Table of contents: issue21

An Overview of Subject Gateway Activities in Australia

editor — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Debbie Campbell looks at how the original criteria proposed for an IMesh map against these Australian initiatives.

This information paper was written by the National Library of Australia to describe the scope and intent of four of Australia's national subject gateways: Agrigate [2], the Australian Virtual Engineering Library (AVEL) [3], EdNA Online - the website of the Education Network of Australia (EdNA) [4], and MetaChem [5].

Z39.50 for All

editor — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Paul Miller looks at the Z39.50 standard and attempts to extract some meaning from the mass of associated literature.

Z39.50. Despite certain nominative similarities, it's not a robot from that other blockbuster of the summer, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, but rather the cuddly and approachable name for an important standard of relevance to many working with information resources in a distributed environment.

Digitizing Wilfrid

editor — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Philip Hunter talks to Stuart Lee about the prizewinning 'Wilfrid Owen Multimedia Digital Archive' and the JTAP 'Virtual Seminars on WW1'.

PH How did the WWW1 JTAP seminars get started?

SL A long time ago we did a set of Hypercard stacks on Isaac Rosenberg, which I converted for the web in January ‘95, and then when the JTAP call came out I thought that we could expand the tutorial and make four tutorials. And then we had all the archive nearby: we thought we would tackle the idea of creating both online tutorials and a digital archive which lecturers could use.

The Scholarly Journal in Transition and the PubMed Central Proposal

editor — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Michael Day discusses the scholarly journal in transition and the PubMed Central proposal.

In my opinion, there is no real question that completely paperless systems will emerge in science and in other fields. The only real question is "when will it happen?" We can reasonably expect, I feel, that a rather fully developed electronic information system ... will exist by the year 2000, although it could conceivably come earlier. F. Wilfrid Lancaster (1978) [1]

ECMS: Technology Issues and Electronic Copyright Management Systems

editor — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Pedro Isaias looks at the relevant ECMS e-Commerce technology.

Technology issues are of utmost importance in Electronic Copyright Management Systems (ECMS). In fact, these technologies can in part determine the success or failure of these systems. In a traditional environment, consumers enjoy buying with efficient systems and security. This is even truer in the Internet. Thus the need to develop and deploy technologies that are efficient and can assure security.

This work covers these technology issues, illustrating the following points in an objective way: