http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/organisations/oclc/ Recent content in Oclc on Ariadne Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 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/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/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/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/white/ Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/71/white/ My definition of being rich is being able to buy a book without looking at the price. I have long since lost count of the number of books in my house. The reality is that if I did carry out a stock-take I might be seriously concerned about both the total number and the last known time I can remember reading a particular book. Nevertheless I have few greater pleasures than being asked a question and knowing in which of our two lofts one or more books will be found with the answer. 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/69/white-rvw/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/69/white-rvw/ I will admit to having read very little in the way of fiction writing over the last half-century though perhaps as a chemist by training I do enjoy science fiction from authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Fred Hoyle. All were distinguished scientists, none more so than Fred Hoyle, who was Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. On Clouds and Crystal BallsHoyle came to fame as the author of A for Andromeda, but in my opinion his best work is The Black Cloud. 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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/lewis/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/55/lewis/ At the University of East Anglia (UEA), we have been taking part in the Primo Charter Programme in which various libraries in the Europe and the US have been able to work with Ex Libris on version 1 of their Primo product. We have learned a great deal from the process and there is interest throughout the library sector in the potential benefits of separating or decoupling the search and retrieval interface layer from the database layer when presenting library resources. 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/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/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/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/allinson-et-al/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/54/allinson-et-al/ This article offers a twofold introduction to the JISC-funded SWORD [1] Project which ran for eight months in mid-2007. Firstly it presents an overview of the methods and madness that led us to where we currently are, including a timeline of how this work moved through an informal working group to a lightweight, distributed project. Secondly, it offers an explanation of the outputs produced for the SWORD Project and their potential benefits for the repositories community. 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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/parker-rvw/ Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/parker-rvw/ Many universities have adopted a blended learning approach to learning and teaching rather than adopting totally online methods, as strategies for delivering campus-based and distance learning courses converge. Blended learning has been variously defined as 'a mix of e-learning with traditional learning and teaching methods' [1] or learning that is characterised by 'the interdependence of pedagogy, learning technologies and technology' [2]. Janet MacDonald, in her book 'Blended Learning and Online Tutoring' considers that blended learning has arisen from 'a general sense of disillusionment with the stand-alone adoption of online media'. 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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/morgan/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/40/morgan/ This article is an introduction to the "brother and sister" Web Service protocols named Search/Retrieve Web Service (SRW) and Search/Retrieve URL Service (SRU) with an emphasis on the later. More specifically, the article outlines the problems SRW/U are intended to solve, the similarities and differences between SRW and SRU, the complimentary nature of the protocols with OAI-PMH, and how SRU is being employed in a sponsored NSF (National Science Foundation) grant called OCKHAM to facilitate an alerting service. 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/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/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/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/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/37/garrod/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/37/garrod/ “I suspect that more words are being published about the ebook phenomenon in print than have actually been placed into ebooks so far.” [1] Clifford Lynch made this observation back in June 2001 in his seminal paper The Battle to define the future of the book in the digital world. At the end of 2003 Lynch’s words still strike a chord here in the UK, as conferences, articles and workshops on the ebook ‘phenomenon’ continue to feature on a regular basis. 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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/glasgow-clumps/ Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/24/glasgow-clumps/ This article is supplementary to the issue 23 report on the CLUMPS event at Goldsmiths College in March this year, and perhaps should be read in conjunction with both that report and Peter Stubley’s article on ‘What have the CLUMPS ever done for us?’ in the same issue. Details of presentations which were broadly similar to those given at Goldsmiths are not repeated here, but can be found in the Ariadne 23 report. 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/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/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/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/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/what-is/ Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/18/what-is/ Users of the Web are familiar with URLs, the Uniform Resource Locators. A URL is a locator for a network accessible resource. Such a locator can be considered an identifier for the resource that it refers to. Depending on the interpretation of identification, various different attributes of a resource could be considered as an identifier for that resource. However, what comprises a functional resource identifier depends upon the context in which that identifier will be used. 