current Research Information System (CRIS)-related developments and seek feedback. A CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) tutorial is usually included on the first morning for those new to the standard, and the host country reports on local CRIS initiatives in the ‘national’ session. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/rusbridge-rvw/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/rusbridge-rvw/ We are all too familiar with the dire predictions of coming Digital Dark Ages, when All Shall be Lost because of the fragility of our digital files and the transience of the formats. We forget, of course, that loss was always the norm. The wonderful documents in papyrus, parchment and paper that we so admire and wonder at, are the few lucky survivors of their times. Sometimes they have been carefully nurtured, sometimes they have been accidentally preserved. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/mchugh-rvw/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/mchugh-rvw/ At some point in our careers there may, indeed in these fast moving technological times, will be a period or periods when we will be required to be part of, lead or manage a project implementing technology solutions in libraries.  At 173 pages long, with 13 chapters and 5 appendices, the author seeks to provide the reader with a clear, practitioner-written, jargon-free guide to doing so.  The author, Karen Knox, is a public library librarian who has been working in the sector for over 10 years. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/whalley-rvw/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/whalley-rvw/ The front cover tells you succinctly what this book is about; 'A theory Connecting  - Information Search – to – Knowledge Formation.'  Equally bluntly, I shall set out my credentials for this review. I am not a library/informational professional but I have an interest in delivering digital and information skills to students. I have read and reviewed this book to further my own knowledge of the subject, as well as to see what (new? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/rumsey-rvw/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/rumsey-rvw/ Higher Education institutions (HEIs) in the UK are planning and implementing infrastructure and services to manage research data more urgently than they did for research publications. One policy framework sent to UK vice-chancellors from a major UK funding body (EPSRC), which set out clear expectations of responsibilities for data management at institutions within a given timetable, appears to have been the spark that prompted research data management (RDM) to be taken up by the upper echelons of management, and concrete activities set in place to start addressing the problem. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/maclellan-rvw/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/maclellan-rvw/ The unconference phenomenon is something that I have heard lots about and have previously tried to read information about; however what this basic research has never been able to do is convince me of the necessity for the unconference or camp environment.  Michelle Boule in this concise and easy-to-read book has managed to go at least part way to achieving this.  Through use of case study, interview and example, the book provides an overview of the history of the unconference alongside the benefits it may represent to individuals and organisations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/aayeshah-rvw/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/aayeshah-rvw/ Using Games to Enhance Learning and Teaching: A Beginner’s Guide is exactly what the title maintains: a beginner’s guide. The editors and primary authors, Nicola Whitton and Alex Moseley, have provided an extensive overview of using games as a pedagogical resource. While this title highlights the benefits of effective games usage, it nonetheless also identifies the potential problems when employing games in a pedagogical context. ContentThe book is divided into three major sections together with an introduction and a conclusion. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/editorial/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/editorial/ Never blessed with any sporting acumen, I have to confess to a degree of ambivalence towards the London Olympics unfolding around this issue as it publishes. That does not mean that I do not wish all the participants well in what after all is an enormous achievement just to be able to compete there at all. While I admit to not watching every team walk and wave, I cannot deny that the beginning and end of the Opening Ceremony [1] did grab my attention. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/eduserv-2012-rpt/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/eduserv-2012-rpt/ The annual Eduserv Symposium [1] was billed as a ‘must-attend event for IT professionals in Higher Education’; the choice of topical subject matter being one of the biggest crowd-drawers (the other being the amazing venue: the Royal College of Physicians). The past few years have seen coverage of highly topical areas such as virtualisation and the cloud, the mobile university and access management. This year’s theme of big data is certainly stimulating interest, but what exactly are the implications for those working in research, learning, and operations in Higher Education? 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/fitzgibbon-lau/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/fitzgibbon-lau/ Assessment and feedback practice in Higher Education has long been the major source of student dissatisfaction (National Student Surveys) [1]. While technologies are increasingly being used as a tool to improve the learning experience for students and staff, the use of technologies in improving the assessment experience is still patchy. In particular, in the JISC call for proposals for the assessment and feedback programme, it was suggested that ‘many institutions have yet to put in place well-embedded, supported and sustainable technology-enhanced assessment and feedback practices. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/jisc-rim-cerif-rpt/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/jisc-rim-cerif-rpt/ A workshop on Research Information Management (RIM) and CERIF was held in Bristol on 27-28 June 2012, organised by the Innovation Support Centre [1] at UKOLN, together with the JISC RIM and RCSI (Repositories and Curation Shared Infrastructure) Programmes. It was a follow-up to the CERIF Tutorial and UK Data Surgery [2] held in Bath in February. Workshop Scope and AimsThe aim was to bring together people working on the various elements of the UK RIM jigsaw to share experience of using CERIF and explore ways of working together more closely. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/milloy/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/milloy/ JISC eCollections is a set of e-resource platforms launched in November 2011 by JISC Collections, in partnership with the JISC data centres EDINA and Mimas. The platforms (Figure 1) are JISC MediaHub, JISC Historic Books and JISC Journal Archives; together, they are intended to provide a sustainable, value-for-money alternative to accessing licensed content on publisher platforms, by consolidating and hosting the broad range of historical book, journal archive and multimedia content purchased by JISC Collections on behalf of the UK education community. 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/69/bunting/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/bunting/ Tools and strategies for content management are a perennial topic in Ariadne. With more than one hundred articles touching on content management system (CMS) technologies or techniques since this online magazine commenced publication in 1996, Ariadne attests to continuing interest in this topic. Authors have discussed this topic within various contexts, from intranets to repositories and Web 2.0,  with some notable surges in references to 'content management' between 2000 and 2005 (see Figure 1 below).  Although levels of discussion are by no means trending, over recent years it is clear that Ariadne authors have taken note of and written about content management tools and techniques on a regular basis. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/iwmw-2012-rpt/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/iwmw-2012-rpt/ The 16th Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW 12) took place at the University of Edinburgh's Appleton Tower – a building with a stunning panoramic view over the volcanic city.  The event brought together 172 delegates and attracted an additional 165 viewers to the live video stream of the plenary sessions over the three days. This year's theme focussed on embedding innovation, and the event featured a range of case studies and examples of embedded practice. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/datacite-2012-rpt/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/datacite-2012-rpt/ On Friday, 6 July 2012 I made my way to the British Library Conference Centre for the second in a series of DataCite workshops [1]. The theme was Describe, Disseminate, Discover: Metadata for Effective Data Citation. In welcoming us to the event, Lee-Ann Coleman, Head of Scientific, Technical and Medical Information at the British Library, said there had been some doubt as to whether anyone would turn up to an event about metadata, but as it happened there were 36 of us, drawn from across the UK and beyond. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/robinson-et-al/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/robinson-et-al/ Although the move from print to electronic journals over the last two decades has been enormously beneficial to academic libraries and their users, the shift from owning material outright to renting access has restricted the autonomy of librarians to grant access to these journals. The ProblemLicence restrictions imposed by publishers define and limit access rights and librarians have increasingly taken on the role of restricting access on behalf of the publisher, rather than granting access on behalf of their institution. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/whalley/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/whalley/ Wikipedia has become internationally known as an online encyclopaedia ('The Free Encyclopedia'). Developed by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and launched in 2001 it has, to date, editions in 285 languages. Wikipedia is but one subset of the Web-based applications known as 'wikis'. The original wiki (as wikiwikiweb) was developed by Ward Cunningham in the 1990s as the least complex way of rapidly sharing and communicating 'information'. Wiki is Hawaiian for 'quick'; repeating the word is equivalent to adding 'very'. 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/callaghan-et-al/ Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/callaghan-et-al/ Data are the foundation upon which scientific progress rests. Historically speaking, data were a scarce resource, but one which was (relatively) easy to publish in hard copy, as tables or graphs in journal papers. With modern scientific methods, and the increased ease in collecting and analysing vast quantities of data, there arises a corresponding difficulty in publishing this data in a form that can be considered part of the scientific record. 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/gorman/ Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/gorman/ Second Life (SL) is a virtual world created and owned by a company called Linden Lab and was launched in 2003. By 2006, SL was increasingly visible in the UK media and by 2007 SL had secured over 600 mentions in UK newspapers and magazines [1]. However, media interest in SL evaporated rapidly with references to it dropping by more than 40% in 2008 and even further since. During this peak period SL attracted large investment in virtual land from multi-national corporations, businesses and also attracted significant interest from educational institutions. 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/hopkinson-zargaryan/ Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/hopkinson-zargaryan/ Early writing which first appeared as cuneiform protocols and then emerged in manuscript form and as printed materials is currently entering a new stage in its development – in the form of electronic publications. The Internet has drastically changed our understanding of access to library resources, to publication schemas, and has introduced brand new ways of information delivery. And as a result, the present situation could be described as a continuous increase in the amount of material being published only in electronic form, together with wide-scale conversion of paper-based material to digital formats. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/elbert-et-al/ Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/elbert-et-al/ This article presents a summary of some results of the study Perceptions of Public Libraries in Africa [1] which was conducted to research perceptions of stakeholders and the public towards public libraries in six African countries. The study is closely linked with the EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme [2], which awarded grants to public libraries in developing and transition countries to address a range of socio-economic issues facing their communities, including projects in Kenya, Ghana and Zambia. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/green-et-al/ Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/green-et-al/ At the heart of meeting institutional requirements for managing digital content is the need to understand the different operations through which content goes, from planning and creation through to disposal or preservation.  Digital content is created using a variety of authoring tools.  Once created, the content is often stored somewhere different, made accessible in possibly more than one way, altered as required, and then moved for deletion or preservation at an appropriate point. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/paschoud-rvw/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/paschoud-rvw/ For Learners… and Practitioners?Superficially at least, this book seems to be very clearly designed for students on a structured course at first degree or masters level for would-be information management professionals. In terms of structure I’m sure it’s ideally suited to that audience, with each of five chapters including learning objectives, review questions to test understanding, and group discussion topics. However the main author, Jennifer Rowley of Manchester Metropolitan University, makes quite clear in her introduction that she intends the book to cater equally for experienced and practising information professionals, claiming also that it is the ‘first to seek to discuss and apply the rhetoric and theories of innovation and entrepreneurship in information organisations’. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/davies-rvw/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/davies-rvw/ For those of us who work in public libraries these are, in the words of the old Chinese proverb, 'interesting times'. The service is under scrutiny at both local and national levels, with an intensity unknown in previous generations. Public libraries are in the news, with headline stories on the BBC's Today and Newsnight. They are the focus of demonstrations and read-ins, as councils struggle to balance severely reduced budgets. They have become a shorthand method of describing the difficult choices hard-pressed local authorities are having to make: such-and-such a 'backroom function' is worth x number of libraries. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/white-rvw/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/white-rvw/ Information Retrieval and Enterprise SearchFor much of 2011 I worked on a project commissioned by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, on a techno-economic study of enterprise search in Europe.  There is no dispute that the volume of information inside organisations is growing very rapidly, though much of this growth is the result of never discarding any digital information.  The scale of the problem is well documented by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) in its report on ‘Big Data’ [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/tonkin-rvw/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/tonkin-rvw/ Published by O'Reilly, as part of the Theory In Practice series, this book is essentially academic in focus. It takes the form of thirty chapters. The first eight of these aim to provide an introduction to the area of software engineering, or more specifically, the collection and use of supporting evidence to support software engineering practices. These initial chapters are satisfyingly broad in scope, covering topics from human factors and personality to complexity metrics and the process of authoring a systematic review. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/azzolini-rvw/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/azzolini-rvw/ Librarians, archivists, and records managers do not share identical challenges or controversies in their practical endeavours or theoretical queries. However, a common issue for all the information professions and a dominating topic of discussion in their literature is the fundamental change in the structure and distribution of knowledge caused by mass digitisation. The proliferation of daily digital content, in quantity, reach, and manifestation, is confronting them all with a disquieting role ambiguity. 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/iassist-2011-rpt/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/iassist-2011-rpt/ The IASSIST [1] Conference is a long-standing annual event which brings together researchers, statistical analysts as well as computer and information professionals interested in all aspects of research data, from discovery to reuse. This 37th meeting spanned five days where participants could attend workshops, IASSIST business meetings and a myriad of presentations. This year, the event focused on the sharing of tools and techniques which ‘improves capabilities across disciplines and along the entire data life cycle’. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/lis-rc-dream-rpt/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/lis-rc-dream-rpt/ The DREaM (Developing Research Excellence and Methods) Conference [1] was held at the British Library Conference Centre in London in July 2011. The conference was attended by 86 delegates, and consisted of an overview of the DREaM Project, two keynote papers, a one-minute madness session, and four parallel breakout sessions. I had the opportunity to attend as a sponsored delegate, thanks to Glen Recruitment, Sue Hill Recruitment and TFPL. Welcome AddressProfessor Hazel Hall, Edinburgh Napier UniversityThe welcome address was given by Professor Hazel Hall. 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/fpw11-rpt/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/fpw11-rpt/ We have all heard at least some of the extraordinary statistics that attempt to capture the sheer size and ephemeral nature of the Web. According to the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), more than 70 new domains are registered and more than 500,000 documents are added to the Web every minute [1]. This scale, coupled with its ever-evolving use, present significant challenges to those concerned with preserving both the content and context of the Web. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/edui-2011-rpt/ Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/edui-2011-rpt/ The third annual edUi Conference [1] was held October 13-14, 2011, in Richmond, Virginia, USA. The sold-out event saw 225 ‘Web professionals serving colleges, universities, libraries, museums, and beyond’ join together to discuss the latest and greatest in Web trends and technologies. The all-volunteer conference was presented by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, and major sponsors included Microsoft, the University of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University. The two-day event consisted of four tracks [2]: 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/68/lyon/ Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/68/lyon/ Research libraries have traditionally supported the scholarly research and communication process, largely through supporting access to and preservation of its published outputs. The library cornerstones have been positioned around a long-established publication process tailored to deliver the peer-reviewed scholarly article or monograph; but now the research landscape is dramatically changing. The application of computational science and growth of data-intensive research, combined with a veritable explosion of social media tools and Web technologies, are reshaping research practice. 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/day-rvw/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/day-rvw/ Over the past 20 years a great deal of information and guidance has been published to support cultural heritage organisations interested in undertaking digitisation projects. It is well over a decade now since the seminal Joint National Preservation Office and Research Libraries Group Preservation Conference on Guidelines for digital imaging [1] and standard introductory texts on digitisation like Anne Kenney and Oya Rieger's Moving theory into practice [2] and Stuart Lee's Digital imaging: a practical handbook [3] are of a similar age - although still extremely useful. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/lafortune-rvw/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/lafortune-rvw/ E-Science, creative disorder, innovators wanted, core competencies and hybridisation of library personnel are some of the concepts you will find in the titles of the 13 chapters which make up this collected work. The editors, both library administrators at two large universities in the US, introduce the book by asking: in view of the major changes that are taking place in academic libraries, who should we be hiring to provide services in areas of 'critical campus concern' such as undergraduate research, data curation, intellectual property management and e-science? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/cope-jones/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/cope-jones/ The Connected Researcher initiative is a response to both local and sector-wide events. At the University of Bath groups of postgraduate research students from Chemistry and Social Sciences separately expressed an interest in finding out how to profile their own research and establish links with other researchers in their fields. Nationally there has been a growing wave of interest in the potential offered by social media for supporting all aspects of the research cycle as exemplified by the recent Digital Researcher events sponsored by Vitae [1] and the Research Information Network (RIN) publication Social media: A guide for researchers [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/datacite-2011-rpt/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/datacite-2011-rpt/ DataCite [1] is an international not-for-profit organisation dedicated to making research data a normal, citable part of the scientific record. It is made up of a membership of 15 major libraries and data centres, which, along with four associate members, represent 11 different countries across four continents. The approach taken by DataCite currently centres on assigning Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to datasets; it is a member of the International DOI Foundation and one of a handful of DOI registration agencies. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/editorial/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/editorial/ For readers who might have been wondering, I shall resist Mark Twain’s remark about reports of his demise being exaggerated, and reassure you that while Ariadne has been undergoing changes to the way in which it will be delivered to the Web, it has been business as usual in the matter of the content, as you will see from the paragraphs that follow. Issue 67, while currently not looking any different, is in the process of being migrated to a new platform developed to enhance functionality and give a more user-friendly look and feel to the publication. 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/blackwell-hackneyblackwell/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/blackwell-hackneyblackwell/ Quotation is the heart of scholarly argument and teaching, the activity of bringing insight to something complex by focused discussion of its parts. Philosophers who have reflected on the question of quotation have identified two necessary components: a name, pointer, or citation on the one hand and a reproduction or repetition on the other. Robert Sokolowski calls quotation a 'curious conjunction of being able to name and to contain' [1]; V. 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/stone-et-al/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/stone-et-al/ In 2010, the University of Huddersfield shared results from its analysis of anonymised library usage data [1]. Data was analysed for over 700 courses over four years - 2005⁄6 — 2008⁄9; this included the number of e-resources accessed, the number of book loans and the number of accesses to the University Library. This investigation suggested a strong correlation between library usage and degree results, and also significant underuse of expensive library resources at both School and course level. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/jones-et-al/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/jones-et-al/ [toc hidden:1] The MyMobileBristol Project is managed and developed by the Web Futures group at the Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT), University of Bristol [1]. The project has a number of broad and ambitious aims and objectives, including collaboration with Bristol City Council on the development or adoption of standards with regard to the exchange of time- and location-sensitive data within the Bristol region, with particular emphasis on transport, the environment and sustainability. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/rinaldo-et-al/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/rinaldo-et-al/ The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) [1] is a consortium of 12 natural history and botanical libraries that co-operate to digitise and make accessible the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global ‘biodiversity commons.’ [2] The participating libraries hold more than two million volumes of biodiversity literature collected over 200 years to support the work of scientists, researchers and students in their home institutions and throughout the world. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/ananiadou-et-al/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/67/ananiadou-et-al/ A core component of the European Union is a common market with a single information space that works with around two dozen national languages and many regional languages. This wide variety of languages presents linguistic barriers that can severely limit the free flow of goods, information and services throughout Europe. In this article, we provide an overview of the META-NET Network of Excellence [1]. This is an ambitious initiative, consisting of 44 centres from 31 countries in Europe, aiming to improve significantly on the number of language technologies that can assist European citizens, by supporting enhanced communication and co-operation across languages. 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/ronson/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/ronson/ Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, Zetoc [1] provides quality-assured, comprehensive journal table of contents data for resource discovery that users can search and have delivered straight to their in-box or desktop. In a nutshell, Zetoc is all about convenience, current awareness and comprehensive coverage. In a recent survey, one academic commented: 'This is a "one-stop shop" for relevant literature'. What is Zetoc, what has it achieved and where is it going? 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/rafiq-rvw/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/rafiq-rvw/ Open source (OS) usually refers to an application whose source code is made available for use or modification in line with users’ needs and requirements. OS projects usually develop in the public domain where contributors participate in a collaborative manner and update or refine the product. OS offers more flexibility and freedom than software purchased with licence restrictions. Both the OS community and the library world share many common principles. They share and promote open standards and believe in sharing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/coelho-rvw/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/coelho-rvw/ The clue is in the title. This book sets out to dispel the myths about creativity and innovation which you have cherished so dearly. It tells you what 'not to do and what not to think' so that you can free yourself from common misguided notions on the subject. As a special bonus, this new paperback edition includes four new chapters which provide the practical tips you would need to help your ideas take off. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/hitchcock-tarrant/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/hitchcock-tarrant/ Preservation: The Effect of Going Digital Preservation of scholarly content seemed more straightforward when it was only available in printed form. Production, dissemination and archiving of print are performed by distinctly separate, specialist organisations, from publishers to national libraries and archives. Preservation of publications established as having cultural significance - printed literature, books and, in the academic world, journals fall into this category - is self-selecting and systematic in a way that has not yet been fully established for digital content. 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/idcc-2010-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/idcc-2010-rpt/ The International Digital Curation Conference has been held annually by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) [1] since 2005, quickly establishing a reputation for high-quality presentations and papers. So much so that, as co-chair Allen Renear explained in his opening remarks, after attending the 2006 Conference in Glasgow [2] delegates from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) offered to bring the event to Chicago. Thus it was that the sixth conference in the series [3], entitled ‘Participation and Practice: Growing the Curation Community through the Data Decade’, came to be held jointly by the DCC, UIUC and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/cetis-2010-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/cetis-2010-rpt/ 'I get a feeling that we are on a...' [The hands make a gesture to show the stern of a sinking ship]. The Monty Phytonesque images on my inner eye from the title of the CETIS 2010 Conference fade and the jolly music of the ship's band starts chiming in my inner ear as I see them move towards the forward half of the boat deck. The CETIS conference is always an upbeat event, even when the prospects for higher education in UK at the moment are not that bright. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/boot/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/boot/ Large amounts of money are spent building scholarly resources on the web. Unlike online retailers, large publishers and banks, scholarly institutions tend not to monitor very closely the way visitors use their web sites. In this article I would like to show that a look at the traces users leave behind in the Web servers’ log files can teach us much about our sites’ usability and about the way visitors use them. 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/66/chapman/ Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/66/chapman/ Earlier this year UKOLN received an email informing us that the server hosting the Tap into Bath collection description database was due to be decommissioned towards the end of 2010. Although there had been some previous discussion over the future of the database, the email was the trigger for a formal review of the project. This article describes the preservation strategy that was developed and the steps that were taken to preserve information about the database and the software. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/parsons/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/parsons/ When reflecting on a methodological approach and set of research practices with which he was closely associated, Bruno Latour suggested that, “there are four things that do not work with actor-network theory; the word actor, the word network, the word theory and the hyphen!” [1]. In a similar vein, it could be suggested that, “there are three things that do not work with academic liaison librarianship: the word academic, the word liaison and the word librarianship”. 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/tonkin-rvw/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/tonkin-rvw/ DefinitionsTAXON”OMY, n. [Gr. order, and law.] Classification; a term used by a French author to denote the classification of plants. Webster’s Revised Dictionary (1828 Edition) [1] Tax*on”omy (?), n. [Gr. an arrangement, order + a law.] That division of the natural sciences which treats of the classification of animals and plants; the laws or principles of classification. Webster’s Revised Dictionary (1913 Edition) [1] Taxonomy Classification, esp. in relation to its general laws or principles; that department of science, or of a particular science or subject, which consists in or relates to classification; esp. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/cig-2010-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/cig-2010-rpt/ The focus of this conference was initiatives to get through the current economic climate. Cataloguing departments are under threat of cutbacks as never before. Papers on streamlining, collaborative enterprises, shared catalogues and services, recycling and repurposing of content using metadata extraction techniques combined to give a flavour of the new thrift driving management. The continuing progress of the long awaited Resource Description and Access (RDA)[1][2] towards becoming the new international cataloguing standard was another hot topic. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/white-rvw/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/white-rvw/ I have no doubt at all that smart phones are going to cause a revolution in information access. People need location-free access to information, whether they are walking down a corridor in an office, working in a laboratory or sitting in a library. If you doubt that forecast, then just look at the speed with which around 300,000 applications have been developed for the Apple iPhone, a substantial number of which are information-centric rather than entertainment-centric. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/wilson-et-al/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/wilson-et-al/ The University of Oxford began to consider research data management infrastructure in earnest in 2008, with the ‘Scoping Digital Repository Services for Research Data’ Project [1]. Two further JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee)-funded pilot projects followed this initial study, and the approaches taken by these projects, and their findings, form the bulk of this article. Oxford’s decision to do something about its data management infrastructure was timely. A subject that had previously attracted relatively little interest amongst senior decision makers within the UK university sector, let alone amongst the public at large, was about to acquire a new-found prominence. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/editorial/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/editorial/ You may have already noted in the editorial section of this issue a link to the Reader Survey which I ask you seriously to consider completing, whether you are a frequent Ariadne reader or are reading the Magazine for the first time. Moves are afoot to give Ariadne some effort towards improvements in your experience of the publication and I cannot emphasise enough the value I place on suggestions and comments from you. 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/65/gramstadt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/gramstadt/ This article presents data gathered through a University for the Creative Arts Learning and Teaching Research Grant (2009-2010); including a study of existing image presentation tools, both digital and non-digital; and analysis of data from four interviews and an online questionnaire. The aim of the research was to look afresh at available technology from the point of view of a lecturer in the visual arts, and to use the information gathered to look more critically at the available technology. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/wolski-richardson/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/wolski-richardson/ In 1999 Sir John Taylor [1], then Director General of the UK Research Councils, talked about e-Science, i.e. global collaboration in key areas of science and the next generation of infrastructure that will support it. It encompasses computationally intensive science that is carried out in highly distributed network environments or that uses immense datasets that require grid computing. In the US the term cyberinfrastructure has been used to describe the new research environments that support advanced data acquisition, data storage, data management, data integration, data mining, data visualisation and other computing and information processing services over the Internet. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/repos-fringe-2010-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/repos-fringe-2010-rpt/ 2010 was the third year of Repository Fringe, and slightly more formally organised than its antecedents, with an increased number of discursive presentations and less in the way of organised chaos! The proceedings began on Wednesday 1 September with a one-day, pre-event SHERPA/RoMEO API Workshop [1] run by the Repositories Support Project team. 2 September 2010Opening the event proper on Thursday morning, Sheila Cannell, Director of Library Services, University of Edinburgh, used the imminent Edinburgh festival fireworks as a metaphor for the repository development endeavour. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/survive-thrive-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/survive-thrive-rpt/ Survive or Thrive [1] is the punchy title given to an event intended to stimulate serious consideration amongst digital collections practitioners about future directions in our field - opportunities but also potential pitfalls. The event, which focused on content in HE, comes at a time of financial uncertainty when proving value is of increasing importance in the sector and at a point when significant investment has already been made in the UK into content creation, set against a backdrop of increasingly available content on the open Web from a multitude of sources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/hilton-et-al/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/hilton-et-al/ Born-digital archival material represents the single most important challenge to the archival profession for a generation or more. It requires us to rethink issues and assumptions around acquisition, preservation, cataloguing and reader access. Not least is the problem of getting donors to transfer their born-digital material to us. We have encountered four common scenarios that seem to act as blocks to the transfer of such material. We also need to change the way we engage with donors. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/mahey-walk/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/65/mahey-walk/ Software developers are important to Further (FE) and Higher Education (HE). They are needed to develop and implement local FEI (Further Education Institution) and HEI (Higher Education Institution) solutions, to build e-infrastructure, and to innovate and develop ideas and prototypes that can be exploited by others. They also play an important part in the development and uptake of open standards and interoperability. With the increasing accessibility and affordability of high-quality development tools, collaborative environments and industrial-grade infrastructure, the potential for even a single software developer advantageously to affect a wide range of activities in and around research, teaching and learning has never been so great. 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/day-rvw/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/day-rvw/ It is normal in some subject disciplines to publish volumes of edited papers in honour of a respected colleague, usually to mark a significant birthday or career change. The contributors to such Festschriften* are usually made up of former colleagues or pupils of the person being honoured. This volume celebrates the work of Professor Peter Brophy, the founder of the Centre for Research in Library and Information Management (CERLIM), which since 1998 has been based at the Manchester Metropolitan University. 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/bremner-rvw/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/bremner-rvw/ The PreambleI have been building online ‘communities of practice’ for about 10 years now. Some have thrived and others not. It started about 10 years ago with the formation of a small association with a shared interest in classic marine heritage. The community operated entirely online, mainly through a forum and we found that, with very little conscious effort, the community quickly grew and thrived. It was quickly taken up as an example of good practice and evidence for what could be achieved within a small community with similar interests and aspirations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/westra/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/westra/ Computational science and raw and derivative scientific data are increasingly important to the research enterprise of higher education institutions. Academic libraries are beginning to examine what the expansion of data-intensive e-science means to scholarly communication and information services, and some are reshaping their own programmes to support the digital curation needs of research staff. These changes in libraries may involve repurposing or leveraging existing services, and the development or acquisition of new skills, roles, and organisational structures [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/ebooks-ucl-2010-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/ebooks-ucl-2010-rpt/ This meeting on 11 May 2010, chaired by Anthony Watkinson, was organised by the University College London Department of Information Studies. Some 40 people attended the ‘e-book’ conference with the specific title; ‘Data as Content’. Eight papers were presented with a final panel question and answer session that explored some of the issues that had arisen during the day. Papers Presented Unfortunately, the first billed presentation, by Matthew Day (Nature) on ‘The role of publishers in data management, now and next’, had to be cancelled. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/editorial/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/editorial/ In these cash-strapped times among all the admonitions to save money here, and resources there, I rather hope to hear much about the necessity of protecting and building the knowledge economy if the UK is to make its way in the globalised world, since we cannot pretend to compete easily in other areas of endeavour. Hence research has to be regarded as one of the aces remaining to us, and thus I hope the importance of gathering, managing and preserving for long-term access research outcomes will be widely appreciated and supported. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/eduserv-2010-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/eduserv-2010-rpt/ The Eduserv Symposium 2010 on the mobile university brought together colleagues from academia and practice to discuss the impact of the growth in mobile technologies on Higher Education: for example, on the student experience, learning and teaching initiatives, research, libraries, role of the educators, and the computer services support. Stephen Butcher and Andy Powell of Eduserv gave the welcome addresses. Stephen mentioned how this symposium was the largest that Eduserv had hosted and gave a background of Eduserv’s activities. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/emtacl10-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/emtacl10-rpt/ The emerging technologies in academic libraries (or emtac10) [1] conference was held from 26 - 28 April 2010 at the Rica Nidelven Hotel in Trondheim – winners of “Norges beste frokost” (Norway’s Best Breakfast) for 5 years running, as the sign proudly states outside the hotel. They certainly fed us copious amounts of fantastic food, and had evening functions including an organ recital in the impressive cathedral, but what about the contents of the conference itself? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/lisrc10-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/lisrc10-rpt/ Having been involved in developing the concept of a coalition for research in Library and Information Science (LIS) since 2006, it was with both pride and excitement that I took my place in the British Library's auditorium on Monday 28 June. There was a buzz of anticipation. We were not disappointed. The Coalition was established by a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the five founder members in March 2009 [1]. In August 2009 the Coalition Board was in a position to appoint Hazel Hall as Executive Secretary and to start work. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/iwmw-2010-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/iwmw-2010-rpt/ This was the 13th Institutional Web Management Workshop [1] to be organised by UKOLN [2] held at the University of Sheffield from 12 to 14 July 2010. The theme was 'The Web in Turbulent Times' [3]. As such, there was a healthy balance of glass-half-empty-doom-and-gloom, and glass-half-full-yes-we-can. More detailed reporting, including live blogging by Kirsty McGill of T Consult Ltd [4] and blog posts by presenters, can be found at the IWMW Blog [5]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/upa-2010-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/upa-2010-rpt/ We were fortunate enough to attend the UPA 2010 International Conference [2] which was recently held in the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, a beautiful hotel which has accommodated numerous famous guests in the past ranging from Paris Hilton to the Dalai Lama. The conferences main focus this year was on how UX professionals can create great user experiences across different cultures. Over 700 people who work in the user experience field attended, with a more international crowd than ever, mainly due to the fact that it was the first UPA conference held outside North America. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/joyce-et-al/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/joyce-et-al/ Increasingly, library and information services are under pressure to demonstrate value for money. Against the backdrop of search engine dominance, economic instability, and rapid technological development, Intute, a JISC-funded free national service which delivers the best of the Web for education and research, is facing reduced funding and an uncertain future. This article will share its successes and achievements, put a spotlight on the human expertise of its contributors and partners, and reflect on lessons learnt in the context of the sustainability of library and information services. 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/or-10-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/or-10-rpt/ The air temperature in Madrid was around 37ºC when the Edinburgh contingent arrived in mid-afternoon on 5 July. The excellent air-conditioned Metro took us all the way into town - about 14km - for only 2 Euros. We were told later that the temperature during the preceding week had been about 21ºC, but by the end of the conference week we were enjoying 39ºC. The conference venue turned out to be opposite the Santiago Bernabeu stadium (home of Real Madrid), in Paseo de la Castellana. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/hammond/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/hammond/ Beginning in the mid 2000s I began keeping an eye on how libraries have been getting involved with social software - I started this haphazardly just out of interest but then I started to be more systematic when I needed to explore online resources for my organisation, the National Railway Museum. When I left to pursue my MA in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield I took the opportunity to do some serious research into the subject with a focus on UK public libraries as it seemed to me that they were hugely under-represented online. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/fay/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/fay/ Digital collections at LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science)[1] are significant and growing, as are the requirements of their users. LSE Library collects materials relevant to research and teaching in the social sciences, crossing the boundaries between personal and organisational archives, rare and unique printed collections and institutional research outputs. Digital preservation is an increasing concern alongside our commitment to continue to develop innovative digital services for researchers and students. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/salo/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/salo/ Eager to prove their relevance among scholars leaving print behind, libraries have participated vocally in the last half-decade's conversation about digital research data. On the surface, libraries would seem to have much human and technological infrastructure ready-constructed to repurpose for data: digital library platforms and institutional repositories may appear fit for purpose. However, unless libraries understand the salient characteristics of research data, and how they do and do not fit with library processes and infrastructure, they run the risk of embarrassing missteps as they come to grips with the data challenge. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/gambles/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/64/gambles/ The Library of Birmingham (LoB) will open in 2013 as a world-class centre for culture, learning and knowledge, rewriting the book for public libraries in the 21st century. 'Rewriting the Book', which is integral to the new LoB brand, recognises and embraces the present and future challenge to libraries – it accepts that established means of accessing knowledge are changing rapidly and dynamically, with a significant digital dimension, and that increasingly radical responses to this challenge are demanded from leaders in the library sector. 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/ridolfo-et-al/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/ridolfo-et-al/ Archive 2.0 is relatively new concept for us, one that we have only worked with since 2007 and the beginning of our Samaritan Digital Archive Project at Michigan State University (MSU). Our project started with the intention of building a digital archive; the Archive 2.0 nature of the project surfaced when we realised that in order to build a useful archive, we would need to engage multiple stakeholder communities. In our project this meant working with the cultural stakeholders, the Samaritans, as well as academic stakeholders, including Samaritan and Biblical scholars. 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/whalley-rvw/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/whalley-rvw/ The purpose of this book is to support Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals at Higher Education institutions (HEIs) who may be involved with doctoral students. Supporting Research Students emanates from Dr Allan's own experience in gaining a PhD and as a Senior Lecturer in Student Learning and Management Learning at the University of Hull. She thus has considerable expertise in seeing postgraduate research from the student point of view and from support provision by LIS staff. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/paschoud/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/paschoud/ Way back in prehistory, when libraries were buildings with books in, identity management was a pretty simple challenge for them. A library was either truly 'public', in which case you did not care who came in (the more people, the more popular you were, which was 'a good thing'). Otherwise, you had to be a member, and the security officer on the door knew your face, or you could show him (it was usually a 'him', then) a card or something to prove you were a member. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/editorial/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/editorial/ For those who can either remember or are battling still to make the technology work, be it coding, integration or test, it is easy and understandable enough if the technology assumes an overwhelming profile on the horizon of one's project and daily work. It is very understandable when they privately grumble that colleagues unburdened with the minutiae of such work display a breath-taking insouciance to the consequences of asking for a change in spec because there has been an unexpected development in the requirements of the users. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/massam-et-al/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/massam-et-al/ 'The mobile phone is undoubtedly [a] strong driving force, a behaviour changer…Library users will soon be demanding that every interaction can take place via the cell phone' [1] The move towards mobile technologies in libraries and in the wider educational environment is gathering increasing momentum as we enter a new decade. This is reflected in the huge amount of Web content, research reports and innovative projects devoted to mobile learning and mobile applications in libraries which can be found via a quick search on Google. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/stevenson-ruddock/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/stevenson-ruddock/ The Archives Hub [1] is a JISC-funded service based at Mimas, a National Data Centre supporting world-class learning and research [2]. It brings together descriptions of archives for research and education, enabling users to search across over nearly 200 repositories. It stores descriptions in Encoded Archival Description (EAD). Interoperability is about working together (inter-operating). Whilst the central theme of this article is data interoperability – the ability to exchange or share information and use that information – this also requires individuals and organisations to work together; another form of interoperability. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/newsline/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/newsline/ Engagement, Impact, Value WorkshopUniversity of Manchester Monday 24 May 2010 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/engagement-impact-value-201005/ UKOLN and Mimas will be jointly running a workshop entitled Engagement, Impact, Value which will be held at the University of Manchester on Monday 24 May. The event will provide an opportunity to share and discuss ways in which service providers can engage with their user communities in order to enhance the impact of their work and maximise the value. 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/63/rda-briefing-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/rda-briefing-rpt/ In June 2010 Anglo American Cataloguing Rules (AACR), [1] the cataloguing standard in use for the last thirty years, will be replaced by Resource Description and Access (RDA) [2]. As the biggest change in bibliographic standards since the adoption of MARC21 ten years ago, the new rules have inspired much discussion in the cataloguing community and beyond. This briefing, organised by CILIP, aimed to provide an overview of the new standard as well as addressing the impact on librarians and libraries. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/ia-summit-2010-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/ia-summit-2010-rpt/ The 11th Annual IA Summit [1] was held in sunny Phoenix Arizona this year. It might have been more appropriate for a Masters student studying Data Curation to attend the Research Data and Access Summit, which was running concurrently, but in this particular case, curiosity prevailed. Clearly, Information Architecture (IA) is a hot field, but this fact may only serve to increase anxiety as some may not have a firm grasp on what it entails. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/rdmf4-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/rdmf4-rpt/ The fourth meeting of the Research Data Management Forum was held in Manchester on 10 and 11 March 2010, co-sponsored by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) [1] and the Research Information Network (RIN) [2]. The event took Dealing with Sensitive Data: Managing Ethics, Security and Trust as its theme [3]. Day 1: 10 March 2010DCC Associate Director Liz Lyon and RIN Head of Programmes Stéphane Goldstein welcomed the 45 delegates to the event, and began by introducing the keynote speaker, Iain Buchan, Professor of Public Health Informatics and Director of the Northwest Institute for Bio-Health Informatics (NIBHI), University of Manchester. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/niso-d2d-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/niso-d2d-rpt/ A crisp spring day in Atlanta saw a gathering of 50 participants coming from libraries, including many from the GALILEO consortium, from vendors, including sponsors Ex Libris and Innovative Interfaces, Inc., and from content providers such as JSTOR, for a series of presentations at the well-equipped and comfortable Georgia Tech Global Learning Center, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The agenda [1] was an interesting mix of perspectives on a theme - switching focus from information resource users, particularly students, and how studying and interacting with them can inform our discovery and delivery systems, to details of ‘behind the scenes’ of these systems, technologies and standards such as OpenURL and SSO (Single Sign-on), and improvements needed to deliver more seamlessly what users want, as well as the development of new services such as bX recommender and BookServer. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/paterson-low/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/paterson-low/ Demands for improved usability and developments in user experience (UX) have become pertinent due to the increasing complexities of digital libraries (DLs) and user expectations associated with the advances in Web technologies. In particular, usability research and testing are becoming necessary means to assess the current and future breeds of information environments such that they can be better understood, well-formed and validated. Usability studies and digital library development are not often intertwined due to the existing cultural model in system development. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/planets-2010-rome-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/63/planets-2010-rome-rpt/ In far more dramatic circumstances than expected, the Planets Project [1] held its 3-day training event Digital Preservation – The Planets Way in Rome over 19 - 21 April 2010. This article reports its proceedings. The venue chosen for this Planets training event, the last of a series of five held over the past 12 months around Europe, was the prestigious Pontifica Universitata Gregoriana – the first Jesuit University, founded over 450 years ago in the heart of Rome and only a few minutes’ walk from the Trevi Fountain. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/maidmentotlet-redfearn/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/maidmentotlet-redfearn/ At the end of November 2009, JISC launched a year-long suite of activities under the heading Research 3.0: driving the knowledge economy. A series of events, publications and Web activity are stimulating discussion about how advanced digital technologies are creating a revolution in research and the way researchers work. With a central role in making these technologies available, JISC is also hoping to learn more about the concerns, views and requirements of researchers and the institutions that support them, especially given the financial constraints they are now under. