http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/ Recent content in Issue 60 on Ariadne Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 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/wingate-gray-rvw/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/wingate-gray-rvw/ Published simultaneously as a US and UK edition, this is a practical 'how to' manual in creating children-oriented library spaces. It is a good starting point for practitioners involved in redesigning children's library spaces, and those lucky few who have been given the go-ahead to start from scratch and who wish to engage properly with the design and creation process before committing funds. The book is divided up into the following chapters, which give an idea of the basic issues that should be addressed: 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/economic-snapshot/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/economic-snapshot/ The snapshot taken from a high-level page from the BBC News economy pages on 31 July 2009 should give future readers a notion of the situation to which many Ariadne authors allude. A snapshot of BBC Economy News stories as displayed on 31 July 2009 Listed here is a representative set of stories: The layman's finance crisis glossary 10:45 GMT, Friday, 15 May 2009 11:45 UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7642138.stm Timeline: Credit crunch to downturn http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/editorial/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/60/editorial/ Understandably enough, here at UKOLN everyone's chins have been on the floor since the news of the death of Rachel Heery reached us last week. Rachel retired as Deputy Director in 2007 and in the years that she worked as the team leader of UKOLN R&D she left an indelible mark on the field in which she worked [1] and still remained professionally active in retirement despite her illness. Thanks to the tributes written by her friends and colleagues, I need but direct you to their descriptions of her work and way of working [2]. 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.