Table of contents: issue24

Interoperability: What Is It and Why Should I Want It?

editor — Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000

Paul Miller explains what interoperability is and why you should want it.

Together with terms like "metadata" and "joined-up thinking", this word is increasingly being used within the information management discourse across all of our memory institutions. Its meaning, though, remains somewhat ambiguous, as do many of the benefits of "being interoperable". This paper is an attempt, written from the doubtless biased perspective of someone with the word in their job title, to explain some of what interoperability means, and to begin stating the case for more active efforts towards being truly interoperable across a range of services.

Text Encoding for Interchange: A New Consortium

editor — Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000

Lou Burnard on the creation of the TEI Consortium which has been created to take the TEI Guidelines into the XML world.

The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) was originally established in 1987 with the goal of creating a community-based standard for text encoding and interchange. It came into being as the result of a perception in many different parts of the academic research community that the rising tide of digitized media (largely known, in those distant days, as "electronic" or even "machine-readable" texts) threatened to engulf everything in a war of competing formats and encoding systems.

In Vision: The Internet As a Resource for Visually Impaired People

editor — Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000

Ann Chapman on the Internet as a resource for visually impaired people: a survey of accessible sites, resources, current research and software.

Introduction

Until recently, visually impaired people (VIP) were poorly served by the library and information provision that is routinely available to sighted people. They have relied to a great extent on specialist voluntary organisations transcribing a limited range of materials into accessible formats. This situation is changing with advances in technology and recent initiatives on social inclusion. Increasingly visually impaired people will be able to locate and use information independently, as sighted people already do.

Theory and Practice of the Virtual University

editor — Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000

Neil Pollock and James Cornford report on UK universities use of new technologies.

Abstract:

This article reports on a two-year research project that is investigating the way in which UK universities are attempting to build new technologies into higher education.

Adaptive Developments for Learning in the Hybrid Library

editor — Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000

Wilma Alexander on the SELLIC Project and its aim to support the use of electronic resources in teaching science and engineering.

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.

How the Oxford English Dictionary Went Online

editor — Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000

Laura Elliot explains the use of SGML in the management of the OED text.

Ariadne has already described the long-term task of revising the Oxford English Dictionary and reviewed OED Online at its launch in March this year, but the editor judged, rightly, that there must be a hidden story on the making of the web site.

Agora: From Information Maze to Market

editor — Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000

Bridget Robinson, David Palmer and Rosemary Russell outline the Agora cross-searching software project, and its technical background.

Agora is one of the five elib hybrid Library projects which began in January 1998 and are all due for completion at various times this year. They form part of Phase 3 of the elib Programme that is investigating issues of digital library implementation and integration.

The word Agora comes from the Greek word meaning meeting place or assembly point. On further investigation the Perseus project, part of the Department of Classics, Tufts University)[1] describes an agora as: -

JSTOR Usage

editor — Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:00:00 +0000

Alison Murphy reports on the JSTOR electronic journals project continuing success.

JSTOR (Journal STORage) is a unique digital archive of over 100 core scholarly journals, starting with the very first issues. The collection covers material from the 1800s up to a 'moving wall' of between 1 and 8 years before current publication. It covers 15 subjects at present, mainly in the Humanities and Social Sciences. JSTOR is made available to academic institutions around the world on a site-licence basis. Users at participating institutions can search, browse, print and save any article from the collection.