Table of contents: issue10

Clifford Lynch in Interview

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Clifford Lynch, the Executive Director of CNI, was interviewed by John Kirriemuir at the Metadata: What Is It? workshop on 18 June 1997. Clifford shares some views on mirroring, caching, metadata, Z39.50 and how he sees his role in CNI.

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?

Changing the Lightbulb – Er, the Culture: How Many eLib Projects Does It Take to Change the Higher Education Culture?

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Clare Davies, Alison Scammell and Matthew Hall discuss what it takes to change Higher Education culture.

As part of the eLib programme's overall evaluation activities, a recent eLib Supporting Study has been investigating something called 'Mobilisation effects of eLib activities on cultural change in higher education' (HE). This article describes what on earth that title means, and what we've been finding out about the 'culture' of eLib. The study, funded by JISC, is managed by the Tavistock Institute and ends this July. Among our activities, we've interviewed various key people in eLib, and examined project and programme deliverables for views and evidence about cultural change issues.

Cybercollege Scorecard: How Does Your University Score?

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Tony Durham, multimedia editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement, explains how to determine whether cultural change has affected your institute of learning.

Information technology is now essential to the effective running of a university or college, and a suitably high-tech image will help a higher education institution to compete in attracting the best students. The Cybercollege Scorecard will enable you to determine whether your institution is successfully riding the IT wave. Furthermore, if you have the necessary information you can go on to complete scorecards for rival institutions which you admire, envy or despise.

Dublin Core Management

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Andy Powell presents three models for the way in which metadata can be managed across a Web site and describes some of the tools that are beginning to be used at UKOLN to embed Dublin Core metadata into Web pages.

The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (the Dublin Core) [1] is a 15 element metadata set that is primarily intended to aid resource discovery on the Web. The elements in the Dublin Core are TITLE, SUBJECT, DESCRIPTION, CREATOR, PUBLISHER, CONTRIBUTOR, DATE, TYPE, FORMAT, IDENTIFIER, SOURCE, LANGUAGE, RELATION, COVERAGE and RIGHTS. As we begin to consider some initial implementations using the Dublin Core we need to consider how best to manage large amounts of metadata across a Web-site.

Electronic Journals: Problem Or Panacea?

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Judith Edwards outlines some of the problems faced by academia in the acquisition and provision of electronic 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.e.

Electronic Document Delivery: A Trial in an Academic Library

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

In the first of a two-part article, Fiona Williams describes the trials of various electronic document delivery systems in University of Bath Library and Learning Centre over the last few years. A review of the latest trial, between BL Urgent Action Service and TU DELFT, as well as an overall comparison with the Blackwell's Uncover Service will be given in the next issue of Ariadne.

Press Release – JISC / Caul Collaboration Agreement

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Kelly Russell outlines the collaboration between JISC and CAUL, and announces the appointment of the post of International Co-ordinator.

Following the recent international conference on the Global Digital Library held in London 16/17 June, representatives from the UK Joint Information Systems Committee met with colleagues from the Council of Australian University Librarians to consolidate an agreement for co-operation which was initiated in the autumn of 1996. JISC/CAUL collaboration began in October 1996 when it was agreed that the current technological and economic climate made collaborative work possible, attractive and increasingly necessary.

Setting Priorities for Digital Library Research

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Graham Jefcoate outlines the rationale of the British Library Research and Innovation Centre's Digital Library Research Programme.

The British Library Research and Innovation Centre's Digital Library Research Programme aims to help the library and information community formulate an appropriate and effective response to the challenge posed by the 'digital library'. It also seeks to address the issues raised by rapid technological change for library staff and users, and to assess its relevance for the information needs of the wider community. We believe that few greater challenges face libraries and information services today.

Revolutionaries and Captives in the Information Society

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Trevor Haywood on the shackles that bind us to the information revolution.

Every generation believes that it is at a seminal point on the time-line of technological progress. It is either the age of iron, the age of the train, the age of flight or, in our case, the information age. We can thus always say that we stand at an interesting moment in the development of technology. Nowhere does this 'interesting moment' look more intriguing than our current location on the map of rapidly evolving information technology, particularly networking technology.

Beyond the Web: The Potential Uses of HTML in Library Disaster Control Planning

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

During a lifelong library career, 2 out of 5 librarians will face a major disaster in their library. Emma Blagg describes the design and evaluation of a HTML-based disaster control plan, used to provide the counter measures taken to minimise the effects of such a disaster.

A disaster control plan for the Pilkington library was created using HTML to link existing documentation. The plan was then evaluated by both students and library staff in order to assess the usefulness of a disaster control plan in this format. It was hoped that using hypertext would create a structured, easily accessible information resource. The resulting hypertext system was called "Pilkplan". In this article, the positive aspects and problems of using HTML in this area of library management are considered as well as feedback from users.

Copyright Management Technologies: The Key to Unlocking Digital Works?

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Anne Ramsden brings us up to date with current developments in copyright management technology

Digitisation of copyright works and other protected objects has many benefits for the user not least in terms of ease of access, however, for the rights owners it can represent both an opportunity and a threat.