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/nicholas-et-al/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/nicholas-et-al/ Discussion of digital identifiers, and persistent identifiers in particular, has often been confused by differences in underlying assumptions and approaches. To bring more clarity to such discussions, the PILIN Project has devised an abstract model of identifiers and identifier services, which is presented here in summary. Given such an abstract model, it is possible to compare different identifier schemes, despite variations in terminology; and policies and strategies can be formulated for persistence without committing to particular systems. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/flinn/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/flinn/ This article was originally delivered as a paper for the ‘Archives 2.0: Shifting Dialogues Between Users and Archivists’ conference organised by the University of Manchester’s ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) in March 2009. The paper came at an opportune time. I was absorbed in a research project examining independent and community archival initiatives in the UK and exploring the possibilities of user- (or community-)generated and contributed content for archives and historical research [1]. 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/fedora-eu-rpt/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/fedora-eu-rpt/ The Fedora digital repository system 1 is an open source solution for the management of all types of digital content. Its development is managed through DuraSpace [2], the same organisation that now oversees DSpace, and carried out by developers around the world. The developers, alongside the extensive body of Fedora users, form the community that sustains Fedora. Although there have been regular international user group meetings for the Fedora community, hosted in recent years as part of the Open Repositories conference, there have also been a number of more regional initiatives to foster interaction amongst Fedora users and provide assistance to those adopting the software. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/grigson-et-al/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/grigson-et-al/ Rarely is software a purely technical issue, though it may be marketed as ‘technology’. Software is embedded in work, and work patterns become moulded around it. Thus the use of a particular package can give rise to an inertia from which it can be hard to break free. Moreover, when this natural inertia is combined with data formats that are opaque or unique to a particular system, the organisation can become locked in to that system, a potential victim of the pricing policies or sluggish adaptability of the software provider. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/white/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/white/ According to Dante in his Divine Comedy the inscription above the door to Hades reads "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". For many this could also be the sign on the home page of their organisation's intranet as, with business-critical decisions to make, they begin the daily hunt for information that they are sure should be somewhere in the application. It could just as easily be the sign on the door of the intranet manager of the organisation, though this door usually also carries a number of other job descriptions, all of which seem to be given more priority by the organisation than the care and development of the intranet. 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/bl-subject-repos-rpt/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/bl-subject-repos-rpt/ Institutional repositories are now common in Higher Education, but successful examples of subject repositories, which cater to an entire discipline, are much rarer. The Subject Repositories conference taught some key lessons about the role of transnational collaboration in setting up a subject repository. The conference drew on the expertise of renowned specialists in the field and the two and a half-year-long development process of Economists Online [1]. Economists Online was created by the Network of European Economists Online (NEEO) [2], which consists of 24 European and international partners (disclosure: the author was a work package leader for this project and one of the conference organisers). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/dp-rdshw-rpt/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/dp-rdshw-rpt/ A series of roadshows has been travelling up and down the country through 2009 and 2010 to spread the key message that making a start in digital preservation does not need to be either expensive or difficult. This simple message has been delivered in eight different cities in some 80 separate presentations and to an audience of around 400 archivists and records managers. The Roadshows are almost over: more formal evaluation will follow in due course. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/chaudhri-et-al/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/chaudhri-et-al/ The development of the Dublin Core Application Profiles (DCAPs) has been closely focussed on the construction of metadata standards targeted at specific resource types, on the implicit assumption that such a metadata solution would be immediately and usefully implementable in software environments that deal with such resources. The success of an application profile would thus be an inevitable consequence of correctly describing the generalised characteristics of those resources. Yet despite the earlier success of application profiles, more recent growth in usage of the DCAPs funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has been slow by comparison [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/loureirokoechlin/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/62/loureirokoechlin/ Competition, complex environments and needs for sophisticated resources and collaborations compel Higher Education institutions (HEIs) to look for innovative ways to support their research processes and improve the quality and dissemination of their research outcomes. Access, management and sharing of information about research activities and researchers (who, what, when and where) lie at the heart of all these needs and driving forces for improvements. The planning of new research needs to consider information about current and previous related activities, and about relevant expertise for collaboration which may cross subject field boundaries. 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/kennedy/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/kennedy/ When I began writing this article, as a paper to a March 2009 conference on Archives 2.0 hosted by the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at the University of Manchester, Archives 2.0 was unknown territory to me [1]. I am a diplomatic historian, not an archivist, and though I am an end-user of archives, I had not come across the term Archives 2.0 before. The project I head, the Royal Irish Academy's Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) series (http://www. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/editorial/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/editorial/ Perhaps one of the current benchmarks for gauging when a Web technology has migrated from the cluttered desks of the technorati to the dining tables of the chatterati is if it becomes a topic for BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze [1]. More accustomed to discussing matters such as child-rearing or a controversial pronouncement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the panel members who, over the years have ranged from the liberal to the harrumphing illiberal (and in one case, both at the same time), recently did battle over Twitter [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/hogenaar/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/hogenaar/ The Internet has caused a revolution in the way scientists and scholars have access to scholarly output. Only 15 years ago, the (university) library decided what sources should be offered to the staff and individual scientists could only hope the librarian would listen to their wishes. In this system scientists frequently had no instantaneous access to the information they wanted. In such instances they had to rely on the Interlibrary Loan System. 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/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/iwmw-2009-rpt/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/iwmw-2009-rpt/ The 12th annual Institutional Web Managers Workshop (IWMW) attracted nearly 200 delegates, making it the largest workshop in the event's history. Whilst the popularity of the physical event has grown, so too has the remote audience. So this year organisers Marieke Guy and Brian Kelly decided that it was time to start treating this remote audience as first class citizens. That's where I came in. As live blogger, my job was to amplify IWMW 2009; providing a live commentary via Twitter on the dedicated @iwmwlive account, blogging on the IWMW 2009 blog [1], uploading video interviews and co-ordinating all the online resources via a NetVibes page [2] to give the remote audience a more complete experience of attending and to create a digital footprint for the proceedings, complementing the fantastic live video streaming provided by the University of Essex. 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/61/lyte-et-al/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/lyte-et-al/ Institutional repositories are a major element of the Open Access movement. More specifically in research and education, the main purpose is to make available as much of the research output of an institution as possible. However, a simple search box and a long list of returned (keyword) artefacts derived from either an individual institutional repository (IR) or a federated search that would generate an even longer list, is no longer sufficient. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/marchionni/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/61/marchionni/ Do we know enough about what our users' needs are when creating online digitised scholarly resources? What are the benefits of engaging users? In what way can they be useful to the process? These might sound like rhetorical questions, yet, looking back at the last decade of activity in digitisation and creation of online resources, such questions have been tackled by content providers only in part, and with various degrees of success. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/palmer/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/palmer/ In March 2009, the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) based at the University of Manchester collaborated with the Archives Hub to host a small conference of approximately 50 people in Manchester. ‘Archives 2.0’: Shifting Dialogues Between Users and Archivists’ was the final event in a series of CRESC events on archiving and reusing qualitative data. These events aimed to develop new approaches to archiving and reusing data and also to contribute to a recent rethinking of the archive in history, oral history, cultural studies The conference focused on the relationship between archivists, archives and their users, and looked at the emerging phenomenon of so-called ‘Archives 2. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/rafiq-rvw/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/rafiq-rvw/ This book is a collection of articles by the members of the Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER), at University College London (UCL) and associates, such as Dr Tom Dobrowolski of Warsaw University, Professor Michael Moss of the University of Glasgow, Professor Barrie Gunter of the University of Leicester. The book is a result of the exploration of the impact of the digital world on publishing, libraries and information consumers for the past eight years and addresses widespread concerns being felt by information professionals including librarians, publishers, journalists, and archivists. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/white-rvw/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/white-rvw/ I am fascinated by the way in which successive generations have tried to cope with a contemporary information explosion. This is not just a 21st Century phenomenon, and as this book shows, it pre-dates manuscripts, let alone printed books. Consider for a moment the problems that the Victorian engineers faced in managing vast collections of engineering drawings. Such was my fascination that the moment I saw this book was available for review I instantly emailed the Editor to offer my services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/chapman-russell/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/chapman-russell/ Although JISC [1] has developed a number of services, (e.g. JORUM [2], JISCmail [3]) specifically for use by the UK Higher Education (HE) sector, people within the sector are increasingly using services developed outside the sector, either in addition to - or in some cases instead of – JISC-provided services. And as well as using such services, people are also engaging in ‘mashups’ where combinations of services and content are used to provide new services or to provide added value to data already held. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/isko-2009-rpt/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/isko-2009-rpt/ I recently attended the first biennial Conference of the British Chapter of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO UK) [1] entitled ‘Content Architecture: Exploiting and Managing Diverse Resources’. It was organized in co-operation with the Department of Information Studies, University College London. If the intention was to focus on the diversity of resources out there, I also felt that the audience was very diverse in terms of levels of expertise and perspectives. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/hess-et-al/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/hess-et-al/ Introduction: The Evolving Field of Artefact DocumentationDigital heritage technologies promise a greater understanding of cultural objects cared for by museums. Recent technological advances in digital photography and image processing not only offer a high level of documentation, they also provide powerful analytical tools for conservation monitoring of cultural objects. Museums are increasingly turning to digital documentation and relational databases to administer their collections for a variety of tasks: detailed description, intervention planning, loan. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/eduserv-2009-rpt/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/eduserv-2009-rpt/ I was pleased to accept a place at this year’s Eduserv Symposium [1], which was held at the Royal College of Physicians, London. The College is close to Regent’s Park and as well as discovering about the future of identity and access management, delegates were able to have a glimpse at the past of physicians from the exhibitions that abounded in the magnificent venue. Issues of identity and access management to resources must have concerned physicians for many years; for example, 200 years ago how did physicians corresponding with each other verify the other’s identity and decide whether or not to share resources? 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/missing-links-rpt/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/missing-links-rpt/ This workshop, jointly sponsored by the DPC [1], JISC [2] and UKWAC [3], aimed to bring together content creators and tool developers with key stakeholders from the library and archives domains, in the quest for a technically feasible, socially and historically acceptable, legacy for the World Wide Web. Setting the SceneAdrian Brown, Assistant Clerk of the Records at the Parliamentary Archives [4], set out the framework for ‘securing an enduring Web’ around the key elements of selection, capture, storage, access and preservation. 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/callaghan-et-al/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/callaghan-et-al/ Historically speaking, scientific publishing has focused on publicising the methodology that the scientist uses to analyse a dataset, and the conclusions that the scientist can draw from that analysis, as this is the information that can be easily published in text format with supporting diagrams. Datasets do not lend themselves easily to normal hard copy publication, even if the size of the dataset were small enough to allow this, and datasets are more useful stored in digital media. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/beagrie-et-al/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/beagrie-et-al/ Data has always been fundamental to many areas of research but it in recent years it has become central to more disciplines and inter-disciplinary projects and grown substantially in scale and complexity. There is increasing awareness of its strategic importance as a resource in addressing modern global challenges such as climate change, and the possibilities being unlocked by rapid technological advances and their application in research. In the US the National Science Board has stated that: 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/hawkins-tanner/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/hawkins-tanner/ The Historic Hospitals Admission Records Project (HHARP) is a digitisation and indexing project that covers the Victorian and Edwardian admission registers for the London children's hospitals Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), the Evelina Children's Hospital in Southwark and the Alexandra Hip Hospital in Bloomsbury, together with Yorkhill Children's Hospital in Glasgow. It represents a collaboration between archivists, academics and volunteers that has resulted in a product that we hope will be of use to all those interested in the records of Victorian and Edwardian child health - from whichever academic discipline - or none [1]. 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/60/m-libraries-2009-rpt/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/m-libraries-2009-rpt/ Jointly hosted by the University of British Columbia (UBC), Athabasca University, the UK Open University (OU) and Thomson Rivers University, the conference [1] was held on UBC's beautiful campus in Vancouver and covered a broad range of topics, from SMS reference to using QR codes. The conference aims were to explore and share work carried out in libraries around the world to deliver services and resources to users 'on the move', via a growing plethora of mobile and hand-held devices, as well as to bring together researchers, technical developers, managers and library practitioners to exchange experience and expertise and generate ideas for future developments. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/why-pay-for-content-rpt/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/why-pay-for-content-rpt/ This widely publicised half-day event [1] was held at the famous lecture theatre in the Royal Institution that is used for the Royal Institution’s Christmas lectures for children. I remember going to the lectures in 1962; I can’t remember what the topic was, but I remember thinking how large the lecture theatre was. Well, 47 years later, it seems to have shrunk in size. At this point, I must declare an interest: I was one of the speakers; readers should bear this fact in mind when evaluating the objectivity of my report. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/guy/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/guy/ In my previous articles on remote working [1] [2] I have written about the positive and negative aspects of working from home and the technologies that can support one to do so. This article aims to discuss how we, here at UKOLN, have put this theory into practice by creating a support framework for remote workers. It is a case study of what can be done with enthusiastic staff, support from managers and faith in an iterative process. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/tonkin-rvw/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/tonkin-rvw/ In the introduction to this 227-page work [1], editors Eugene Loos, Enid Mante-Meijer and Leslie Haddon provide a concise history of the organisation underlying the research area - the social dynamics of information and communication technology, or ICT to those on first-name terms - and the political stance that called it into being. The European Commission and national governments, it seems, are of the opinion that information and communication technologies as a whole can be seen as enablers for the furtherance of democratic society. 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/ifla-3p-rpt/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/ifla-3p-rpt/ The IFLA Presidential Meeting ‘Access to Knowledge: Networking Libraries’ [1], was the third and last event in a series of conferences held during the IFLA presidency of Claudia Lux between 2007 and 2009. Intended as international platforms for exchange about the topic of ‘free access to information’, the motto shared by all three meetings, each of the conferences focused on a different cultural/geographical region: Central and Eastern Europe in 2007, Asia in 2008, and Arab and Islamic countries in 2009. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/handshake-rpt/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/handshake-rpt/ I was a participant in the repository handshake group discussions at the JISC-, SURF- and DRIVER-funded International Repositories Workshop in Amsterdam in March 2009 [1]. Motivation for deposit was widely discussed at the start of the day. It also became apparent after a few hours that the premise of the discussions, i.e. 'repository handshake', was not a universally clear concept. Some felt the term referred to technical protocols, and some to business processes. 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/nsf-2009-03-rpt/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/nsf-2009-03-rpt/ I was recently invited to attend a 'Software Sustainability Workshop', organised by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and hosted by Indiana University at its University Place Conference Center in Indianapolis. The invitation, which included a call for position papers, described the event as follows: The workshop will focus on identifying strategies to create sustainable models for use, support, maintenance, and long-term sustainability of cyberinfrastructure software that is developed and used by research communities working in areas related to the NSF mission. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/newsline/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/newsline/ Digital Preservation – The Planets WayRoyal Library Copenhagen, Denmark 22-24 June 2009 http://www.planets-project.eu/events/copenhagen-2009/ Does your organisation know what to preserve digitally for the future? Do you want to discuss your strategies for digital preservation with colleagues and experts? Do you know how to preserve your collections for the future? Do you know which tools and services to use for this? There has been an explosion in the volume of information world-wide which will grow to 180 exabytes by 2011. 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/lilac-2009-rpt/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/lilac-2009-rpt/ LILAC celebrated its fifth birthday in style in what proved to be a fantastic venue, Cardiff University. This occasion was commemorated with tour t-shirts available for all the delegates. The conference proved more popular than ever with a record number of presentations submitted and over 240 delegates from across the UK and worldwide. There were also seven funded places for Library students to attend, a fantastic investment in the profession for the future. 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/59/pienaar-vandeventer/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/pienaar-vandeventer/ Worldwide, the research paradigm is in the process of expanding into eResearch and open scholarship. This implies new ways of collaboration, dissemination and reuse of research results, specifically via the Web. Developing countries are also able to exploit the opportunity to make their knowledge output more widely known and accessible and to co-operate in research partnerships. Although there are exisiting examples of eResearch activities, the implementation of eResearch is not yet being fully supported in any co-ordinated way within the South African context. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/dolphin/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/59/dolphin/ The e-Framework for Education and Research was founded in 2005 as a partnership between the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in the UK, and the then Department of Education Science and Technology (DEST) in Australia. Since the foundation of the e-Framework, a major government reorganisation in Australia has replaced DEST with the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), and the initial partnership has expanded to include SURF in the Netherlands, and the New Zealand Ministry of Education/Te Tahuhu o te Matauranga. 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/lafortune-rvw/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/lafortune-rvw/ No one will dispute that geographic information is an integral part of contemporary life. Who has not looked up driving directions on MapQuest or used Google Earth to look at a city of interest on their personal computer? And most cars manufactured in the last few years can come equipped with GPS technology. Interestingly enough, though, most users of these tools have only a vague idea that they are based on digital geospatial data such as satellite imagery and digital elevation models (DEM). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/tonkin-rvw/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/tonkin-rvw/ The casual visitor to the area of digital library research could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by the sheer mass and complexity of the world of metadata, not to mention the speed at which things move on. It is in no sense a rare occurrence, even for those taking an active role in the field, to find that something else has changed and that one has, as they say in other walks of life, 'missed a memo'. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/guy-rvw/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/guy-rvw/ Do you ever get the feeling that your slides aren't quite making the grade? Have you ever been to an event and seen someone really good present, someone who has slides that are a bit different, slides that made you sit up and listen? Have you wondered how you could make the transition from 'boring, run-of-the mill' presenter to 'exciting, inspiring' presenter? These were some of the questions running through my head on the train on the way back from the last conference I attended. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/ward-rvw/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/ward-rvw/ At Sheffield Hallam University we are encouraged, and have the opportunity, to work with colleagues from other professional backgrounds. Learning and IT Services is about to merge with Student and Academic Services to form Student and Learning Services. This opens up exciting possibilities for cross-team working with the student experience at the centre of our remit; so I was very interested to read this book. Overview of ContentMargaret Weaver sets high expectations in her preface '. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/dplta-hep-rpt/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/dplta-hep-rpt/ High-energy physics (HEP) experiments acquire huge datasets that may not be superseded by new and better measurements for decades or centuries. Nevertheless, the cost and difficulty of preserving both the data and the understanding of how to use them are daunting. The small number of cases in which data over ten years old have been reanalysed has only served to underline that such analyses are currently very close to impossible. The recent termination of data taking by the H1 and ZEUS experiments at DESY’s HERA collider, and by the BaBar experiment at SLAC, plus the imminent termination of other major experiments, prompted the organisation of this workshop. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/editorial/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/editorial/ Having returned once more to the fray somewhat chastened by the experience of eye surgery, alone and without a general anaesthetic (with apologies to Rumpole and the late lamented John Mortimer [1] ), but hugely impressed by the ministrations of the NHS, I am struck once again by the enormous importance of people, both within the community that Ariadne serves as well as those domains beyond, and in which all are nonetheless increasingly, but quite naturally, dependent on technology for their success. 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/sun-pasig-2008-11-rpt/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/sun-pasig-2008-11-rpt/ I had managed to miss the previous two PASIG (Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group)[1] meetings, so was delighted to find myself finally able to participate by attending the Fall meeting. Conveniently the event was arranged to follow immediately the SPARC Digital Repositories meeting [2], also held in Baltimore, and which I also attended. PASIG is a group sponsored by and centred on Sun Microsystems (Sun) which is a prominent vendor of data storage hardware and which is building a new business around systems to support digital preservation and archiving. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/boyle-et-al/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/boyle-et-al/ Digital preservation is an area which is pervasive and challenging for many sectors – it impinges on the landscape from high-level business and e-government to an individual's personal digital memories. One sector where the challenges of preservation and long-term access to resources are well rehearsed is within the archives sector. There has been innovative research within the archives community including the Paradigm [1] and the DARP [2] projects. The initiative described in this article focuses on the local authority archives sector and is an outcome of collaborative work from the authors, the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) [3] and The National Archives (TNA) [4]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/borda/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/borda/ The Victorian eResearch Strategic Initiative (VeRSI) [1] was the first State-funded initiative of its kind in Australia. The establishment of VeRSI follows on the heels of the former Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) [2] decision to commission the then Australian eResearch Coordinating Committee [3] to undertake a comprehensive review of eResearch and to recommend how Australia, cognisant of efforts elsewhere, such as the UK eScience Programme [4], could coordinate a national eResearch initiative. 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/58/nichols/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/58/nichols/ There is no longer anything exotic about digital humanities projects. Almost every humanities faculty has at least one. But like humanities disciplines themselves, digital projects too often exist in lonely splendour, each in its own sub-disciplinary silo. Classicists have their project(s), Middle English scholars post Chaucer and Langland manuscripts, while French medievalists have sites for major genres or authors from the troubadours to Christine de Pizan, and beyond. The situation is not appreciably different for digital humanities projects dealing with modern topics. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/robertson-et-al/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/robertson-et-al/ VisionsIn ‘Lost in the IE’, published in the last issue of Ariadne and in subsequent discussion on various blogs [1], [2] there has some thoughtful reflection on the vision of the JISC Information Environment (IE), its architecture and standards, the role of the IE and the role of ‘that diagram’ [3]. It is clear that the development of work on repositories and services in the UK has benefitted from the IE Architecture diagram but it is also clear that such a model does not (and was not intended to) reflect the reality of the ‘messiness’ that inevitably surrounds connecting actual repositories and services [4]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/search-engines/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/search-engines/ If we are to believe everything that we read about social media and user-created content, it’s reasonable to assume that there’s a lot of it out there. People are busy twittering away, creating bookmarked content, creating their own pagecasts in Pageflakes – to say nothing of writing about anything and everything in their weblogs. Yet at first glance it might appear to the casual observer that very little of this is being indexed, sorted and made available for searching. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/mahey-rvw/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/mahey-rvw/ As I spend a large part of my day (as I have for the last 12 years) in front of a computer screen connected to the Internet, I wondered what I was going to learn about a book that examines the effect that this technology has had on our culture, our minds and the way we socialise. Lee Siegel is introduced as a cultural commentator and art critic who has written several books on these subjects as well as popular culture. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/guy-rvw/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/guy-rvw/ I'd like to start with a disclaimer: I am not a records manager nor have I ever been a records manager. My only official qualification in the field of records management is that I took a module in it whilst studying for my MSc in Information Management many moons ago. That said, this is not a book just for records managers. The overlaps with those working in other fields such as information management, librarianship, IT services, Web management, teaching, research etc. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/levan-rvw/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/levan-rvw/ Raymond Yee has produced a comprehensive book on how to consume and repurpose Web services, even for Web sites that do not intentionally expose Web services. The book is broken into four sections; understanding how to use Web content, understanding Web services, combining the data from multiple services (mashups) and detailed examples of specific mashup opportunities. Web Services are a complicated topic and this book does an excellent job of describing how to use them. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/cliff-rvw/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/cliff-rvw/ Serendipity can be a wonderful thing. It was a Tuesday, over coffee, that the esteemed editor of this publication presented me with a copy of Website Optimization and asked if I would be interested in reviewing it. Two days later, at a regular team meeting for the Repositories Support Project 1, we discussed (rather generally) how we might boost the search ranking and usage of the RSP Web site. Marvellous, an interesting book to review and a real life problem to which to apply to it. 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/dpc-planets-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/dpc-planets-rpt/ The aim of this one-day event was to provide an informal, interactive workshop that allowed delegates to share knowledge and experience in digital preservation planning, strategy and policy setting and of Planets [1] tools and technology. The event was an opportunity for DPC [2] members as well as other organisations with an interest in digital preservation to learn about the approach of colleagues some way down the road with the process and to share experiences and learn about the tools and services which are being developed by Planets to support the process. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/jisc-powr-2008-09-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/jisc-powr-2008-09-rpt/ The Web is where you go to find out what is happening now, it is, or should be, where the most up to date information about a topic, company or institution is to be found. Every day more and more information is added to existing Web sites and new ones appear at a frightening pace. Having all this information at our fingertips is undoubtedly a good thing but there is also a downside: more information means that it is increasingly difficult to find the bits that are relevant to you, and often the new information simply replaces what was there before. 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/guy/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/guy/ My previous article A Desk Too Far?: The Case for Remote Working [1] explored the cultural background to remote working, reasons why people might choose to work from home and some of the challenges that face them and their host organisations. This article will consider both the technology that facilitates remote working and the tools that can support remote workers by enabling them to carry out the tasks that they need to do. 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/rumsey-osteen/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/rumsey-osteen/ The new framework for the description and exchange of aggregations of Web resources, OAI-ORE, had its European release in April 2008 [1]. Amongst its practical uses, OAI-ORE has a role to play in digital preservation and continued access to files. This article describes the basic outline of the framework and how it can support the PRESERV2 project digital preservation model of provision of preservation services and interoperability for digital repositories. The PRESERV approach recognises that effective preservation is founded on three fundamental actions on data: copy, move and monitor. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/stevenson/ Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/57/stevenson/ For online services, the importance of developing user-friendly and accessible Web sites is of paramount importance. This article is about user testing recently carried out by the Archives Hub [1], an online service run by Mimas [2], which is a national data centre that provides access to a whole range of online services for research, learning and teaching. The Archives Hub is a JISC-funded service that provides a gateway to search descriptions of archives for education and research, enabling researchers to discover unique archival sources held in repositories across the country. 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/ie-testbed-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/ie-testbed-rpt/ In June this year UKOLN hosted an ‘unconference’[1] which was given the title ‘DRY/CRIG’. Jointly funded through the IE Demonstrator Project [2] and the Common Repositories Interfaces Group (CRIG) [3], this event was intended to allow technical representatives of (mainly) JISC-funded ‘Shared-Infrastructure-Services [4] to meet software developers from UK Higher Education institutions (HEIs). The ‘DRY’ part of the name is an acronym standing for ‘Don’t Repeat Yourself’, a general principle in software engineering, which was deemed appropriate for an event mostly concerned with reusable shared services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/guy/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/guy/ Introduction: A New Way of Working In the 21st Century work has changed. Remote working or teleworking [1] is an employment arrangement in which employees can complete their work from a location other than their office base, be it their home, a sub-office or even the local coffee shop. As Woody Leonhard puts it in the Underground Guide to Telecommuting, “Work is becoming something you do, not a place you go to. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/houghton-jan/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/houghton-jan/ What is information overload? 27 instant messages. 4 text messages. 17 phone calls. 98 work emails. 52 personal emails. 76 email listserv messages. 14 social network messages. 127 social network status updates. 825 RSS feed updates. 30 pages from a book. 5 letters. 11 pieces of junk mail. 1 periodical issue. 3 hours of radio. 1 hour of television. That, my friends, is information overload. It is also my daily average amount of information received, sampled over a two-week period. 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/delaney-rvw/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/delaney-rvw/ To my mind, information literacy is all about education: teaching users of all kinds of information how to find it, understand and evaluate it, and use it effectively. Yet it is getting harder and harder to find ways to teach these skills when so much information is available at everybody's fingertips. As a consequence, many people think they can get all they need from the Internet for free, let alone when your end-users are busy professionals for whom reading a book is often a desirable option they rarely find time to take up. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/cliff-rvw/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/cliff-rvw/ I'll be honest - I am no expert in data visualisation. I had not heard of Edward Tufte [1] before looking at this book and while I thought I had an idea about the topic, the book suggested to me I did not. Perhaps this makes me unable to judge the value of its content; but I prefer to think this means I can come at the work as a member of the target audience: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/white-rvw/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/white-rvw/ There are many books on Web accessibility but they tend to come at the subject from quite a narrow area of Web design. This is especially true of books published in the USA, a country which has quite limited Federal legislation on the need to implement accessible Web sites and intranets. It is a subject that should be of passionate interest to our profession in its commitment to providing access to information to all who request it. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/editorial/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/editorial/ I am greatly indebted to Gráinne Conole for a number of reasons. It has been my intention for some time to commission something from the OU in respect of learning technologies given the wealth of expertise that resides there. For a variety of reasons it has taken me a while, but the wait has been more than worthwhile in the light of Gráinne's contribution. In my view her article New Schemas for Mapping Pedagogies and Technologies does much to exchange light for all the ambient heat that surrounds this topic, while refusing, as some are tempted, to reject the whole Web 2. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/iwmw-2008-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/iwmw-2008-rpt/ 'Aberdeen??!! Make sure you take some woolly jumpers and a sou'wester then.' Friends are always keen to give helpful advice, bless 'em, but as it turned out, it was a good job that I ignored it, as it was t-shirts every day for the 180 or so who had the privilege of attending the Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW) in the Granite City this year. Three days of glorious sunshine, mixed with stimulating talks, thought-provoking parallel sessions, lively BarCamps, good food and interesting company made for a combination that's hard to beat, despite the allocated (Hillhead) accommodation crying out for an urgent and intimate encounter with a wrecking ball * and the seagulls being on a mission to wake me up by 4. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/ross/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/ross/ The Resource Discovery iKit [1] is the result of a recently completed project to produce an information kit for tools and reports related to resource discovery created by JISC-funded projects and services. Created by the Centre for Digital Library Research at the University of Strathclyde, the iKit has exploited the Centre’s expertise in the area of digital libraries to create a dynamic retrieval system which uses multi-faceted control vocabularies to allow researchers and developers a quick and easy interface for the discovery and retrieval of a comprehensive range of quality-assessed resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/conole/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/conole/ In this article I want to reflect on the rhetoric of ‘Web 2.0’ and its potential versus actual impact. I want to suggest that we need to do more than look at how social networking technologies are being used generally as an indicator of their potential impact on education, arguing instead that we need to rethink what are the fundamental characteristics of learning and then see how social networking can be harnessed to maximise these characteristics to best effect. 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/tonkin/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/tonkin/ What Is a Persistent Identifier, and Why?Persistent identifiers (PIs) are simply maintainable identifiers that allow us to refer to a digital object – a file or set of files, such as an e-print (article, paper or report), an image or an installation file for a piece of software. The only interesting persistent identifiers are also persistently actionable (that is, you can “click” them); however, unlike a simple hyperlink, persistent identifiers are supposed to continue to provide access to the resource, even when it moves to other servers or even to other organisations. 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/pasig-2008-05-rpt/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/56/pasig-2008-05-rpt/ The third meeting of Sun's Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group took place in San Francisco in May. The event, the third PASIG meeting in the last year, drew around 180 participants from Australasia, Asia, Europe and North America to discuss a broad range of issues surrounding digital repositories. Presentations ranged from geographically or community-themed high-level perspectives of repository- related activity, through to detailed technical analysis and reports of development activity at an institutional or project level. 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/tonkin-rvw/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/tonkin-rvw/ This book is all about computerisation movements – CMs, for short. CMs are social, professional, intellectual and/or scientific movements [1], collective movements fuelled by a group of people who share a vision of the way that things should be, and are ready to promote that vision. For some readers, this may sound a little abstract, so I will begin with a little descriptive preamble, which others are welcome to skip. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/taylor-rvw/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/taylor-rvw/ Information is often linked to the scientific domain and perceived as a known and measured quantity, a fixed point. Terms such as 'information science', and 'information management' contribute to the view of information as an objective tool. Information behaviour research, though, takes a different view, by exploring the relationship between the emotions and personal experiences of users and the information they find and use. For any library and information professional, the study of information behaviour offers many valuable insights into the inner workings of that most elusive of subjects, the mind of the user. 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/editorial/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/editorial/ As far back as a work reviewed in Ariadne Issue 41 [1], the notion of personal collections was not exactly novel, but as Pete Williams, Katrina Dean, Ian Rowlands and Jeremy Leighton John remark in Digital Lives: Report of Interviews with the Creators of Personal Digital Collections 'the inexorable march of technological innovation' has served to encourage people to amass increasingly large and diverse personal collections of information about themselves and the people and issues that matter to them [2][3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/lai-2008-rpt/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/lai-2008-rpt/ 15 April The conference, entitled ‘Future-proofing the Past: 80 years’ commitment to access and cooperation’, was officially opened by the President of the Library Association of Ireland (LAI) who welcomed the delegates and wished them well in their deliberations at this conference which was the 40th joint conference of the LAI and Cilip IRELAND, occurring in the 80th year of the LAI. The conference was attended by 120 delegates. Unless otherwise stated, the sessions described below were all plenary. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/joyce-et-al/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/joyce-et-al/ The evolution of the Web has changed the way that people access information. Web 2.0 technologies have allowed information providers to integrate their services in people's existing online spaces, and users expect to be able to synthesise, edit and customise content for their own specific purposes. Intute, the JISC-funded service that aims to offer the best of the Web for Higher and Further Education, has responded to these changes by developing a variety of integration services which offer flexible ways of delivering its content to users. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/kim-conf-2008-rpt/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/kim-conf-2008-rpt/ The KIM Project [1] is a £5.5 million research programme involving eleven UK universities and funded primarily by the EPSRC [2] and ESRC [3]. The Project’s tagline is ‘Knowledge and Information Management Through Life’, and it is primarily focussed on long-lived engineering artifacts and the companies that produce and support them. The driver for the research is a ‘product-service paradigm’ that is emerging in several industrial sectors, whereby a supplier is contracted not only to deliver a product such as an aircraft or building, but to maintain and adapt it throughout its lifecycle. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/jisc-debates-rpt/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/jisc-debates-rpt/ As part of its new Libraries of the Future programme [1], JISC held three events during its annual conference in Birmingham to explore some of the questions facing libraries today: in an information world in which Google apparently offers us everything, what place is there for the traditional, and even the digital, library? In a library environment which is increasingly moving to the delivery of online rather than print resources, what of the academic library’s traditional place at the heart of campus life? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/currier/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/currier/ In 2002 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) published the IEEE Learning Object Metadata standard (IEEE LOM) [1], superseding the IMS Learning Resource Meta-data specification [2], which had been developed and used through several versions since the mid-1990s. Over the same general period, the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) had established the Dublin Core (DC) as a standard for describing all kinds of web-based resources [3]. The Dublin Core Education Working Group [4] emerged as one of several special interest groups [5] developing specific metadata elements [6] for the use of their communities. 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/55/lilac-2008-rpt/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/lilac-2008-rpt/ The LILAC 2008 has already received plenty of Web coverage, notably in Sheila Webber’s IL blog [1], where lots of other weblog posts on the event have been collected. I also produced an official blog [2] myself, as part of the conditions of my student award conference bursary. As a newcomer to the information and library profession, and a postgraduate masters student, I hope to offer a different perspective on this event, focussing on the highlights and my personal impressions. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/eadie/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/eadie/ Following on from the project to develop an application profile for scholarly works (SWAP)[1], the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has recently funded through its Repositories and Preservation Programme, a series of projects to establish Application Profiles in the areas of images, time-based media, geospatial data and learning objects [2]. The work on the Images Application Profile (IAP) has been carried out for the six-month period from September 2007 to March 2008, and while the substantive project work is now complete and a draft Images Application Profile is in circulation, the ongoing job of promoting the profile to, and consulting with, the image, repository and metadata communities continues. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/vif-wrkshp-rpt/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/vif-wrkshp-rpt/ The Version Identification Framework Project (VIF) [1] is a project partly funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and is in partnership with the Science & Technology Facilities Council, the University of Leeds and Erasmus University, Rotterdam. The project was undertaken in order to investigate the growing issues surrounding the identification of revised or related materials being deposited in repositories, with the aim of providing a framework for consistent identification. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/civallero/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/civallero/ Cultural HeritageHeritage can be defined as a heterogeneous ensemble of environmental and cultural elements - material or otherwise - that are transmitted from generation to generation, creating the foundations on which people build and orientate their identity and vision of the world. According to the definition reached during the UNESCO Experts´ Round Table in Turin (Italy, 2001), heritage includes: ’… peoples’ learned processes along with the knowledge, skills and creativity that inform and are developed by them, the products they create, and the resources, spaces and other aspects of the social and natural context necessary to their sustainability’. 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/cliff-rvw/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/cliff-rvw/ When I was handed this book for review a colleague of mine said "rather you than me" and there is no doubt that Programming Collective Intelligence is probably not a book for everyone. However, if phrases like 'Bayesian filtering', 'Support-vector machines', 'Collaborative filtering' and 'Methods of clustering' do not deter you or better, engage your interest, then this work is well worth a look. One of the pleasing things to notice when picking up the book is its relatively small size and Toby Segaran has managed to condense a series of complex techniques into just eleven chapters of concise and interesting writing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/reading-rvw/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/reading-rvw/ This book has generated a lot of discussion on the Internet which seems mostly to focus on Tara Brabazon's comments such as: 'Google offers easy answers to difficult questions. But students do not know how to tell if they come from serious, refereed work or are merely composed of shallow ideas, superficial surfing and fleeting commitments.' [1]. It is easy to find this discussion – just Google the author and/or title! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/lafortune-rvws/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/lafortune-rvws/ Sul H. Lee is professor of Library and Information Studies at the University of Oklahoma and Dean of University of Oklahoma Libraries. He is also the editor of Haworth's Journal of Library Administration. As a recognised scholar and an administrator of a large university research library, it is not surprising that he is able to bring together some of the leading library administrators in the US to give their insights on the challenges and opportunities that libraries now face from the massive influx of digital resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/tonkin-et-al/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/tonkin-et-al/ Social tagging, which is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, and social indexing, allows ordinary users to assign keywords, or tags, to items. Typically these items are Web-based resources and the tags become immediately available for others to see and use. Unlike traditional classification, social tagging keywords are typically freely chosen instead of using a controlled vocabulary. Social tagging is of interest to researchers because it is possible that with a sufficiently large number of tags, useful folksonomies will emerge that can either augment or even replace traditional ontologies. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/heath-et-al/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/heath-et-al/ In most of the discussions about e-publications and open access (OA) in recent years, the focus of attention has tended to be on the interests and needs of researchers in the sciences, and of the libraries that seek to serve them. Significantly less attention has been paid to the needs and interests of researchers in the arts and humanities; and indeed e-publication and open access initiatives, and general awareness of the key issues and debates, are much less advanced in the arts and humanities than in the sciences. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/social-networking-rpt/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/social-networking-rpt/ As you might expect from an event organised by Brian Kelly this was an interesting workshop that tried to do something a bit different and to stimulate debate, if not open controversy, amongst the participants. One of the recurring themes throughout the day was anticipating the consequences of our digital actions. I should maybe have done this before I replied to an email inviting me to write up an event that had already been blogged to within an inch of its life by the time I opened my laptop on New Street Station. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/grl2020-rpt/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/grl2020-rpt/ Welcome to the Future and Day OneResearch, scholarship, science, and discovery have been transformed by the Internet and communication technologies across all sectors on a global basis. In order for research libraries to play a central role in this increasingly multi-institutional and cross-sector environment, we must find new approaches for how they operate and add value to research and discovery on a global basis. This was a rare opportunity to make a start on thinking longer term with invitees from across sectors and across countries. 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/54/green-awre/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/green-awre/ In the spring of 2005, the University of Hull embarked on the RepoMMan Project [1], a two-year JISC-funded [2] endeavour to investigate a number of aspects of user interaction with an institutional repository. The vision at Hull was, and is, of a repository placed at the heart of a Web services architecture: a key component of a university's information management. In this vision the institutional repository provides not only a showcase for finished digital output, but also a workspace in which members of the University can, if they wish, develop those same materials. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/young/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/young/ UKOLN has recently updated its strategy to include a more environmentally sound agenda [1]. Not only does it make ethical sense to save energy it also makes long-term financial sense. UKOLN is based at, and also receives support from, the University of Bath. The University is taking steps to reduce its electricity and gas usage, and is taking part in a scheme called The Big Energy Challenge [2][3] which is intended to help local organisations and businesses to reduce their energy usage by at least 10% in the next 3 years. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/puplett/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/puplett/ The problem of version identification in institutional repositories is multifaceted and growing. It affects most types of digital object now being deposited, and will continue to grow if left unaddressed as the proliferation of repositories continues and as they are populated with more and more content. The JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) has consequently funded the VIF Project as part of the Repositories and Preservation Programme, running from June 2007 to May 2008. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/editorial/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/editorial/ In his article Ancient Cultures Inside Modern Universes Edgardo Civallero teases out for us the relationship between notions such as cultural heritage, cultural identity and what he terms intangible cultural heritage, in the context of indigenous peoples. What becomes immediately apparent for those of us concerned for fellow citizens on the wrong side of the Digital Divide [1][2] is the degree to which even they are fortunate when compared with the indigenous minorities across Latin America [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/aharony/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/aharony/ Library and information science (LIS) programmes prepare students for performing traditional information tasks such as indexing, retrieval and library management [1][2][3]. The increased importance and centrality of information has moved LIS schools to offer new curricula that combine traditional librarianship and archiving with technological and social aspects of information. As the author has a considerable interest in both LIS education and in Web 2.0 applications, and because she found out that in her own country (Israel) only a limited emphasis is given to adapting Web 2. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/cliff-rvw/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/cliff-rvw/ Principles of Data Management might not sound like a thrilling title and, given its business focus, you might think not all that relevant to many readers of Ariadne. However, before dismissing it out of hand, consider this: may not the research outputs of an institution be regarded as business assets that require management (in, for example, an institutional repository)? On what other data does a university rely? Staffing, recruitment, enrolment, courses, library stock, costs? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/maccoll-dempsey-rvw/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/maccoll-dempsey-rvw/ First, a note about this reviewer. I am not a library historian although I am interested in our professional and institutional development. I received my library education in Ireland, although I have worked for much of my career in the UK and am now in the US. I observed the developments discussed in the latter parts of this volume and have contributed to the literature about them. I have met many of the contributors and am familiar with the writings of others. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/dc-2007-rpt/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/dc-2007-rpt/ The main theme of this year's international conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications was 'Application Profiles: Theory and Practice' [1]. The conference was hosted by the Singapore National Library Board and held in the Intercontinental Hotel, which was across the road from the superb National Library building. The main conference took place on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The keynote talks and the presentations of full papers took place in plenary sessions. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/feijen-et-al/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/feijen-et-al/ Introduction: Why DRIVER Is NeededOpenDOAR [1] lists over 900 Open Access repositories worldwide. Approximately half of them are based in Europe, most of which are institutional repositories. Across Europe many more repositories are being set up and supported by national and regional initiatives such as the Repositories Support Project [2] in the UK and IREL-Open [3] in Ireland. A recurring challenge for repositories is that of engaging researchers in Open Access and motivating them to deposit their work in OA repositories. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/kidmm-rpt/discussions.html Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/kidmm-rpt/discussions.html Information Retrieval Today: An Overview of Issues and MethodsDiscussionDavid Pullinger (UK Cabinet Office), in charge of the pan-government search solution, commented that ordinary people searching for government documents use terms other than the government's argot. Ironically, Google finds these documents effectively, because it picks up words that are associated with links, often written in plainer English. Conrad drew attention to a 2003 paper on e-democracy by Danny Budzak [5], comparing terms used to describe services on local government Web sites to those chosen by users. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/ecdl-2007-rpt/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/ecdl-2007-rpt/ This was the first time this event was held in the majestic and architecturally impressive city of Budapest. It was organised by The Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA SZTAKI) [1] and held at the Europa Congress Centre. The event brought together a very mixed group of people from computer scientists, researchers, librarians, professors and managers. There were over 200 participants, from 36 countries. There were a total of 119 full paper submissions of which 36 were accepted after peer review, giving an acceptance rate of 30%. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/editorial/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/editorial/ Given Ariadne's recent attempts to gather in contributions in the field of digital cultural heritage, which once upon a time would have found a home in Cultivate Interactive, I am particularly pleased, after some enquiries and kind offers of help along the way, to secure an article entitled The Video Active Consortium: Europe's Television History Online by Johan Ooman and Vassilis Tzouvaras. There will come a time when our civilisation will be assessed as much upon its cultural development as its historical path or scientific progress. 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/digitising-culture-rpt/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/digitising-culture-rpt/ The idiom of the ‘elephant in the room’ is one often conjured up when an obvious fact or presence is not acknowledged for fear that doing so will radically disturb people’s acceptance of the status quo. The conference in Berlin, Knowledge By Networking, Digitising Culture in Germany and Europe [1], had something of the elephant in the room. In this case the unmentioned presence was not the elephant, but the search engine Google. 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/53/kidmm-rpt/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/kidmm-rpt/ About KIDMMThe British Computer Society [1], which in 2007 celebrates 50 years of existence, has a self-image around engineering, software, and systems design and implementation. However, within the BCS there are over fifty Specialist Groups (SGs); among these, some have a major focus on ‘informatics’, or the content of information systems. At a BCS SG Assembly in 2005, a workshop discussed shared-interest topics around which SGs could collaborate. Knowledge, information and data management was identified as a candidate. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/ananiadou/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/ananiadou/ One of the defining challenges of e-Science is dealing with the data deluge [1] information overload and information overlook. More than 8,000 scientific papers are published every week (on Google Scholar, for example). Without sophisticated new tools, researchers will be unable to keep abreast of developments in their field and valuable new sources of research data will be under-exploited. The capability of text mining (TM) to find knowledge hidden in text and to present it in a concise form makes it an essential part of any strategy for addressing these problems. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/kirriemuir/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/kirriemuir/ Introduction: Second Life Second Life (SL) [1] is an Internet-based virtual world developed by Linden Research Inc (commonly referred to as Linden Lab) and launched in 2003. A downloadable client program called the ‘Second Life Viewer’ enables its users (‘residents’) to interact with each other through avatars, providing an advanced level of social networking in the setting of a virtual world. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialise, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade items (virtual property) and services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/ooman-tzouvaras/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/53/ooman-tzouvaras/ Europe's audiovisual heritage contains both a record and a representation of the past and as such it demonstrates the development of the 'audiovisual culture' we inhabit today. In this article we hope to offer an insight into the development of the Video Active Portal [1] which provides access broadcast heritage material retained by archives across Europe. We will explain how Video Active needed to find solutions for managing intellectual property rights, semantic and linguistic interoperability and the design of a meaningful user experience. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/pratty/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/pratty/ 24 Hour Museum [1] is a successful and sustainable cultural Web site. Type the word 'museum' into Google UK and up it pops as a top five search result. Unlike the other top sites, all national museums or galleries, 24HM's remit covers the whole country, in eclectic subject areas, reaching a wide variety of audiences with simple and accessible content. In 2006 24HM reached ten million visits in the year. 2007 sees the site reaching a million visitors a month, from home to office, schoolroom to museum. 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/kirsop-et-al/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/kirsop-et-al/ The term ‘sustainable development’ was first coined by the Brundtland Commission, convened by the United Nations in 1983 [1]. It denotes ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ Although defined originally to meet the concerns relating to environmental damage, it has since been used to encompass the broader needs of society through economic, social and political sustainability. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/blogging-backroom-rpt/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/blogging-backroom-rpt/ Blogging and the use of wikis and RSS feeds can seem daunting to many library and information professionals who are now encountering them for the first time. People think ‘Surely blogs are just online diaries?’ and ‘What use are wikis and RSS feeds really, aren’t they just for the ‘techies’?’ Then there’s the ‘I’m scared, it’s all too technical for me.’ And finally ‘Is it really ‘work’?’ and ‘Will my employer see it as ‘work’? 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/lovecy-rvw/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/lovecy-rvw/ This book is, as can be seen from the extensive bibliography, a comprehensive review of the literature on change management as well as a study of how - and how not! - to apply it to the running of an information service. The basic premise, which is reiterated through the book, is that in a time of rapid technological development an information service needs to be readily adaptable, flexible, and prepared to be in constant change. 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/digital-deluge-rpt/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/digital-deluge-rpt/ It was that rare thing, a sunny morning in Manchester, and it was almost with regret that I entered the dark entrance hall of the Manchester Conference Centre in search of coffee and the start of the JISC conference Digital Repositories: Dealing with the Digital Deluge [1]. Day One Andy Powell, Eduserv Foundation [2], and co-author of the JISC Digital Repositories Roadmap [3] kicked off by suggesting that ‘roadmap’ documents in this domain should be treated like satellite navigation systems rather than a traditional paper-based route planners [4]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/russell/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/russell/ EThOSnet is a project funded by JISC, CURL and the project partners, to bring the UK to the forefront of international e-theses provision. It is a highly practical and participative project to turn the prototype e-theses infrastructure that was developed by EThOS, into a live service that will revolutionise the document supply arrangements for theses and greatly increase the visibility of UK research. The Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS) Project arose after several earlier initiatives in the UK had articulated an urgent need to improve on the present methods for giving researchers access to PhD and other higher-level theses. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/editorial/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/editorial/ We are frequently reminded that, in a globalised market place, industrialised countries must ever look to a developing knowledge-based economy to ensure the green shoots of competitive innovation keep sprouting. Whether all governments have been as quick to invest whole-heartedly in the research that sustains that knowledge-based economy remains to be seen. However, if the industrialised nations think they have got their problems, then, like Barbara Kirsop, Leslie Chan and Subbiah Arunachalam, they would do well to consider the situation of the developing countries which must not only compete in a ferocious global market but do so without the depth of infrastructure and investment which the Western Hemisphere takes for granted. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/eduserv-rpt/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/eduserv-rpt/ I was pleased this year to accept a place as a delegate at the Eduserv Foundation Symposium, which was held at Congress House, London on 10 May 2007. The Symposium was primarily concerned with Second Life and its relevance and applicability to learning. Second Life is a ‘virtual-world’ created and commercially operated by a company called Linden Lab. It has gained a significant amount of media coverage in recent months. 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/ja-sig-2007-06-rpt/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/ja-sig-2007-06-rpt/ JASIG, the organisation formerly known as the Java Architectures Special Interest Group, but which now is known more simply by its acronym, celebrated its 16th conference in Denver in June. JASIG was in many senses the first of the small wave of ‘Community Source’ organisations formed within Higher Education, mainly in North America, and largely spinning out of Andrew J Mellon Foundation-funded projects, in the first half of the decade. 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/52/maccoll-dempsey-rvw/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/maccoll-dempsey-rvw/ Cambridge University Press has, with the first two volumes of its three-volume history of libraries in Britain and Ireland, provided a wealth of fascinating information on the development of libraries and librarianship from a sterling collection of historians and scholar librarians. The publication of an edited history results in a denser packing of detail than would be achieved by a work of single authorship, since so many specialists each have an abundance of knowledge to cram into their relatively small allocations of space. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/knight/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/52/knight/ Background: Identifying a Need SPP phase I [1] was largely devoted to considering how five Resource Discovery Network (RDN) hubs might be turned into subject portals, but at this stage did not include the development of portlets. During the course of phase I it became clear that many potential users of these portals would choose to access content from within their local institutional portal or a virtual learning environment (VLE). The choice of functionality for these portlets was in part determined by the results of user testing on users of the BIOME Web site, which gathered feedback about various potential portlets and the ways in which they might deliver information [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/treloar-groenewegen/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/treloar-groenewegen/ This paper describes three inter-related repository projects. These projects were all funded by the Australian Commonwealth Government through the Systemic Infrastructure Initiative as part of the Commonwealth Government’s Backing Australia’s Ability - An Innovation Action Plan for the Future. The article will describe the background to all three projects and the way in which their development has been inter-related and co-ordinated. The article will conclude by examining how Monash University (the lead institution in all three projects) is re-conceiving the relationship between its different repositories. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/cliff-rvw/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/cliff-rvw/ In the changing, and increasingly digital world, learners and teachers are more and more subject to information overload and the noise this generates. Teachers must cope with larger cohorts and more disparate communities. Increasingly, information communication technologies are being used to address these issues and it becomes clear that new skills are required to operate effectively in the learning environment. In Digital Literacies for Learning, editors Allan Martin and Dan Madigan set out to show in Part One how emerging (digital) learning environments require learners and teachers to develop new skills. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/ball-rvw/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/ball-rvw/ Jane Seale begins her book by explaining the reticence of e-learning practitioners to embrace accessibility concepts as if they were waiting 'for the magic fairy to miraculously transform all e-learning material with one wave of her magic wand'. It is probably human nature that we would mostly prefer to be handed a ready-made meal than a lesson in farming, but we all know deep down that only the latter will lead to long-term success. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/doyle-rvw/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/doyle-rvw/ Information architecture helps people find the information they want, whether it's a prospective student looking for a course, or staff using the intranet. It is mostly concerned with how people browse and search the institutional Web site, and with how knowledge is shared. People working in information architecture are likely to be responsible for institutional Web strategy; global links on the corporate template; the institutional search engine, site map and index; institutional analytics; portals and primary stakeholder home pages; content management and content management systems. 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/emamy-cameron/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/emamy-cameron/ This article describes Citeulike, a fusion of Web-based social bookmarking services and traditional bibliographic management tools. It discusses how Citeulike turns the linear ‘gather, collect, share’ process inherent in academic research into a circular ‘gather, collect, share and network’ process, enabling the sharing and discovery of academic literature and research papers. What is Citeulike?Citeulike is a Web-based tool to help scientists, researchers and academics store, organise, share and discover links to academic research papers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/stanley/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/stanley/ Researchers in all disciplines increasingly expect to be able to undertake a variety of research-associated tasks online. These range from collaborative activities with colleagues around the globe through to information-seeking activities in an electronic library environment. Many of the tools which enable these activities to take place are already available within the local IT infrastructure. However, in many cases, the tools are provided through discrete, bespoke interfaces with few links between them. 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/kim-conf-rpt/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/kim-conf-rpt/ The KIM Project [1], known in full as Immortal Information and Through Life Knowledge Management: Strategies and Tools for the Emerging Product-Service Paradigm, is a £5.5 million research programme funded primarily by the EPSRC [2] and ESRC [3] and involving eleven UK universities. The purpose of the project is to find robust ways of handling information and knowledge — for example, product models and documentation of design processes and rationale — over the lifetime of project-services such as PFI hospitals, schools and military equipment, as well as enterprise-level strategies for this new way of working. 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/powell-recordon/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/powell-recordon/ OpenID [1][2] is a single sign-on system for the Internet which puts people in charge. OpenID is a user-centric technology which allows a person to have control over how their Identity is both managed and used online. By being decentralised there is no single server with which every OpenID-enabled service and every user must register. Rather, people make their own choice of OpenID Provider, the service that manages their OpenID. 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/51/thompson/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/thompson/ Background: The W3C and Its Process The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was set up by Tim Berners-Lee in 1994 to preserve and enhance the public utility of the Web for everyone, to “lead the Web to its full potential”. It is a consortium of industrial and institutional members (around 450 at the time of writing) who pay on a sliding scale proportional to size. It produces Recommendations which are widely recognised as de facto standards. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/young-thrower/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/young-thrower/ Virtualisation is a hot buzzword in the IT industry right now, with major players including Microsoft and IBM making multi-million pound investments into the technology. In essence the idea of virtualisation is that you allow one server, with one set of hardware to masquerade as a number of separate servers with ‘virtual hardware’, each of which can run its own operating system and set of applications. As you might imagine, the details of this technology are somewhat complex and its potential uses are myriad, but we’ll return to those points later. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/foggo/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/foggo/ This case study shows how students were taught the skills they need to find information relevant to their subject area. As groups of students are generally seen once only, measures to assess the effectiveness of teaching are needed, i.e. to determine the skills the students have acquired. Blogs were used as a tool for formative assessment and were used to measure student expectations before teaching, and their level of satisfaction with the session afterwards. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/open-repos-rpt/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/51/open-repos-rpt/ 23-26 January 2007 saw the second Open RepositoriesConference [1], this year hosted at the enormous Marriott Rivercenter Hotel in San Antonio, Texas, around the corner from the Alamo. The conference followed on from the inaugural one held last year in Sydney [2], offering the U.S. repositories community an ideal opportunity to gather, together with a generous scattering of attendees from other parts of the world. With the strap-line 'achieving interoperability in an open world', the conference promoted interoperability and openness in various ways, not just between repositories on a technical level, but also between development communities, technical implementers, librarians and repository managers. 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/pennock-rvw/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/pennock-rvw/ Digital Preservation is a promising volume that will prove useful to information professionals wishing to learn more about digital preservation, particularly in a cultural heritage context. This edited collection offers perspectives and overviews of different aspects of preservation, such as strategies, costs and metadata, by a select number of widely acknowledged experts. Other chapters cover Web archiving and Web archiving initiatives, European approaches to preservation, and digital preservation projects from around the globe. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/goldsmith-rvw/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/goldsmith-rvw/ Although there are some hints on the cover, it isn't until you scan the contents page that you can fully appreciate the scope of this book. Over the course of seven sections Stephen Johnson's book leads the reader on a journey: from the invention of the early electronic fax and cathode ray tube in the 1800s; through his own encounters as a pioneering digital photographer; and ending with his personal digital imaging manifesto. 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/editorial/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/editorial/ With Dyson and parts of Burberry disappearing points east, leaving their design departments behind them [1] [2], there are possible grounds for arguing that the (previously) industrialised countries must live by their wits and the emerging knowledge economy. In Limits to Information Transfer: The Boundary Problem Jon Erland Lervik, Mark Easterby-Smith, Kathryn Fahy and Carole Elliott write that 'the challenge for knowledge management is not only to make knowledge available in repositories for dissemination across the firm' or organisation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/jisc-cetis-2006-rpt/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/jisc-cetis-2006-rpt/ Since its last conference, CETIS (Centre for Educational Technology & Interoperability Standards) has undergone a change in status from an eight-year project funded by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) to a JISC Development Service. Both the remit and the organisation have changed somewhat, with a physical move from University of Wales, Bangor to University of Bolton. This, the third annual invitation-only conference, retained the general structure of the previous event - a series of keynotes surrounded by plenty of ‘breakout’ sessions. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/lervik-et-al/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/lervik-et-al/ Since the early 1980s the aim of knowledge management researchers and practitioners has been to develop technologies and systems to codify and share explicit knowledge efficiently through electronic means. With the growing appreciation of the importance of tacit knowledge [1], we have a new problem: how to facilitate other forms of systematic organisational learning and knowledge exchange where knowledge cannot be codified. In this article we take a further step by looking at the problem of analysing and managing complex knowledge in organisations that have multiple specialised knowledge communities. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/oppenheim-et-al/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/oppenheim-et-al/ One of the common dilemmas faced by developers of information communication technology (ICT) initiatives is how to go about identifying potential early adopters of their service. This article outlines background research into this area and details the approaches taken within the JISC-funded Rights and Rewards in Blended Institutional Repositories Project to locate these key individuals within a Higher Education (HE) environment. The concept of an innovation is discussed and the differences between the terms innovation and invention are outlined. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/search-engines/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/search-engines/ It’s very easy simply to concentrate on the ‘Big Four’ search engines - Ask, Google, Live and Yahoo, while missing out on what is happening elsewhere. I know that I’m as guilty of that as anyone else and so for this column I thought I would look back over 2006 and see which search engines have come to my attention, what I think of them, and see how well they have actually fared. 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/50/green-et-al/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/green-et-al/ With an increasing number of publications being made available digitally, and new supply chains and business models emerging for trading them, an urgent need has been identified for a standard way of expressing and communicating usage terms, and linking those terms to the publications. Reflecting the development pattern of the markets, this need was first identified in the scholarly journals sector. More recently, a similar requirement has been articulated for the communication of usage terms between publishers' digital repositories and search engines such as Google. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/eprints-v3-rpt/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/eprints-v3-rpt/ The EPrints 3 unwrapped event at the Congress Centre in London was billed as ‘an early Christmas present’ [1] and was an opportunity for the EPrints community to enjoy a preview of EPrints 3 (hereafter referred to as EP3) scheduled for release at the end of January 2007. The official launch was held at the Open Repositories Conference [2] in San Antonio, Texas on the 24th of January and the software is now in final release. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/beresford/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/beresford/ In September 2006 The National Library of New Zealand Te Puna M?tauranga o Aotearoa, The British Library and Sytec, announced the successful development of a Web harvesting management system. The system, known as Web Curator Tool, is designed to assist curators of digital archives in collecting Web-published material for storage and preservation. The Web Curator Tool is the latest development in the practice of Web site harvesting (using software to 'crawl' through a specified section of the World Wide Web, and gather 'snapshots' of Web sites, including the images and documents posted on them). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/miller/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/miller/ Over the summer of 2006, there was much talk about extending and enriching the online offerings of the library. Reports for the Library of Congress [1] and University of California [2] were still being cogitated upon. North Carolina State University's [3] Endeca-powered catalogue was attracting a lot of interest [4]. The Next Generation Catalog list [5] was going from strength to strength, and two competitions in particular invited entrants to re-imagine the library and aspects of its online service delivery. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/wikido-rpt/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/50/wikido-rpt/ The ‘Wikido’ [pron. ‘wiki-doo’], as I have come to refer to it affectionately, was held at Austin Court, Birmingham on Friday 3 November 2006. Its organisation by Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus, was as a direct result of feedback and discussions carried out by the Web Management Community at the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2006 and on the JISCmail web-support list. It was therefore interesting (and encouraging) to see so many delegates from communities in addition to that of Web management attending. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/tonkin-rvw/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/tonkin-rvw/ Ambient Findability is to all external appearances an O'Reilly book. It boasts the familiar line drawing of an animal, on this occasion a Verreaux's sifaka, a large and engagingly thoughtful-looking lemur. Judging the book by its cover would suggest that it be placed on the shelf together with O'Reilly's classic line of reference books, upon which developers all over the world depend for sparsely presented, accurate information and advice. But this book is of a different breed. 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/dc-2006-rpt/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/dc-2006-rpt/ DC-2006 [1], the annual conference of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), took place this year in the city of Manzanillo, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, with a subtitle of ‘Metadata for Knowledge and Learning’. The four-day conference was organised by the University of Colima [2], and the venue for the event was the Karmina Palace Hotel, a large hotel set within its own complex of restaurants, bars, shops and swimming pools. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/editorial/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/editorial/ It was rather pleasantly brought to my attention a little while back that Ariadne has made its own small contribution to the various discussions in respect of institutional repositories when I noticed a very kind acknowledgement of the Magazine from the authors of The Institutional Repository as I set about organising its review. Indeed those readers who have seen the review will have noted the references to related articles, some indeed by the very same authors. 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/yan-han/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/yan-han/ Digital libraries are changing the way that we search for, find and use resources in traditional libraries. In the networked information environment they allow users to access information anywhere and anytime. They are also leading to innovative ways for teaching and learning opportunities. For example, an instructor can develop learning objects based on traditional static text-based materials by using multimedia (images, videos, sounds, and animations) technology. Learners can explore these digital learning objects in dynamic and interactive ways at their own pace, rather than by following textual instructions. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/cig-2006-rpt/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/cig-2006-rpt/ Restful accommodation and pleasant food prepared the delegates for the carefully balanced mix of social networking sessions and challenging seminars. Everyone was extremely friendly and most proved to be erudite socialites, networking in some cases with great assertiveness and sense of purpose. Cataloguing and classification was revealed as an area of library and information science that has survived years of neglect by most library schools to reveal itself as the much-needed solution to online resource accessibility. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/newsline/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/newsline/ Digital Data Curation in Practice: The Second International Digital Curation ConferenceThe second International Digital Curation Conference will take place over 21-22 November 2006 at the City Centre Hilton in Glasgow. The theme of the conference will be Digital Data Curation in Practice. The programme comprises a series of peer-reviewed papers covering a range of disciplines from social sciences and neurosciences to astronomy. The programme will also focus on a number of different aspects of the curation life cycle including the management of repositories, educating the data scientist and the role of policy and strategy. 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/tourte-tonkin/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/tourte-tonkin/ The recent Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW 2006) [1] was a rare opportunity to try out a few new pieces of technology. With events that occur at a different location each year, it is often difficult to do so, since the infrastructure at the venue may not be suitable, and it is difficult to liase effectively with technical staff at the venue before the event in order to put all the necessary technology into place. 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/escience-lancaster-rpt/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/escience-lancaster-rpt/ This workshop was held at the University of Lancaster Centre for e-Science. The organisers were Rob Crouchley, Rob Allan and Caroline Ingram, there were 17 other attendees. The main aim of this workshop was to explore the relationship between digital repositories, e-Research and Portals in the UK with a view to discovering e-infrastructure gaps and articulating requirements. The hosts had been commissioned by JISC to undertake the ITT: JISC Information Environment Portal activity - supporting the needs of e-Research [1]. 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/49/e-collab-rpt/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/49/e-collab-rpt/ This workshop was held on 28 June 2006 at Manchester Metropolitan University as part of the 2nd International Conference on e-Social Science hosted by the National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS). The aim of the workshop was to bring together conference attendees interested in e-Collaboration as part of their research activities, to review requirements and to see what is currently going on in various JISC-funded projects. Several of these are funded by the Virtual Research Environments Programme [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/ferreira-et-al/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/ferreira-et-al/ Efforts to archive a large amount of digital material are being developed by many cultural heritage institutions. We have evidence of this in the numerous initiatives aiming to harvest the Web [1-5] together with the impressive burgeoning of institutional repositories [6]. However, getting the material inside the archive is just the beginning for any initiative concerned with the long-term preservation of digital materials. Digital preservation can best be described as the activity or set of activities that enable digital information to be intelligible for long periods of time. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/parkes-rvw/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/parkes-rvw/ More than ever libraries and information services need to be accountable to their users, to their institutions and to their funding bodies. They need to demonstrate their value, outcomes and impact - but how? Traditionally we have gathered statistics - slightly obsessively perhaps - as if the very act of gathering the variables provided us with some solace and comfort that we were performing well. We could inform our funding bodies just how many books we had, how many we had issued, how many we had shelved - counting them out and counting them back in again - a myriad of variables pouring in from every service point, from every transaction, from access and egress, from dawn to dusk, week to month, year to year - we had been quantified. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/c21stcuration-rpt/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/c21stcuration-rpt/ A growing and significant part of the record and culture of the UK is now in digital form. The lives of staff working in our institutions, current students, and private individuals will be increasingly influenced by these trends and the growing demand for professionals to curate digital assets. The School of Library, Archives and Information Studies (SLAIS) at University College London aims to raise awareness of digital stewardship. Following the highly successful inaugural series of C21st Curation public lectures last year, SLAIS organised a second series of public lectures by eight leading speakers, open to students, professionals and general public during April and May 2006. 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/editorial/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/editorial/ While the number of delegates at the Institutional Web Management Workshop did not quite match that of ECDL 2004 [1] when it too was hosted at the University of Bath, it would be fair to say the Workshop gave UKOLN almost as much to do. Inevitably the bulk of the workload fell upon the Workshop's new Chair Marieke Guy and also Natasha Bishop, UKOLN Events and Marketing Manager. There is little doubt there were many opportunities for networking within a workshop in which it was evident very many delegates were known to each other. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/curating-email-rpt/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/curating-email-rpt/ This workshop organised by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) [1] brought together librarians, archivists and IT specialists from academic, commercial and government sectors. Email is a major universal communication tool. It’s used for both assigning responsibilities and for decision making. People using email have differing perspectives and expectations from those who manage the infrastructure. While there are common desires for preservation no one solution fits all circumstances. Day One: Emails as Records Seamus Ross, DCC, chaired the first session. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/fedora-users-rpt/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/fedora-users-rpt/ The Fedora Users Conference 2006, for users of the open source Fedora repository system [1] was the second to be run under the auspices of the core Fedora development team, following an initial conference at Rutgers University in June 2005. It is, though, one among a collection of conferences and meetings that have taken place over the past year based on using Fedora, with venues as diverse as Copenhagen, Aberystwyth, Sydney, and Hull. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/iwmw-2006-rpt/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/iwmw-2006-rpt/ The 10th Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW 2006) [1] returned to its spiritual home in Bath this year, headquarters of the workshop organisers UKOLN [2] and the venue of the fourth IWMW workshop held in 2000. It was the first workshop to be chaired by Marieke Guy following nine years with Brian Kelly at the helm from its inception in 1997. This year the workshop theme was 'Quality Matters', reflecting the fact that institutional Web sites have been around for over ten years and are now taken as a given. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/williams/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/williams/ This article aims to give an overview of Intute [1], the new face of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN), in the context of the Internet information environment, and to describe how one JISC service has responded to its changing context. In order to do this it will briefly describe the environment and context for Intute, and will outline the new Intute service, its blueprint, current project activity, and Intute’s aspirations for the future. 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/moyle/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/moyle/ Much of UK Higher and Further Education (HE & FE) has begun to grapple with next-generation access management technology. Many UK developments in this area are underpinned by Shibboleth, which is conceptually simple, but architecturally complex. It is hoped that this article will benefit newcomers to Shibboleth. We offer a brief introduction to Shibboleth technology, in the context of the UK’s burgeoning federated access management infrastructure. We go on to describe the ShibboLEAP Project, which saw six University of London institutions implement Shibboleth under the guidance of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/dempsey/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/dempsey/ The catalogue [Note 1] has always been an important focus of library discussion; its construction and production are a central part of historical library practice and identity. In recent months, the future of the catalogue has become a major topic of debate, prompted by several new initiatives and by a growing sense that it has to evolve to meet user needs [1][2]. Much of the discussion is about improving the catalogue user’s experience, not an unreasonable aspiration. 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/48/semple-jones/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/semple-jones/ The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) was formed in the belief that no single organisation can hope to address single-handedly all the challenges and issues associated with digital preservation. It was launched in February 2002 with an initial membership of 19, and has grown to 30 members as of June 2006. Its underlying principle is that intense collaboration and co-operation across and between sectors is essential as there is a far wider range of key players who need to be involved at various different stages in the life cycle of digital resources. 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/town-rvw/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/town-rvw/ Never judge a book by its cover? In this case the cover contains some apt symbolism for what one might expect from this US multi-author text. Presumably the picture on the front is supposed to be the eponymous 'successful academic librarian', well-groomed and smartly suited, climbing the rungs of the career ladder. The aluminium ladder itself looks more suitable for DIY, but perhaps this is also accurate, as this work is very much a positive view of how to take your career in hand and develop it. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/coelho-rvw/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/coelho-rvw/ Digital reference has come of age. Starting with tentative 'Ask us a question' e-mail services, it is now available in public, academic and specialist libraries. This dynamic area, which has already undergone major developments in the past few years, continues to grow and evolve. Creating a Reference Future reflects the best of the contributions to the Fifth Annual Conference on the subject. The authors of the ten chapters included here are front-line librarians from a wide variety of backgrounds eager to share their experiences with colleagues. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/corrall-rvw/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/corrall-rvw/ Social Informatics (SI) is a relatively recently named field of research, which has evolved from earlier studies of the role of computers in society and the social impacts of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which were often conducted as separate, unconnected discussions by computer scientists, information systems researchers, sociologists, educational researchers and others. Rob Kling, the lead author of this book, who died in 2003, is generally regarded as the prime mover and founder of this new domain. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/code4lib-2006-rpt/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/code4lib-2006-rpt/ Focused as a highly technical event, the inaugural code4lib conference resulted from the combined efforts of the code4lib community, a loosely connected set of programmers, hackers, librarians, and library technologists who pursue technologies related to libraries and information. Over 80 attendees had the opportunity to learn what their peers were pursuing at other institutions, to share projects, hacks, code, and ideas, and to participate in breakout sessions and give lightning talks. 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/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/reese/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/reese/ Surveying the current metasearch tools landscape, it is somewhat surprising to find so few non-commercial implementations available. This is especially true considering that, as a group, the library community has cultivated a very vibrant open source community over the past ten or so years. One wonders then, why this particular service has been ceded to the world of commercial vendors. One can speculate that the creation and management of a metasearch knowledge base has likely played a large role [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/newsline/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/newsline/ Oxford Journals to report on its open access experiments Oxford Journals is to stage a one-day conference to report new results from its open access experiments. Conference details: Monday 5 June 10.30-16.30 76 Portland Place, London, W1B 1NT Preliminary programme: Martin Richardson and Claire Saxby, Oxford Journals, Oxford University Press Oxford Journals and Open Access Claire Creaser and Eric Davies, LISU, Loughborough University: Counting on Open Access - Preliminary Outcomes of an Experiment in Evaluating Scholarly Journal Open Access Models http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/fenton/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/fenton/ The work of academics - in teaching and research - is not possible without reliable access to the accumulated scholarship of the past. As scholars have become more dependent upon the convenience and enhanced accessibility of electronic scholarly resources, concern about the long-term preservation and future accessibility of the electronic portion of the scholarly record has grown. One recent survey found that 83% of academic staff surveyed believe it is 'very important' to preserve electronic scholarly resources for future use [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/krowne/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/krowne/ In this article we present a framework, QMSearch, which improves searching in the context of scholarly digital libraries by taking a 'quality metrics-aware' approach. This means the digital library deployer or end-user can customise how results are presented, including aspects of both ranking and organisation in general, based upon standard metadata attributes and quality indicators derived from the general library information environment. To achieve this, QMSearch is generalised across metadata fields, quality indicators, and user communities, by abstracting all of these notions and rendering them into one or more 'organisation specifications' which are used by the system to determine how to organise results. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/hiom/timeline.html Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/hiom/timeline.html January 1994 - ESRC funds SOSIG as a pilot project - return to textJune 1994 - SOSIG subject gateway demonstrator goes live with 300 recordsSpring 1995 - EEVL, OMNI and SOSIG awarded funding under the eLib Programme: Access to Networked Resources. Also fund the development of ROADS (Resource Organisation And Discovery in Subject-based services) return to text November 1995 - OMNI launches pilot serviceSeptember 1996 - EEVL launches pilot serviceJuly 1998 - Launch of Internet Detective tutorial August 1998 - JISC announce plan to develop a national Resource Discovery Network to build on the work of the eLib-funded projects - return to text August 1999 - Humbul becomes part of the RDNOctober 1999 - PSIgate service awarded funding from JISC - return to textNovember 1999 - EEVL incorporated resources from AERADE (the gateway to quality aerospace and defence resources based at Cranfield University) November 1999 - Launch of the RDN at the TUC Hall in central London - return to textJanuary 2000 - Virtual Training Suite awarded funding under the JISC Learning and Teaching (5/99) ProgrammeFebruary 2000 - SOSIG (re-)launched at the National Institute of Social Work offices in LondonJuly 2000 - Launch of first eleven Virtual Training Suite tutorialAugust 2000 - Humbul officially launches production serviceNovember 2000 - BIOME service launched at the Royal Society in London - return to textAugust 2001 - Subject Portals Project begins May 2001 - ALTIS and GEsource service awarded funding May 2001 - 27 additional subject-based tutorials launched under the Virtual Training Suite Autumn 2001 - EEVL (re-)launched as RDN gateway to engineering, maths and computing resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/hiom/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/hiom/ IntroductionThis article will describe the history of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) [1], charting the development of subject gateways in the UK since 1993 to the present day. To help set the history of the gateways in the wider context of the resource discovery landscape in the last decade or so, readers are encouraged to refer to Lorcan Dempsey’s recent article on the development of digital libraries [2]. A timeline of the RDN’s development is also available to serve as a summary of its history. 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/dlservices-rpt/ Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/47/dlservices-rpt/ Over the past decade there has been substantial progress in the use and delivery of digital resources. This evolving area has now reached a point of maturity where digital library providers, be they national libraries, universities, or bodies co-ordinating and delivering distributed national and global services, have begun to identify common service requirements and service frameworks. These emerging digital library services might be delivered in a distributed manner or shared centrally. 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/day-rvw/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/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 (2002), the editor of ARIST has been Professor Blaise Cronin of Indiana University, Bloomington. Professor Cronin's introduction to the 2004 volume highlighted some of the difficulties with planning a publication like ARIST, noting that it has a habit of not quite turning out as it was initially conceived [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/town-rvw/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/town-rvw/ This work promises to 'capture' and 'critically discuss' the changing support role of librarians in the current 'rapidly changing environment' where boundaries between roles are 'becoming increasingly blurred'. There is clearly a market for such a work, given that librarians in many educational contexts are indeed faced with new forms of learning environment and a significant growth in electronic, distance and blended learning. 'Capturing' anything in a time of rapid change is difficult, and it may be that boundaries and roles are only 'blurred' where there is insufficient clarity or definition of concepts, strategy, process and thought. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/foster-rvw/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/foster-rvw/ As someone with some theoretical knowledge and technical skills getting involved in the practicalities for the first time, I found considerable food for thought in this book. Combining a truly international selection of contributors offering perspectives from Australia, France, South Africa, Canada and the US with backgrounds in records, document and knowledge management as well as archives with case studies from both private and public companies, the book gives a thorough grounding in the subject for 'newbies' as well as placing records management firmly in the sphere of business processes and benefits. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/mason-rvw/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/mason-rvw/ It seemed a good idea to look at the definition of 'digital culture' offered in Wikipedia [1] and consider this alongside the ideas presented in this text. The definition was marked for possible deletion, then, a few days later the definition had changed, and the matter seems settled (for the moment) [2]. Somewhat serendipitously the Wikipedia definition had moved from two broad expressions of 'digital culture' that arises from the use of digital technologies, to one that refers to it as a discrete field of study that examines the effect on people. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/oppenheim-rvw/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/oppenheim-rvw/ This 420-page paperback includes the papers of a 2002 conference on the history of information retrieval systems. It comprises 33 contributed papers (with remarkably little overlap), together with details about the contributors and an excellent index. The papers are organised in five broad sections - interdisciplinary perspectives, organising and managing information, chemical informatics, national developments and developments in international systems (such as INIS and AGRIS). Some of the contributors are old-timers recalling how things were from their own perspectives, but most papers were accounts based on researching and interpreting the (often obscure) old literature. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/c21st-curation-rpt/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/c21st-curation-rpt/ A growing and significant part of the record and culture of the UK is now in digital form. The lives of staff working in our institutions, current students, and private individuals will be increasingly influenced by these trends and the growing demand for professionals to curate digital assets. The School of Library, Archives and Information Studies (SLAIS) at University College London aims to raise awareness and interest amongst students on university vocational courses for museums, libraries and archives in digital stewardship. 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/editorial/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/editorial/ Ten Years of PathfindingJohn MacColl reflects upon the choice of Ariadne’s name in the light of the publication’s guiding mission. The Follett Report [1] which started everything off, appeared in December 1993. When the subsequent JISC call for proposals for electronic library project activity appeared in the summer of 1994, I was only a few months into my new post as a Depute Librarian at Britain’s newest (and probably smallest) university, the University of Abertay Dundee. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/rusbridge/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/rusbridge/ Excuse me…I have been asked to write an article for the tenth anniversary of Ariadne, a venture that I have enjoyed, off and on, since its inception in 1996 as part of the eLib Programme, of which I was then Programme Director. Some years ago I wrote an article entitled “After eLib” [1] for Ariadne. The original suggestion was for a follow-up “even more after eLib”; however, I now work for JISC, and that probably makes it hard to be objective! 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/dcc-fpw-rpt/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/dcc-fpw-rpt/ This DCC [1] and Wellcome Library [2] workshop sought to provide insight into ways that content creators and curators can ensure ongoing access to reliable Web sites over time. The issue is not merely one of archiving; it is also about designing and managing a Web site so that it is suitable for long-term preservation with minimum intervention by curators to ensure the content remains reliable and understandable through time. 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/brophy/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/brophy/ Introduction: The First WaveIt is worth remembering that there is a long history of successful commercialisation of digital library R&D projects in the UK. While there are probably even earlier examples, the obvious instances are the Birmingham Libraries Co-operative Mechanisation Project (BLCMP) and the South-West Academic Libraries Co-operative Automation Project (SWALCAP) from the 1960s. Both were initially funded by grants from the then Office for Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI, a body whose responsibilities were to be taken over by the British Library Research & Development Department (BLRDD) and later dispersed among various funders such as the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/lynch/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/lynch/ This brief paper explores changing conceptions of digital libraries and how they fit into the broader information flows and information landscapes in Higher Education and beyond. It includes a few observations comparing how thinking about these questions has evolved within the very different planning, funding and implementation contexts in the United Kingdom and the United States. The central argument here is that, over the past decade in the Higher Education and research sphere, we have seen several large-scale technological shifts, with all of the accompanying organisational, social and cultural changes, proceeding largely independently - the transformations of scholarly practice, of teaching and learning, of scholarly communication, and of 'traditional' research library services. 