Table of contents: issue60

Editorial: Passing of a Seasoned Campaigner

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Richard Waller does not introduce Ariadne Issue 60.

Understandably enough, here at UKOLN everyone's chins have been on the floor since the news of the death of Rachel Heery reached us last week. Rachel retired as Deputy Director in 2007 and in the years that she worked as the team leader of UKOLN R&D she left an indelible mark on the field in which she worked [1] and still remained professionally active in retirement despite her illness. Thanks to the tributes written by her friends and colleagues, I need but direct you to their descriptions of her work and way of working [2].

SHERPA to YODL-ING: Digital Mountaineering at York

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Julie Allinson and Elizabeth Harbord describe the development of digital repositories for the University of York.

The University Library & Archives' first venture into digital repositories was as part of the White Rose partnership in the original SHERPA Project [1]. Leeds, Sheffield and York universities have had a research partnership for some years and the library services became a consortial partner in SHERPA in 2002 to set up a joint e-prints repository called White Rose Research Online (WRRO) [2] . During the project which ran from 2002-2006, advocacy about Open Access and the need for wider dissemination of research outputs got underway at York.

Research Data Preservation and Access: The Views of Researchers

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Neil Beagrie, Robert Beagrie and Ian Rowlands present findings from a UKRDS survey of researchers' views on and practices for preservation and dissemination of research data in four UK universities.

Data has always been fundamental to many areas of research but it in recent years it has become central to more disciplines and inter-disciplinary projects and grown substantially in scale and complexity. There is increasing awareness of its strategic importance as a resource in addressing modern global challenges such as climate change, and the possibilities being unlocked by rapid technological advances and their application in research. In the US the National Science Board has stated that:

Overlay Journals and Data Publishing in the Meteorological Sciences

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Sarah Callaghan, Fiona Hewer, Sam Pepler, Paul Hardaker and Alan Gadian introduce the OJIMS Project and discuss the impact of overlay and data journals in the meteorological sciences.

Historically speaking, scientific publishing has focused on publicising the methodology that the scientist uses to analyse a dataset, and the conclusions that the scientist can draw from that analysis, as this is the information that can be easily published in text format with supporting diagrams. Datasets do not lend themselves easily to normal hard copy publication, even if the size of the dataset were small enough to allow this, and datasets are more useful stored in digital media.

Collecting Evidence in a Web 2.0 Context

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Ann Chapman and Rosemary Russell describe the challenge of collecting evidence for a study of how Web 2.0 is being used in the UK HE sector.

Institutional Repositories for Creative and Applied Arts Research: The Kultur Project

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Andrew Gray discusses institutional repositories and the creative and applied arts specifically in relation to the JISC-funded Kultur Project.

Those involved in Higher Education (HE) may have started to sense the approach of Institutional Repositories (IRs). Leaving aside the unfortunate nomenclature, IRs are becoming a fact of life in many educational institutions. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has invested £14million in the Repositories and Preservation Programme [1] and the recent Repositories and Preservation Programme Meeting in Birmingham [2] celebrated the end of over 40 individual repository projects under the Start Up and Enhancement [3] strand.

The Historic Hospitals Admission Records Project

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Sue Hawkins and Andrea Tanner describe a ground-breaking Web site using children's hospital admission registers.

The Historic Hospitals Admission Records Project (HHARP) is a digitisation and indexing project that covers the Victorian and Edwardian admission registers for the London children's hospitals Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), the Evelina Children's Hospital in Southwark and the Alexandra Hip Hospital in Bloomsbury, together with Yorkhill Children's Hospital in Glasgow.

E-Curator: A 3D Web-based Archive for Conservators and Curators

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Mona Hess, Graeme Were, Ian Brown, Sally MacDonald, Stuart Robson and Francesca Simon Millar describe a project which combines 3D colour laser scanning and e-Science technologies for capturing and sharing very large 3D scans and datasets about museum artefacts in a secure computing environment.

Introduction: The Evolving Field of Artefact Documentation

Digital heritage technologies promise a greater understanding of cultural objects cared for by museums. Recent technological advances in digital photography and image processing not only offer a high level of documentation, they also provide powerful analytical tools for conservation monitoring of cultural objects.