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/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/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/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/cover/ Wed, 19 Nov 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/12/cover/ The last two years have witnessed an explosion in the number of journals available online. At the end of 1995 there were just over 100 . By the end of 1997 The Open Journal Project estimates over 3000 will be produced in the UK alone[1]. This massive increase is causing libraries and readers some practical difficulty. Libraries are faced with an increasing burden of administration and concern over archiving. For the user, a multiplicity of access points and search interfaces can cause uncertainty and confusion. 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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/canberra-metadata/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/canberra-metadata/ Continuing a long and glorious tradition, the 4th Dublin Core Workshop [1] last month went to a really nice country and picked one of the least lively settlements in which to meet. Admittedly, in the company of such as Dublin (Ohio, USA, rather than the somewhat more picturesque capital of Eire) and Coventry, Canberra did rather manage to shine. Nobly sacrificing sleep, wintry weather and the monotony of their offices for the higher cause that is metadata, the authors and two other UK representatives (Dave Beckett from the University of Kent at Canterbury and Rachel Heery from the UK Office of Library & Information Networking, UKOLN) descended upon an unsuspecting Australia. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/electronic-formats/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/electronic-formats/ Every day, subscribers to the the NewJour mailing list [1] receive notification of new Internet-available electronic serials. The NewJour definition of a serial covers everything from journals to magazines and newsletters; from the British Accounting Review to Ariadne, to The (virtual) Baguette and I Love My Nanny. Some days, a dozen or more publications are announced. As of 13th February 1997, the NewJour archive contained 3,240 items. Most of these electronic serials, or e-serials, along with most other electronic publications currently available on the World Wide Web, are stored and represented using one or more of a relatively limited number of document formats. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/models/ Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/8/models/ MODELS (MOving to Distributed Environments for Library Services) [1] is one of the three eLib Supporting Studies [2] projects. It was intended that projects in this area of the programme would help to define issues in more detail and set parameters for other work. In addition to fulfilling this role, MODELS has generated several significant national initiatives and achieved some important results for the management of distributed library services. The project is a UKOLN initiative, which has support from eLib and the British Library. 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/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/edina/ Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/6/edina/ Why W? Well, a lot has been said and done about W. W clients are cheap (free?) and easy to come by. End users like them, they have point-and-click graphical interfaces. But the problem for the national bibliographic data services is how to provide access to the databases held in text management software, like BasisPlus used by both BIDS and EDINA, in a way that allows users to build queries interactively, across several physical databases. 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/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/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/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/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/netskills_corner/ Sat, 18 May 1996 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/3/netskills_corner/ About the Conference The CNIT The fifth World Wide Web conference was held at CNIT, La Défense in Paris from 6-10th May 1996. The conference began with a day of tutorials and workshops and concluded with a developer’s day. The technical programme took place on the 7-9th May. In addition a Small to Medium Enterprises (SME) Forum was held on 9-10th May. ImpressionsThe WWW conference has certainly changed since the first conference was held at CERN in May 1994. 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/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/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/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/author/ed-summers-author-profile/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/ed-summers-author-profile/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/gunter-waibel/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/gunter-waibel/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/janifer-gatenby-author-profile/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/janifer-gatenby-author-profile/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/jean-godby-author-profile/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/jean-godby-author-profile/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/john-maccoll-author-profile/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/john-maccoll-author-profile/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/lorcan-dempsey-author-profile/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/lorcan-dempsey-author-profile/ Lorcan Dempsey is the Vice President and Chief Strategist of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). He is a native of Dublin, Ireland, where he worked for some years in public libraries. He writes and talks about libraries and networked information. He is interested in the impact of changing patterns of research and learning on libraries, in libraries as public institutions, and in the architecture of digital information environments. Lorcan Dempsey on Twitter: @lorcanD http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/ralph-levan-author-profile/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/ralph-levan-author-profile/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/robin-murray-author-profile/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/author/robin-murray-author-profile/