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/buildinginfogrid-rpt/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/buildinginfogrid-rpt/ The Danish Electronic Research Library (DEFF) [1] offered a two-day event, Building the Info Grid [2], focusing on the recent and upcoming developments in digital information management, more specifically on the possibilites and challenges of providing integrated access to scholarly content and communication, via distributed technological services and infrastructural software. In this report we will not cover all aspects of the conference, but rather focus on the specific topics that were the binding glue throughout the conference: Service-oriented Architecture (SOA); the Grid/Information Grid; Rights Management; Single Sign-on; and Google Scholar [3] development. 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/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/dsr-rpt/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/dsr-rpt/ The number of available online digital collections is growing all the time and with this comes the need to discover these collections, both by machine (m2m) and by end-users. There is also a trend towards service-orientated architectures and a likely critical part of this will be service registries to assist with discovering services andtheir associated collections. UKOLN and the JISC Information Environment Services Registry Project (IESR) [1] organised a two-day workshop to look at some of the issues that are likely to be present in building a distributed approach. 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/boock/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/boock/ Can a student find relevant research articles from your library Web pages efficiently? Do faculty effortlessly locate the full text of articles from a licensed database? You can answer these questions and dozens more by conducting a usability study. It can be as simple and painless as gathering students in a room together, asking them to do something and analysing their behaviour. Usability studies have been in wide use in libraries for years, particularly since the advent of the Internet, and a great deal of research has been published on how to conduct them. 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/planet-sosig/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/planet-sosig/ Biz/ed Introduces Podcasting ServiceBiz/ed has recently launched a podcasting service, based on its popular In the News [1] feature, a regular comment on a topical issue from a business and economics viewpoint. Selected stories are being podcasted on a weekly basis, which students and educators will then be able to download and listen to at their leisure. Why Podcast?The aim of the new service is twofold. Firstly, part of Biz/ed’s philosophy is to cater for different learning styles. 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/45/search-engines/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/search-engines/ I last looked at image search engines in my column [1] back in September 2000 , which in Internet terms is probably equivalent to several decades, so I decided that it was time to revisit the subject to see what has changed. Having recently become interested in photography, I know that I certainly use a lot of image search engines now that I didn't use then, but there are also one or two old faithfuls still out there. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/miller/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/miller/ 'Web 2.0' is a hot story out on the blogosphere right now, with an army of advocates facing off against those who argue that it is nothing new, and their allies with painful memories of Dot Com hysteria in the 1990s. Even respectable media outlets such as Business Week are getting excited, and an expensive conference in San Francisco at the start of October had to turn people away as it passed over 800 registrations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/carey/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/carey/ Accessibility and UsabilityBefore embarking on the major strands of my argument it would be as well to consider definitions. There is now a fine old Pharisaic, or perhaps we might better say Scholastic, discussion about the delineation of accessibility - the capability of a system to cater for the needs of disabled people - as a highly specific segment in the usability - the capability of a system to behave in a way which most closely accords with human behaviour - sector as a whole. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/lovecy-rvw/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/lovecy-rvw/ The aim of this book is ambitious: it sets out to present current professional and practical ideas on the whole range of disaster management, from the precautions which will prevent - or at least minimise - disaster, through the financial considerations, balancing of risk, and staff training needs, to the process of recovery and re-establishment of a service. It does so in an international context; and it does so based on the practical experience of the contributors. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/dcc-pi-rpt/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/dcc-pi-rpt/ A Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Meeting on Persistent Identifiers was held over 30 June - 1 July 2005 at the Wolfson Building at the University of Glasgow. This is a new construction (2002) just opposite the 1970s Boyd-Orr building, mentioned before in Ariadne's pages. The architecture of this building is quite unlike the Boyd-Orr building however, being light and airy, with more imaginative use of space: the lecture theatre in which the meeting took place is in the shape of an eye, situated at the edge of the main open space. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/eevl/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/eevl/ EEVL Xtra - In a NutshellEEVL Xtra [1] is an exciting new, free service which helps people find articles, books, the best Web sites, the latest industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text eprints, the latest research, teaching and learning resources and more, in engineering, mathematics and computing. EEVL Xtra cross-searches (hence the ‘X’ in Xtra) over twenty different collections/ databases relevant to engineering, mathematics and computing, and includes content from over fifty publishers and providers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/editorial/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/editorial/ Having opined elsewhere in this august organ that it would not be my policy to produce themed issues, I suppose I had better put my hand up at least to accumulating a majority of main articles which address the theme of accessibility from various and interesting perspectives. Having argued on the grounds that Ariadne issues which concentrate unduly on one topic inevitably leave a lot of readers feeling excluded, I can see that that the majority of readers who do not live with significant visual, physical or other impairments will feel hurt and almost certainly betrayed. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/iwmw2005-rpt/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/iwmw2005-rpt/ The 9th Institutional Web Management Workshop [1], a three-day event held at the Manchester Conference Centre [2], Manchester University [3], UK, 6-8 July 2005 had as its theme this year 'Whose web is it anyway?'. How apt at a time when we are all continuing to attempt delivery of systems and services to meet users' needs and requirements within institutional demands and pressures on resource. The format this year was six plenary sessions, two parallel workshop slots, two sessions for regional groups to discuss Content Management Systems (CMS), two panel sessions and one slot for delegates to attend an extra discussion session or look round the poster displays/vendor stalls. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/jisc-conf-rpt/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/jisc-conf-rpt/ The 2005 JISC Conference took place on 12 April at the Birmingham International Convention Centre (ICC) which this year - inexplicably - had a giant Ferris wheel thirty yards from the main entrance, entirely unconnected with the main event. The annual conference [1] is a chance for JISC to showcase the breadth of its activities [2] in providing support for the use of ICT in education and research, and as usual it was a bustle of networking and learning. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/craven/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/craven/ The European Union (EU) is increasingly focused on design for all issues and ensuring that access to information and telecommunications meets the needs of all people in order to address the digital divide and create an information society for all. This includes the estimated 37 million people with disabilities in the EU, as well as other groups who could face barriers to e-inclusion such as older people and people with access limitations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/trafford/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/trafford/ Public participation in the Internet has continued to boom, aided in no small measure by the 'weblog' (or, simply, 'blog'), one of the most accessible means of online publication, a term that is rapidly entering common parlance. Blogs are authored by people from many walks of life and are of many kinds: for instance, Penny Garrod has shown how they can support reading groups and community links, such as news from local councillors [1]. 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/planet-sosig/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/planet-sosig/ Academics Look to Improve Their Internet Research SkillsOver 130 academics, librarians and researchers attended the SOSIG “Social Science Online” seminars this year, which aimed to help staff develop their Internet research skills and look at ways of teaching these skills to students. It seems interest in this area is growing, especially as Internet research skills are now recognised as an essential part of the undergraduate curriculum in many subjects according to the Benchmark Statements of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/martinez/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/martinez/ This article will report on existing local data support infrastructures within the UK tertiary education community. It will discuss briefly early methods and traditions of data collection within UK territories. In addition it will focus on the current UK data landscape with particular reference to specialised national data centres which provide access to large-scale government surveys, macro socio-economic data, population censuses and spatial data. It will outline examples of local data support services, their organisational role and areas of expertise in addition to the origins of the Data Information Specialist Committee UK, DISC-UK. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/phipps/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/phipps/ From Well Meaning Guideline to Stealth StandardAccess to learning for all students is a value that is hard to dispute for anyone working in the education sector. Within the areas of education that are concerned with supporting disabled students, it has almost become dogma that in order to provide this ‘universal access’ we must have standards in design that can accommodate all (disabled) learner needs. This view is supported by legislation: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/fraser/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/fraser/ Virtual research environments (VREs), as one hopes the name suggests, comprise digital infrastructure and services which enable research to take place. The idea of a VRE, which in this context includes cyberinfrastructure and e-infrastructure, arises from and remains intrinsically linked with, the development of e-science. The VRE helps to broaden the popular definition of e-science from grid-based distributed computing for scientists with huge amounts of data to the development of online tools, content, and middleware within a coherent framework for all disciplines and all types of research. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/petrie-weisen/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/petrie-weisen/ In 2004, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) commissioned a Web accessibility audit from City University London. MLA is the national development agency working for and on behalf of museums, libraries and archives in England and advising government on policy and priorities for the sector. The audit was inspired by a study conducted by City University London in 2003/2004 on the accessibility of 1,000 general Web sites for the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/web-focus/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/44/web-focus/ About the WWW 2005 ConferenceThe WWW 2005 Conference was held in the Nippon Conference Centre in Chiba, Japan over 10-14 May 2005. This conference is the main event for the Web research community and provides an opportunity for researchers to present papers on research into developments in the Web infrastructure. In addition to its role for the research community, the conference also attracts delegates who are active in leading edge work in more mainstream areas. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/pearson-rvw/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/pearson-rvw/ The 2nd edition of this practical guide to building and delivering electronic resource collections is, like the 1st edition, a compact guide (5 chapters with145 pages excluding bibliography and glossary), with an intended audience of students, new professionals, experienced practitioners and publishers. To address a subject of this scale and complexity with such a wide audience is, to say the least, a challenge. However, I found on reading this work that the authors have succeeded in this entirely. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/awre-rvw/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/awre-rvw/ In seeking to widen my understanding of digital library developments, this book appeared on the face of it to offer a useful and broad overview of developments in this field. The authors are at pains to indicate what the book is not: it is not a 'detailed technical treatise on digital library design and implementation'; it is not 'a book on information seeking'; it has 'no pretensions as a technical manual'; and it is not 'focused upon designing and developing digital libraries'. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/guy-rvw/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/guy-rvw/ Anyone scaling the heights of metadata for the management and retrieval of digital information for the first time can be forgiven a degree of initial bewilderment. The same goes for this article, so a glossary of terms found here are offered in the spirit of saving readers' time [1]. David Haynes' book appears to go a long way to guiding its explorers through the foothills and beyond in this complete introduction to the subject for the information professional. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/beagrie/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/beagrie/ Digital information is increasingly important to our culture, knowledge base and economy. Long-term management of this material is a vital part of curation practice. This paper outlines the development and subsequent use of an international guide to digital preservation Preservation Management of Digital Materials: A Handbook [1] and its use in training and professional practice. The Handbook was published in 2001 in hard copy by The British Library and is also available digitally online via the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) [2]. 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/eurocamp-rpt/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/eurocamp-rpt/ The rapid expansion of the Web and Internet in recent years has brought many benefits. It has never been easier to access scholarly information from anywhere in the world in real time. However, this information is often held in disparate systems and is protected by a variety of access control mechanisms, such as usernames and passwords. Many users have to struggle with increasingly complicated access control systems in order to access information they require. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/mcleish/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/mcleish/ What and Why Is Shibboleth?One of the major issues that faces all today’s Internet users is identity management: how to prove to a Web site that you are who you claim you are, and do so securely enough to prevent someone else being able to convince the Web site that they are you. There are many initiatives attacking the problem, with approaches both technical and legal. Shibboleth [1] is a relatively new piece of software which concentrates on one specific area: trust management within the Higher Education community and between that community and the academic publishers which service it. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/cook-kenna/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/cook-kenna/ In response to a challenge from the Society of Chief Librarians, the British Library has launched an online training package [1] to its services and the wealth of information in its collections for the benefit of staff in public libraries and their users. In this article we describe how the training package was conceived and created, how it is being rolled out and evaluated, and our plans for future developments. 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/chudnov/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/chudnov/ Library users have never before had so many options for finding, collecting and sharing information. Many users abandon old information management tools whenever new tools are easier, faster, more comprehensive, more intuitive, or simply 'cooler.' Many successful new tools adhere to a principle of simplicity - HTML made it simple for anyone to publish on the Web; XML made it simple for anyone to exchange more strictly defined data; and RSS made it simple to extract and repurpose information from any kind of published resource [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/planet-sosig/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/planet-sosig/ ESRC Launches Unique Online Research Resource for Social SciencesA major new Web site offering unrivalled access to high-quality social and economic research is soon to be launched in the UK. Created by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), ESRC Society Today [1] will provide academics, students and researchers with a valuable free digest of social sciences research currently available, planned and in progress. As well as bringing together all ESRC-funded research, the Web site will provide a gateway to other key online resources from the UK such as Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG), the UK Data Archive and the Office of National Statistics - as well as international coverage from services such as Europa and Social Science Research Network (SSRN). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/carpenter/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/carpenter/ In the early days of the shift from paper-based to digital means of holding administrative records, research data, publications and other academic resources, those responsible for its safety tended to breathe a sigh of relief once they had got a category of material into digital form. Reduced to bits and bytes, all they would have to do is make regular backups, perhaps keeping a copy off-site in case of disaster, and all would be well. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/panteli/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/panteli/ During the last few years there has been an increasing acknowledgement of the importance of trust in business interactions within the management and organisational literatures [1][2]. Trust enables cooperation and becomes the means for complexity reduction even in situations where individuals must act with uncertainty because they are in possession of ambiguous and incomplete information. It is not therefore surprising that in the current age of global and digital economy and virtuality [3] there has been an enormous interest in trust. 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/43/wakingupinbl-rpt/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/wakingupinbl-rpt/ ‘The existence of EEBO has completely transformed my teaching as well as my own scholarly life -both entirely for the better’. Regius Professor Quentin Skinner, University of Cambridge.Delegates may have been surprised to hear about a pamphlet discussing Mary II’s breasts as the subject for academic discussion at the ‘Waking up in the British Library’ event hosted by the John Rylands University Library. But it served only to illustrate the kind of serendipitous discoveries that Early English Books Online (EEBO) [1] facilitates in teaching and research. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/johnston/ Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/43/johnston/ The JISC Information Environment Metadata Schema Registry (IEMSR) Project [1] is funded by JISC through its Shared Services Programme to develop a metadata schema registry as a pilot shared service for the JISC Information Environment (JISC IE). Partners in the project are UKOLN, University of Bath and the Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT), University of Bristol. The Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS) and the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) are contributing to the project in an advisory capacity. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/dcc-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/dcc-rpt/ The Digital Curation Centre had its official launch in Edinburgh on 5 November 2004. Perhaps an odd date to pick for the launch of such an important international initiative, but it justified the inclusion of some virtual fireworks on the home page of the DCC launch Web site. The DCC is one of three major activities in Phase 2 of the UK e-Science Programme, along with the National Grid service and the Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute, as well as being a key activity of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/daw/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/daw/ Collaboration between institutions based in different cities, countries or continents is becoming the norm in both commercial and academic worlds. The ability to attend meetings and interact with people effectively without incurring all the negative implications associated with travel - such as cost, expense, environmental impact and reduction in productivity - is a truly worthwhile goal. Access Grid [1] was invented by the Futures Group within Argonne National Laboratory [2] in 1998 as a response to perceived weaknesses of traditional videoconferencing in handling group-to-group collaboration between large numbers of sites and its lack of emphasis on advanced data sharing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/beyond-email-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/beyond-email-rpt/ Many working in Higher Education are now thoroughly familiar with the particular problems and opportunities presented by the use of the Web and email, the applications that up to now have been the 'killer' applications which made the Internet such a vital part of the communications armoury of universities. However, new applications and ways of communicating are now starting to appear which push the accepted paradigms and demand both new perceptions and levels of technical awareness. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/royan-rvw/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/royan-rvw/ There is an irony in reviewing a printed book about the Digital Library. The gestation period of monographic print publishing is such that it is unreasonable to expect it to be fully up to date. From internal evidence it is clear that no chapter in the book under review was completed more recently than April 2003. This may explain the lack of mention of developments such as the UK Parliamentary Select Committee Report on Scientific Publication [1], or the Public Access Proposal of the US National Institutes of Health [2]. 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/eevl/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/eevl/ If the title of this column caused you to anticipate a new blockbuster featuring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, then I apologise. It's far more interesting than that! Four Search EnginesFour new search engines from EEVL make it possible to search the content of over 250 free full-text ejournals in Engineering, Mathematics and Computing. EEVL's Ejournal Search Engines (EESE) are divided according to subject content. The Computing ejournal search engine [1] searches the content of 60 freely available full-text ejournals in computing. 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/harnad/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/harnad/ This article is a critique of: The "Green" and "Gold" Roads to Open Access: The Case for Mixing and Matching by Jean-Claude Guédon [1]. Open Access (OA) means: free online access to all peer-reviewed journal articles. Jean-Claude Guédon (J-CG) argues against the efficacy of author self-archiving of peer-reviewed journal articles -- the "Green" road to OA -- on the grounds (1) that far too few authors self-archive, (2) that self-archiving can only generate incomplete and inconvenient access, and (3) that maximizing access and impact is the wrong reason for seeking OA (and only favours elite authors). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/foi-historians-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/foi-historians-rpt/ On 1 January 2005, the Freedom of Information Act will come fully into force. With the implementation of the Act, all new and existing records, excluding those subject to exemption, will be available to the public, effectively ending the 30 year rule governing access to official documents. The conference provided historians with the opportunity to learn more about the Freedom of Information Act and its potential impact on their work. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/cc-interops-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/cc-interops-rpt/ Introduction Keynote Speech: The Concept of a ‘National Catalogue’ - Jean Sykes Interoperability: Architectures and Connections - John Gilby & Ashley Sanders Making Sense of Hybrid Union Catalogues: Collection Landscaping in Complex Information Environments - Gordon Dunsire Interoperability: The Performance of Institutional Catalogues - Fraser Nicolaides & George Macgregor User Behaviour in Large-scale Resource Discovery Contexts - Dick Hartley Futures and Plenary Question & Answer Session - Jean Sykes & Bob Sharpe http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/tonkin/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/tonkin/ Introduction: What is a Wiki?Software use cases are necessarily incomplete, a failing which seems to intensify in reverse proportion to the degree of simplicity in the software in question. Complex software responds to a given set of requirements, simple software as a partial solution to a much broader problem set. More concisely put, certain ideas just seem to catch on, particularly the simple, brilliant, ‘now why didn’t I think of that’ class of ideas. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/newsline/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/newsline/ Digital Cultural Content Forum 200511-13 February 2005, Oxford, UK The Digital Cultural Content Forum (DCCF) is an annual international gathering of key stakeholders in the digitisation and delivery of our global cultural assets. The focus of the meeting is to explore how public institutions that steward cultural content, the agencies responsible for public policy, and organisations in the public broadcast sectors can collaborate to deliver services to public audiences. The meeting is organised by UKOLN on behalf of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council of the UK (MLA), the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) and the US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/ist2004-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/ist2004-rpt/ IST2004 [1] organised by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs in cooperation with the European Commission, brought together over 3000 participants from all over the world with an interest in Information Society Technologies. The event had been given the title 'Participate in your Future' emphasising the importance of providing guidance in defining the ICT sector of tomorrow. The aim was to create fora for all the stakeholders from relevant areas of research, business or policy-making. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/planet-sosig/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/planet-sosig/ Vision of BritainA new Web site allowing free public access to an unrivalled collection of British historic maps, statistics and stories went live in October 2004. By keying in a postcode or place name, or clicking on a map, users can call up a wealth of information on any locality. The Lottery-funded Vision of Britain Web site [1] has been created by my team at the Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System [2] based at Portsmouth University. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/digi-histories-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/digi-histories-rpt/ For the last three years the RHS has held a seminar in memory of Gerald Aylmer, the purpose of which is an exchange of ideas between historians and archivists. Digitisation was to be the subject for 2004. The AHC proposing a conference on the same subject, the two bodies came together to present this joint event. The format of the conference was that of four sessions, each with two panels, except for the last. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/shibboleth-rpt/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/shibboleth-rpt/ Staff and students in Higher and Further Education institutions currently experience an overload of information. In many cases, this information is held on different systems, available via widely differing levels of access control, ranging from open to strictly controlled access. Access controls are also subject to data protection legislation and/or tough licensing conditions. One way of overcoming the problem of accessing information from various systems is to build Web portals. These can provide a superficial environment for the presentation of information from various sources. 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/ananiadou/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/ananiadou/ In this article we describe the role of the National Centre for Text Mining (NaCTeM). NaCTeM is operated by a consortium of three Universities: the University of Manchester which leads the consortium, the University of Liverpool and the University of Salford. The service activity is run by the National Centre for Dataset Services (MIMAS), based within Manchester Computing (MC). As part of previous and ongoing collaboration, NaCTeM involves, as self-funded partners, world-leading groups at San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the University of California at Berkeley (UCB), the University of Geneva and the University of Tokyo. 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/42/web-focus/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/web-focus/ Wikis: are they the latest cool Web technology or a pointless tool which merely duplicates features provided in content management systems and virtual learning environments? I have heard both views expressed recently. To some extent both views have some validity: a Wiki is a technology which has been adopted initially by those in Web developer communities (such as the Semantic Web community) to enable collaborative documents to be produced quickly and easily. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/awre-rvw/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/awre-rvw/ There are two distinct aspects covered by this book: information representation and information retrieval. It is refreshing to see a book seek to address these together, as it is important to recognise how interlinked they are. As the author herself indicates in the preface, ' - two chapters of this book are devoted exclusively to information representation, a step that must be taken before information becomes retrievable'. These two chapters certainly bring a fresh perspective to considerations of information retrieval, coming as they do at the start of the book and influencing later discussion. 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/awre-cree/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/awre-cree/ The JISC-funded PORTAL Project [1] examined and established which services users wished to have made available through an institutional portal. The results of this project have provided firm guidance to institutional portal developers in planning the services they wished to present. In particular, there was common demand amongst users for access to library-based services and resources within a portal environment. Portal technology developments at the time of the PORTAL Project were not, unfortunately, at a stage that allowed full testing of the findings from this research. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/drh2004-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/drh2004-rpt/ Project Management: Can there be a duller two words to start off any kind of article? Well, possibly 'economic costing' or 'stakeholder pensions', but project management is not far behind. But judging from presentations given at this year's Digital Resources in the Humanities Conference, it's a term with which many of those undertaking digitisation projects are going to have to become familiar. The Digital Resources in the Humanities Conference [1] is a yearly event. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/ecdl2004-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/ecdl2004-rpt/ This year it was the turn of the UK to host this major European conference and researchers and librarians took the opportunity to recharge and hear about and debate the latest research and technology advances in digital libraries. There were 47 peer-reviewed papers - a 32% acceptance rate. Remarkably papers were received from 27 countries. There was something for everyone: from digital library architectures through innovative technologies and techniques and particular kinds of libraries - personal and music - and I was particularly pleased to attend several sessions more focussed towards the user. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/ecdl-web-archiving-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/ecdl-web-archiving-rpt/ An annual Web archiving workshop has been held in conjunction with the European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL) since the 5th conference, held in September 2001 [1]. The University of Bath, UK hosted the 4th workshop in the series - now renamed the International Web Archiving Workshop - on 16 September 2004 [2]. Julien Masanès of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) welcomed around 60 delegates to Bath to listen to ten presentations and hoped that these would prompt much useful discussion. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/editorial/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/editorial/ For someone who is relatively ill at ease with numbers, it comes as no surprise that our lives grow increasingly controlled by them in ways which perhaps Orwell did not 'foresee' in 1984. Winston Smith tries very hard to remain an individual, as I hope do we all; indeed it is most often the great individuals whom we either cherish as a national treasure [1], or loathe most enthusiastically, but to whom we are rarely indifferent. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/campbell/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/campbell/ The National Library of Australia (NLA) has been able to achieve new business practices such as digitising its collections and hosting federated search services by exploiting recent standards including the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), handles for persistent identification, and metadata schemas for new types of content. Each instantiation of the OAI-PMH opens up new ways of creating and managing our digital libraries while making them more accessible for learning, teaching and research purposes. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/davey/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/davey/ JISC currently funds thirty-four services across the UK. These can be divided into Network Services (e.g. JANET), Content Services (e.g. BizEd, BUFVC), Development Services (e.g. TechWatch, UKOLN), Support Services (e.g. Regional Support Centres) and Expert Services (e.g. JISC Legal). The people and communities that they serve are varied, but what unites them is that, through JISC-funding, they all carry out some function which supports the needs of UK Further and Higher Education and research. 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/planet-sosig/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/planet-sosig/ A Digital Day in BathOn a stormy wet Tuesday, I battled my way through the Bath University campus to attend the 2004 European Conference on Digital Libraries. The keynote address by Neil McLean from IMS Australia was called The Ecology of Repository Services: A Cosmic View and it lived up to its name, being a wide-ranging look at the explosion of interest in digital resources and e-learning. People are just starting to think about the lifecycle of online resources and how to manage them. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/search-engines/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/search-engines/ In the last edition of Ariadne, I wrote about a few search engines that had come to my attention. Obviously the summer months are a fruitful period of development for search engine producers, because I've got a new crop to write about again! There are also some useful Web pages about search engines and developments in existing search engines that I've also discovered, so I'll be making mention of those as well. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/sustain-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/sustain-rpt/ The conference on the sustainability of Big Lottery Fund projects was attended by about fifty participants from across the country and there were displays by members of the Sense of the South West Consortium, who organised the event. Approaches to SustainabilityThe first speaker was Chris Anderson, Head of Programmes at the Big Lottery Fund, successor to NOF, (New Opportunities Fund). He described the nof-digitise [1] projects, funded to the tune of £50m, as a great experiment. 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/iwmw2004-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/iwmw2004-rpt/ The 8th Institutional Web Management Workshop provided an entertaining mix of new ideas, challenges, controversy and debate, this year in a Birmingham setting. The sub-title for the conference - Transforming the Organisation - was well chosen. The Web is now 'mission critical' in all of our organisations, and the workshop gave us all ample opportunity to reflect on how the Web is transforming our organisational and working practices and changing every aspect of our professional lives. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/jones/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/jones/ The Theses Alive Plugin for Institutional Repositories (Tapir) [1] has been developed at Edinburgh University Library [2] to help provide an E-Thesis service within an institution using DSpace [3]. It has been developed as part of the Theses Alive! [4] Project under funding from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [5], as part of the Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) [6] Programme. This article looks at DSpace, the repository system initially developed by Hewlett-Packard and MIT and subsequently made available as a community-owned package. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/powell/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/powell/ As a child I can remember watching an episode of Tomorrow's World (the BBC's weekly popular science programme of the time) [1] that showed the use of a video phone and how people would soon actually be able to see the person to whom they were talking.  "Wow," I thought, "that is the future." Well, it certainly was the future!  It's probably 30 years since that programme was aired and we still don't see this kind of technology widely deployed in the form of telephone handsets. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/web-focus/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/web-focus/ About QA FocusThe JISC-funded QA Focus Project officially finished on 31 July 2004. The project, which started on 1 January 2002, supported JISC’s digital library programmes. QA Focus developed a quality assurance (QA) framework which could be used by projects funded by JISC’s Information Environment programmes to ensure that project deliverables were functional, widely accessible and interoperable. The quality assurance framework was supported by a wide range of briefing documents which provided brief, focussed advice on use of standards and best practices in a range of areas including selection of standards, digitisation, Web, metadata, software and service deployment. 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/41/e-culture-rpt/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/41/e-culture-rpt/ The eCulture symposium held for the second time in Salzburg from 27 - 28 September 2004, represents the annual gathering of leading thinkers brought together by the eCulture Group of Salzburg Research [1] to tackle specific themes in the area of research and technology development for the cultural heritage application field. This year's theme drew an audience of regional, national, and international experts from a broad selection of research institutions, multimedia companies and technology providers, as well as political decision makers, to explore the transition from digitisation to creating cultural experiences. 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/parker-rvw/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/parker-rvw/ Developing Web-based instruction or online information tutorials is a key interest within Higher Education libraries at present as librarians struggle to cope with increasing student numbers, evolving technology, and higher expectations of students that their materials will be delivered electronically. Therefore, it would be expected that this book would appeal not just to information students but also to practising librarians developing resources in this area. Although the title and the content relate specifically to 'Web-based instruction' with few references to Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), the principles can be equally applied to designing materials for them. 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/young-rvw/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/young-rvw/ Marylaine Block will be well-known to many readers of Ariadne - perhaps chiefly for her 'Neat New Stuff' and ExLibris bulletins. As its name suggests, 'Neat New Stuff' is a weekly compilation of noteworthy sites Block has discovered in her Web crawling. Her other weekly online publication, ExLibris, is an 'e-zine' containing interesting and provocative articles, reviews and tidbits of information from Block and others. If you were setting out to do this kind of current awareness- and consciousness-raising these days, you'd probably choose to set up a blog with RSS feed. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/robinson/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/robinson/ Collection Description FocusThe UK Collection Description Focus was launched on 1 June 2001. It was set up as a national post, jointly funded for a twelve-month period by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [1], the Research Support Libraries Program (RSLP) [2] and the British Library [3]. The aim of the Focus was to improve co-ordination of work on collection description methods, schemas and tools with the goal of ensuring consistency and compatibility of approaches across projects, disciplines, institutions and sectors. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/turner/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/turner/ A Little HistoryCornucopia is a searchable database of collections held by cultural heritage institutions throughout the UK. It is developed and managed by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and was initially established in response to the Government’s Treasures in Trust report which called for a way to be found of recognising the richness and diversity of our collections. The original Cornucopia was set up in 1998. MLA, (then the Museums & Galleries Commission (MGC)), contracted Cognitive Applications to develop the site featuring data from the 62 museums in England holding collections which are ‘Designated’ as being of outstanding importance. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/eevl/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/eevl/ What do the users of EEVL [1], the Internet guide to engineering, mathematics and computing, really want from the service? Do they want EEVL to develop more portal services? Do they want more expansion of EEVL's catalogue of Internet resources? Do they want other things? The only way to find out what users of an information service really want is to ask them. This is what EEVL did earlier this year through a Web-based questionnaire. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/erpanet-ids-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/erpanet-ids-rpt/ Day OneIntroductionWelcome and KeynoteOverview of Persistent Identifier initiativesURNOpenURL - The Rough GuideInfo URIsThe DCMI Persistent Identifier Working GroupThe CENDI ReportARKPURLsOverview of the Handle SystemDOIDay TwoIdentifiers at the Coal FaceEPICURThe National Digital Data Archive (NDA)NBN:URN Generator and ResolverDIVAThe Publisher’s PerspectiveDigital Object Identifiers for Publishing and the e-Learning CommunitiesPublication and Citation of Scientific and Primary DataInformation and the Government of CanadaConclusion This event, organised by ERPANET [1], brought together around 40 key players with an interest in the topic of persistent identifiers in order to synthesize the current state of play, debate the issues and consider what lies on the horizon in this field of activity. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/editorial/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/editorial/ Reading the interesting points Karen Coyle has to make in Rights Management and Digital Library Requirements puts me in mind, not so much of horses actually, as of one of cartoonist Gary Larson's cows. The bovine unfortunate in question, bedecked with shower cap, is being pushed along by the rest of the herd and complaining that no sooner has she stepped into the shower than some fool cries 'Stampede!' Much the same effect may be claimed from the fallout of the Napster affair and the sharing of millions of music files. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/newsline/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/newsline/ Seminar Invitation from DEF - Danish Electronic Research LibraryThe DEF XML Web Services project invites you to participate in the seminar: Building Digital Libraries with XML Web Services on Friday 27 August 2004 from 9:30 to 16:00 at the Technical University of Denmark, Building 303, DK-2800 Lyngby. The headlines of the seminar are: § Setting the scene: XML - tools, visions, initiatives - Introduction to XML and Open Source Web Services 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/planet-sosig/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/planet-sosig/ Online Information Services for the Social SciencesFourteen members of staff from the Institute for Learning and Research Technology, at the University of Bristol, have co-authored a book, ‘Online Information Service Provision in the Social Sciences’, aimed mainly, though not exclusively, at information professionals. It offers an insight into knowledge retrieval today. Information provision of a very high standard in the social sciences has increased immeasurably with modern technologies including the Internet, but more knowledge and newer technologies have created access problems with users. 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/baud-chapman/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/baud-chapman/ Since 1999, when it was first proposed to use metadata for collection-level description within the Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) [1], there has been steadily growing interest in this new method of supporting resource discovery. A number of collection-level description databases have now been created in the UK, funded through national initiatives. However, little documentation is available on how these were designed and created. This project explores setting up a database for a small geographic area, using best practice and with full documentation to support other local projects in this field. 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/cilip-cig-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/cilip-cig-rpt/ The conference was aimed at information professionals interested in looking at issues that are changing cataloguing and indexing. The latest international developments in metadata standards, cataloguing codes, taxonomies and controlled languages unlock new opportunities for cataloguers' involvement. They also raise complex interoperability issues which go beyond traditional cataloguing and highlight the need for the acquisition of new skills in the digital information environment. The event focused on three interlinked themes: new and emerging standards, collection-level description and professional education. 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/40/chudnov/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/chudnov/ 'Library groupware' - a set of networked tools supporting information management for individuals and for distributed groups - is a new class of service we may choose to provide in our libraries. In its simplest form, library groupware would help people manage information as they move through the diversity of online resources and online communities that make up today's information landscape. Complex implementations might integrate equally well with enterprise-wide systems such as courseware and portals on a university campus, and desktop file storage on private individual computers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/www2004-rpt/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/www2004-rpt/ WWW2004 [1] was the 13th conference in the series of international World Wide Web conferences organised by the IW3C2 (International World Wide Web Conference Committee). This was the annual gathering of Web researchers and technologists to present the latest work on the Web and Web standardisation at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This conference is very much a networking event in both the technical and personal sense. For the last 3 years it has had pervasive wireless networking ('wi-fi') available, allowing interaction with the sessions and the speakers during the conference. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/ndad/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/ndad/ The National Archives has been building up a collection of UK Government datasets since 1997 under a contract with the University of London Computer Centre (ULCC) [1]. The archived datasets are available to users free of charge through the World Wide Web and are known as the National Digital Archive of Datasets (NDAD) [2]. Datasets are one of the earliest types of digital record produced by Government departments, some of those now archived dating back to 1963. 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/town-rvw/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/town-rvw/ This book promises to address the place of staff development in the current and future strategic management of academic libraries. The editor has assembled an impressive cast of those who are active in this field, and the authors are well able to reflect state of the art thinking. The book is informed by their close association with innovative staff development initiatives, some through involvement with the SCONUL (Society of College, National & University Libraries) Advisory Committee on Staffing. 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/teruggi/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/teruggi/ Memory is our major link to the past; it has greatly influenced the evolution of humankind. Since the beginning of humanity, we have sought to preserve memories through the creation of artefacts that will transcend our own lifetime and so assure ourselves some form of posterity, perhaps even eternity. For some time writing has been the major complex medium of preserved reality. Not only does writing record human actions, beliefs and emotions, but it is an intellectual tool in itself, giving a temporal perspective on our thought as well as providing increasing levels of abstraction. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/eevl/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/eevl/ EEVL is the Internet guide to 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/39/erpanet-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/erpanet-rpt/ On 15-17 December 2003, the ERPANET Project [1] and the ICSU (International Council for Science) Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) [2] held a joint workshop on the selection, appraisal and retention of digital scientific data at the National Library of Portugal (Biblioteca Nacional) in Lisbon. The workshop brought together around 80 participants, a mix of scientists, archivists and data specialists. Day OneAfter the opening introductions, the first presentation was an overview of CODATA data archiving activities given by Bill Anderson, co-chair of the CODATA Task Group on Preservation and Archiving of Scientific and Technical Data in Developing Countries. 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/pearce/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/pearce/ Personalisation has become an increasingly salient topic in the UK library and information management sector, yet to date much of the work undertaken has been in the academic and knowledge management sectors [1]. However, the South Yorkshire-based IT for Me Project [2] is looking to bring personalised access to online resources to public libraries. The project, which began in October 2003, will create a Web-based platform to provide access to personalised resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/terminologies-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/terminologies-rpt/ Co-sponsored by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and UKOLN, the JISC Terminology Services Workshop was held at the CBI Conference Centre in London on 13 February 2004. Terminology services are networked services which use knowledge organisation systems (such as ontologies, controlled vocabularies, and classification systems) that can be accessed at certain stages of the production and use of metadata. Chris Rusbridge, Director of Information Services at the University of Glasgow, welcomed the participants and outlined the primary purposes of the workshop: to give an overview of research and work on networked terminology services in multiple domains and to inform future JISC development activities in this area. 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/planet-sosig/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/planet-sosig/ Getting more from RegardRegard is the online research service of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). It is an essential tool for anyone needing to know about UK social science. There have been some major recent developments on Regard. OpenURLsBibliographic information is fine, but users really want to get the actual item, be it a full-text article or a book. Regard is introducing OpenURLs to many of its most popular records, enabling users to go straight to the full text (if it is available online) or, if it is a book, to the appropriate page in Amazon, to read reviews and perhaps order a copy. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/public-libraries/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/public-libraries/ The "wonderfulness of public libraries is inarguable" says Deborah Moggagh on BBC Radio - but are there enough books? --It has been said that people only value that which they fear they are about to lose, and the traditional library and its books are no exception. The library as a quiet place full of books is, in many cases, giving way to the multi-purpose community centre featuring multimedia resources, cybercafés, ranks of computers, and even crèches. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/search-engines/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/search-engines/ When I run my courses on advanced Internet searching I always ask the delegates the question 'Which search engine do you tend to use most often?' A few years ago I could always expect to get half a dozen different answers, ranging from AltaVista to Yahoo! with a few others in between. Now however I can almost guarantee that it will be a single answer, and that's 'Google'. We're all aware of the power of Google, and the way in which, in the last couple of years, it has almost totally dominated the search engine scene. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/icdl2004-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/icdl2004-rpt/ An amazing event, in an amazing placeIndia is an amazing place, and one that broadens the experience of any Western first-time visitor. I was no exception, and my personal conceptual scales for many things have been extended way beyond where they ended before. (I thought that South Londoners, Parisians and Milanese would be obvious contenders for the world championships in dangerous urban driving - until I tried the Delhi rush-hour in a 3-wheel taxi! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/cdfocus-schema-rpt/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/cdfocus-schema-rpt/ This seminar was aimed at information professionals involved in the policy, development and implementation of services based on collection-level description. Such services use a single record to describe a collection as a unit, rather than recording information about its constituent parts at the item level. There has been a great deal of activity in the United Kingdom in this area since the work carried out by Michael Heaney and UKOLN in 1999 on An Analytical model of collections and their catalogues [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/miller/ Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/39/miller/ aquifer nunderground bed or layer yielding ground water for wells and springs etcNisus Thesaurus 1.0.1. All rights reserved. Using the WordNet 1.7 database, © 2001 Princeton University Google [1] is great. Personally, I use it every day, and it is undeniably extremely good at finding stuff in the largely unstructured chaos that is the public Web. However, like most tools, Google cannot do everything. Faced with a focussed request to retrieve richly structured information such as that to be found in the databases of our Memory Institutions [2], hospitals, schools, colleges or universities, Google and others among the current generation of Internet search engines struggle. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/coelho-rvw/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/coelho-rvw/ If you love Boolean logic, online research and would like to work from home - this book is for you. But before you get carried away - just a reminder that you need more than a computer and a phone line to make it on your own as an independent information professional. This is a collection of interviews with eleven successful 'super searchers' who run their own businesses. They share their secrets, the challenges, the rewards, the big picture and the detail. 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/phipps/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/phipps/ This article looks at the increasing need for developers of institutional and educational Web sites to develop and follow a strategy for ensuring optimal accessibility of online content. In particular the need is stressed for careful thought about the aims of such a strategy, and to ensure that the strategy meets a balance between ambition, legal responsibility and equitable access to learning and teaching. As an example, the need for a well written public online accessibility statement is discussed, not only as a demonstration of awareness and proactivity, but also as an important factor in its own right in optimising access. