http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/ Recent content in Issue 9 on Ariadne Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 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/acorn/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/acorn/ Project ACORN (Access to Course Readings via Networks) is one of eLib’s electronic reserve projects. It is a partnership between Loughborough University, Swets & Zeitlinger B.V., and Leicester University. Acorn Launch Having gained permission to digitise 211 (66%) of the journal articles requested from 54 (60%) of the publishers approached, ACORN is now preparing to launch on April 21st. Library staff training was undertaken in the week beginning March 3rd. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/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/cain/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/cain/ Many people remain hopeful that the violent conflict in Northern Ireland will end in the near future. ‘The Troubles’ represent the violent expression of the different constitutional, political, religious and cultural allegiances of the two main communities. It is recognised, however, that an end to the violence will not in itself heal the serious fracture in Northern Ireland society. The divisions in Northern Ireland have been present for over 300 years and will continue. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/cartoon/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/cartoon/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/down-your-way/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/down-your-way/ The University of Bath’s [1] new Library and Learning Centre [2], which offers full 24-hour access to all collections, is considered to be the first example of its kind in the UK. I met Keith Jones, Deputy Librarian, to talk about this radical step taken by the university, the day after it was announced that the new Centre had been commended in the national Civic Trust awards for the environment. The Centre is based in the old library building which has been refurbished and extended to make it almost unrecognisable from the original 1971 library. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/eevl/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/eevl/ EEVL [1] is approaching the end of its two-year funding from JISC as part of the eLib Project. We have applied for a further twelve months of precious funding to enable us to carry on providing and developing our services, to tie in with other three-year Subject Based Information Gateway projects such as SOSIG [2] and ADAM [3]. EEVL provides a free gateway to networked engineering resources, primarily for the UK Higher Academic community, however it is peculiarly gratifying to see from the log files that users from Greenland and Swaziland, as well as the USA Military Network have also accessed our site. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/elvira/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/elvira/ As regular readers of ‘Ariadne’ will know, the fourth annual ELVIRA conference has just taken place at Milton Keynes. The following article is based on my general impressions of the event. A more detailed and complete account can be found in the collected papers, which have been published by Aslib [1] . The ‘extended abstracts’ originally submitted for review are online at the ELVIRA Web site [2]. In the keynote address to the conference, Brian Cook (Griffith University, Queensland, Australia) identified the issues facing people working in the electronic (aka digital/virtual) library field. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/eurotext/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/eurotext/ Even in university libraries with a European Documentation Centre (EDC), students frequently experience difficulties in identifying and locating official publications on European Union (EU) policies. Competition between students for a single copy often leads to theft and vandalism. Fewer than half of the universities in the UK have an EDC and a database of the texts of the key documents for each EU policy would be a major contribution to teaching and learning about the European Union. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/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/adam/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/adam/ Library school? What library school? Oh yes, I spent four years there, didn't I? After only eighteen months, I have to confess my memory isn't quite that bad, but immersed in my job with the ADAM Project [1] , library school certainly does seem an age ago. Everything I learned seems to have merged into one large mass of indefinable matter, and when asked to write about it for Ariadne a little wave of unease stirred within me. 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/trenches/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/trenches/ The World Wide Web is intended to be “an embodiment of human knowledge” [1] but is currently mainly an embodiment of only West European and North American knowledge resources. The reason for this is simple; despite the name, the development of the World Wide Web has until recently been very heavily oriented towards English and other Western European languages[2]. If you want to display a resource with an ideographic character sets from Asian languages for example then you have been forced to either use inlined images or localized, kludged versions of software. 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/minotaur/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/minotaur/ John MacColl, in the cover article of Issue 6 [1], suggests that some managers in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are questioning the usefulness of the concept of an ‘Information Strategy’. Indeed, we would argue that some are now returning to the development of what are primarily Information Technology strategies. In the current climate of national and global competition in the world of higher education, many of these strategies are being developed with a clear competitive focus. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/electronic-resources/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/electronic-resources/ The Electronic Resources Directory [1] of Monash University Library is a tool specifically designed for locating the electronic resources of the Library. As such, it both provides information about these resources, as well as direct links to them where appropriate. Its coverage extends to those resources which are deemed to be “electronic” in format (excluding kits of which the electronic medium is only one part e.g. a disc accompanying a book) and are catalogued by the Library. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/netskills-corner/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/netskills-corner/ Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is similar to an iceberg - like most other programming languages, 90% of its bulk lies beneath the surface. Writing Web pages can be a hugely rewarding experience but it can also be extremely tedious. This is fine for believers in the ‘no pain, no gain’ philosophy, but cowards, like me, welcome a bit of pain relief. Netscape Gold is one of the best HTML analgesics around. 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/acorn-training/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/acorn-training/ The JISC-funded eLib project, Project ACORN [1] was set up to explore the mechanisms for establishing an electronic ‘short-loan’ collection of journal articles for undergraduate students. Having received permission to make 236 high-demand journal articles from the reading lists of the departments of Geography, Human Sciences and Information and Library Studies available to registered undergraduates over the University computer network, the next vital step was to prepare students to use the new service prior to its launch on April 21st. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/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/redd/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/redd/ REDD is the Regional Electronic Document Delivery Service. The service began life in 1995 as a co-operative project of three libraries in Brisbane, The University of Queensland, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology. A successful grant application was made to the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training to “develop and implement electronic technologies to enable rapid request, scanning (converting to digital images) and electronic delivery of materials via the Internet”. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/scope/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/scope/ The Scottish Collaborative On-demand Publishing Enterprise (SCOPE) [1] is investigating some of the copyright and logistical issues raised by on-demand publishing in academic libraries. We are producing course packs from digital files and developing an electronic resource bank of teaching and learning materials to be transmitted over the Internet and delivered online to staff and students at a consortium of 13 Scottish Higher Education Institutions. The Project team seeks to establish whether an electronic resource bank of journal articles and book chapters is more effective than traditional means of delivering teaching and learning materials. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/search-engines/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/search-engines/ The search engine world seems to be becoming an increasingly competitive environment with each major service vying with the others in order to come up with a killer feature which will attract more and more users to their site, and so boost their advertising revenue. Developers are always looking for new features which will increase the functionality of their search engines, and so far the battle has been fought over issues such as the size of the database and the ‘look and feel’ of the user interface. 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/digitising/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/digitising/ The State Library of Victoria has dedicated itself to becoming a Library of the Future. It has embraced the possibilities that Multimedia has to offer and is working towards developing an on- line collection of digitised materials for the world to access. The establishment of the Multimedia Source Project is evidence of this and reflects the main role of the State Library which is to preserve the cultural heritage of the State of Victoria. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/babel/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/babel/ Good morning, and welcome to the Library of Babel. Many of you will have heard of this great institution of learning only through the melancholy brochure produced for us by Jorge Luis Borges [1] in 1941. As, however, you will discover in the course of our tours, it is in the nature of this Library that the more closely one searches for the details of its foundation, the more complication one finds. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/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/web-access/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/web-access/ Many web designers express a desire to provide access to the blind and visually impaired, but don’t really know where to begin. Although the tools are available and there are a number of web sites on the internet where information on the specifics of accessible design can be found, there seems to be something lacking. That something could well be the support of mainstream corporations in providing a means to help web designers create accessible web sites. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/web-focus/ Sun, 18 May 1997 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/9/web-focus/ The Sixth International World Wide Web Conference took place from 7-11th April 1997 in Santa Clara, California, USA. I attended the conference in my capacity as the JISC representative on the W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium). About 1,800 people attended the conference. This figure was down on the last two years, due possibly to the close proximity of other conferences - the Javasoft conference attracted about 8,000 delagates and the Microsoft Hardware Engineering conference about 15,000 delegates. 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.