Archives 2.0: If We Build It, Will They Come?

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Joy Palmer discusses some of the opportunities and tensions emerging around Archives 2.0, crowd-sourcing, and archival authority.

The Norwegian National Digital Library

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Marianne Takle describes the National Library of Norway's digitisation strategy and how the National Library is taking on a key role in the country's digital library service.

Missing Links: The Enduring Web

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Alexandra Eveleigh reports on a workshop on Web archiving, organised by the DPC, JISC and UKWAC at the British Library on 21 July 2009.

This workshop, jointly sponsored by the DPC [1], JISC [2] and UKWAC [3], aimed to bring together content creators and tool developers with key stakeholders from the library and archives domains, in the quest for a technically feasible, socially and historically acceptable, legacy for the World Wide Web.

The Second International M-Libraries Conference

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Keren Mills reports on a two-day conference exploring and sharing delivery of services and resources to users 'on the move,' via mobile and hand-held devices.

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.

Why Pay for Content?

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Charles Oppenheim reports on the half-day event organised by the Publishers Association at the Faraday Lecture Theatre, Royal Institution, London on 24 June 2009.

JISC Digital Content Conference 2009

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Michelle Pauli reports on a two-day conference on digital content held by JISC in South Cerney over 30 June - 1 July 2009.

Open Repositories 2009

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Adrian Stevenson reports on the four-day annual Open Repositories conference held at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA, USA over 18 - 21 May 2009.

I recently attended the annual Open Repositories 2009 Conference [1] in Atlanta, Georgia which hosted 326 delegates from 23 countries. For myself, as the SWORD [2] Project Manager, the event proved to be very worthwhile. My colleague Julie Allinson and I were both able to give a plenary presentation on the first day and a half-day workshop on the final day.

Content Architecture: Exploiting and Managing Diverse Resources

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Jane Stevenson gives a personal view of the recent UK conference organised by the International Society of Knowledge Organization.

Eduserv Symposium 2009: Evolution Or Revolution: The Future of Identity and Access Management for Research

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Shirley Williams reports on the Eduserv Foundation Symposium which took as its theme investigate the intersection between identity management, access management and scholarly research collaboration across institutional and geographic boundaries.

News and Events

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

JISC Digital Media Course: Introduction to Image Metadata

ILRT, 8-10 Berkeley Square, Bristol, BS8 1HH
Wednesday 9 December 2009
Full-day course: 10.00 - 16.30
http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/training/courses/introduction-to-image-metadata/

Book Review: Digital Consumers - Reshaping the Information Professions

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Muhammad Rafiq offers us a detailed review of a work which examines digital consumers from both an historical and future perspective.

This book is a collection of articles by the members of the Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER), at University College London (UCL) and associates, such as Dr Tom Dobrowolski of Warsaw University, Professor Michael Moss of the University of Glasgow, Professor Barrie Gunter of the University of Leicester.

Book Review: GLUT - Mastering Information through the Ages

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Martin White enjoys a random walk through a historical survey of humanity's quest to classify and categorise information.

I am fascinated by the way in which successive generations have tried to cope with a contemporary information explosion. This is not just a 21st Century phenomenon, and as this book shows, it pre-dates manuscripts, let alone printed books. Consider for a moment the problems that the Victorian engineers faced in managing vast collections of engineering drawings. Such was my fascination that the moment I saw this book was available for review I instantly emailed the Editor to offer my services.

Book Review: Libraries Designed for Kids

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Sara Wingate Gray considers a practical guide to implementing design change in children's libraries and how to manage a consistent approach.

Published simultaneously as a US and UK edition, this is a practical 'how to' manual in creating children-oriented library spaces. It is a good starting point for practitioners involved in redesigning children's library spaces, and those lucky few who have been given the go-ahead to start from scratch and who wish to engage properly with the design and creation process before committing funds. The book is divided up into the following chapters, which give an idea of the basic issues that should be addressed:

Editorial Addendum to Issue 60: Snapshot of the Global Economy, Summer 2009

editor — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:58:18 +0000

Richard Waller collects images and links describing economic conditions in 2009.

The snapshot taken from a high-level page from the BBC News economy pages on 31 July 2009 should give future readers a notion of the situation to which many Ariadne authors allude.