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/altis/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/altis/ Anyone who uses the Internet on a regular basis is only too aware of the problem of finding good quality, reliable information using commercial search engines such as Google and Alta Vista. For students and teachers, short on time to complete assignments or prepare lessons, sifting through thousands of search results to find relevant information can be daunting. Altis [1] is a free, national information service. It aims to provide a trusted source for selected, high quality Internet information for students and lecturers by providing free access to the best hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism information on the Internet. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/guy/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/guy/ Throughout the eprints community there is an increasing awareness of the need for improvement in the quality of metadata and in associated quality assurance mechanisms. Some [1] feel that recent discussion of the cultural and institutional barriers to self-archiving, which have so far limited the proliferation of eprint archives in the UK, have meant that anything that is perceived as a barrier between academics and their parent institutions needs to be played down. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/newsline/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/newsline/ Slide Libraries and The Digital FutureWednesday 24th March, Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2EU. For more information and for booking details contact laura.valentine@royalacademy.org.uk. Booking closes on 3 March 2004. AUDIENCE: UK Slide Librarians in HE and those responsible for visual collections "Higher education in the UK has always needed images, especially in the field of art and design, and institutions have built up their own slide libraries to service that demand. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/oss-watch-rpt/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/oss-watch-rpt/ OSS Watch [1] is a pilot advisory service set up by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to provide UK higher and further education with neutral and authoritative guidance about free and open source software and related standards. Although it is rather small, (a staffing of 1.25 full-time equivalent (FTE)), this new service has stakeholders ranging from IT directors and managers developing institutional IT strategies that acknowledge the role that open source software does (and will continue to) play; to IT staff deploying software across universities and colleges; and to software developers seeking advice on how to release their work as open source. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/talis-rpt/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/talis-rpt/ The day's programme [1] started with an introduction by Ken Chad, sales director at Talis who welcomed delegates. Public Libraries and Grids for LearningDavid Cheetham, project manager for the East Midlands Broadband Consortium (EMBC) gave a speech on the role of the broadband consortium, one of 10 regional networks in England established to deliver high-speed network connectivity to all Britain's schools. David gave a speech on the activities of EMBC [2] which was set up in the light of the government's pledge to connect all schools to broadband by 2005/06. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/ahds/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/ahds/ Established in 1995, the Arts and Humanities Data Service [1] was created with the objective of developing an infrastructure to manage the growing number of digital resources being created within the arts and humanities. One medium for discussing this initial development was Ariadne, and Daniel Greenstein and Jennifer Trant's 1996 article [2] gave a detailed account of the aims and organisation of the AHDS. Since the publication of that article, there has been little deviation in the key aims of the AHDS - collecting, describing, disseminating and preserving digital resources related to the arts and humanities, and helping develop a culture of common standards to ensure this happens within as wide a framework as possible. 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/38/5-99/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/5-99/ The 5/99 Programme, as it became known, was funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [1] in the year 2000. Quite simply the name, 5/99, refers to the number of a JISC circular letter. It was the fifth circular issued by the JISC in 1999. So the name is pretty meaningless to those outside the JISC or not involved in one of 54 projects that were funded via the circular. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/apps-rpt/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/apps-rpt/ The Event at a GlanceWelcome - Pat HarrisThe OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services Standard - Eric Van de VeldeThe Promise and History of the OpenURL - Oliver PeschRelated Linking Standards: CrossRef and DOI - Ed PentzWhy Should Publishers Implement the OpenURL Framework? - Andrew PacePanel 1: Link Resolvers ExplainedPanel 2: Practical Perspectives for Librarians Translating Your Needs into Visions for the Future - Herbert Van de SompelQuestionsThis one-day conference, held by NISO (US National Information Standards Organization) on Wednesday 29 October at the American Geophysical Union in Washington DC, USA, attended by 150 people, was so popular it was ‘sold out’ a week before the event. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/espoo-rpt/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/espoo-rpt/ The National Library of Finland led the organisation of this conference to bring together librarians and researchers from around the world to discuss progress with digital libraries. The aims were to explore how users were responding to digital services and to examine how services could be made more 'user-centred'. The conference was attended by 200 delegates from 23 countries. The Powerpoint presentations of speakers have been placed on the finelib Web site [1] and some of the papers have been published in the electronic journal Information Research [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/alexander/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/alexander/ This article reports on a recent study of the accessibility of Australian university Web sites. A selection of key pages from all 45 Australian tertiary education Web sites were analysed to assess their compliance with basic accessibility standards, as required by Australian anti-discrimination legislation. The results–98% of sites failed to comply–suggest that Australian university Web sites are likely to present significant barriers to access for people with disabilities. Web accessibility is poorly understood by university Web publishers, and procedures are not in place to ensure that university Web sites provide equitable access to important online resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/artifact/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/artifact/ Artifact [1] is the arts and creative industries hub of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) [2] providing free searchable access to high-quality resources on the Web in the following subjects: Architecture, Art, Communications and Media, Culture, Design, Fashion and Beauty, Performing Arts and a range of general subjects such as business advice, events and exhibitions, funding, training and employment opportunities, and much more. The Artifact Internet Resource CatalogueArtifact’s core service is the Internet Resource Catalogue containing descriptions of and links to high-quality, evaluated Web sites for the arts and creative industries. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/eevl/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/eevl/ "Indispensible, much better than using Google" was a comment about EEVL, the Internet guide to engineering, mathematics and computing, from one FE Tutor who attended an RSC (Regional Support Centre) event last year. It is not surprising that he was enthusiastic as there is a great deal of content in EEVL of interest to staff and students in Further Education (FE). In fact, EEVL has a surprisingly wide appeal, as was recognised recently by Schoolzone, a service which features Web sites reviewed by UK teachers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/gesource/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/gesource/ GEsource [1] is the geography and environment hub of the RDN and provides free access to a fully searchable catalogue of high-quality resources on general geography, human geography, physical geography, environment, and techniques and approaches. Below is a selection of resources in GEsource that will be relevant to learning and teaching in FE: Virtual Training TutorialsA wide choice of free tutorials on how to develop Internet information skills in specific geography-related topics is available in the Training Tutorials area [2] of GEsource. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/humbul/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/humbul/ Humbul [1] is the humanities hub of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) [2] and represents a sound starting point for finding quality resources in this subject area. Subject specialists have built our catalogue of evaluated resources. And they add to it every day. The goal is to make access as easy as possible to the best of what the Web has to offer in English, Religious Studies, History, Archaeology, Modern Languages and other humanities subjects. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/sosig/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/sosig/ The Internet holds great potential for supporting education at FE level, but it can be fraught with difficulty. Lecturers often have very little time to spend surfing the 'Net to find useful resources for course materials and teaching, or to help their students develop Internet skills. Students can lack the skills, confidence or ability to use the Internet effectively for their study, especially given that the Internet is not exclusively about education, containing many materials that are completely inappropriate for coursework or study. 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/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/ecdl2003-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/ecdl2003-rpt/ ECDL2003 was the seventh in the annual series of European Digital Library conferences, this year hosted in Trondheim, Norway. The unusual move from September to August does not carry through to next year’s conference at the University of Bath, UK, which returns to the ‘normal’ September slot (12-16 September). My interests in digital library applications, user perspectives and service management obviously influence my ‘take’ on the conference experience and the sessions I attend. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/ecdl-web-archiving-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/ecdl-web-archiving-rpt/ On 21 August 2003, the 3rd ECDL Workshop on Web Archives [1] [2] was held in Trondheim, Norway in association with the 7th European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL) [3]. This event was the third in a series of annual workshops that have been held in association with the ECDL conferences held in Darmstadt [4] and Rome [5]. These earlier workshops primarily focused on the activities of legal deposit libraries and the collection strategies and technologies being used by Web archiving initiatives [6]. 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/dc-2003-rpt/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/dc-2003-rpt/ The 2003 Dublin Core conference, DC-2003, took place in Seattle, Washington, USA, from 28 September to 1 October [1]. This was the eleventh Dublin Core meeting: the first eight events were categorised as ‘workshops’ and this was the third time it has taken the form of a ‘conference’ with peer-reviewed papers and posters, and a tutorial track. The 2003 conference attracted some 300 participants, from over 20 countries. The event took place in the Bell Harbor Conference Centre, located directly on the waterfront overlooking Elliott Bay on the Puget Sound. 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/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/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/miller/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/miller/ Regular readers of Ariadne and related publications possibly feel more than a little overwhelmed by the current deluge of portal-related literature; a deluge for which my colleagues and I on the PORTAL Project [1] must of course accept some responsibility. Nevertheless, with Gartner and others pointing to continued interest in enterprise portals amongst the business community, the headlong rush to ‘portalise’ everything from the Post Office to the Resource Discovery Network (RDN), and figures from the Campus Computing Project [2] suggesting that over 40% of US universities either had or were building an institutional portal in 2002, the portal in its various forms is clearly going to be with us for a while! 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/beer/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/beer/ The huge growth in Internet resources to support learning, teaching and research can make the business of finding high-quality relevant resources both time-consuming and frustrating. JISC Resource Guides, and a dedicated team of Resource Guide Advisers across seven subject areas direct researchers in UK Higher Education to a selection of key, high-quality resources. The Resource Guide team aims to raise awareness of key resources through a Web-based and print-based Guide with a subject-specific focus, and through awareness-raising via presentations and series of workshops with a hands-on focus. 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/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/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/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/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/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/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/spp/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/spp/ Portals are widely suggested as important tools to facilitate the hard task of finding and accessing useful information for learning, teaching and research [1]. In this context, the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) [2] is enrolled in the Subject Portals Project (SPP) [3] with the aim of developing and deploying subject-based portals to provide the UK's HE and FE communities with integrated access to distributed resources within the JISC Information Environment (IE) [4]. 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/cd-focus-rpt/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/cd-focus-rpt/ The national Collection Description Focus is based at UKOLN [1] and funded by the British Library [2], the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [3] , the Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) [4] and Resource [5]. It aims to improve co-ordination of work on collection description methods, schemas and tools, with the goal of ensuring consistency and compatibility of approaches across projects, disciplines, institutions and sectors. The Showcase EventThere is an increasing emphasis on mapping and managing information resources in a way that will allow users to find, access, use and disseminate resources from a range of diverse collections. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/public-libraries/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/public-libraries/ What is the primary role and function of the public library in 21st Century Britain? Are public libraries in danger of trying to do too many things? Are they trying to please all of the people all of the time? How can the People's Network be sustained post-lottery funding? What is special about public libraries - do they have a Unique Selling Point? Are traditional, book-based services being run down as the focus switches to ICT and e-everything? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/editorial/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/editorial/ Welcome to the March/April issue of Ariadne. This issue of Ariadne focuses on the Portal concept. The term 'portalage' (the making of portals) crept (unforced) into a discussion of the portal concept held on the 25th April at the University of London Library (Gateways to Research and Lifelong Learning: Portals in Perspective). A good question for anyone to ask is: 'What features in a Portal?' since it is an area still lacking in consensus. 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/jisc-conf-rpt/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/jisc-conf-rpt/ At the JISC 2003 Conference the Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP, Secretary of State for Education and Skills, underlined the central role for ICT within the education sector. In the conference’s keynote speech [1] , Charles Clarke said, “I’m passionate about the use of new technology in the classroom. It goes right through the education system from early years to higher education and helps boost standards. It can make a real difference to teaching and can engage and excite students of all ages. 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/planet-sosig/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/planet-sosig/ SOSIG and LTSN Collaboration ProjectOn March 11th, representatives from the social science-related LTSN Subject Centres sat down with SOSIG staff to kick off a collaboration project that has the grand goal of maximising the use of Internet resource descriptions and information created for the UK social science community by sharing cataloguing responsibilities and tasks. LTSN subject centres have a central aim of following and supporting lecturer’s needs within higher education and within the specialised subject areas that they cover. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/garrod-review/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/garrod-review/ If you want to get people to read a set of conference papers, and to engage with the topic covered - then pick a title in the form of a question. Do we want to keep our newspapers? - anyone with an interest in the media, and the power of the press in particular, will want to dip in to this slim illustrated collection to find out what it’s all about. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/miller/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/miller/ There is, unsurprisingly, an increasing recognition that digital resources of all kinds are eminently suitable to repurposing and reuse. The Iconex Project [1], for example, was funded under JISC's 5/99 Programme to look at the creation, storage and dissemination of reusable learning objects. Service providers of the Arts & Humanities Data Service [2] concern themselves with collecting the digital outputs of scholarly activity in order to preserve them for posterity, but also with facilitating their ongoing use and reuse by learners, teachers and researchers across the community [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/web-watch/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/web-watch/ It has been said that those who ignore history, are condemned to repeat it. In the Web world we can be so excited by new developments that we may forget approaches we have taken in the past and fail to learn from our mistakes. This article describes how the WayBack Machine [1] was used to look at the history of UK University Web sites. The SurveyThe survey was carried out by entering the URL of the entry point for UK University Web sites, recording details of the availability of the Web site in the Internet Archive (including earliest and most recent dates and numbers of entries) and providing a link to enable readers of this article to obtain the most recent results. 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/35/martin/ Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/35/martin/ ePrints UK [1] is a two-year JISC-funded project under the Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) Programme [2] which began in July 2002 and is due for completion in July 2004. The lead partner is UKOLN of the University of Bath. The aim of the project is to develop a national service provider repository of e-print records based at the University of Bath derived by harvesting metadata from institutional and subject-based e-prints archives using the Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/martin/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/martin/ The last thing I expected a book with a title like The Library and Information Professional’s Guide to Plug-ins and Other Web Browser Tools to be was entertaining. But to my amazement, this book kept me turning the pages for the length of a long train journey, thanks to its illustrated examples of how US libraries and museums have made use of plug-in applications in such things as interactive library tours, 3-dimensional exhibit image display, and virtual enquiry desks. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/rydberg-cox/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/rydberg-cox/ The field of classics has a long tradition of electronic editions of both primary and secondary materials for the study of the ancient world. Large electronic corpora of Greek and Latin texts are available from groups such as the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, the Packard Humanities Institute, and the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri, and in the Perseus Digital Library [1]. Because such large collections of primary texts have already been digitized, it is now possible to devote concerted effort to developing new computational tools that can transform the way that humanists work with these digitized versions of their primary sources. 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/editorial/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/editorial/ Welcome to the December/January issue of Ariadne. This issue has as its focus the practicalities of resource sharing - not only at a technical level, but also in terms of business models. In Sharing history of science and medicine gateway metadata using OAI-PMH, David Little outlines the resource sharing arrangements between the MedHist gateway and the Humbul hub, using the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, and some of the issues it has raised. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/tanner/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/tanner/ This article will describe the results of a study to investigate some of the underlying financial and policy assumptions being made in the move from previously analog photographic services into the realm of digital capture and delivery in cultural heritage institutions. The study focussed upon libraries, archives, museums and galleries with particular emphasis upon investigating how marketable, cost efficient and income-stable the new digital services and resources are in comparison with previous methods. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/powell/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/powell/ An introduction to the IMS Digital Repositories Working GroupIMS [1] is a global consortium that develops open specifications to support the delivery of e-learning through Learning Management Systems (LMS). (Note: in UK higher and further education we tend to use the term Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in preference to LMS). IMS activities cover a broad range of areas including accessibility, competency definitions, content packaging, digital repositories, integration with ‘enterprise’ systems, learner information, metadata, question & test and simple sequencing. 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/planet-sosig/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/planet-sosig/ The RDN has recently launched a set of case studies aimed at supporting the use of the Internet for further education. The project was led by staff at Biz/ed based at The Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT). It started in February 2002 and was completed in October this year. The project has resulted in the publication of 106 practical examples that describe the way in which RDN Internet resources can be used to help lecturers in the delivery of particular courses. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/public-libraries/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/public-libraries/ Background to the workshopThe third Public Library Web Managers workshop to be organised by UKOLN was held at the University of Bath on the 5th and 6th of November 2002. This year’s event aimed to provide public library web managers with a brief respite from the trials and tribulations of the workplace, and the chance to share networking experiences with colleagues up and down the country. It also aimed to bring together some key speakers on this year’s hot topic –e-government (electronic government). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/paschoud/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/paschoud/ Since their first recorded appearance in history (take your pick from www.libraryhq.com/libhistory.html), librarians have had an important role in education at all levels in all major cultures. But the exponential pace of technology change is such that many of them, and the institutions they work in, have not yet caught up with the special relevance of Internet-based technologies for learning. Reading Barbara Allan’s latest book would be an effective way to remedy this, quite comprehensively. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/royan/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/royan/ There is something about the phrase “International Yearbook” that makes the reviewer’s heart sink. It conjures up an image of an arbitrary assemblage of re-cycled conference papers in indifferent English, cobbled together at random and in haste with minimal editorial control and no critical apparatus to speak of. Having some familiarity with series editor Gary Gorman’s timely and practical contributions to the literature of information services, from Qualitative Research (1997) to Information Resource Management (2001) however, this reviewer was hopeful that the annual International Yearbook of Library and Information Management (IYLIM) series might buck the trend. 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/34/ramsden-perrot/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/ramsden-perrot/ The interest in personalisation began with online commerce and the need for one-to-one relationships with customers in the early 1990s. Higher education is rapidly moving towards online delivery and mass education, so students could benefit from more personalised services, hence the recent interest in institutional portals, such as uPortal (1), which can personalise and present information. Within this context, the libraries of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and The Open University are embarking on a new programme of work to investigate personalised library environments through their respective projects, PESIC and MyOpenLibr@ry. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/web-watch/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/web-watch/ A survey of Web server software used on UK University Web sites was carried out in October 1997 and the findings were reported in Ariadne issue 12 [1]. The survey was repeated in September 2000 and the updated findings published in Ariadne issue 21 [2]. The survey was repeated in November 2002 and the findings are published in this article. Current SurveyThe survey was carried out on 21th November 2002. This time the survey made use of the HTTP header Wizards tool provided by the University of Dundee [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/info-environment/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/info-environment/ This document provides a brief introduction to the JISC Information Environment (JISC-IE) [1], with a particular focus on the technical steps that content providers need to take in order to make their systems interoperable within the JISC-IE technical architecture. The 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/33/dendrinos/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/dendrinos/ The design of a speech agent for automatic library services is presented in this paper. The proposed system will be based on speech recognition and synthesis technologies, applied to the library environment. The client of the library can have access to various automatic electronic services through a sophisticated interface, making use of the embedded technologies. The access to OPAC, the loaning process, the database access and the resource retrieval are some of the services that could be greatly facilitated through the use of the system. 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/china/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/china/ I was indeed fortunate to be invited to China to speak at the International Digital Library Conference [1] in Beijing in July 2002. The 3-day event was held at the Friendship Hotel, a large and splendid establishment built in traditional garden style and which retained some of the architectural character of times past. The conference was sponsored by the Ministry of Culture with support from other government departments and organized by the National Library of China NLC [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/editorial/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/editorial/ Welcome to the September/October issue of Ariadne. The concept of the 'Information Environment' is now one which appears often in Digital Library literature. While it is not a vague concept, it is still one which is undergoing development. Implementing an Information Environment is therefore currently a problematic exercise. Those interested in undertaking such an implementation therefore will be interested in a number of articles featured in this issue of Ariadne. 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/33/oclc-scurl/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/oclc-scurl/ The problem of "navigating a rich and complex information landscape" took on a new dimension as I traversed Edinburgh's High Street on a bright Thursday morning at the height of the Festival. Fielding a barrage of enthusiastic invitations to attend a bewildering range of performances, I headed across town to the University for the "New Directions in Metadata" conference [1], organised jointly by OCLC [2] and SCURL [3]. Michael Anderson (Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Edinburgh) welcomed delegates to Edinburgh, and made an appeal for us to bear in mind that the true value of the services we build around metadata will be measured by how well they meet the requirements of the user. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/planet-sosig/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/planet-sosig/ The SOSIG collectionThe core of the SOSIG service, the Internet Catalogue, now holds over 21,000 structured metadata records describing Internet resources relevant to social science teaching, learning and research. Established in 1994, SOSIG is one of the longest-running subject gateways in Europe. Our section editors have been seeking out, evaluating and describing social science Internet resources, developing the collection so that it now covers 17 top-level subject headings with over 1000 sub-sections. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/portals/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/portals/ Judging by the number of articles written and conferences organised around them, portals are undoubtedly a hot topic in higher education, and seem likely to remain so for some time to come. This article reports on two portal-focussed conferences held in Canada and the UK during the summer of 2002. It also introduces some of the work underway at Hull to build an institutional portal, and the way in which a JISC-funded project shared between Hull and UKOLN will demonstrate the role of institutional portals in bringing resources provided by the JISC and others to the attention of those working within an institution. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/public-libraries/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/public-libraries/ As I write schools have closed for summer, the volume of early morning traffic has temporarily subsided, and the tourists are out and about in vast numbers in Bath city centre. The 'out of office' auto-replies drop into the email box daily as proof that some people have managed to unplug themselves from their computers to go on holiday. It is also, alas, the 'silly season' - time for the British media to devote column inches to vital matters - such as the Prime Minister's sartorial taste, and how a certain blue shirt 'brings out the colour of his eyes'. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/edner/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/edner/ The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Information Environment (IE, a development from the DNER - Distributed National Electronic Resource) is intended to help users in the UK academic sector maximise the value of published information resources by developing a coherent environment out of the confusing array of systems and services currently available. The EDNER Project (Formative Evaluation of the DNER,< http://www.cerlim.ac.uk/edner>) is funded to undertake ongoing evaluation of the developing IE over the full three years of the JISC 5/99 Learning & Teaching and Infrastructure Programme period i. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/netlibrary/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/netlibrary/ On January 24, 2002, OCLC Online Computer Library Center acquired netLibrary, a major electronic books (e-books) company. OCLC's acquisition includes the e-book Division of netLibrary, which OCLC has integrated as a division of OCLC, and netLibrary's MetaText eTextbook Division, which has become a for-profit subsidiary of OCLC. This article describes the rationale and background of the acquisition, the overall vision of the information environment that is being pursued, and the benefits that libraries may experience as a result. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/web-watch/ Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/33/web-watch/ The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) came into effect on 1 st September 2002. The Act removes the previous exemption of education from the Disability Discrimination Act (1995), ensuring that discrimination against disabled students will be unlawful. Institutions will incur additional responsibilities in 2003, with the final sections of legislation coming into effect in 2005 [1]. The implications of the Act will be of much interest to institutional Web managers who will be concerned that inaccessible Web pages will render their institution liable to claims from disabled students who are unable to access resources due to accessibility barriers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/netlab-history/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/netlab-history/ Actually, that was really the way it was: a cake for the consumption of a group of people interested in the development of digital libraries. It was in 1991, long before this concept had been implanted into the heart of the library community. Indeed long before most people knew about the Internet. At this meeting the first seed for what was going to be NetLab [1] was sown - the multidisciplinary research- and developmental group aimed at digital libraries and global network based information systems. 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/theses-dissertations/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/theses-dissertations/ ‘ETDs’ is the acronym widely used in the US to stand for ‘Electronic Theses and Dissertations’. The father of the ETD movement, Professor Ed Fox of Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech), explains the acronym as containing an implicit Boolean ‘OR’: ‘ETs’ OR ‘EDs’ equals ‘ETDs’. This makes for a very convenient shorthand, whereby a digital object which is either an electronic thesis or an electronic dissertation can be referred to as ‘an ETD’. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/metalib/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/metalib/ Since the advent of online databases there have been concerns about the different interfaces and software provided by publishers and suppliers. In recent years, the growth in the number of databases and full-text electronic journal services has made this aspect of electronic resource provision even more challenging, particularly for Higher Education institutions. Just as for the foreseeable future databases are likely to continue to be delivered through a variety of interfaces, it is equally likely that there will be increasing demands from users for simplified access. 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/planet-sosig/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/planet-sosig/ Launch of Citizenship PastThe launch of Citizenship Past took place on the 12th June. This is a NOF (New Opportunities Fund) consortium whose aim is to digitize over a half a million historical papers and images in order to open up access to archival and government papers in the following areas: Unlocking Key British Government Publications, 1801-1995: Full Text Digital Library, led by BOPCRIS, Hartley Library, University of Southampton. British Official Publications (government and parliamentary reports) constitute an immense body of material on the development of British society. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/qa-focus/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/qa-focus/ Introduction to the QA Focus PostThe JISC QA (Quality Assurance) Focus post [1], which came into being in January 2002, was detailed in full in the last issue of Vine [5]; but for those unfamiliar with the post a brief introduction follows. The new QA Focus post is promoting a Quality Assurance framework to ensure a more rigorous approach to the establishment of consistent, high quality standards for all the JISC DNER 5⁄99 projects and their associated ‘products’. 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/information-grid/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/information-grid/ Many of the issues faced by the e-Science Programme and the Digital Library community world-wide are generic in nature, in that both require complex metadata in order to create services for users. Both need to process large amounts of distributed data. Recognition of this common interest within both communities resulted in this invitation-only one-day workshop at the e-Science Institute in Edinburgh. It brought together interested parties from both the digital library and e-Science communities, and kicked off detailed discussion of the way forward for both. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/maybaum/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/maybaum/ In an article published in this journal last year [1], Editor Philip Hunter observed that the extent of use of web publishing systems in universities is surprisingly low, considering the technical sophistication of most academic environments, and he discussed some reasons that might account for this circumstance. At the University of Michigan (UM), we have developed an infrastructure (UM.SiteMaker) that is aimed at facilitating the use of websites for personal and professional communication by ordinary (i. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/web-focus/ Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/32/web-focus/ The Institutional Web Management Workshop series is the main event organised by UK Web Focus. The workshop series began with a two-day event at King's College London in June 1997. The event has been repeated every year since then and, after the first event, was extended to a three-day format. Overview Of This Year's EventThis year's event was held at the University of Strathclyde. The full title of the workshop was " 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/book-reviews/garrod.html Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/book-reviews/garrod.html This compact text aims to meet the needs of most audiences - from the student, trying to get to grips with the complex topic of electronic resources, to the practitioner, tasked with building an e-collection on a fixed budget. Read and digest this book and you will be equipped to roam the wide plains of the electronic resources landscape. You need have little fear of getting lost - armed with this book you will have all the information you require, presented in an easily digested, and easy to navigate, format. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/cld/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/cld/ The UK Collection Description Focus [1] was launched on 1 June 2001. It is a national post, jointly funded for a twelve-month period by the Joint Information Systems Committee/Distributed National Electronic Resource (JISC/DNER) [2], the Research Support Libraries Program (RSLP) [3] and the British Library [4]. The Focus is working towards improving co-ordination on collection description methods, schemas and tools, with the goal of ensuring consistency and compatibility of approaches across projects, disciplines, institutions and sectors. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/eevl/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/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/31/editorial/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/editorial/ Welcome to the March/April issue of Ariadne. This issue of Ariadne is led by an article (‘Setting up an institutional e-prints archive’) on the practical implementation of an e-prints archive, by a number of authors with hands on experience of the task (Pinfield, Gardner and MacColl). The article also deals with the issues which have to be considered alongside the technical issues of implementation. These include: the impact on tried and tested means of scholarly communication; questions of quality control; intellectual property rights, and workload. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/rdn/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/rdn/ New RDN workbook and training pageThe Resource Discovery Network (www.rdn.ac.uk) has launched a training page, including a new workbook designed to introduce students and staff to some of the services of the RDN. The workbook contains practical tasks and exercises and can be used to support a hands-on workshop or can be used by individuals for self-paced learning. It also contains quizzes, tips and hints, as well as scenarios designed to suggest ways in which the RDN can be used practically to support learning and teaching. 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/oxford-reference-collection/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/oxford-reference-collection/ What or who is ‘Ariadne’? She was, of course, the girl who fell in love with Theseus, who gave him the thread by which he found his way out of the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur. Her story was made into an opera by Strauss in which some of the greatest operatic stars have performed. But did you know that it has also inspired other composers like Handel, Dukas, Monteverdi, Haydn, and Musgrave, and many choreographers too? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/planet-sosig/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/planet-sosig/ SOSIG Expert’s ChoiceWhich Web sites do leading social scientists find invaluable in their research? Find out by visiting the new Expert’s Choice section on SOSIG. Experts from a range of disciplines and sectors were asked to recommend their favourite Web site and describe how they found the site useful. Over 30 experts are currently featured, with more being added all the time. SOSIG aims to highlight experts that students are likely to have heard of in their courses, with a view to inspiring a new generation of social scientists to use the Web. 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/31/aim25/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/aim25/ AIM25 (Archives in London and the M25 area), a project funded by the Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) [1], and led by King's College London, provides a single point of networked access to collection descriptions of archives held in 49 higher education (HE) institutions and learned societies in the greater London area. The project has intended, where possible, to be comprehensive in its coverage of holdings by including deposited collections, in a wide range of subject areas, and also the administrative records of the participating institutions. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/rslp/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/rslp/ The Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP), a £30m initiative funded by the four UK higher education funding bodies, has spawned 53 projects and a number of studies and other activities. This brief overview aims to give a flavour of the Programme. Articles relating to particular projects will appear in future issues of Ariadne. But first, some background: RSLP derives from the deliberations of the Follett Review (1993)1 and the associated Anderson Report (1996). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/open-archives-forum/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/open-archives-forum/ The Open Archives Forum: Mission and GoalsThe Open Archives Forum provides a European focus for the dissemination of information about European activities in Open Archives. A particular focus is on the Open Archives Initiative (OAI). The Open Archives Forum aims to promote the idea of globally distributed digital archives within Europe, to support the establishment of new digital archives and their related services, and to initiate European special interest groups. It is important to add particular European interests to already existing models such as the Open Archives Initiative. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/evalued/ Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/31/evalued/ Contributed by:Research Assistant, CIRT Research Development ManagerCentre for Information Research (CIRT), University of Central England, Birmingham, B42 2SU, UKContact: Rebecca.Hartland-Fox@uce.ac.uk--Project backgroundeVALUEd is a HEFCE funded project, based at the University of Central England. It has been set-up to develop a transferable model for e-library evaluation in Higher Education and to provide dissemination and training in e-library evaluation. The project commenced in September 2001 and will complete in February 2004. Digital Library questionnaire for HEIsThe project will examine good practice in electronic library evaluation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/archives/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/archives/ The Access to Archives project is one of the most exciting initiatives in the world of archives in England. It aims at developing a virtual national archival catalogue for the country. At a click of the mouse one will be able to find multilevel descriptions of some of the most important historical records of England. For family historians, school teachers and pupils, academic researchers or just curious life long learners the A2A gateway is a unique facility to pursue their interests and research from a PC terminal any time of the day, anywhere in the world. 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/techwatch/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/techwatch/ Content management? That’s what librarians do, right? But we’ve already got a library management system (LMS) – why should we consider a content management system (CMS)? The second initial is perhaps misleading – “manipulation” rather than “management” might better summarise the goals of a CMS. Content creation and content re-purposing are fundamental aspects which tend to lie outside the current LMS domain. Actually, from the point of view of workflow (and to lesser extent content re-purposing), the CMS and LMS have much in common. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/ifla/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/ifla/ The 2001 IFLA pre-conference SLB took place in Washington with a theme of Digital Libraries for the Blind and the Culture of Learning in the Information Age [1]. Papers delivered at the 2001 conference were from a wide range of subjects relating to digital libraries for the blind. Subject areas included meeting the educational needs of children and youth through libraries for the blind, digital library services and education, creating inclusive models of service and building small digital libraries for the blind. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/digital-curation/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/digital-curation/ Digital preservation remains a significant and growing challenge for libraries, archives, and scientific data centres. This invitational seminar held in London on the 19th October sponsored by the Digital Preservation Coalition and the British National Space Centre, brought together international speakers to discuss leading edge developments in the field. Three developments were key to the timing and organisation of this international event: firstly, the imminent approval of the Open Archival Information Systems (OAIS) Reference Model as an ISO standard; secondly, the launch of the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), a cross-sectoral coalition of over 15 major organisations; and, finally, the development of the e-science programme to develop the research grid in the UK. 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/web-security/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/web-security/ Do users need to know about computer security? The vast and growing literature of computer security suggests that solutions to most security issues are currently being sought purely through technology. Humanity obtrudes into the literature primarily in the guise of hackers and disaffected administrators, in the debate over which is the greater threat. The average user is strangely absent, like the labourer in eighteenth century landscape painting. True, a little consideration has been given to the special problems of making security software useable, and some thought has been given to how to raise security awareness. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/eevl/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/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. 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/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/angel/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/angel/ The terms MLE (Managed Learning Environment) and VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) are frequently found in use within UK HE institutions at present. They are applied, along with a range of alternative terms, to products that provide teaching and learning tools within an online environment. These products range from commercial offerings from companies such as Blackboard [1] and WebCT [2], project developments such as COSE [3] and CoMentor [4], and institutional portal developments that allow users easy access to all required services such as the Edinburgh Student Portal (ESP) [5]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/dti/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/dti/ The Software Technology Outreach Programme (1) was initiated in Autumn 2000 by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to bridge the gap between academia and industry. As Tony Stock explains “More than 1,000 advanced projects are carried out in UK universities every year, each producing on average five potential business applications - but companies are missing out because they and the universities are out of touch with each other”. Software Technology Outreach coordinates a variety of different workshops on relevant technology research areas that provide an opportunity for academic researchers to present to a commercial audience. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/myhumbul/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/myhumbul/ Humbul helps humanities professionals access relevant online resources. Employing a distributed network of subject specialist cataloguers across the UK, the Humbul Humanities Hub (http://www.humbul.ac.uk/), based at the University of Oxford, is building a catalogue of evaluated online resources that enables teachers, researchers and students to find resources that make a difference. Humbul is a service of the nationally funded Resource Discovery Network (RDN) (http://www.rdn.ac.uk/) which co-ordinates the development of evaluated resource catalogues across the subject spectrum for UK higher and further education. 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/pub-libs/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/pub-libs/ My predecessor, Sarah Ormes, in her final ‘Public Libraries’ column for Ariadne, owned up to having spent five and a half years at UKOLN. Coincidentally, I too have just concluded five and a half years at the University of Plymouth. This led me to speculate, as one does in those brain numbing moments when awaiting yet another delayed train on a drafty platform in grey November (yes, its ‘leaves on the line’ season again folks), whether, after five and a half years in a post, some of us need to regenerate, like ‘Seven of Nine’, the ice maiden in the current Star Trek series -Voyager. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/jisc/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/jisc/ The JISC User Behaviour Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (hereafter the Framework) is an ambitious project to design and use a research framework that monitors and maps the development of user behaviour with electronic information resources in higher education. Initially approved for three years, the Framework is currently in its third and final annual cycle. The methodology and findings relating to the first and second cycles are located in the First Cycle and Second Cycle Annual Reports, available through the JISC web site. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/web-focus/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/web-focus/ Over the past 30 years or so we have seen a wide range of computer devices. Those of us over 40 may have distant memories of paper tape and punch cards. Over time these were replaced by terminals, followed by VDUs. Although the VT100 terminal became a de facto standard developments still continued, especially in the area of graphical devices. In the early 1980s personal computers came along. Within the UK the BBC microcomputer and various offerings from Sinclair had some degree of popularity. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/web-watch/ Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/30/web-watch/ In September 1999 we published our first report [1] on the search engines which were used to provide search facilities on UK University Web sites. Since then we have updated our survey at roughly six monthly intervals. Following a recent update, we will now discuss the findings and comment on the trends we have observed. Latest Findings and TrendsThe latest findings have now been published [2] which contain details of the search facilities on UK University Web sites. 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/miller/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/miller/ In July of this year, Interoperability Focus [1] organised a meeting at the Office of the e–Envoy [2], the Cabinet Office unit responsible for driving forward the UK’s e–Government initiatives. Across an increasing number of initiatives and programmes, there is a growing recognition of the need for common ‘architectures’ within which truly useful applications and services may be constructed. Partly, these architectures form a philosophical basis within which developments may be undertaken. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/robinson/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/robinson/ The UK Collection Description Focus (1) was launched on 1 June 2001. It is a national post, jointly funded for a twelve-month period by the Joint Information Systems Committee/Distributed National Electronic Resource (JISC/DNER) (2) , the Research Support Libraries Program (RSLP) (3) and the British Library (4). The Focus aims to improve co-ordination of work on collection description methods, schemas and tools, with the goal of ensuring consistency and compatibility of approaches across projects, disciplines, institutions and sectors. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/open-archives/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/open-archives/ A one day Open Archives event co-ordinated by the DNER, CURL and UKOLN was held on Wednesday 11th July at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, Birdcage Walk, London. Birdcage walk is in a very impressive part of London, circumscribed by Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the Houses of Parliament. Lucky for us the hot sun added to the splendor of the location. Catherine Grout giving the opening presentation The Institute of Mechanical Engineers building itself is also very grand. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/dugdale/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/dugdale/ Well, OK, being August, there were no tulip fields to gambol through, but one can always dream! To be honest, there were no nearby picturesque windmills to be seen either. But we were surrounded by trees and quiet and yet were not far from the modern town of Tilburg in The Netherlands. So, why should I complain? I was there to attend the Digital Library course run as part of this year’s International Summer School by TICER B. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/editorial/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/editorial/ As we suggested in issue 28, we have the first detailed information on the new post of Collection Description Focus, in the form of a short article by Pete Johnston and Bridget Robinson. Launched on 1 June 2001, the Focus will provide support both for UK projects actively involved in collection description work and for those investigating or planning such work. The Focus is located within UKOLN, which is based at the University of Bath. 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/patel/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/patel/ “Managing Digital Video Content” [1], a two-day workshop on current and emerging standards for managing digital video content took place on 15-16th August, 2001, in Atlanta, Georgia. The workshop was sponsored by ViDe, the video development initiative [2], the Southeastern Universities Research Association, SURA [3], Internet2 [4] and the Coalition for Networked Information, CNI [5]. Approximately 180 delegates attended, the majority from the States, peppered by one or two from Europe and Australia. 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/camileon/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/camileon/ AimsThis paper is intended to continue the debate on the different uses of migration for the long-term preservation of digital materials. This discussion will hopefully form the basis of future comparisons between migration and emulation as part of the CAMiLEON project’s investigation of emulation as a digital preservation strategy (A look at some of the practical aspects of an emulation preservation strategy can be found in “Emulation, Preservation and Abstraction” [1] by David Holdsworth and Paul Wheatley). 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/clark/ Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/29/clark/ The vision that created the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) grew out of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)s history of engagement with Higher and Further Education Institutions and significant research libraries in the UK. The DNER has an ambitious goal - to empower the HE/Post-16 community by providing quick, coherent and reliable access to a managed information environment that is geared to supporting learning and teaching activities. The JISC has established a great number of services that are helping to fulfil this vision of an integrated information environment. 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/chi/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/chi/ The “CHI” series of conferences sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM-SIGCHI) [1], in partnership with, among others, the British HCI Group, is the premier international conference on human aspects of computing. CHI2001: anyone. anywhere. [2], held in Seattle from 31 March – 5 April, focussed on the pervasiveness of information and communication technology (ICT) in contemporary life and the consequent imperative to make ICT accessible to people, whatever their characteristics or location. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/eevl/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/eevl/ EEVL is the Hub for engineering, mathematics and computing. It is a free service, and is funded by JISC through the Resource Discovery Network (RDN). Service NewsLogo graphic for links to EEVLA small graphic featuring the EEVL eye is now available for those sites who wish to place a link to EEVL. The graphic is shown in the main heading above and can be copied from the EEVL web site [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/editorial/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/editorial/ Here in the UK we are living in the aftermath of the recent General election. Although apathy was the order of the day and few seats actually changed hands, important changes have been made that are worth mentioning here in Ariadne. In a Cabinet reshuffle the government has replaced the previous Culture secretary, Chris Smith, with Tessa Jowell, formerly a minister of state in the Department for Education and Employment. Working alongside her in the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) will be Tessa Blackstone, also a previous minister in the DFEE. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/inspiral/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/inspiral/ INSPIRAL (INveStigating Portals for Information Resources And Learning) [1] is a research project funded by JISC [2], [3] to spend six months examining the institutional challenges and requirements involved in linking virtual and managed learning environments (VLEs and MLEs) with digital and hybrid libraries [4]. The needs of the learner are paramount to INSPIRAL, and the focus is higher education in the UK, with an eye to international developments. The ultimate aim of INSPIRAL is to inform JISC’s future strategy and funding of initiatives in this area; we hope that the research process itself will benefit stakeholders by facilitating discussion and co-operation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/inhale/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/inhale/ The Information for Nursing and Health in a Learning Environment (INHALE) Project [1] at the University of Huddersfield is one of forty-four projects supported nationally by the JISC as part of the DNER (Distributed National Electronic Resource) learning and teaching development programme [2]. INHALE is creating portable, interactive learning materials for nursing and health students for use within a virtual learning environment such as Blackboard ©. The two year project, which commenced in September 2000, is using the ubiquity of the web to produce a series of units, each of which will help users to acquire the necessary skills to find and use quality information sources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/metadata/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/metadata/ In the April 2001 issue of D-Lib Magazine, Peter Hirtle produced an editorial highlighting the potential for confusion between the standards being developed by the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) [1] and the draft Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) [2]. He noted the frustration that can ensue when words that have a clearly understood meaning in one domain begin to be used by others in a different way. 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/news/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/news/ Tessa Jowell, new Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has recently been appointed Minister for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) replacing Chris Smith. Tessa has been a minister since Labour won its first landslide four years ago. As minister for public health, Ms Jowell was embroiled in the Bernie Ecclestone affair, when the government gave Formula One motor racing an exemption from the ban on tobacco advertising after its boss, Mr Ecclestone, gave an anonymous £1m donation to the Labour Party. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/personalization/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/personalization/ World Wide Web services operate in a cut-throat environment where even satisfied customers and growth do not guarantee continued existence. As users become ever more proficient in their use of the web and are exposed to a wider range of experiences, they may well become more demanding, and their definition of what constitutes good service may be refined. Personalization is an ever-growing feature of on-line services that is manifested in different ways and contexts, harnessing a series of developing technologies. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/planet-sosig/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/planet-sosig/ Virtual Training Suite LaunchedSOSIG is pleased to announce the launch of 9 more free Web-tutorials teaching Internet skills for different social science subjects - ideal for students, lecturers and researchers who want to learn how to get the best from the Web. This brings the total to 16 - with one tutorial for each of the main subjects covered by the gateway (ranging from Anthropology to Women’s Studies). The tutorials give a guided tour of the Web for the subject, with expert “tour guides” from university libraries and national social science organisations. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/gold/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/gold/ In the BeginningWay back in 1998 the University of Bath’s Centre for the Development of New Technologies in Learning became part of a three institution consortium responsible for the TLTP Phase 3 ‘Project GOLD’ [1]. GOLD stands for Guidance Online for those Learning at a Distance. The lead partner was the Royal College of Nursing Institute (the Higher Education arm of the RCN) supported by the Open Learning Foundation and the University of Bath. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/training/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/training/ Subject librarians will recognise the following situation: you have spent years trying to persuade Department X to let you run some information skills training for their students, but they’ve always said No! Suddenly you get a phone call asking you to provide training next Tuesday afternoon. You know that you’re being asked to “babysit” and in an ideal world you would negotiate a more sensible time that suited the students’ learning experience. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/join-up/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/join-up/ This seminar brought together experts in the field of linking technology with participants in the four projects which constitute the JOIN-UP programme, for exploration and discussion of recent technical developments in reference linking. The JOIN-UP project cluster forms part of the DNER infrastructure programme supported by the JISC 5⁄99 initiative. Its focus is development of the infrastructure needed to support services that supply users with journal articles and similar resources. The programme addresses the linkage between references found in discovery databases (such as Abstracting and Indexing databases and Table of Contents databases) and the supply of services for the referenced item (typically, a journal article), in printed or electronic form. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/cms/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/cms/ A publishing revolution on the Web?Just three or four years ago the Web community was getting used to the idea that the way we would work in future would be radically different from the way we work now. The world of coalface flatfile html markup would begin to disappear in favour of collaborative working, managed workflow, document versioning, on the fly pages constructed out of application independent xml chunks, site management tools and push-button publishing via multiple formats - html, xml, pdf, print, etc. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/eevl2/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/eevl2/ An initiative of Math-Net [1], the Secondary Homepage is a template that aims to sort the types of information usually found on departmental websites in mathematics into standardised sections and labels. By offering a user-friendly navigation and search, the Secondary Homepage overcomes the problem of significantly differing departmental homepages. As implied by the name, the Secondary Homepage is not meant to replace the department's homepage but rather to offer users another way of accessing information that is available on the department's website. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/hybrid/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/hybrid/ The five Hybrid Library projects – BUILDER [1], AGORA [2], MALIBU [3], HeadLine [4], and HyLife [5] - form part of the eLib Phase 3 developments and they build on the work of the first and second phases of eLib by investigating issues surrounding the integration of digital and traditional library resources. They are very different projects, but they all aim to provide some of the basic building blocks to create new models of library services, in which our users can create and sustain personal information spaces, and libraries can manage these spaces as part of their daily service delivery. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/red/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/red/ In literary criticism and cultural studies more attention is being paid to the reception of the text – who read it, who had access to it, how was it read – partly perhaps due to the interest in reader theory. Such questions are relevant to the study of the development of a literary canon, the study of popular literature, the transmission of ideas through society both today and in the past and the changing relations between the author, editor, producer and reader of the text. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/vts/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/vts/ Wednesday the 9th of May saw the simultaneous launch of the JISC-funded Virtual Training Suite [1] across the United Kingdom. The launch took place in six academic institutions: Edinburgh, Leeds, Bristol, Nottingham, Kings College London, and Manchester. We attended the Scottish launch, which was held in the main library of Edinburgh University. The Virtual Training Suite consists of forty online tutorials designed to help students, lecturers and researchers improve their Internet information skills. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/web-focus/ Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/28/web-focus/ Previous Web Focus articles have provided trip reports on the International World Wide Web conferences [1] [2] [3] and [4]. These reports have commented on the birth of new developments such as XML, RDF and WAP and the mobile Web. So what was hot from WWW10? Well the weather certainly was hot - and very humid. The 1,200+ delegates were very appreciative of the air-conditioning in the Hong Kong Conference Centre, located on Hong Kong island, next to the harbour (see Figure 1). 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/jacobs/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/jacobs/ -- -- The 1999 excavation at Tell Halif in southern Israel by the Lahav Research Project was the culmination of a long development in our approach to primary research in the ancient world under the influence of digital technologies. Like other excavation projects in the region, the Lahav Research Project, too, had turned already in 1977 to record-keeping and maintenance of databases by means of "portable" computers. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/seti/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/seti/ Distributed Solutions to Number Crunching Problems There are many problems that require the large scale number crunching capablilities of supercomputers. For instance calculating Pi to the nth level of precision, attempting to crack the latest encryption algorithm [1], mapping the human genome, or analysing radio waves from space. For some applications, a Supercomputer might not be enough; nor can every project can afford one. However, but with a little bit of clever software engineering applied to the Internet, there is a solution. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/e-books/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/e-books/ Electronic journals are playing an increasing role in the education of students. The ARL Directory of Scholarly Electronic Journals [1] lists nearly 4,000 peer-reviewed journal titles and 4,600 conferences available electronically, and many academic libraries now subscribe to ejournal services such as those provided by MCB Emerald, Omnifile and ingentaJournals. In comparison, electronic books have been slow to impact on Higher Education. Initiatives such as Project Gutenberg [2] and the Electronic Text Centre [3] have, for many years, been digitising out-of-copyright texts and making them available online. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/eevl/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/eevl/ EEVL is the Hub for engineering, mathematics and computing. It is a free service, and is funded by JISC through the Resource Discovery Network (RDN). Marketing on a tight budgetOne of the findings of the Rowley Report on JISC User Behaviour [1] was that subject gateways, although providing very useful services, are underused by academics. Using a variety of methods to gather information, including interviews and questionnaires, the research which led to the Report found that relatively few students and staff in UK higher education were aware of the existence of gateways as Internet retrieval tools. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/editorial/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/editorial/ Sarah Ormes, the UKOLN Public Libraries Focus is taking a short career break. Sarah has been with UKOLN for five years, which makes her positively antidiluvian in terms of web years. During that time both her role and her activities have expanded. Among other things Sarah was instrumental in the setting up of the hugely popular children's web site 'Stories from the Web', and in the last two years has run a very successful conference on Web Management issues for Public Librarians. 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/metadata/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/metadata/ This article proposes a mechanism for embedding machine parsable citations into Dublin Core (DC) metadata records [1] based on the OpenURL [2]. It suggests providing partial OpenURLs using the DC Identifier, Source and Relation elements together with an associated 'OpenURL' encoding scheme. It summarises the relevance of this technique to support reference linking and considers mechanisms for providing richer bibliographic citations. A mapping between OpenURL attributes and Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) [3] elements is provided. 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/planet-sosig/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/planet-sosig/ Portals Project Work is underway on the RDN Portals Development Project. Three prototype faculty-level subject portals will be developed one at each hub, covering the subject areas of biomedical sciences, engineering and social sciences. The portals will enable end-users to extend their searches to include an enhanced range of databases from amongst the JISC’s current content collection. This project will add value to the UK’s learning, teaching and research resources by improving the way these resources are presented to the user. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/pub-libs/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/pub-libs/ After five and a half years at UKOLN I’m leaving. I’m having a small career break and will be indulging myself in some lie-ins, a bit of travel and a chance to find out just who are all those people wandering around the shops between 9 am and 5.30 pm, Monday to Friday. This then is my final Ariadne column and it’s a good opportunity to review the last five years and look forward to what the next five will bring. 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/digital-preservation/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/digital-preservation/ 1. Introduction Electronic resources form an increasingly large part of our cultural and intellectual heritage. In addition to electronic publications, the Web, and e-commerce, there is an array of new UK initiatives and legislation, from Modernising Government to the Freedom of Information Act, which is putting an onus on public organisations to provide access to, manage and archive their information in electronic form. In the research arena, there are also significant developments particularly in the sciences towards very large primary research data sets in electronic form e. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/paschoud/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/paschoud/  This article explains the concepts of representation and use of metadata describing library information resource collections in the Resource Data Model (RDM) that has been developed by the HeadLine project [http://www.headline.ac.uk/]. It is based on documentation originally intended for library staff who may become involved in maintenance of metadata in the RDM, as the deliverables of the project are handed-over into mainstream use. An earlier published article [Graham] was based on the first (un-released) version of the HeadLine RDM, to which this is intended to be an update. 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/27/leodis/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/leodis/ Personal BackgroundTo begin with, as this is predominantly a libraries publication I feel an introduction to my background may be helpful in understanding this approach to digitisation. My relationship with the Leodis Database is as technical creator and manager and my background is purely technical. I studied Printing and Photographic Technology for 3 years at Kitson College Leeds and then Computer Science for 3 years at Manchester Metropolitan University followed by 1 years research in Computer Modelling at Manchester Metropilitan University, Department of Mechanical Engineering. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/web-focus/ Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/27/web-focus/ HTML is Dead?Previous Web Focus articles have reported on developments which have been the featured prominently in International World Wide Web conferences. These include XML, which was the highlight of the Sixth WWW conference in 1997 [1]. Have developments such as this affected mainstream Web services, or are they restricted to the research community? Indeed, wouldn’t it be sensible for HTML authors for mainstream Web services to be still be making use of the same HTML tags (and possibly authoring tools) they mastered several years ago? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/case-studies/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/case-studies/ Agora is one of the five Hybrid Library Projects that began in January 1998, forming part of phase 3 of the elib programme investigating issues surrounding the integration of digital and traditional library resources. It is a consortium-based project, led by the University of East Anglia; partners are UKOLN [1], Fretwell Downing Informatics and CERLIM (the Centre for Research in Library and Information Management). The project also works with several associate groups: libraries, service providers and systems developers. 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/biome/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/biome/ BIOME and BananasWe were delighted that, despite terrible weather and transport conditions, many people attended the official launch of the BIOME Service at The Royal Society on 2nd November. Some interesting facts were presented at the launch. In addition to an introduction to our new Service, http://biome.ac.uk/ by Karen Stanton, Director of Information Services at Nottingham University, delegates were informed that not only were they 98 percent related to chimps, but that their genes show 60 percent similarity to bananas! 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/bach/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/bach/ For the majority of musicologists, bibliography is not their main subject of research, but a tool for research, an essential tool to gain quick access to the information with which to pursue their own subject of interest. Bibliography concerns everyone; it is crucially important that we find successfully the most relevant literatures at the earliest possible opportunity, and that we do not miss out any significant research works carried out by other scholars in the field, so that we can get on confidently with the work of our main research interest. 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/metadata/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/metadata/ The Cedars conference, "Preservation 2000: an International Conference on the Preservation and Long Term Accessibility of Digital Materials," was held at the Viking Moat House Hotel in York on 7-8 December 2000. There were over 150 participants, about one half from outside the UK. As a prelude to the conference proper, a one-day workshop entitled "Information Infrastructures for Digital Preservation" was held at the same venue on the 6 December. This workshop mostly concerned preservation metadata and attracted over 70 participants. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/nt-explorer/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/nt-explorer/ Microsoft were late to realise the potential of the Internet, so many of their Internet products came about through the acquisition of other companies. In order to advance Windows NT Server as a viable platform for e-commerce, in 1996 Microsoft acquired e-Shop Inc., a small company specialising in e-commerce software. e-Shop's software was integrated into Microsoft Merchant Server 1.0, which subsequently evolved into Microsoft Commerce Server 2.0. Version 3.0 was released in early 1998, and added support for Internet Information Server (IIS) 4. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/planet-sosig/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/planet-sosig/ Grapevine is the 'people oriented' side of SOSIG, offering the social science community a place to look at and publicise information about events, career development opportunities and professional colleagues. Grapevine began life in 1998 as an ESRC funded pilot project and was brought under the auspices of SOSIG in February 2000 with the launch of the new interface and associated services of the gateway. You can use Grapevine to find: 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/dner/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/dner/ What is the relationship between the hybrid library and the DNER (the Distributed National Electronic Resource)? This paper discusses that question and suggests a number of ways in which DNER strategy and thinking can be informed by hybrid library developments. ‘Suggests’ is the word, since there is currently an investigation underway that is dealing with this question which is still to report. This is being coordinated by Stephen Pinfield, one of the authors of this article. 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/26/malibu/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/malibu/ The MALIBU Project has as its main goal to develop examples of hybrid libraries, focusing specifically on the humanities, at each of three major partner institutions (King’s College London, University of Oxford and University of Southampton). The research and outcomes of the project have reinforced generally held ideas about issues such as what users want, and how they go about obtaining what they want. However, it has also highlighted some important distinctions about the process of providing hybrid services to the user and the impact on the hybrid library. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/craven/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/craven/ Background to the NoVA projectIt is recognised that in order to participate fully in today’s society it is vital that citizens are not excluded for any reason, whether by virtue of birth, belief, aptitude or circumstance. Exclusion takes many forms and must be countered in many different ways. Funded by Resource and undertaken by the Centre for Research in Library and Information Management (CERLIM) at Manchester Metropolitan University, the NoVA project is concerned with countering the exclusion from access to information which can all too easily occur when individuals do not have so-called ‘normal’ vision. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/web-watch/ Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/26/web-watch/ This issue of Ariadne has the theme of eLib Projects. It is therefore timely for the regular WebWatch column to survey eLib project Web sites. The aim of the survey is to use a number of Web-based tools to provide information on the entry points for eLib project Web sites and the Web sites themselves. The findings may be of interest to the eLib projects themselves and users of eLib projects. 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/app-profiles/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/app-profiles/ BackgroundThis paper introduces application profiles as a type of metadata schema. We use application profiles as a way of making sense of the differing relationship that implementors and namespace managers have towards metadata schema, and the different ways they use and develop schema. The idea of application profiles grew out of UKOLN’s work on the DESIRE project (1), and since then has proved so helpful to us in our discussions of schemas and registries that we want to throw it out for wider discussion in the run-up to the DC8 Workshop in Ottawa in October. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/decomate-ii/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/decomate-ii/ The Decomate II project produced a working demonstrator system and service providing access to distributed, heterogeneous Economics information sources. The conference was held at the Casa de Convalescència, part of The Hospital Santa Pau, one of Barcelona’s great "Modernista" architectural monuments. Following a warm welcome from Carme Picallo, Vice-Rector for Research of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Hans Geleijnse of Tilburg University and Decomate II Project Director, gave the keynote speech. 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/planet-sosig/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/planet-sosig/ RDN Virtual Training SuiteSOSIG is pleased to announce the launch of the RDN (Resource Discovery Network) Virtual Training Suite - a set of free, interactive, web-based tutorials for students, lecturers and researchers who want to discover what the Internet can offer in their subject area. Each tutorial has been written by an academic or librarian with specialist knowledge of both their subject area and the Internet. There are 11 tutorials available in phase one of the project (with another 27 in production). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/pub-libs/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/pub-libs/ Everything, they say, is bigger in America. Well, it’s true. Portions of food, buildings, cars and library conferences. If the UK Library Association’s biennial conference is an Umbrella, the American Library Association Conference is a marquee. It had 20,000 delegates, 2,300 meetings, programmes and events, 1,300 exhibitors and a conference handbook thicker than the Bath and West Wiltshire telephone directory. Of course such a large event can be somewhat overwhelming. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/brett/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/brett/ Research and Education, especially higher education, have been key players in the development of various information technologies including the Internet. While advances in networking, computing, scientific research and education applications have been proceeding at a rapid pace, what has been lacking is a coordinated effort to capture, collect, or otherwise systematically organize the experience, knowledge and other product of the work done. We believe that a Knowledge Management Clearinghouse (aka Klearinghouse) can serve as a coordinating entity for the identification and use of tools for knowledge management in real time, any time, and over time. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/foster/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/foster/ In 1997 The Dearing Report (NCIHE, 1997) published its review of the British higher education system. Underpinned by principles of inclusion and life-long learning the Report put forward wide-ranging recommendations in all areas of educational provision including students and learning, supporting research and scholarship, staff in higher education and the management and governance of higher education institutions. An important component of the Dearing vision is the utilization of new technology, which can provide universities with the potential to widen participation, to reach new markets and to make internal efficiency gains. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/web-focus/ Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/25/web-focus/ “One of the best workshops I’ve ever been at”“Excellent! One of the best workshops I’ve ever been at“ “I return because it is by far the best way for me to find out what I need to do in the coming year at my site“ “The workshop gets better every year and I never fail to learn something new.“ “A good mixture of web/techie people and communications/PR people. Important to have both for this type of event“As can be seen from the quotes given above the Institutional Web Management workshop was very highly regarded by the workshop delegates. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/sellic/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/sellic/ The Science and Engineering Library, Learning and Information Centre (SELLIC) [1] Project at the University of Edinburgh has seen rapid changes in the context in which it operates. The project itself has therefore changed its emphasis in response to some of the challenges of the rapidly-evolving education environment. Staff at SELLIC are engaged in a number of projects, all of which are directed at some aspect of hybrid library development and aim to bring together library and academic interests in determining how new developments should be applied within the institution. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/agora/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/agora/ Agora is one of the five elib hybrid Library projects which began in January 1998 and are all due for completion at various times this year. They form part of Phase 3 of the elib Programme that is investigating issues of digital library implementation and integration. The word Agora comes from the Greek word meaning meeting place or assembly point. On further investigation the Perseus project, part of the Department of Classics, Tufts University)[1] describes an agora as: - http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/biome/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/biome/ The new BIOME Internet site will go live this summer and we are looking forward to seeing the months of background work become an operational service. Since Lisa Gray, the BIOME Team Manager reported the outline for the Service in the December issue of Ariadne, we have been busy building content in our databases as well as designing a new website, developing new catalogue software and establishing links with other health & life sciences Internet services. 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/eevl/eevlnuggets1.html Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/eevl/eevlnuggets1.html BackgroundEEVL: the Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library, is the UK-based, free guide to engineering information on the Internet. Recent newsIn the last issue of Ariadne I reported on a number of recent EEVL developments.   Once again, I am very pleased to use this forum to announce some more new features. We are conscious of the need to constantly review the EEVL services, and make improvements wherever possible.  Sometimes the changes are minor, and sometimes they are more substantial. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/oed-tech/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/oed-tech/ Ariadne has already described the long-term task of revising the Oxford English Dictionary and reviewed OED Online at its launch in March this year, but the editor judged, rightly, that there must be a hidden story on the making of the web site. This article sets out to tell that story, describing what was technically involved in turning a twenty-three volume print work into an online publication, and recording how this generation of publishers benefited from visionary groundwork undertaken fifteen years ago which meant that the hardest part of going online - preparing the content - was three-quarters done before they’d heard of the Web. 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/24/interoperability/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/interoperability/ Together with terms like "metadata" and "joined-up thinking", this word is increasingly being used within the information management discourse across all of our memory institutions. Its meaning, though, remains somewhat ambiguous, as do many of the benefits of "being interoperable". This paper is an attempt, written from the doubtless biased perspective of someone with the word in their job title, to explain some of what interoperability means, and to begin stating the case for more active efforts towards being truly interoperable across a range of services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/jasper-fe/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/jasper-fe/ The goal of this event was to introduce the operators of JISC services to the main bodies in Further Education (FE), and to discuss the issues which will be involved as JISC services are rolled out to FE sites. In addition to the delegates from JISC and JISC services, UKERNA and major national FE organisations (e.g. BECTa, FEDA and NILTA) were also represented. A number of points of general interest came up during our discussions, which this article attempts to summarise. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/pub-libs/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/pub-libs/ “May you live in interesting times.” I think we in library-land, and particularly public library-land, can lay claim to our share of those. On the national level, we have infrastructure, content creation, and training, all activity that the roll out of the People’s Network will require. In addition, regional strength and co-operation ensures participation and development on all levels. We have the opportunity to more than adapt to the changing information and communication environment: we can build on our traditional skills of networking, communication, organisation, and customer relations to create something truly innovative. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/metadata/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/metadata/ People, places, and things are identified in any number of different ways. I, for example, have a National Insurance Number, a staff payroll number, several bank account numbers, and assorted frequent flyer programme membership numbers, all of which are the handles that certain groups of people use to identify me. I also have a name and, associated to me, three telephone numbers and at least two e-mail addresses. Neither telephone number nor e-mail address truly identifies me the person of course, but they might well be seen as equally useful a means of 'retrieving' me as my name or any other associated identifier. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/news/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/news/ Foraging for a Good Read: Book Forager Goes Live It is August 2000; the UK is enjoying the driest, sunniest summer this century. You are in the library trying to find a book which isunorthodox, very realistic but also quite funny, set in Spain. You go over to the public access terminal and input details of the kind of read you need to match your mood, and the computer comes up with ten suggestions for you to try. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/planet-sosig/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/planet-sosig/ Social Science Librarians Update1999 was a momentous year for the ASLIB Social Science Librarians Special Interest Group. In April 1999 it was decided to merge with ALISS (Academic Librarians in the Social Sciences), a professional grouping of information workers based in UK university libraries, in order to create one national body. The past year has seen a great deal of negotiation behind the scenes with ASLIB and the interim committee members in order to establish a firm foundation for the group and a renewed programme of activities. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/tei/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/tei/ The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) was originally established in 1987 with the goal of creating a community-based standard for text encoding and interchange. It came into being as the result of a perception in many different parts of the academic research community that the rising tide of digitized media (largely known, in those distant days, as "electronic" or even "machine-readable" texts) threatened to engulf everything in a war of competing formats and encoding systems. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/virtual-universities/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/virtual-universities/ Abstract: This article reports on a two-year research project that is investigating the way in which UK universities are attempting to build new technologies into higher education. In recent years there has been a phenomenal interest in the growth of what some are calling 'digital', 'online', or 'virtual' universities. Indeed, today, it is commonplace to read that information and communication technologies are radically reconfiguring the landscape of higher education, changing the very 'nature' of the university[1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/at-the-event/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/at-the-event/ Last year’s CLUMPS meeting took place in a large purpose built lecture theatre in the new British Library building at St Pancras. This was very handy for those of us arriving from Bath, since it is only 3 tube stops or so from Paddington to St Pancras/Kings Cross. This year the meeting is split into two events, and the first of these was arranged to happen at Goldsmiths College at New Cross in South East London. 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/eevl/ariadne2.html Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/eevl/ariadne2.html BackgroundEEVL: the Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library, is the UK-based, free gateway to engineering information on the Internet.  It is part of the EMC Hub, which in turn is part of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN), a national initiative to provide effective access to high quality Internet resources for the UK learning and research communities..  EEVL is a JISC funded service. Recent newsThere seems to be quite a lot of news to report from the EEVL camp. 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/metadata/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/metadata/ "Interoperability is easy. It’s a piece of cake. Simply digitise (or create in digital form) a load of content and stick it on a web site. To let people find it, use this cool stuff called metadata. Basically, that means describing your stuff by writing a description of it inside some <META> tags." Erm… Wrong!!! The prevalence of this view — or views remarkably akin to it — is truly scary, even amongst the ranks of those such as readers of Ariadne, from whom we might reasonably expect better. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/planet-sosig/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/planet-sosig/ New Millennium, New SOSIGOn the 25th February 2000 SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway) officially launched its brand new service at a successful one-day event in central London. Speakers at the event included Annabel Colley, website producer for BBC’s Panorama and Chair of the Association for UK Media Librarians who spoke of the enormous contribution SOSIG has made to research, since its inception. “Used incorrectly, the Internet can be a huge time waster. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/eevl/railway.html Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/eevl/railway.html The rail industry has been an enthusiastic adopter of the Internet with organisations initially developing their web pages to promote their products, services and technologies, and provide copies of annual reports and press releases. More recently, staff recruitment and e-commerce applications have started to appear. This review concentrates on English language sites and describes several key pages which can be used by surfers to explore the sector in more depth. The links discussed here form a part of my own collection of rail industry web addresses, which is recommended as first stop for an industry search [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/dovey/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/dovey/ In the not so distant past, if a group of libraries wished to offer a single online catalogue to their collections, they had to adopt a physical union catalogue model: i.e. they would have placed their catalogue records into a single searchable database. More recently there has been much work in virtual union catalogues, whereby the user interface offers integrated access to multiple catalogues as if they were a single catalogue. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/oed-online/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/oed-online/ On 14 March 2000 the Oxford English Dictionary Online will be launched on the world-wide web at www.oed.com. On view will be the full text of the 20-volume hardcover dictionary - 60 million words describing nearly three-quarters of a million terms used in English over the past thousand years, illustrated by more than 2.4 million quotations - in a format developed for maximum accessibility. The arrival of what many have called ‘the world’s greatest dictionary’ on the world-wide web is important news for scholars and researchers working in universities and libraries throughout the world. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/web-focus/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/web-focus/ BackgroundUniversity web managers are busy people. University departments seem to have never-ending requirements for new services on the institutional web site. But, as we all know, it can be difficult to get the funding to buy expensive software products or extra staff to install and support free software. But is there an alternative approach to trying to do everything in-house? Nowadays the Web provides not only access to information resources, but also to applications. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/stubley/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/stubley/   Terminology appears to have played a large part in the work associated with virtual union catalogues. We have had three years of dealing with new and slightly odd terms and only time will tell whether or not the curious word ‘clump’ becomes established in the library lexicon or whether it is simply a minor blip in cataloguing, networking and service history. Rather like the term UKLDS.   Many readers will be too young to remember the UKLDS – United Kingdom Library Database System – an initiative begun in 1981 under the auspices of the CAG (Co-operative Automation Group) to consider the possibility of creating a centralised bibliographic database – a National Union Catalogue – for the UK. 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/aerade/ Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/aerade/ AERADE has been developed by a team of information specialists from the Library at Cranfield and the Library at the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS), Shrivenham. It has grown out of the aerospace section of the CRUISE (Cranfield University Site Explorer) subject gateway at Cranfield, which focuses on the subjects researched and taught at the Cranfield Campus, and DEVISE (Defence Virtual Information Service) at RMCS. This provides users with access to military and defence Internet resources. 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/distributed/distukcat.html Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/distributed/distukcat.html This article presents a clumps-oriented perspective on the idea of a UK national catalogue for HE, arguing that a distributed approach based on Z39.50 has a number of attractive features when compared with the alternative physical union catalogue model, but also noting that the many difficulties currently associated with the distributed approach must be resolved before it can itself be regarded as a practical proposition. Dealing with these difficulties requires a mix of further research, some of which is scheduled to take place within existing projects, and - particularly in respect of data-based interoperability problems - additional local and national resourcing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/distributed/distukcat2.html Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/22/distributed/distukcat2.html If the concept of parallel searching of catalogues via Z39.50 is stimulating, the initial manifestation is truly exciting. Maybe not exactly Alexander Graham Bell or Archimedes territory but life-enhancing nevertheless: to have been working on the implementation of an idea for over twelve months, as the UK eLib clumps projects have, and suddenly see bibliographic records returned simultaneously from a search across multiple library catalogues, makes it seem that all the arguments, stress and technical tinkerings have finally been worthwhile. 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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/20/eevl/seminar.html Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/eevl/seminar.html EEVL was invited to present a paper at the Bibliotecas Universitárias em Consórcio (University Libraries in Consortium) seminar, held 26 - 27 April 1999 at the University of Aveiro [01]. The seminar was organised by RUBi - Rede Universitária de Bibliotecas e Informação (Universities' Libraries and Information Network) [02]. RUBi is intended to be "a logical structure that provides an Integrated Information Management, in a progressive manner, through new ways of co-operative work and resources sharing" http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/bized/ Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/20/bized/ Introducing the Advice and Answers Section of the CTI Economics Web siteThe CTI centre for Economics [1]is part of a national initiative encouraging and promoting the appropriate use of learning technologies in UK Higher Education. It is based at the Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT)[2]at the University of Bristol. The CTI Economics Web site has long provided academic Economists with resource catalogues that give value-added information on topics such as where to find on-line data, what software exists to teach Macroeconomics and how Java is being used in online tutorials. 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/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/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/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/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/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/20/404/ 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/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/eevl/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/eevl/ Here are four updates relevant to the EEVL project. EEVL UpdateLinda Kerr, EEVL The Offshore Engineering Information Service [1] hosted by EEVL[2], provides details of meetings and conferences in petroleum and offshore engineering, and a bibliography of recent accessions in those areas to Heriot-Watt University Library. The Web pages were previously free only to UK academics, and are now free to all users. An article on engineering resources in Petroleum appears in this column, written by Arnold Myers, who runs the Offshore Engineering Information Service. 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/info-ecologies/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/info-ecologies/ Conference ThemesI arrived late for this eLib conference held at the beginning of December at the Viking Moat House Hotel, York.  Because of an incident on the Bristol to York line, I therefore missed the opening keynote address by Jim Michalko. However the main themes of the eLib conference soon became clear. There were three main strands, reflecting both the development of the programme since 1995, and the current preoccupations of the phase three projects. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/ims/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/ims/ Background At the University of Edinburgh, the Science and Engineering Library, Learning and Information Centre (SELLIC)[1] combines a physical learning resource centre development with the introduction of a learning management system for the Faculty of Science and Engineering. The new building, which will meet the demand for a science library for the University of Edinburgh which was first expressed over forty years ago, and has grown more insistent every since, will open its first phase for the beginning of session 2001⁄2. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/meta-objects/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/meta-objects/ In the last few decades, notions of computer science have undergone a number of paradigm shifts. Underlying the majority of these is the concept of object-orientation, namely the recognition that the decoupling of data and the code that acts upon them, is based on an artificial distinction, and that models which combine the data and code into distinct "objects" offer both more intuitive and a functionally richer conceptual entities. This paradigm shift can be particularly seen in three areas: programming languages, databases and user-interfaces. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/metadata/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/metadata/ IntroductionImage-based information is a key component of human progress in a number of distinct subject domains and digital image retrieval is a fast-growing research area with regard to both still and moving images. In order to address some relevant issues the Second UK Conference on Image Retrieval - the Challenge of Image Retrieval (CIR 99) was held in Newcastle upon Tyne on the 25 and 26 February 1999 [1]. Participants included both researchers and practitioners in the area of image retrieval. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/omni/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/omni/ Defining the subjectsHere at OMNI, our subject gateway essentially covers all of the health studies subjects in scope (basically medicine and health), and various biomedical aspects of the life sciences, such as molecular biology research, clinical psychology and sports medicines. Of late, it has struck us that most of the national controversies that tend to fill the tabloids (and other newspapers) are sprung directly from these subject areas. In this section, we outline six examples most applicable to the UK; for countries such as the US, there would be a similar array of issues, including abortion as an issue of high public profile. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/planet-sosig/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/planet-sosig/ The Social Sciences General, Methodology Section of SOSIG With such a broad remit, this section of SOSIG clearly has the potential to describe an almost endless number of Internet resources. As editor of the section, my aim has been twofold - to include as many multi-disciplinary high quality international resources as possible that contain useful information in their own right, as well as identifying Internet sites that complement and expand upon those included in the more specific sections of the gateway. 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/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/web-editor/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/web-editor/ Maintenance problems signal a painful truth for Web Editors (or those occupying similar roles). They need to change the institutions within which they work. As I learn more about the institution within which I work I frequently encounter a recurring truism: those with the most to offer in terms of content are often the least able to publish it via the web. Instead, they are skilled at managing a digital to print workflow i. 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-research/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/web-research/ Interactive Media-rich Web Content - Using VideoOne of the major problems experienced by Web users is the amount of time needed to download data. As the speed and power of desktop computer has increased it has become possible for almost anyone with access to a PC to produce interactive web content using images, audio, and particularly video. Therefore, even though the available bandwidth of the Internet is increasing, the bandwidth requirements of the media available through it, and the number of users trying to access that information are also increasing. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/webwatch/ Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/19/webwatch/ The WebWatch project [1], which was based at UKOLN, University of Bath and funded the the British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC), involved the development of robot software to analyse web resources in a variety of (mainly UK) communities. The project analysed several communities and has produced reports on the results. Following the successful completetion of the WebWatch project a final report has been produced. This article summarises the findings published in the report. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/bids-ingenta/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/bids-ingenta/ On 21st September 1998, primary responsibility for the BIDS collection of services was transferred from the University of Bath to a newly formed company known as ingenta ltd. This was the culmination of a period of exploration and negotiation while the University sought a suitable partner to take over most of the financial responsibility for the growing organisation. A Little History BIDS has been in existence since 1990, and started running its first public service, providing access to the collection of files supplied by ISI® known as the Citation Indexes in February 1991. 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/dilis/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/dilis/ -- The University of Surrey Library and Information Services has launched a new Distance Learners Information Service (DiLIS). The DiLIS initiative is a twelve month Continuing Vocational Education (CVE) funded project that encourages both library staff and distance learning students to use a wide range of information services and resources. DiLIS provides access to a mixture of paper and Internet-based facilities that utilise both academic and commercial information services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/planet-sosig/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/planet-sosig/ Mutual Mirroring Speeds Access Internet users in the USA and Europe will be able to discover the best of the Internet much faster (and more cheaply) as a result of a new initiative launched this week. Internet Scout, based in the USA, and SOSIG, based in the UK, will each host a "mirror" of the other’s site. The arrangement will result in quicker access and reduced costs for users on both sides of the Atlantic. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/main/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/main/ Hybrids and Clumps Stephen Pinfield What is a hybrid library? And clumps? What has eLib got to do with it? What are the clumps projects doing? What are the hybrid library projects doing? What will the impact be? Acknowledgements--    What is a hybrid library?A hybrid library is not just a traditional library (only containing paper-based resources) or just a virtual library (only containing electronic resources), but somewhere between the two. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/internet-detective/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/internet-detective/ In July 1998 we launched “Internet Detective” - an informal but comprehensive online tutorial designed to teach the skills required to critically evaluate the quality of information found on the Internet. The tutorial includes interactive quizzes, worked examples and practical hint and tips. It can be accessed via the World Wide Web from: http://sosig.ac.uk/desire/internet-detective.html Who created Internet Detective? The tutorial has been developed by staff at The Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT) at the University of Bristol. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/jstor/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/jstor/ In August I was fortunate enough to spend a week visiting the JSTOR offices in the United States. This invaluable experience provided me with the opportunity to discuss the progress being made since the launch of the UK JSTOR Mirror Service [1] at Manchester Information Datasets and Associated Services (MIDAS) [2] and to plan future developments. History and Background If you have not heard of JSTOR before: it is an electronic journal collection of core research titles. 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/web-magazine/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/web-magazine/ As a partner in the Exploit Project, funded under the EU Telematics for Libraries program, UKOLN will be delivering the first issue of ‘Exploit Interactive’ early in the new year. We took the opportunity to review a wide variety of electronic publications as part of the research phase for the development of a prototype. These publications included journals, magazines and newspapers in the UK, US and the EU. The aim of the review was to identify any value-added features and services for both users and publishers that could be delivered or used in an electronic magazine; though not necessarily for inclusion in Exploit Interactive. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/metadata/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/metadata/ Introduction: cataloguing and the Internet Modern descriptive cataloguing theory and practice has developed over the past 150 years as a means of organising information for retrieval in libraries. Library catalogues typically consist of a collection of bibliographic records that describe published materials, usually - as the name implies - in the form of printed books but also including cartographic materials, music scores and manuscripts. The standards and cataloguing codes originally developed to support this activity have expanded to include a range of newer publishing media, typically: sound recordings, microforms, video recordings, films and computer files. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/metadiversity/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/metadiversity/ Introduction and contextFirst, we simply need to be moving faster to coordinate the information that already exists, on file cards and computers, scattered around the world’s major and minor museums and other collections. … Second these databases must be widely available and ‘customer friendly’. We need to accelerate current efforts for international cooperation and coordination, so that common formats are increasingly agreed and used. Robert M. May (1994) [1].  Biodiversity information managementThe management and exchange of information is an important part of the ongoing management of biodiversity and ecosystems. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/news/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/news/ ANBAR and CHEST reach agreement ANBAR and CHEST have reached agreement on the provision of Anbar Management Intelligence, Computer Abstracts and International Civil Engineering Abstracts to eligible institutions for a fixed five-year period starting on 1st January 1999. Institutions can decide to join at any time during the term of the agreement and will be bound until the end of the agreement period. If you would like to know more about Anbar Management Intelligence, Computer Abstracts, International Civil Engineering Abstracts or CHEST, please contact: Lynn Coulton Anbar Electronic Intelligence 60-62 Toller Lane, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD8 9BY Email: anbar@anbar. