Newsline: News You Can Use
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.
The Reveal Catalogue of Resources is held on a Geac Advance system, using the Reveal bibliographic standard, which was developed from the MARC 21 Bibliographic standard by UKOLN. The database is Z39.50 compatible and can therefore be searched by other Web-based services using Z39.50.
The Reveal Suppliers Register uses the Reveal collection description schema which was developed from the RSLP collection description schema by UKOLN. The software development of the database was carried out by Samsara Research.
Reveal development has been funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the British Library Co-operation and Partnership Programme, the Lloyds TSB Foundation, the Ellerman Foundation, the National Library for the Blind and the Royal National Institution of the Blind. It also received additional support from Share the Vision and UKOLN.
To visit the Reveal Web site: http://www.revealweb.org.uk/
‘Parallel Lives’: Digital and analog options for access and preservation
[September 2003]
Joint conference of the National Preservation Office and King’s College London
Date: 10 November 2003
Time: 09:30 - 16:00
Venue: The British Library Conference Centre, London, NW1 2DB
A conference to address the importance and interrelated lifecycles of digital images, microfilm, photographs and other surrogates. How should we create, store, provide access and manage them for the benefit of culture and society?
Outline Programme
Co-chairs: – Vanessa Marshall, Head of the National Preservation Office
– Harold Short, Director of Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London
Keynote speaker:
Meg Bellinger, Associate University Librarian, Yale University
Morning Session
Simon Tanner: Issues and choices in digital and analog representation (KDCS, KCL)
Mike Evans: The continuing importance of photography and the role that digitisation plays (National Monument Record, English Heritage)
Tim Hitchcock: The Old Bailey Sessions Papers - the role of digitisation from microfilm and how the digital resource enhances (Old Bailey Project, University of Hertfordshire)
Marilyn Deegan, Policy and Planning issues (Oxford University)
Afternoon Session:
Choosing to microfilm? Two Case Studies:
John Lauder, Newsplan2000
John Goldfinch, British Library, Early English Printed Collections
Helen Shenton: Managing lifecycle decisions for long term use of original and surrogates (BL)
Simon Tanner: A question of cost: choices on the road to digitisation (KDCS, KCL)
Harold Short: Closing remarks (KCL)
Launch of ‘What’s in London’s Libraries’ (WiLL)
[September 2003]
A new service has been launched which should be of interest to London library users and librarians. ‘What’s in London’s Libraries’ has brought together information about all the public libraries in London and it is now available to everyone via the Internet.
Londoners are no longer limited to searching just one library catalogue at a time. The same search can be run against many catalogues all over London and the results are delivered back to the user in seconds. Finding out about library buildings and services is equally straightforward. Each of the 33 boroughs has entered details about all their libraries into a central database.
The service has been made possible thanks to a £200,000 lottery-funded grant from the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) via the People’s Network Excellence Fund which is run by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. It also received some additional funding from the London’s Museums, Archives and Libraries Partnership.
The simultaneous searching of multiple sources was made possible by Crossnet, which specialises in inter-operability projects in the library and heritage arena. Its DScovery software was used to build the user interface backed by its Zedlib suite of software which allows data to be searched via the Z39.50 protocol.
At the same time, in a related move, London’s libraries, museums and archives have also joined forces to develop a Web site about their services. The British Library has developed a Londoners’ Web site to highlight what the St. Pancras facilities have to offer.
Further information:
What’s in London’s Libraries
http://www.londonlibraries.org.uk/will
General London Libraries site with museum and archive listings:
http://www.londonlibraries.org.uk
British Library London site http://www.bl.uk/london.html
Microsoft Gets Behind Techshare 2003
[September 2003]
RNIB’s Techshare Conference, is for professionals who are interested in technology and the role it plays in learning, work and life for people with sight problems. The conference, now in its fourth year, has attracted much welcomed support from Microsoft.
Microsoft’s presence this year will include a Keynote speech by Madelyn Bryant McIntire, Microsoft’s Director of the Accessibility Group. Other key speakers include Brian Charlson from the American Council of the Blind and Rob Lees from Vodafone.
The conference will take place on 20-21 November at Jury’s Inn, Birmingham, UK. Techshare 2003 has a varied programme which includes a debate that is expected to be very lively. Other features of the conference include an evening drinks reception and a two-day informal exhibition in the coffee area.
The programme includes presentations on user experiences of technology, Internet, e-books, training, e-learning, technical advances and new products.
Further information:
The full programme on the Web site and online booking at:
http://www.techshare.org.uk
Email: techshare@rnib.org.uk Tel: Inside UK 0870 013 9555 Outside UK +44 (0)121 665 4230
Seminar: Global Access to UK Research: Removing the barriers
[September 2003]
Universities UK, Woburn House, London, 20 November 2003
The JISC wishes to invite individuals in the further and higher education sectors who are interested in the dissemination of the results of UK research to attend a one-day seminar at Universities UK. The distinguished guest speakers - who include Mark Walport of the Wellcome Trust and Jean-Claude Guedon of the University of Montreal - will describe current initiatives to remove the barriers to research publications.
The barriers of price and licensing restrictions are hindering access to the results of academic research world-wide and the seminar will place UK initiatives in the context of international moves to create open access to published research.
The topics to be discussed will be of interest to the DfES, the Research Councils, research agencies, heads of academic departments, deans, directors of research and other senior members of universities or colleges, plus publishers, scholarly societies and research charities.
The seminar programme and booking form are available at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=event_reseach_1103
The Thirteenth International World Wide Web Conference [September 2003]
May 17-22, 2004 New York City, NY USA Paper submission deadline: November 14, 2003
The WWW2004 conference will be held in Manhattan at the Sheraton Hotel.
The technical program will include refereed paper presentations, alternate track presentations, plenary sessions, panels, and poster sessions. Tutorials and workshops will precede the main program, and a Developers Day, devoted to in-depth technical sessions designed specifically for Web developers, will follow.
Important Dates
Tutorial/workshop proposals deadline: 15 October 2003
Paper submission deadline: 14 November 2003
Panel proposals deadline: 14 November 2003
Poster submission starts: 15 January 2004
Poster submission deadline: 7 February 2004
Author notification (papers): 31 January 2004
Developers Day deadline: 14 February 2004
Final papers due: 28 February 2004
Author notification (posters): 14 March 2004v Industrial Practice track deadline: 15 March 2004
Conference: 17-22 May 2004
For further information: http://www2004.org/ General questions about WWW2004 may be sent to info@www2004.org
RDN/LTSN partnerships technical documentation
[October 2003]
Over the last year or so JISC has been funding some collaborative work between the RDN Hubs and LTSN Centres. The primary intention of these subject-based RDN/LTSN partnerships was to:
- develop collection policies that clarified the relationships between the two sets of activities
- enable the sharing of records within and beyond partnerships using the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting.
This second area of work has produced a number of technical specifications, including an ‘application profile’ of the IEEE LOM (compliant with the UK LOM Core) and a number of agreed vocabularies. The technical specifications are available under:
http://www.rdn.ac.uk/publications/rdn-ltsn/
It is recommended that those interested in this begin with the FAQ in order to get an overview of what is happening with this work. The FAQ covers a range of issues, such as the assignement of OAI item identifiers, the assignment of resource identifiers, workflow issues as records are shared between partners, the use of OpenURL for physical resources, etc.
The RDN/LTSN LOM Application Profile and some of the vocabularies have also had input form the ‘Learning and Teaching Portal’ team, and will be used as the basis for metadata sharing within that activity as well.
Taylor & Francis Online eBook Library is now part of the JISC Collections
[October 2003]
The Online eBook Library from Taylor & Francis is now part of the JISC Collections. It contains over 4,000 titles are available, providing a wealth of material for librarians, academics and students at all levels. This comprehensive collection includes the leading titles published by Taylor & Francis, Routledge, RoutledgeFalmer, RoutledgeCurzon, Martin Dunitz and Spon Press. Special rates are available exclusively through the JISC.
The Online eBook Library is currently grouped by the following main subject areas: Education; Business, Management & Economics; Geography; Literature, Language & Linguistics; Philosophy; Sociology; Political Science & Government; History & Archaeology. Titles are also available in other subject areas.
Details of the subject collections and title listings are available at :
http://www.tandfjisc.com.
For more information on this resource, including pricing and other benefits:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/coll_tandf_ebooks.html.
Publication Date: 30-October-2003
Publication: Ariadne Issue 37
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue37/newsline/