http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/ Recent content in Issue 11 on Ariadne Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 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/cartoon/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/cartoon/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/survey/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/survey/ At the beginning of June I sent out a survey on lis-link to discover what other libraries/learning centres were doing (if anything) about electronic journals. The survey was conducted at the suggestion of an in-house OPAC working party which I convene, since here at Derby we had all agreed that we ought to be cataloguing these resources, but had made no further progress due to lack of staff. Breakdown of replies I received replies from 12 universities, both old and new, using a variety of computer systems. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/bham/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/bham/ We began looking seriously at cataloguing electronic journals early this year. We already had full listings of the e-journals accessible to our users on our Web Information Services Guide, from which readers could click to the text, but we wished to improve on this by offering access via our Web OPAC. We identified a number of questions immediately: how to decide what to catalogue, out of the fast-increasing numbers of journals accessible to our users, how to create the cataloguer time necessary to do the work, how to ensure that the work was done to the correct standards, what terms we should use locally on catalogue notes to explain the nature and location of the material being catalogued, and what we should be doing to ensure that material we had carefully catalogued at one url was still there some time later. 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/edbank/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/edbank/ The Open University Library working with Routledge Publishers and the Open University (OU)'s School of Education and Rights Department aims to create, maintain and run a database of digitised teaching materials to support remote (off campus) students in teacher training. In order to achieve our aim Edbank [1] requires: teaching materialspermission to store electronically those sections of "text" (within these materials) that belong to third parties - rights clearancesan appropriate database and a means to make it accessible. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/edd/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/edd/ Following the original Electronic Document Delivery (EDD) trial using Blackwell’s Uncover Service, a number of recommendations were made which led to an investigation into other document delivery services available on the market. The criteria used to decide which services would best suit the needs of the user, and the University of Bath Library staff who would be carrying out the trial are outlined in the first article of this two-part series (Williams). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/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/knight/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/knight/ Automation and electronic information services are not newcomers to the library world. Back in the 1960s the early library automation systems were already beginning to prove their worth and the development of the MARC record format was well underway. The intervening thirty years have seen the power and features provided by library automation systems improve tremendously, the advent of online services, CD-ROM databases, the rise and growth of the Internet and its associated World Wide Web and beginnings of a truly digital virtual library appear. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/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/editorials/jm.html Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/editorials/jm.html Culture emerges as a strong theme in this issue of ARIADNE. Our Interface interviewee, on the opposite page, is Dan Fleming of the Formations Project, which is launching a pre-prints server for cultural studies. How do you change the working culture of academics working in cultural studies? Are they more susceptible to change and paradigm shifting than colleagues in other disciplines? The organisational culture of library and information services also moves into the spotlight in this issue. 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/search-engines/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/search-engines/ When searching the web, many people are keen to find ways of restricting their search to material based in the UK or Europe. The advantages of being able to get hold of such material can include the possible greater relevance to UK needs of material with a UK or European focus, speed of access to the information, and greater ability to focus a search on local topics such as news. 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/editorials/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/editorials/ This is my first attempt at editing an issue of Ariadne, the Web Version. I hope you find it up to stratch! Unsurprisingly, as this is the first issue since the long vacation, this issue is particularly strong in conference reports in the At The Event section. Thanks to Christine Dugdale and Jackie Chelin there is even a report from Libtech ‘97, which has only just finished as I write this editorial. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/web-focus/ Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/11/web-focus/ About The Workshop Excellent; good opportunity to update knowledge and meet other, A much needed workshop. Very useful to hear from speakers and finding out about other sites from discussion groups. Same again next year please! , Extremely useful and timely . Just three of the comments received from participants of the workshop on Running An Institutional Web Service. The workshop was held at King’s College London from lunchtime on Wednesday, 16th July until lunchtime the following day. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/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.