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/rusbridge/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/rusbridge/ Almost four years ago, the Follett Implementation Group on Information Technology (FIGIT), brought Chris Rusbridge back to the UK from his post as Information Systems Coordinator in UniSA Library, Australia, for the second time in his career (he had previously returned to become Director of IT Services at the University of Dundee). This time, the challenge was to direct the newly-born FIGIT Programme, shortly to be re-christened the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib), a major pump-priming initiative following the recommendations in the Follett Report of 1993, funded to the tune of £15 million per annum for three years. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/pub-lib/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/pub-lib/ The Work of the Networked Policy TaskgroupFor public libraries wishing to provide their users with access to the Internet there are a number of difficult policy decisions that need to be made. For example, do they provide Internet access for free? If they charge how much do they charge? Do they use filtering software? How long can people use the Internet terminals for? What level of services (e.g. e-mail or not) will they provide? 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/editorials/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/editorials/ This is sadly the last of the parallel print and web publication of Ariadne - for the moment, at least. Ariadne will however continue as a web magazine. The print edition has finished in some style, with a publication twice the size of all earlier copies. Attendees at the eLib "Information Ecologies" conference in York earlier this month already know this, since we arranged for advance copies to be available for that event. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/web-focus/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/web-focus/ The national workshops on Institutional Web Management held at the University of Newcastle in September 1998 [1] and King’s College London in July 1997 [2] attracted a variety of people involved in running institutional web services. Damon Querry, the WWW Trainer & Enabler at Newcastle University ran a discussion group session at the KCL workshop on The Trials and Tribulations of a Web Editor [3]. That session, together with informal discussions at the workshops and on mailing lists such as the website-info-mgt Mailbase list have shown that there is much interest in the role and responsibilities of such posts. 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/publication/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/publication/ This article sets out to explore some of the issues to do with the establishment of a new periodical publication for information and IT professionals in Higher Education (HE). It addresses the need for a channel of communication which reflects the developing broad spectrum of information services in academic and related institutions, and is intended as an aid to further discussion. Over the last ten years the changes in both conventional library facilities and in the provision of electronic information have accelerated and arguably become even less predictable than they were, for example, in the mid- to late- 80’s. 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/down-your-way/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/down-your-way/ With over 30,000 students on 10 campuses, De Montfort is an institution where technology and web-based teaching, parts of the armoury of distance learning, are delivery mechanisms for campus-based students. De Montfort is developing the virtual university to underpin its on-campus learning: in time the techniques will be applied to off-campus students. The initiative is an important development in creating opportunities for new learners and supporting lifelong learning, where flexibility of access - time, place, pace - is a key factor. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/planet-sosig/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/planet-sosig/ (Planet SOSIG continues its review of the main SOSIG subject sections, highlighting the resources that the Internet can offer to those working in the different fields of the social sciences. In this edition, we describe two sections of SOSIG: 1) the Law Section and 2) the Statistics and Demography Section. Sue Pettit is a law librarian at the University of Bristol and is the Law section editor for SOSIG. Her article gives an overview of the resources likely to be found in the law section and a glimpse at the selection criteria she employs. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/info-ecosys/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/info-ecosys/ The third UKOLN international conference devoted to Networking and the future of libraries was the place where decontextualisation met rechaoticisation. Inhabiting a world of URLs, it seems, has given us a taste for lengthy character strings. The conference was held in Bath, which triumphed as always as a venue, from 29 June - 1 July. In the report which follows, shortage of space requires that not every paper from this fascinating conference can be discussed. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/biblink/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/biblink/ BIBLINK [1] is a project funded within the Telematics for Libraries programme of the European Commission. It is investigating the bi-directional flow of information between publishers and National Bibliographic Agencies (NBAs) and is specifically concerned with information about the publication of electronic resources. Such resources include both on-line publications, Web pages, electronic journals, etc. and electronic publications on physical media such as CD-ROMs. The project has recently finalised the Functional Specification for the ‘BIBLINK workspace’ - a shared, virtual workspace for the exchange of metadata between publishers, NBAs and other third parties such as the ISSN International Centre. 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/verity/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/verity/ AbstractThe majority of library enquiry systems usually consist of a non-graphical interface linked to a library catalogue (Online Public Access Catalog, or OPAC). Graphics, animation and sound are usually sacrificed to speed up the enquiry process. Some interfaces support the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http) and can therefore be accessed on the World Wide Web (Web). Although they allow access using a number of keywords (author, subject, title, etc.), they do not provide any help on how the catalogues are accessed, how to structure or refine a query or how to evaluate the responses. 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/17/web-focus/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/web-focus/ In July 1997 a 2 day workshop on Running An Institutional Web Service was held at King’s College London. As reported in Ariadne issue 11 [1] the workshop proved very successful. Comments received on the workshop evaluation form indicated that participants would have likely a longer workshop and would have liked certain topics, including web design, database integration and management issues, to be covered in more depth. In addition several participants would have likely more time to be devoted to group sessions. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/what-is/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/what-is/ The 3 day workshop on Institutional Web Management held at the University of Newcastle on 15-17 September is reviewed elsewhere in this issue of Ariadne [1]. As mentioned in the review, the use of backend databases for storing and managing information to be made available on the Web was felt to be extremely important, especially for institutional web sites, which provide the virtual view of an institution for many, including potential students. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/cover/ Fri, 18 Sep 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/17/cover/ A British Library funded research project at the University of Surrey Library is using a questionnaire and a number of case studies to investigate devolved budgets. The work is being carried out in collaboration with David Haynes Associates and Information Management Associates. A full report will be published shortly, but some interesting issues have already emerged. What is meant by devolved budgeting?One of the fundamental points that has arisen from the study is the varied understanding of what devolved budgeting actually means. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/down-your-way/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/down-your-way/ Knowsley Library Learning Resource Centre, Knowsley Library, visited by Sarah Ormes, is a light and airy building which still smells of fresh paint and new carpets. Just six months old, the £2.5 million building is situated in the centre of Knowsley, in the Merseyside Metropolitan Borough of the same name. It was built when the previous library building was sold to make way for a supermarket car park extension. The finance for the Learning Resource Centre came through an imaginative combination of internal funding and a mix of Capital Challenge and Urban money and the European Union’s Single Regeneration Budget (SRB). 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/cover/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/cover/ The Internet comes wrapped up with so much hype and vested interest that it is difficult to gauge whether it is changing much in the libraries, workplaces, and industries around the country. This makes it fertile ground for researchers. The Media was chosen as the area to study the phenomenon because it seemed likely that it would be hit very hard, one way or another. Furthermore, it seemed from the statements pouring out of the industry that nobody really had a clue about the outcome. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/landscapes/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/landscapes/ The third UKOLN conference in the series Networking and the future of libraries was held at the University of Bath, 29 June-1 July. There were around 240 delegates, nearly a third of whom were from overseas. Its central theme was the construction of information and learning landscapes. The programme ranged from the exploration of distributed library architectures now being developed, to future gazing with the help of some visionary speakers. 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/news/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/news/ Netskills has announced a change in its charging arrangements from 1 August 1998. JISC has agreed to fund the continued production of Netskills material at the level of 50% of current funding. This means that the system of making material available at a discount of 100% cannot be maintained after 31 July of this year. In connection with this Netskills has been consulting with interested parties to develop a suitable and simple site licensing arrangement for the training materials after the end of eLib funding. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/planet-sosig/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/planet-sosig/ Browsing the Environment SectionSOSIG has chosen to use the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) scheme to produce the browsable sub-sections for its database. The sections from this scheme that I selected from the general class of Environmental Sciences [1] were: Social and socio-economic aspects of human impact on the environment (social ecology); Adverse effects of human activity on the environment; and Protection of the environment, Management of environmental quality. (For convenience these have been shortened to Social ecology, Adverse effects of human activity, and Protection of the environment respectively). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/pub-lib/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/pub-lib/ And they’re off!… The going was good, not only for the Grand National runners at Aintree, but also for the future of our public library services, as the public librarians gathered for LA’s Public Libraries Group study school (the alternative event of the weekend) set out their visions for the future. Resurrection: a new life for powerful public libraries was the title of the Library Association’s Public Libraries Group bi-annual study school, that I attended in April. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/skip/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/skip/ The SKIP (Skills for new Information Professionals) Project Report, summarising research by the University of Plymouth Academic and Information Services in 1996-1997 is now on the UKOLN Web site at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/other/skip/. The project looked at the changing learning environment and the impact of information and communications technology on staff in higher education library and information services. Around 200 staff in 18 institutions, from Heads of Service to Library Assistants, took part and the report incorporates many of their views on issues ranging from skills requirements and training needs to organisational cultures and structures. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/search-engines/ Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/16/search-engines/ Are you trying to search for something difficult and end up with enormous and completely useless results? The query in the table below is rather contrived but indicates the problem. In this article I hope to help you with these kinds of situation by pointing you in the right place, showing you the best of the search engine (SE) features and giving tips on managing the output that you get when a query returns thousands of answers. 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/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/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/down-your-way/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/down-your-way/ There cannot be too many information services that are reached by means of a water balanced cliff railway, nor can there be many that operate from a former slate quarry. What is more, the regenerative design of the railway system and its method of computer control offer an appropriate introduction to the principles behind the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) near the town of Machynlleth in mid Wales. The Centre’s genesis was in the seventies, when a group of enthusiasts set out to create a “living community to test the emerging technologies, finding out which ones worked and which ones didn’t”. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/interface/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/interface/ There are a number of ironies to be savoured while talking with Derek Law at Kings College London. The library of what was a well known religious institution preparing Anglicans for teaching and the church is now run by a scion of a Scottish Presbyterian family. Known for its strengths in the humanities, the College has produced five Nobel Prizewinners in topics including X rays, DNA and beta blockers. The route to Derek’s room passes the chapel, where the sound of a requiem mass filtered out. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/minotaur/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/minotaur/ In the long running debate on the merits of convergence of library and other support services, particularly computing, in higher and further education institutions, there are two intriguing features which continue to surprise. First the issue is sometimes discussed without adequate definition, and as though convergence and non-convergence are alternatives. The implication is that current practice represents a polarity rather than a spectrum of different approaches, so the whole question is over-simplified. 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/planet-sosig/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/planet-sosig/ Planet SOSIG has a new satellite: the Social Science Research Grapevine. Grapevine provides an interesting compliment to the range of social science Web services hosted at the ILRT at Bristol, including SOSIG, REGARD and Biz/ed. The service is now also included in social science workshop modules offered by the ILRT joint services Internet training team. What does Grapevine offer? Grapevine is a new and unique online source of career development opportunities for social science researchers which was officially launched at the (IRISS’98) conference in March. 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/public-libraries/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/public-libraries/ In March 1998 I attended the 7th American Public Library Association National Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. The conference took place over three very cold days (the temperature reached –30·C) and was entitled "Vital, Valuable, Virtual" [1]. This is probably one of the biggest public library conferences in the world and was attended by over 6,900 people. The conference didn’t have one theme but had 10 separate lecture tracks which in total consisted of over 100 presentations. 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/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/15/main/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/main/ Libraries are developing the access model of information provision and questions are raised regarding the method by which users discover the resources to which they have access. The traditional holdings model depended wholly upon the traditional catalogue. Conceptually it was a simple task to catalogue a library’s physical stock. It is clear, with the access model, that even when limited to traditional scholarly information the task of informing users of the resources to which they have access is huge. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/web-focus/ Mon, 18 May 1998 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/15/web-focus/ Australia is a long way to go for a conference. What were you doing there? I attended the conference in my role as UK Web Focus and the JISC representative on the World Wide Web Consortium. Attendenance at the World Wide Web conference provides me with an opportunity to monitor the latest Web developments and keep the community informed. What were the highlights of the conference? In a three letter acronym - RDF! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/end-user/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/end-user/ University librarians are often referred to as ‘end users’ so I’ve sometimes been jokingly introduced as an end-end user - I’m Oliver de Peyer and I’m a biochemistry postgraduate at the University of Reading. Like my fellow students, I use services like Biosis, Medline and BIDS for online literature searches and so on. I am on the committee of the JISC-funded Bibliographic Dataservices User Group, or JIBS UG, where my job is to offer naive comments rather like the ones I’m going to make here - although I hope some may not be so naive after all. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/bobcatsss/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/bobcatsss/ ‘Shaping the Knowledge Society’ was the theme of the 6th BOBCATSSS symposium held in the National Szechenyi Library, Budapest 26-28 January 1998. Initially, it seemed a little incongruous discussing recent developments such as Internet connections and the integration of national and local online databases in the grandiose architectural surroundings of a reconstructed magnificent royal palace. The National Szechenyi Library is thought to occupy the site of the famous Corvina Library and is housed on eight floors. 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/down-your-way/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/down-your-way/ “Public libraries can rule the world, given the right attitudes and the right response to changing times”, said Chris Batt, Director of Libraries and Museums for Croydon. Walking around the headquarters of the service and talking to Chris leaves the impression that in Croydon at least there is a strong tide under the library service and a keen entrepreneurial team determined to take full advantage of all opportunities. Behind the Victorian facade of the town hall is a building, completed in 1993, which could typify the public library in the information age. 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/main/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/main/ Through the development of a learning society the government wishes to build a version of UK plc which is a world leader in knowledge production. Higher Education must have learning at the top of its agenda and information services (IS) have a significant contribution to make in meeting this challenge. IS refers to support provided through the concerted actions of the Library and Computer Centre or Service. This does not imply convergence, merger or integration, but it does mean that both units have to work in active partnership in supporting users. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/older-people/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/older-people/ The number of older people in the UK is growing. At the same time, use of the Internet is expanding rapidly. A recent BLRIC report [1] brought together material concerning these trends in an attempt to explore the possible contribution the Internet could make to the lives of older people. After looking at information and older people from a library and information perspective, it considered questions of access to the Internet, Internet resources, and the current use of the Internet by older people. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/models/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/models/ This was the first workshop in MODELS Phase II, although it continued to build directly on the results of the five workshops in Phase I. A Distributed National Electronic Resource? involved the largest number of participants to date. Around 50 people gathered at the Stakis Hotel in Bath on 5-6 February 1998, to discuss management and access approaches to the growing mass of currently unconnected national resources provided by libraries, data centres, archives, subject gateways, electronic journals, clumps and others. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/metadata/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/metadata/ The third phase of the ROADS eLib project [1] puts service interoperability at centre stage. The project, which provides software to a number of subject services within eLib and beyond, is now working in an environment where interoperability is a requirement. There is a ‘strand’ within the project where we are investigating a variety of tools and protocols that might contribute inter-working functionality to the ROADS ‘toolkit’. This account attempts to give some brief notes by way of context to this work and to provide a sketch of work in progress. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/minotaur/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/minotaur/ Louis Schmier wrote a piece for Ariadne entitled No Miracles. Well, I have been around in academe for a bit longer even than Louis. I cut my teeth on computers working with a Univac at Toronto while starting on my PhD in 1954 - with Jess Bessinger trying to compile a computer concordance to Beowulf! I started teaching the Internet in 1990 when I became Director of the Library School at University College. 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/planet-sosig/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/planet-sosig/   IntroductionREGARD [1] is a fully functional bibliographic database of ESRC [2] (Economic and Social Research Council) research awards and all associated publications and products. It is publicly available on the World Wide Web without subscription and uses keyword searching, available at two levels. BackgroundSince the mid-1980s the ESRC have provided access to their research award information, initially through the RAPID database service run by the University of Edinburgh. REGARD has now replaced RAPID and is available on the World Wide Web. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/editorials/print.html Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/editorials/print.html In her book The Connective Edge, Jean Lipman-Blumen refers to the problem of technological change in the following terms: Nuclear energy, computers, satellite tv, lasers and biotechnology, organ transplants, space exploration and the emerging information superhighway: all these and more have forced us to recognise the reality of interlocking human and technological systems. We have finally come to see the world as a single, albeit complicated, system, one immense set of interrelated pieces. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/public-libraries/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/public-libraries/ As the number of public libraries that offer Internet access, for their staff and/or the public increases, many libraries will be wanting to provide basic training for staff and the public that familiarise them with the World Wide Web. In many situations what is required is a training package that is flexible, that staff or members of the public can work through independently or in a group and that is relatively cheap to produce and administer. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/lamda/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/lamda/ NOTHING IS THE short answer. LAMDA is not exciting for the technophile. Some annoying problems to solve, yes, but nothing revolutionary about the hardware or software. Just standard PCs, scanners and printers, loaded with the tried and tested RLG Ariel software. Perhaps the most exciting technical development has been the JEDDS software, which will allow e-mail delivery of scanned journal articles to the users desktop, but even that will not cause a frisson of excitement in the computer science community. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/superjournal/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/superjournal/ SuperJournal [1] is studying the factors that will make electronic journals successful. What features and functionalities should be present in electronic journals to deliver real value to the academic community, and what are the implications for publishers and libraries? This article gives a brief update on the project research and the early results. Overall Approach The objective of the research is to answer the question: What do readers really want from electronic journals? 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/cover/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/cover/ As this issue goes to print, the response to New Library: the People’s Network [1] is awaited. At the same time, David Blunkett has recently made a statement which can only add to the interest in the topics covered by the LIC proposals. The green paper The Learning Age [2] in some ways pulls together a number of issues dealt with in the Dearing [3] and Kennedy [4] reports and in New Library: the People’s Network. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/view-hill/ Thu, 19 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/14/view-hill/ From his present position as Director of Strategic and Operational Planning at Dawson Holdings plc Mel Collier can look back over almost 30 years spanning early work with SWALCAP, pioneering convergence at De Montfort, JISC and the Library and Information Commission among other activities. We began with the motivation behind the changes at De Montfort in the 1980’s : “It was clear that the traditional approaches simply weren’t going to be adequate. 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/cover/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/cover/ The Dearing Report (1) represents a most serious attempt to square a circle. It takes as its raison d’etre the need for expansion in higher education in the UK, and chooses Information Technology as one of the engines of expansion; one of the most irresistible and compelling engines of all and yet expensive and unpredictable. This is not where the contradictions of the report end for information professionals. Communications and IT are linked to organisational change, management, decision making, research, estates and so on, but only in passing to libraries, and I don’t believe that the phrase “information services” is used at all. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/down-your-way/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/down-your-way/ THE VIEW, DOWN THE VALLEY and towards the mouth of the River Bann, from the Central Library of the Coleraine campus of the University of Ulster, is seriously distracting. However, I was not here to be distracted, but to learn about the University of Ulster’s Library Services[1]. The Ulster Polytechnic and New University of Ulster (NUU) were merged in the mid- 1980’s as part of a rationalisation of higher education in Northern Ireland. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/hylife/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/hylife/ HYLIFE STANDS FOR HYbrid LIbraries of the FuturE. The project is about how best to deliver the mixture of print and electronic services likely to be required of higher education libraries in the foreseeable future. The focus will be on users and on organisational, social and educational issues rather than technology. Development will be iterative with users involved throughout the development phases. Evaluation and dissemination will be a major focus of the project. 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/public-libraries/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/public-libraries/ How much do you think it would cost to provide the nation with a free 24 hour reference query service? Millions of pounds? Hundreds of thousands of pounds? Surely not less than hundreds of pounds? Well Ask A Librarian has done it for an amazing start up cost of only £40. Ask a Librarian is a new online service developed by EARL [1]. The service is very simple in concept. It is a reference enquiry point for anyone with access to the Internet. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/bl/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/bl/ THE DIGITAL LIBRARIES Research Programme at British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC) is at a difficult stage in its development, being currently in no-man’s land awaiting the appointment of a new Research Analyst. The ethos of the RIC is such that a heavy responsibility is borne by the analysts with oversight of the programmes. Sue Howley, the Deputy Director, while outlining the general nature of the programme, put the position: ‘The research analyst is responsible for developing an area and giving it a slant, which inevitably reflects the experience and the interests the particular RA brings to that area. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/online/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/online/ The day didn’t start off quite as planned - a late taxi led to a missed train, and 40 minutes of sitting at a very cold station! But my day trip as OMNI Project Officer to the Online Exhibition at Olympia in London did however get better. It was the first day of the exhibition, and everything seemed to be running smoothly. The hall was packed with stands - on two floors, an impressive display of the information world. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/view-hill/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/view-hill/ Ruth Jenkins BOWKER SAUR HAS RECENTLY introduced a new service which is designed to appeal to the increasingly catholic profession of library and information service professionals. BIPEx is the Bowker Information Professionals’ Exchange. Ruth Jenkins went to talk to the UK-European Sales Manager Fiona Leslie, and Commissioning Editor for LIS Lists Linda Hajdukiewicz, who is the prime mover behind the service. From January 1998 subscriptions to the electronic versions of the main Bowker Saur LIS journals will include BIPEx. 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/13/main/ Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/13/main/ I ONCE WROTE (LINE, 1989 [1]) THAT there was nothing that national libraries did that could not be done in some other way or by some other body or bodies, and was not so done in one or another country. This is true of even the most basic functions. The deposit and preservation of national imprints could be spread among several libraries, where they can be consulted; and the national bibliography (which some countries do without) could be produced by the private sector or co-operatively by other libraries. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/main/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/main/ A few years ago, Southampton University’s Librarian, Bernard Naylor, sent round an email to his University Librarian colleagues, asking by which year each one thought he or she would be subscribing to just 20% of their periodicals as print rather than electronic journals. The replies duly rolled in, revealing that the consensus within this particular subset of the UK library profession was that 80% of journal subscriptions would be in electronic format by somewhere between 2005 and 2010. 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/interface/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/interface/ Walking into many information centres these days is like a journey into multiple schizophrenia. Work areas are zoned by degree of noise, and users work (or not) singly, in pairs and in any combination up to battalion size. In the midst of all this energy staff often operate in the same way. Yet this is part of the synergy that is sometimes a welcome advance on the monastic silence of 35 years ago. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/metadata/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/metadata/ Largely in recognition of the sterling work of the Nordic Metadata Project [1], invited representatives of the informal Dublin Core community set off to Finland’s lovely capital for the fifth Dublin Core workshop [2]. Following the success of their exploits Down Under [3], the authors once more fearlessly packed their rucksacks and embarked on a long and arduous voyage for the sake of Ariadne readers, selflessly braving outrageous Scandinavian beer prices and over-zealous representatives of Her Majesty’s Customs & Excise in their efforts to bring the latest news on Dublin Core to an anxiously waiting readership. 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/ghosts/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/ghosts/ I rather enjoyed a recent piece on email in the Independent on Sunday which appeared under the title “scam@gibberish.com”[1]. It set off rather nicely a more serious piece in the Financial Times called “Failing to get the message”[2] which contained the amusing (or is it?) anecdote of one international company where every member of staff received the message: “Would the owner of the red Biro left by the second floor coffee machine like to come and collect it? 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/planet-sosig/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/planet-sosig/ Subject gateways like SOSIG [1] have already proved that librarians can play a critical role in the development of Internet catalogues and collections [2]. The next challenge for subject-specific gateways is to develop systems for distributed and collaborative cataloguing of Internet resources in the same way that collaborative systems are used for print resources with many libraries feeding records into shared databases. This paper discusses some of the work being done by the DESIRE project [3] within the European Union to develop the systems and methods required for collaborative distributed cataloguing of Internet resources and at some of the training issues involved for those responsible for managing such systems. 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/search-engines/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/search-engines/ Previous articles in this column have concentrated on how you can get the best out of search engines when trying to track down information on the web. However, it is also possible to use search engines as tools to promote your own web sites and pages to a wider audience; ensuring that others can effectively find their way to your information. A recent survey from the Georgia Institute of Technology claimed that some 86% of web users use find web sites using search engines as their main tool [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/ihr-info/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/ihr-info/ In the early modern era of computing the first server and gateway to the humanities in Europe was established in London, UK. It was the product of the Academic Secretary of the Institute of Historical Research looking over the shoulder of a member of the Institute who had used Lynx, a text-based browser, to establish a personal list of addresses and search engines. “Could we do that for the subject of history? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/history/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/history/ On a crisp All Hallows Eve, I found myself in London at the launch if History [1], the revamped and expanded ANR service [2] provided by the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) at the University of London. The launch was more than just an excuse for tea and scones - there were five speakers and stands and demonstrations from related bodies, such as the Public Record Office at Kew [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/eevl/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/eevl/ Many of Ariadne’s readers will already be familiar with the main EEVL (Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library)[1] database of quality engineering resources, now containing over 2,400 searchable descriptions of, and links to, engineering e-journals, research projects, companies, mailing lists, directories, software, recruitment agencies, and so on. Many may also know that EEVL provides a number of additional services. There are plans to significantly extend the range and number of these additional services over the next year or so in order that EEVL becomes more of a gateway to networked engineering information, rather than simply a finding tool. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/view-hill/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/view-hill/ An electrical engineer specialising in communications, Professor VandeLinde was cautious about the general impact of Dearing: “It’s early days to talk about the real impact….It encourages HE to take advantage of new technologies, in particular in the delivery of tuition to students…also it is talking about the dissemination of information more broadly. My perception is that this is beginning to take off independently of Dearing, after the work done and funded by the HEFCs in computer assisted teaching through TLTP…. 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/12/web-focus/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/web-focus/ About WebWatchWebWatch is a one year project funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC) [1]. The main aim of WebWatch is to develop and use robot software to analyse the use of web technologies with various UK communities and to report on the findings to various interested communities. Other aims of WebWatch include: Evaluation of robot technologies and making recommendations on appropriate technologies.Analysis of the results obtained, and liaising with the relevant communities in interpreting the analyses and making recommendations. 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/down-your-way/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/down-your-way/ Sunday 6 July, the Royal Ulster Constabulary was under attack on the Lower Ormeau Road, Belfast. The following day, less than a mile away, the RUC band was playing at the Graduation Garden Party at The Queen’s University of Belfast. The contrast between the conservation area of the Victorian university and the squat red-brick terraces of the Lower Ormeau Road could not be greater, yet they are both typical, in their own way, of life in the province. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/interface/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/interface/ In the field of Media Studies, Dan Fleming is a man of many parts. Head of the Division of Media Studies at the University of Ulster at Coleraine, Visiting Lecturer in New Media at the Federal University of Salvador in Brazil and a recent Visiting Research Fellow in Human Factors at BT Laboratories in Martlesham Heath, Fleming’s newest incarnation is as Co-Director, along with Lynda Henderson, of the eLib Formations Project, which officially launches its Cultural Studies pre-prints service mid-September this year [1]. 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/metadata/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/metadata/ To-day’s information user may well have access to a range of resources, and these resources will be described in more diverse resource description formats than traditional MARC. During the search process a user will encounter systems based on several different resource description formats, for example, their local OPAC, an internet subject gateway, an electronic text archive, each of which will manipulate a different variety of metadata. Although the promise of an increase in ‘seamless searching’ across interoperable systems will mean the end user will not themselves be aware of these diverse formats, there are other people, and indeed software, that will need to understand and manage these formats. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/minotaur/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/minotaur/ We had a telephone call from a reader recently. “I’ve got a blackbird feeding a cuckoo in a nest in my garden - is it legal?” she asked. Public librarians perhaps encounter this sort of inquiry with greater frequency than academic librarians, but we all grow adept at the mental gymnastics required to guide the searcher to the information which will put their mind at ease. Similarly, when it comes to Internet provision there is little point in setting up a few machines and letting the public loose on them. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/ppt/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/ppt/ Parallel Publishing for Transactions (PPT){1] is a research and development project for a parallel online version of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, an internationally-renowned journal of geographical research with a sixty-year pedigree. The project partners in PPT are the editor of Transactions, based at the Department of Geography, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, and the Electronic Publishing Research Group at the Department of Computer Science, University of Nottingham. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/planet-sosig/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/planet-sosig/ First call for papers for IRISS’98 An international conference on social science research and information on the Internet is planned for the 25-27 March 1998. The conference will be held in Bristol in the UK and is being hosted by the Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT)[1], home to SOSIG[2] and a number of other social science and Internet related projects. The conference is aimed at social science researchers, practitioners and information professionals who are interested in the role and impact of the Internet on the social sciences and society in general. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/public-libraries/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/public-libraries/ The increasing volume, not to mention variable quality of resources available on the Internet can make searching for that useful resource time consuming and frustrating. Popular search engines such as Yahoo and Alta Vista can deliver hundreds of sources in response to an enquiry, but refined, sophisticated searching is difficult to achieve. Enabling effective and efficient searching is particularly important when you are providing public access to the Internet, where people are often using the Internet for the first time. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/sigir97/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/sigir97/ SIGIR is a well established technical conference and a little daunting for those hangers-on from Digital Libraries ‘97 who did not have a background in information retrieval. It was good, therefore, that the opening Salton Award lecture by Tefko Saracevic of Rutgers University made us feel at home with a talk entitled Users Lost. He described the history of the field and, what he felt, was a split in the early 80s between the technical algorithm-based side and the user-oriented side. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/skip/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/skip/ The SKIP project (SKills for new Information Professionals) [1] is drawing to a close. Based within Academic Services at the University of Plymouth, SKIP received JISC funding for one year within the Training and Awareness strand of the eLib Programme. The project team comprises Ivan Sidgreaves, Dean of Academic Services, Project Director, and Penny Garrod, Researcher. A Project Advisory Group has been set up to evaluate and advise SKIP, and is currently looking at effective ways of disseminating the research findings. 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/cover/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/cover/ Is the age of the printed thesis doomed? The University Thesis On-line Group (UTOG) has recently completed a survey, funded by the British Library and JISC, on the use of doctoral theses in UK universities [1]. The survey forms the first phase of UTOG’s work of addressing the problems and opportunities presented by making theses available electronically. Surveys were distributed to all authors completing PhD theses in the year to October 1996 in eight participating institutions, representing a cross-section of UK universities. 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/11/york/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/york/ LibWeb [1] is the University of York Library’s web information service. LibWeb was designed right from the start as a comprehensive site which would provide as much information as possible on library services, staff and collections, and which would include electronic versions of all printed library guides. One of the first questions that arose in designing the site was how to deal with Internet resources. The Computing Service had maintained a campus information service for several years before the Web became the standard method of access to the Internet. 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/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/interface/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/interface/ Dennis Nicholson is the head of Library Systems at the University of Strathclyde, where he has been responsible for the installation of two generations of library systems. In the library community at large he is best known as the driving force behind the BUBL Information Service [1] and is also involved with a number of Scottish collaborative initiatives. BUBL began life as the Bulletin Board for Libraries under Project Jupiter at the University of Glasgow. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/metadata/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/metadata/ Archivists and records managers share an interest in the archival management and preservation of what are today known as electronic records. Recognition of important issues related to the archival management of electronic records dates back to the early 1970s when archivists began to investigate the accessioning of what were then known as machine-readable data files. It has long been recognised that the archival community and the library community have shared concerns in this area, and this was demonstrated by the recently published report of a US Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information commissioned by the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/minotaur/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/minotaur/ Metadata [1]: it’s one of those words that rolls off the tongue; I expect Tony Hancock of h-h-h-half hour fame, could have had some fun with it, as in (I think) the Blood donor, where the ‘drinka pinta milka day’ slogan catches his eye - eatametadataday, anyone? What I want to rant about in this column is something close, yet ‘further away’ - metametadata. If metadata is ‘data about data’, then metametadata is ‘data about metadata’. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/niss/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/niss/ NISS. What does it mean ? What does it do ? Why ? Answers to these questions will strike different chords for everyone reading this article, depending upon your experience of networked information resources and the type or area of work with which you’re involved. Can NISS help with your work ? NISS provides information services for the education community, and specifically for the UK higher education community. Electronic information services, so you’ll need a computer. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/netskills-corner/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/netskills-corner/ The Symposium, organised by The Networked Learning and Work Research Group at the Department of Information Studies in the University of Sheffield, was held in a very convenient location in Sheffield: lecture rooms, dining and bar facilities and bedrooms were all in one building, Halifax Hall, one of the University’s halls of residence. The grounds were nice, too, complete with squirrels and at least one owl. The programme didn’t differ from the advertised programme, and ran very smoothly and exactly to schedule. 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/public-libraries/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/public-libraries/   Background to the ProjectChildren’s libraries have always had a crucial role in the educational development of children. However, they are now potentially in danger of appearing outmoded and potentially irrelevant to their readers. Leisure and some home-environments are becoming technology-rich: libraries may appear ‘dull’ in comparison. Increasingly children’s libraries are going to be dealing with readers who will be familiar with and could want to use networked computers. Children’s libraries need to begin to explore how they can integrate this technology into their traditional literature and literacy services if they are to remain current. 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/babel/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/babel/ Good morning, and welcome back to the Library of Babel. Today’s tour will focus on some of the issues raised by our unique acquisitions policy. [1] As you probably know, our Mission statement enjoins us: To make accessible to all the totality of human knowledge and we aim, towards this end, to collect all possible texts. We have been greatly assisted in this by the work of Tim Berners-Lee [2] and Robert Caillau [3] without whom our enterprise might have remained forever a pipe-dream. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/editorials/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/editorials/ This is my last issue as editor of the Web version of Ariadne. In a few weeks time, I will leaving the fluffy bunch of people collectively known as “UKOLN” [1], to join the equally fluffy bunch of people known as the “ILRT” [2]. Just time for a quick look at what is in this issue, and then some thanks to various people who have been useful/groovy/fluffy to Ariadne over the last ooooh, two years or so, now. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/rcade/ Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/10/rcade/ In spite of closer European integration and significant and rising levels of interest in European information and data from users in all sectors, especially higher education, the supply of information is still sporadic, and access is often difficult. Certain research funds within the social sciences are increasingly now targeted towards comparative research projects which cover at least three European countries, so availability of suitable statistical data and other information has become essential. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/netlinks/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/netlinks/ Issue 4’s At the Event column - featuring the 1st International Symposium on Networked Learner Support [1] - had a distinct football theme. So it seems particularly appropriate that I sit down to write about this year’s Symposium on the day of the FA Cup Final! (No footballs at this year’s event; however, be warned that your Editor is threatening to bring his boomerang!) The venue for the 2nd International Symposium on Networked Learner Support (NLS) is Halifax Hall, Sheffield. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/around-table/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/around-table/ The resources references in this article are just a small sample of what is available to social scientists over the Internet. All of the sites mentioned can be accessed through the Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) [1] a HE-funded gateway to high quality networked resources in the social sciences. Other subject-based gateways in this area include Biz/ed [2] for economics and business education information. Biz/ed also contains some excellent primary material such as company facts, tutor support pages and searchable datasets. 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/metadata/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/metadata/ Metadata for resource discovery and accessWhen the library and information community discuss metadata, the most common analogy given is the library catalogue record. Priscilla Caplan, for example, has defined metadata as a neutral term for cataloguing without the “excess baggage” of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules or the MARC formats [1]. The most well-known metadata initiative, the Dubin Core Metadata Element Set, has the specific aim of supporting resource discovery in a network environment. 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/interface/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/interface/ The School of Information and Media at the Robert Gordon University (RGU) [1] in Aberdeen recently hosted Dr Isola Ajiferuke, a visiting researcher from the Africa Regional Centre for Information Science (ARCIS) at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Ajiferuke’s background is in statistics. He spent the four years from 1986 to 1989 in London, Ontario, studying for the degrees of MLIS and PhD. On his return to Nigeria he taught for a year at Ibadan Library School and then transferred to the Centre for Information Science. 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/pics/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/pics/ A recent Ariadne article by Anagnostelis, Cooke and McNab ended with a reference to the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) [1] and added that while PICS controls neither the publication nor the distribution of information, it offers “individuals and organisations the option of filtering out or filtering in selected views of networked information”. There follows a reference to the Centre for Information Quality Management (CIQM) and its proposal to use PICS filtering in order to allow users to set constraints on the minimum quality of resources retrieved [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/quality-ratings/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/quality-ratings/ How does the World Health Organization rate compared to Medical Students for Choice (a reproductive health rights group)? How do the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention score across a range of review services? As commentators begin to question the value of much of the information currently available on the Internet, how helpful are stars, badges or seals of approval (SOAPs) in identifying quality resources? Is a "Cool site of the moment" http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/omni-corner/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/omni-corner/ One of the most common criticism of the World Wide Web is that much of the information published on it is ephemeral. However, ephemeral isn’t always a bad thing; the World Wide Web has become the ideal place to keep abreast of breaking news stories. The recent General Election on the UK, for example, was the first to really use the World Wide Web as a tool for disseminating campaign information and keeping up to date with analysis and the latest polls, as well as for discussion and publishing electronic manifestos. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/planet-sosig/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/planet-sosig/ The Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) [1], is asking librarians across Europe to consider their role in Internet information provision. SOSIG is proposing a model that offers both short and long term methods for libraries to increase their involvement in Internet information provision. In the short term, SOSIG would like to invite academic librarians to become SOSIG Correspondents. The Correspondents will form a pan-European team of information professionals and academics, working remotely from their workplace to select resources for the gateway. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/public-libraries/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/public-libraries/ For a description of the MODELS programme and its aims see Rosemary Russell’s article in Ariadne [1]. As Rosemary explains this was the final workshop in the MODELS programme and was entitled ‘Managing Access to a Distributed Library Resource’. The workshop had a strong public library focus. Background to Models 5This workshop was in response to the recommendations for increased resource sharing between libraries that have been emerging from a range of sources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/museums/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/museums/ Overview To date, the focus has been on creating a working pilot of the Australian Museums On Line web site [1] which now includes: a pilot of Museum Search, a national Searchable Collection Database currently comprising 43 000 item level collection records from 10 museums across Australia the National Directory with 850 Australian museums listed - the most up to date and the only national directory of Australian museums a wide range of information for museum workers, including links to the most important Australian and overseas museum sites a increasingly active discussion list (Australian Museum Forum) on Australian museum issues research into users of the AMOL web site through an on line survey The AMOL team is now working on substantial improvements to the pilot site, to be in place by June 1997. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/hypertext/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/hypertext/ “ The reaction of the hypertext research community to the World Wide Web is like finding out that you have a fully grown child. And it’s a delinquent. ” With this, Ted Nelson, who coined the term ‘hypertext’ in the early 60’s, summed up the reaction of one particular academic community to the explosive growth of the Web. The occasion was HyperText 97 [1], the Eighth ACM Conference on Hypertext, the place was Southampton, the date was April 6-11th 1997. 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/9/nhs/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/nhs/ In the Higher Education sector, following the Follett Report [1], there has been massive investment in developing and shaping the implementation of the electronic library through the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib)[2]. Libraries in the NHS have not been so fortunate. Although health librarians are enthusiastic networkers, with no tradition of wide area networking, NHS libraries have had to operate as individual units, unable to communicate with each other apart from by post, telephone and fax. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/view-hill/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/view-hill/ Anne Dixon is on a mission. Recruited as the Business Development Manager for IOPP (Institute of Physics Publishing) [1] in April 1995, her task was to “create a blueprint for the future”. Nine months later, IOPP launched their Electronic Journals service comprising 31 journals available online in full text Postscript or PDF (Portable Document File) files. Now in the post of Electronic Publisher, she is responsible for developing and promoting a range of online products and services. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/wire/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/wire/ So what do you both do? Martin: Couch potato and his trusty sidekick “toast man” - but which is which? Jon: We’re both “techies” on the ROADS project in eLib and the EU DESIRE project (which for us is basically “EuroROADS”). I do two days per week on ROADS and a day per week on DESIRE. ROADS and DESIRE are both concerned with the provision of access to network resources via Subject Based Information Gateways (SBIGs); these are services such as SOSIG, OMNI and ADAM. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/eevl-evaluation/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/eevl-evaluation/ EEVL [1] and the other projects in the Access to Network Resources (ANR) area of the Electronic Libraries (eLib) Programme [2] aim to provide gateways to selected quality networked resources within focus subject areas. They attempt this within the relatively immature and turbulent environment of the Internet where there is no clear picture as to the ways users search for, integrate and utilise different networked resources. While a considerable body of information exists relating to engineers use of traditional information resources [3] [4] relatively little is known about their use of the Internet. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/around-table/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/around-table/ Gateways EEVL: The Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library [1] can, I believe, make a fair claim to be the UK gateway to engineering information on the Internet, but it is not the only top level engineering gateway. Other catalogues and lists of Internet-based engineering resources include ICE: Internet Connections in Engineering [2] with a bias towards American resources, CEN: Canadian Engineering Network [3], pointing only to Canadian resources, EELS: Engineering Electronic Library, Sweden [4], the WWW Virtual Library: Engineering [5], again focused mostly on US resources, and the subscription-based Ei Village[6]. 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/copac/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/copac/ 1. IntroductionCOPAC is a new consolidated union catalogue which provides free access to a database of records provided by members of the Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL). The CURL database has been in existence since 1987, permitting record exchange between member libraries and providing a reference service to library staff, and it has long been felt that the database would be of value to the wider academic community. COPAC is the product of a JISC funded project to make the CURL database accessible to the research community as a whole. 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/netskills-corner/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/netskills-corner/ We all know that the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) are wonderful. However there are still major problems to be overcome in making them easier and more efficient to use. The European Union, as part of its fourth framework programme (1994 - 1998), is trying to address some of these problems in its Telematics Applications Programme. Within the Telematics Applications Programme there are 13 project areas, these include Telematics for Transport, Education, Health Care, Libraries and the Environment. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/infomine/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/infomine/   The original need and context for the development of INFOMINE and the academic virtual libraryImmense potential for communicating important information, immense chaos in finding useful scholarly and educational tools as well as what promised to be immense user interest and acceptance, were conditions that characterized the Web in 1993. INFOMINE [1], a virtual library (VL) currently providing organised and annotated links to over 8,500 librarian selected scholarly and educational Internet resources, was created in January of 1994 as a response to this situation. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/jedds/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/jedds/ JEDDS is the Joint Electronic Document Delivery Software [1] project. The project aims to develop electronic document delivery to the desktop based on MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions). It also seeks to improve the efficiency of document delivery services by providing links between document delivery systems and interlibrary loan management systems, and to foster the adoption of document delivery standards. JEDDS is partly funded under the eLib [2] Programme. Why is someone from the Antipodes managing an eLib project? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/telegraph/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/telegraph/ 7pm. I take the Docklands Light Railway to Canary Wharf. High up in the tower is The Telegraph Group. The Electronic Telegraph [1] (known as ET, and not the ET I’m told) sits one floor above The Daily Telegraph, which occupies several floors. A small man in a very large foyer hands me a security tag, and a member of staff comes down to collect me, since a swipe card is needed for all internal doors. 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/omni-corner/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/omni-corner/ The British Medical Internet Association One Saturday morning last December I found myself on an early train bound for Birmingham Airport, one of the more soulless destinations offered to the Intercity traveller. Working for OMNI, weekends have long since ceased to be sacrosanct, but on my way to the Midlands, I felt I had more than the usual cause to sigh heavily as the train was, inevitably, delayed. However, the trip was proved to be well worth the effort, as it offered the opportunity to meet the movers and shakers and witness the birth of the British Medical Internet Association. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/patient-education/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/patient-education/ Multimedia has been used as a learning resource in HE for a few years now. Whilst some early products were little more than books-on-CD-ROM, current material commonly uses the additional functionality that multimedia offers - e.g. animation. Programs intended primarily for higher education, however, still mostly lack the appeal of commercial “edutainment”. Yet one shouldn’t neglect the presentation and visual impact of educational packages because they engage the user’s motivation, attention and aesthetic sense. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/unix-security/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/unix-security/ The eLib Technical Concertation day last November brought together techies from many of the eLib projects. (See Clare McClean’s report in Ariadne issue 6 for more details [1]). A wide range of the technical issues associated with running electronic library services were discussed at the meeting but inevitably, given the time constraints, some of these were not covered in any great detail. However, two issues were clear from the meeting; that server performance and system security were both areas of concern to system administrators and that most eLib projects were using UNIX based machines to make their services available. 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/print-edit/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/print-edit/ The impact of the eLib programme [1], now two years old, is becoming increasingly apparent in the electronic library infrastructure of the UK and beyond. The significance of the work of the MODELS [2] project in designing a national system of resource discovery, is recognised by the new Call for proposals from JISC’s Committee for Electronic Information. As our cover article [3] indicates, with physical and virtual ‘clumps’ of the national metadata resource actively being sought, the electronic catalogue infrastructure of the UK, begun several years ago when the first university library OPACs were connected to the JANET network, appears to be coming of age. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/public-libraries/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/public-libraries/ Methods of locating, obtaining and presenting information continue to increase at an unprecedented rate. The recent review of public libraries published by the Department of National Heritage [1] emphasised the government’s view that public libraries are the logical choice as facilitators of access to information in all its multiplicity of formats. Community librarians, in particular, are expected to assist in the fulfillment of the information needs specific to the community served. 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/java-telnet/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/java-telnet/ Many remote users of our library catalog [1] have difficulty accessing it via telnet or dial-up for several reasons. It is available via telnet through a URL on our homepage [2]. Some problems using the OPAC include: Wrong terminal emulationTerminal emulation does not include special keysLack of telnet softwareNo technical support from their service providersPossible solutions include providing all remote users with software, provide technical support for multiple packages, or ignore the problem. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/scholarly-electronic/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/scholarly-electronic/ The University of Sydney Library has acquired a large number of primary texts in digital form over the last few years. These texts include numerous versions of The Bible, the works of Shakespeare, Goethe and Kant, more than 700 classical Greek texts in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, the enormous Patrologia Latina Database of the Church Fathers, the English Poetry Full-Text Database, and the Intelex Philosophy Texts. To these texts and others like them must be added the texts available from remote sites such as the collection of some 2,000 French literary, scientific and philosophical texts at the Frantext Web site [1], and the many public domain texts available at the University of Virginia Electronic Text Centre [2] and the Oxford Text Archive [3]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/search-engines/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/search-engines/ Pushing your Luck? Wouldn’t it be great if you no longer had to spend hours trawling through search engines tracking down information on the web? What if the information you needed simply arrived on your PC desktop on a regular basis with almost no effort required on your part? A new crop of Internet applications which offer just such a service are now starting to emerge. All of these products are using a technology known as ‘Push’. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/harnad/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/harnad/ One cannot disagree with most of what Fytton Rowland wrote in his Ariadne article: The four chief functions of the scholarly literature are indeed the ones he listed: quality control, information dissemination, archiving and academic credit. He is quite right about the indispensability of peer review [1], [2], [3], and about how the safety of our bridges and of our very bodies depends on it. Nor can one take issue with his distinction between fact and opinion (in principle, though their disentanglement in practice is not always that straightforward [4], [5]). 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/web-access/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/web-access/ The Wallace Library [1], located at the Rochester Institute of Technology [2] , has optimized its use of the web through the use of its e-mail system, called ASK [3]. Although they limit their services to their own community, they do provide an invaluable service to their faculty, staff and student body. Public libraries could also provide such services. Whether the services are offered to a local community, or the world, the disabled could benefit greatly by such a service. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/web-edit/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/web-edit/ Welcome to issue 8 of the Web version of Ariadne. As John mentions in the editorial [1] for the Print version of Ariadne, the eLib programme [2] is no longer a youngster; some projects are approaching the end of their funding; some projects have already produced significant deliverables, or contributions, towards the building of this elusive, shimmering, Electronic Library. Overall, the programme is now gearing up towards a more concerted dissemination push [3] , at the level of individual projects, groups of projects, and the programme as whole, aimed at our target community - those people in the UK Higher Education community who will build, use, or be influenced by Electronic Library resources, infrastructure and practises. 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/8/wopec/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/wopec/ Back in 1991, when the Internet began to emerge properly, there was a large quantity of computer software available on FTP servers, but few documents. Why? If the academic networks could carry free software, why not free research documents? The economics seemed nonsensical. Why would academics work to produce research without being paid, submit that research to a publisher (often involving payment of a submission fee), referee the work of other academics for free and pay a heavy price to buy the output back from the publishers? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/bournemouth/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/bournemouth/ New Tricks 2: eLib and Telematics: Projects and Partnerships BULISC ‘97 27-29 August 1997 The Conference is being supported by both eLib [1] [2] and DGXIII (Telematics Applications Programme [3] ) and will for the first time bring together projects in key areas of interest from across the EU, allowing both potential users and the project workers themselves to compare aims, objectives and results thus far. Day one …Brings you leading speakers from both organisations Day two …offers a unique opportunity to hear reports on progress from both eLib and Telematics Programmes including the four sectors of Gateways/Networked Resources; Digitisation/Images; Electronic Journals; Document Delivery. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/ala/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/ala/ The American Library Association's (ALA) web site [1] is a large and growing part of the Association's five-year plan, dubbed ALA Goal 2000, to focus its resources on the public's right to a free and open information society. As part of a larger project to improve and increase the use of information technology at ALA headquarters and provide support for members' use of technology in the conduct of Association business, I was hired as " http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/acrobat/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/acrobat/ As electronic library initiatives begin to move out of the research phase and into full production, one product is emerging as a dominant force in the presentation of electronic documents. Adobe's Acrobat software [1], which is used for both generating and viewing Portable Document Format (PDF) files, is gaining widespread acceptance in the world of higher education. PDF files allow documents to look like on-screen versions of their print equivalents. The format is based upon Adobe's own PostScript page-description language, which has for years been the industry standard. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/table/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/table/ The key medical sites described in this article are only the tip of the iceberg. To use the Internet effectively for medical information it is necessary to search the subject-based gateways. These sites do some of the hard work for you, by seeking out, evaluating, describing and indexing resources. OMNI - Organising Medical Networked Information [1], is the eLib funded biomedical gateway. It offers access to more than 1300 resources in health, clinical medicine, allied health and related areas. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/biz-ed/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/biz-ed/ Building upon an already self funding project, delivering networked resources and primary materials to students and teachers in the schools and colleges, eLib funding has enabled biz/ed [1].to expand and meet the needs of the students and lecturers in higher education. The project seeks to identify these needs through a series of partnerships and evaluation sessions. Partnerships with both the academic community and the business world enable biz/ed to provide quality resources which meet the needs of students and teachers at all levels. 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/kairos/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/kairos/ In the fall of 1995 we first encountered the need to help our honors rhetoric students cite Internet sources. We remember well one students first attempt. In her works cited the student created an entry to list something she'd found on the World Wide Web. With elegant simplicity she wrote Internet (1995). Realizing that something was missing, we then began seriously to investigate just how it is that one cites electronic sources with some degree of grace, efficiency, and style. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/essex/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/essex/ AbstractThis paper provides a background to the development and ongoing activities of data archives in general and The Data Archive (formerly known as the ESRC Data Archive) at the University of Essex in particular. It describes the main activities involved in running the Archive and explores the benefits for both data producers and data users of a central repository of data. It touches on the growth of The Data Archive in recent years. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/down-your-way/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/down-your-way/ Spread across four sites within the small historic city of Durham, the University Library caters for a diverse range of staff and student requirements, as well as acting in an important archival role for the surrounding area. The University of Durham [1] is the third oldest university in England, with some 8,300 undergraduate and 1,900 postgraduate students. The library plays a key part in supporting these students - and the large body of research staff - both through the provision of traditional services and through a joint programme with the IT Service to provide training in general information skills. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/espere/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/espere/ The ESPERE project (Electronic Submission and Peer Review) [1] started in April 1996 and we have recently completed the research phase. The project is lead jointly by the University of Ulster and the Society for Endocrinology and has seven Learned Society partners. The project focuses on the electronic peer review of papers submitted to UK learned society publishers, initially in the biomedical area. The aim is to achieve an introductory level of article submission and peer review by transfer of a file which includes all the figures and tables applicable to the paper. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/marc/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/marc/ The MAchine Readable Catalogue (MARC) format is probably one of the oldest and most widely used metadata formats today. It was developed in the United States during the 1960's as a data interchange format for monographs in the then newly computerised library automation systems. In the following years the MARC format became a standard for export and import of data to library systems in much of the world and various national and vendor enhanced variations on the original MARC format appeared. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/ipl/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/ipl/ The Internet Public Library (IPL) is the first public library created of and for the Internet community and its style and service is similar to any large library. Your experience of the IPL will be different depending upon who you are and your expectations or needs when you visit its homepage. Given your needs, it can be a comforting place to base your explorations of useful material, a place to begin your research, or a place for a child to turn the pages of one of the books in the youth division. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/search-engines/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/search-engines/ What are Intelligent Searching Agents?Many web search engines use the concept of a ‘spider’ - automated software which goes out onto the web and trawls through the contents of each server it encounters, indexing documents as it finds them. This approach results in the kinds of databases maintained by services such as Alta Vista and Excite - huge indexes to a vast chunk of what’s currently available on the web. However, the problems which users can face when using such databases are beginning to be well documented. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/interface/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/interface/ Hypertext links in cyberspace are the subject of fascinating research being undertaken by Steve Hitchcock and Les Carr at Southampton University [2]. They have been funded by [3] to explore, in the Open Journal Project, the use of links within the context of electronic scholarly journals. This work builds upon work being undertaken by the same team in a separate project, the Distributed Link Service (DLS) [4] . This is creating a system which separates the link data from the document and stores it in link databases or 'linkbases'. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/mcf/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/mcf/ For many years librarians and computer scientists have been researching and developing metadata standards and technology. Although library OPACs are obviously commercially viable systems for maintaining metadata about hard copy resources, they are something of a niche market still. With the explosion in information provision on the Internet, this niche metadata market is set to explode itself, as an increasing number of companies develop a commercial interest in the provision and support for indexing, cataloging and navigating Internet resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/midas/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/midas/ MIDAS [1], based at Manchester Computing, University of Manchester, is a National Dataset Service funded by JISC [2], ESRC [3] and the University of Manchester [4], to provide UK academics with online access to large strategic and research datasets, software packages, training and large-scale computing resources. The datasets are supplied by arrangement with CHEST [5] and The Data Archive [6]. Anne McCombe was appointed on October 1996 to promote awareness and use of MIDAS in the academic community. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/hardens/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/hardens/ It was joining the BBC Networking Club and wondering what to do with the 500K of web space that came with membership that got us started on filling gaps in the web. A purely personal home page didn't appeal but we were, and still are, fascinated by the prospect of being able to publish something useful for a global audience from our home in London at virtually no cost. We are both librarians with a public library background so that seemed a promising field to explore. 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/omni-seminar/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/omni-seminar/ Over 150 people gathered at the Wellcome Institute in London on the 23 January to attend the 2nd Annual OMNI [1] Seminar. This brought together a range of participants including medical academics, library and information professionals and practitioners; a good indication of the impact OMNI has had during its first two years. The keynote address was given by Lynne Brindley, the chair of the new JISC Committee for Electronic Information (CEI). 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/loughborough/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/loughborough/ I, along with the team of stakeholders whom I report to, have been running this project for ten months now, and we have reached a point where it would be useful to sit back and reflect on what we have achieved thus far and where we go from here. One of the most important aspects of the job in this first year has been to determine the levels of Internet service use among University staff. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/public-libraries/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/public-libraries/ With the failure of the second public library Millennium Bid the dream of a gift-wrapped-paid-for-by-someone-else-national-networked-public-library-service disappeared. Although Information for All [1], the company set up to run this bid, has pledged to continue looking for funding from other sources it seems unlikely that they will be able achieve the national implementation that Millennium funding would have made possible. The failure of the Bid, however, must not be seen as the end of Internet services in public libraries but as a starting point. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/books-bytes/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/books-bytes/ With more and more Americans turning to their desk-top computers for information, American libraries have been struggling to redefine their role. Numerous library leaders, aware of the seismic impact of the digital revolution, have crafted visions for their field that include cutting edge, building-without-walls, digital libraries, as well as partnerships with other public service information providers, such as schools and public broadcasters. But little has been known about the public's willingness to subscribe to an expansive vision of libraries as technology leaders in the digital age. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/sideline/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/sideline/ Nick Hornby made me do it! This is my defence...Unaware of the distractions that lurked in the suburbs of Milton Keynes, I rose at 5.30 a.m. Jogged between bus-stops, in that hesitant 'does the 52 run at this hour?' kind of way. Caught my train and two connections. Bored of pondering life's mysteries (do you stir your coffee with the square or triangular end of the plastic thingie?), serenaded by the Mobile Phone Chorus, I retreated into my book, High Fidelity [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/british-library/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/british-library/ The Digital Library Programme [1] has been set up by the British Library following the progress made during the widely publicised Initiatives for Access [2] programme which examined the application of new technologies to the Library. The Programme comprises a number of activities across the Library aimed at providing the Library with the capabilities to acquire, store, preserve and access collection materials in digital form. The Digital Library is the widely accepted term describing the use of digital technologies to acquire, store, conserve and provide access to information and material whether originally published in digital form or digitised from print, audio-visual and other forms. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/view/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/view/ The main reason why the eLib projects are so aware of the need to evaluate what they do is that the Follett Implementation Group in Information Technology (FIGIT), in establishing the programme, commissioned the Tavistock Institute [1]to assist projects in the preparation of self-evaluation strategies. Founded in London in 1947, the Tavistock is an independent not- for-profit organisation which combines social science research with professional practice. At around the time that it was setting up its Evaluation Development and Review Unit (EDRU) about six years ago, John Kelleher - a social science researcher who had done some European-sponsored research and development work into technology transfer - moved from County Cork to the Tavistock. 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/7/wire/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/wire/ What are you doing now? I'm studying for a Masters in Knowledge Based Systems at Edinburgh University's Department of Artificial Intelligence. ...and what where you doing before? Before this academic year I was a software engineer working for Nokia Telecommunications in Cambridge on a variety of network management products. Why the jump from the networkie side of a telecoms company to doing a masters degree? Mainly for financial reasons, I think. 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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/omni-corner/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/omni-corner/ The Visible Human is one of the Internets best known sites; one of its big stories. However, the size of the Visible Human Dataset (VHD) means that most of us have no way of making use of the raw data itself. We have, so far, been more impressed by the idea than the reality. Not for much longer - last month the first Visible Human Project Conference brought together the people involved in producing the data, the researchers, information scientists and clinicians who have used it and the ignorant but curious, for two days of demonstration and discussion, at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. 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/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/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/5/table/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/table/ Homicide - Life on the streets 19/8/96 Episode "Five(2)": Detective - "Where d'ya get so handy at setting fires? " Accused - "Off the Internet." If this exchange had taken place a couple of years ago he would probably have found his information at the "public library". Perhaps if the criminal had found an interactive site the virtual experience of fire-raising would have been enough! The increasing availability of Internet connections gives the potential for immediate access to a wide range of information and learning resources for the sciences and engineering in a variety of formats - moving visual images as well as text with the ability to use then interactively. 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/humanities/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/humanities/ The aim of the symposium is to explore how information technology has affected research in the humanities and social sciences, particularly in terms of the topics chosen and the way they are are approached – in other words, whether there has been a paradigm shift, and, if so, what its characteristics are. This question will be examined by reference to research in individual disciplines, particularly as illustrated by the work of each speaker. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/british-library/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/british-library/ This is the text of a paper given at Libtech 96 on 5 September 1996 in a session organised by the British Library's Centre for the Book. The author regards it - in the nature of texts on the Internet - as a "work in progress" and welcomes corrections and comments. He hopes to improve the text on the basis of comments received and will, of course, acknowledge their source! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/cause-effect/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/cause-effect/ Campus executives are beginning to look to information technology as a means to address many of the difficult challenges facing our colleges and universities today. Electronic information resources have become a key strategic resource of the institution in a far broader sense than bibliographic indexes, data processing, or administrative information systems. As articles in CAUSE/EFFECT and other professional publications show, there is growing synergy among the many departments on campus that handle various aspects of the creation, maintenance, and dissemination of information through digital technologies: library/information services, administrative computing, academic computing, networking (voice, data and video) services, distance and continuing education, instructional media, and university presses. 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/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/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/interface/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/interface/ Project EARL was established in 1995 with funding from the British Library, the Library Association and participating libraries, with the objective of developing 'the role of public libraries in a networked environment, within a collaborative framework'. The coordinating partner is the London and South Eastern Library Region (LASER). Frances Hendrix, Director of LASER, and Catherine Hume of EARL, were happy to fill me in on what public libraries are doing on the Internet at present. 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/journals.html Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/journals.html This section contains descriptions of journals, freely available over the Web, that may be of interest to librarians and information specialists. The descriptions are written by the editors and/or publishers of the journals. D-Lib: William Y. Arms, D-Lib publisher and Amy Friedlander, the editor, describe this successful Web-based magazine that carries more technically-minded articles on all aspects of digital/electronic libraries research.Cause/Effect: Julia A. Rudy, Cause/Effect Editor and Director of Publications at Cause, an international, nonprofit professional association for managers and users of information resources on college and university campuses, describes Cause/Effect. 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/metadata-masses/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/metadata-masses/ Metadata. The word is increasingly to be found bandied about amongst the Web cognoscenti, but what exactly is it, and is it something that can be of value to you and your work? This article aims to explore some of the issues involved in metadata and then, concentrating specifically upon the Dublin Core, move on to show in a non-technical fashion how metadata may be used by anyone to make their material more accessible. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/minotaur/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/minotaur/ One morning in early June 1990 I caught a train from Oxford and went to see my bank manager in London. "I want to start my own publishing consultancy, " I told him. "I've spent twenty-five years in the industry. I've developed a series of specialisms which no single publishing house can satisfy. My second bedroom will make a perfect office. I can write, edit, research, project manage. I want to offer a top-quality service. 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/omni-corner/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/omni-corner/ I’m an E.R. fan, you’re an E.R. fan and official figures indicate we’re not alone. There’s plenty of choice these days if your taste in entertainment is medical. Millions of us eavesdrop on the physician/patient relationship every week, both the medical ones and otherwise. Sometimes it is a lot more interesting than real life. However, when it comes to being sick, most of us would agree, you can’t beat a bone-fide, qualified medic. 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/pick/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/pick/ The Electronic Documentation Project is funded by the HEFC (Wales) as part of funding for specialist research collections in the humanities. It is based in Thomas Parry Library (formerly the ILS library) which is closely associated with the internationally respected Department of Information and Library Studies, UWA. The broad purpose of the project is to ‘collect’ (in some sense) Internet Resources in our field; integrate them into the existing collection and promote their use. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/provenance/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/provenance/ Provenance, the Electronic (Web) Magazine, started as an idea in May 1995 at a Preconference Workshop of the British Columbia Libraries Association conference. The workshop was "Networking the Pacific" and was convened by Stan Skrzeszewski and the 60 plus participants can from throughout the Pacific Rim. The actual idea of a newsletter was refined over a beer with Carol Joling, IDRC who has continued to be a guiding spirit, for the magazine. 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/katharine-sharp/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/katharine-sharp/ I would like to think that library and information science education is preparing students for employment as traditional librarians, information professionals, or even future LIS educators. In each of these areas there is a call for publication as a requirement for tenure or promotion, or perhaps even as a requirement for attaining the position. Thus it would be of some importance if the student has had some sort of experience with the procedures and expectations before arriving in the workplace or interview. 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/view/ Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/5/view/ So what is an Internet café anyway? Most of us have heard of them, but how many have actually ventured in? The very idea seems incongruous at best, totally nerdish at worst. Those of us who have experience of controlling library environments will wince at the very idea. Cappuccino and baguettes at the keyboard? What about spillages? What about crumbs? What about the incessant distraction of slurping and chewing? Quite clearly – our own offices excepted, of course – these conditions are quite impossible for serious intellectual endeavour. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/user-services/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/user-services/ Preparing to write this article, I sought inspiration in the form of a recurring question. How can we improve our knowledge of users and their use of networked information services? What should we be doing to develop our understanding in the context of emerging digital library developments? And how might we make progress? My starting point came from a recent reading of the executive summary of the TULIP project final report. 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/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/editor.html Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/editor.html Caching: A criminal offence not to?How many others are dreading the next massive intake/return of Internet curious student in the autumn, and the subsequent effects on networking speed? In this issue of Ariadne, Jon Knight and Martin Hamilton describe the benefits of caching. Caching is essentially a way of bringing resources closer to the people who use them; less network used, less congestion, greater download speed, less frustration. In these times, where the increase in network users (be they students, users in the prolifically spawning cybercafe market, or the secret army of at-home modem users) easily outpaces the increase in bandwidth, such initiatives are not so much useful, but essential. 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/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/minotaur/ Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/minotaur/ <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN”> Minotaur: Dinty Moore Minotaur: Dinty Moore In Minotaur, the collective voice of Internet enthusiasts is countered by words of scepticism or caution. Dinty Moore, author of The Emperor’s Virtual Clothes, worries about who will be the gatekeepers of online information in the future. In my neck of the woods, the general consensus seems to be that the Internet, and the sudden explosion of the Web, is going to be great for libraries and for those who use them. 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/research.html Thu, 18 Jul 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/4/research.html In this new section, we will be taking a closer look at non-eLib digital libraries initiatives, programmes, projects and research, both in the UK and overseas.  CEDAR: The Huddersfield Connection: Steve Pollitt describes the history and research behind CEDAR, the Centre for Database Access Research, which specialises in work on the design of interfaces for information retrieval systems. TLTP: Joanna Tiley describes TLTP. The Teaching and Learning Technology Programme, funded by the UK Higher Education Funding Councils of the UK, is a collection of 70+ projects aimed to " 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/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/acdc/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/acdc/ WWW Crawlers - Why A New One? All the major WWW crawling programs such as Alta Vista (Digital), InfoSeek, Lycos, Webcrawler, Excite etc. are based in the USA and collect their pages across the transatlantic link. There are two problems with the USA based services: They index the whole world and can return resources that are not very relevant for the UK. A UK-based system will index only UK sites, and should return local answers to the queries which may be more relevant to UK academics on JANET sites. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/adam/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/adam/ The ADAM Project is creating a subject-based information gateway service that will provide access to quality-assured Internet resources in the following areas: Fine Art, including painting, prints and drawings, sculpture and other contemporary media including those using technologyDesign, including industrial, product, fashion, graphic, packaging, interior designArchitecture, including town planning and landscape design, but excluding building constructionApplied Arts, including textiles, ceramics, glass, metals, jewellery, furnitureMedia, including film, television, broadcasting, photography, animation,Theory, historical, philosophical and contextual studies relating to any other categoryMuseum studies and conservationProfessional Practice, related to any of the aboveThe 3-year JISC funding for ADAM was awarded to a consortium of 10 institutions, each with a vested interest in the creation of the service, as part of the Access to Network Resources initiative of the Electronic Libraries Programme. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/bath/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/bath/ The 1996 Bath meeting raised some interesting questions - some explicit and others less so - like "Do we really need librarians?" And "Is traditional information work such a backwater that it takes 30 years for technology to transfer from the research laboratory into professional practice?" On display - an impressive array of computer-based systems for the retrieval - and analysis - of information. All offer natural language input with best match output - based on statistical techniques pioneered by the late great Gerard Salton. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/copac/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/copac/ The Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL) has for some years maintained a database of machine-readable catalogue records contributed by member libraries to enable the costs of cataloguing to be kept down, to members' mutual benefit. Hitherto, these records have only been made available to librarians, but with funding from the Higher Education Funding Councils' Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), the database is being turned into an Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) known as COPAC (i. 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/editorial.html Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/editorial.html Brief thoughts on indexing the WorldAs speculation mounts on when, as opposed to whether, Digital will be mirroring Alta Vista in the UK/Europe, and what exactly they mean by “will have partners who can localize the pages and include regional content”, late night pre-Ariadne launch thoughts turn to matters indexing. In this issue Dave Beckett and Neil Smith describe AC/DC, a Web search engine. The hugely significant difference between AC/DC and other search engines is that it indexes only a subset of publically available UK Web servers i. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/ggg/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/ggg/ Most academics regard themselves as radicals; in practice, they are probably as conservative as anyone else in the world, publishers included. These are generalisations of course, but regarding new and novel forms of publishing it would appear that physicists logging on to Paul Ginsparg's workstation at Los Alamos are well ahead of the field. Ginsparg is, according to some, changing the face of academic publishing. Publishers and academic authors and readers all have some experience of electronic journals, an indication that they are no longer on the horizon but have arrived. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/fiddo/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/fiddo/ The FIDDO Project is studying options, methods and the management of document delivery. The principal aim is to disseminate reliable and objective data to enable library and information managers to make informed decisions about the feasibility, selection and implementation of electronic and other document delivery services within their own institutions. A range of issues, challenges and decisions confront the manger of the modern library and information service. The pressure to use dwindling resources more economically, the growth in numbers and variety of information users, and the demand for a 'customer based culture' all converge to present a formidable burden. 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/intarch/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/intarch/ Internet Archaeology is an electronic journal run by a consortium which includes the British Academy, the Council for British Archaeology and the Universities of York, Durham, Oxford, Glasgow and Southampton. The project is managed by a steering committee chaired by Prof B W Cunliffe, Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford. The project has two staff, myself (Managing Editor) and Sandra Garside-Neville (Assistant Editor). The choice of archaeology - the study of the past - as a subject for an electronic journal is based on the wide variety of media now being used by archaeologists in their research. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/mailbase/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/mailbase/ Background: What are electronic mailing lists?The terminology is not yet standardised for what I prefer to call online discussion lists. Other names used include computer mediated conferences, bulletin board systems and newsgroups. Whichever name is chosen the concept is of a large number of people with an interest in common, and geographically dispersed, communicating as a group. The mailing list is the mechanism that permits the communication and it does so by allowing one list subscriber to send a message which will be received by all other subscribers. 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/metadata/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/metadata/ How do you find out what is of interest on the network? The answer is with difficulty. What should libraries and the eLib subject services be doing about this? The answer is not clear. Let's postpone the question for a while, and look at the rapidly shifting service and technical environment in which they are operating. For many people the first ports of call are the major robot- based 'vacuum-cleaner' services such as Lycos and Alta Vista which provide access to web pages worldwide, or classified listings such as Yahoo. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/libraries/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/libraries/ Current public library Internet activity can be divided into four main types: Initial Experimentation and ExplorationPublic AccessCivic InformationCooperationThis is a relatively small range of topics and gives an indication of the lack of resources available to libraries with which to undertake research. Whereas the eLib programme has allowed academic libraries to explore a whole range of topics ranging from electronic documentary delivery to digitization to on demand publishing, public libraries are concentrating on much more fundamental issues. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/roads/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/roads/ As MARC and cataloguing give way to metadata and resource description, the true impact of the internet is realised. Cataloguers are being transformed to.....metaloguers(?). The ranks of library school students who sat bemused through lectures on UKMARC and AACR need to indulge in a bit of reconstruction. Really they were applying a canonical syntactical representation to related manifestations, and maybe occasionally considering extensibility. They were doing metadata. And if we had realised that a bit earlier, maybe we would be as rich as Jerry Yang and David Filo; as reported in mid-April, the public share offering in the internet 'catalogue' Yahoo! 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/sro/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/sro/ Sociological Research Online is a new international journal which promotes rapid communication among sociologists. The first issue was published at the end of March 1996. The journal features high quality applied sociology, focusing on theoretical, empirical and methodological discussions which engage with current political, cultural and intellectual topics and debates. The journal brings together peer-reviewed articles and debates concerned with the application of sociological forms of analysis to a wide range of public issues and private concerns, with the intention of demonstrating the wide social relevance of sociological research and theory to contemporary social issues. 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/wire/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/wire/ What do you do in the world of networking/libraries/WWW I edit and maintain the Internet Parallel Computing Archive (IPCA) based at HENSA Unix, both of which are funded by JISC ISSC and I work at the Computing Laboratory, University of Kent at Canterbury. The IPCA is a large and popular archive of High Performance and Parallel Computing materials which has over 500M of files, serves around 3,000 of them each day and has four mirror sites in Paris, Athens, Osaka and Canberra. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/many/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/many/ The title of the Ariadne newsletter illustrates a difficulty with content-based retrieval of resources - multiple entities with the same name. This duplication of identifiers inevitably leads to confusion. These problems are particularly acute when the name has an appropriate metaphor associated with it. Ariadne, with its Greek associations of navigation in difficult environments, is a case in point - as Graham Whitaker has pointed out. There are several other WWW resources whose projects have already chosen this identifier, several in the same field of network resources. 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/faroe/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/faroe/ The Faroe Islands is a small archipelago, comprised of 18 small islands, off in the middle of the North Atlantic, between Norway and Iceland. The total area is 1,400 sqr.km., and the population only 43,000. The population of the capital Tórshavn is approximately 15,000. Although the nearest neighbour to the south is 300 km. away, the Faroe Islands has always maintained close connections with other countries. The Faroe Islands has to import most of its commodities, as well as to rely on regular access to export markets in Europe, USA, and other countries. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/glasgow/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/glasgow/ The library at Glasgow University literally towers over the campus, standing high on a hill above the round reading room, its stark geometry contrasting powerfully with the neo-Gothic main University building opposite. The University is the second oldest in Scotland and the fourth oldest in the UK. Its library, built in the 1960s, was pioneering for its time in stock arrangement, each level of the building devoted to a subject area. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/ejournals/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/ejournals/ Electronic journals could overturn the dominant force of print in a scenario created by a 'domino effect'. At a conference on scholarly publication held recently at the University of Stirling, Stevan Harnad, Professor of Psychology at Southampton University and editor of the well-respected print journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences and the online journal Psycoloquy, described how a rapid switch away from paper journals could occur. The catalyst will be the creation of electronic preprint archives in the main academic disciplines. 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/ruth/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/ruth/ I have been a recreational Internet user for the last five years and when the Web first came along I was extremely impressed. No more cryptic codes to remember! Pictures! The possibilities were endless. Like many others I extrapolated on the basis of what I had seen and imagined great things. Some wonderful things have appeared on the Web (the LANL Preprint database and WebElements to name but two), but I now feel rather let down. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/netskills/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/netskills/ With the rapid growth of the Internet we have seen a huge increase in the volume and range of networked information. We have also seen an increased public awareness - hardly a day goes by without some mention of the Internet in the national press or television. URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) are quoted everywhere - even on Dutch tax return forms! With the increased attention has come the increase in hype. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/heathrow/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/heathrow/ This excellent conference, jointly organised by UKOLN, JISC, BLRRD, CNI and CAUSE, was one of the best I have ever attended. The quality of the papers I heard was outstanding. After listening to Sir Brian Follett talking about eLib to start us off, I decided to concentrate on the briefings from the American speakers. There isn’t space to discuss them all so I’ve decided to focus on the most interesting for me. 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/2/sosig/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/sosig/ Behind all the hype about the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) lies the undeniable fact that valuable networked resources are becoming more accessible. Internet access software has been much improved and simplified with the coming of the WWW and more staff throughout the UK academic community have access to graphical and text browsers such as Netscape or Lynx. The Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) and other subject-based gateways are helping to provide academics, researchers, support staff and Librarians with quality, ordered fare from the chaotic menu represented by the vast and ever-growing number of networked resources. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/bids/ Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/2/bids/ In 1990 Bath University Computing services won a contract from the Universities Funding Council’s Information System Committee to host the recently accquired ISI databases. BIDS (Bath Information and Data Systems) was up and running by February 1991. The inital four databases (the 3 Citation Indecices and the Index of Scientific and Technical Proceedings) have been joined by eight more databases acquired through CHEST so that five years later there are now twelve databases in total to choose from as well as a gateway to Blackwell’s Uncover. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/clic/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/clic/ Chemistry is one of the most visual and "three dimensional" of sciences. For many generations, communication of the subject has been rooted on the printed pages of chemical journals, with even colour a rare event. Partially because of such limitations, the subject has evolved a complex and arcane symbolism for its written representation. The complexities of this "chemical nomenclature" in turn result in substantial risk of the propagation of errors and misinterpretation of results. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/lough/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/lough/ Sprawling across a vast 216 acre site, Loughborough University is one of the largest university campuses anywhere in the UK. The university is the largest employer in this little industrial town, and in term time the student population swells the population of the town considerably. Fittingly, for an academic institution in an industrial environment, the university has a reputation as a leader in the field of technological innovation. In addition, it is considering dropping the 'Technology', from its title, and is now known simply as 'Loughborough University'. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/edulib/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/edulib/ User education, information skills, librarians as educators? - the literature is more plentiful than rich. Paradoxically, references to the application of educational theory, concerning the way people learn, and how this is reflected in the activities and skills of librarians, are most infrequent. Librarians are involved now in training and supporting the users of information, and have every reason to be optimistic about the value and need for this in future. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/omni/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/omni/ Have you ever wanted a service that could quickly and reliably guide you through the Internet jungle to a quality source of well-maintained information? Do you despair of out-of-date bookmark lists that point you to obsolete web addresses, and too-powerful Internet robot indexers that retrieve everything but what you really wanted to find? Then read the good news about the eLib programme's Access to Network Resources (ANR) projects: SOSIG, OMNI, ADAM, EEVL, IHR-INFO, CAIN and ROADS. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/jim/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/jim/ For most of us, whether researchers, academics, information professionals, or even curious members of the public, the Internet appears to hold out incredible promise: all the knowledge of the world lies in wait for us, if only we know where to look. At our fingertips awaits a bounty of information, the wisdom of the globe, the tree of knowledge. The vision is misleading, a phantom that (unfortunately) may never possess substance. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/boston/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/boston/ This is an informal diary of two delegates who attended the big event for World Wide Web people, namely the 4th International WWW Conference. Debra Hiom, the SOSIG research officer and John Kirriemuir, the UKOLN Information Officer provide the dialogue. The good quality photographs were taken by Debra, on her expensive camera, while the not-so-good quality pictures were taken by John on a cheap and nasty disposable camera (7 dollars). 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. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/wire/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/wire/ In this 'Wire' interview Ariadne staff ask Traugott Koch for his views on how libraries can develop in response to the World Wide Web. 1) What do you do in the world of networking / libraries / WWW? Projects developing the use of networked information at NetLab, the Development department of Lund University Library, Sweden. 80 % of the projects are externally funded, by local, national, Nordic and European partners. (http://www. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/elib/ Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/1/elib/ The Electronic Libraries Programme, funded by JISC as a consequence of the Follett Report into UK academic libraries, is now properly underway. The UK Higher Education funding councils have committed £15 million to the programme, which will aim to pave the way towards the fully electronic library of the future. The Electronic Libraries Programme, funded by JISC as a consequence of the Follett Report into UK academic libraries, is now properly underway.