Table of contents: issue47

Search Engines: Where We Were, Are Now, and Will Ever Be

editor — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Phil Bradley takes a look at the development of search engines over the lifetime of Ariadne and points to what we might anticipate in the years to come.

Unfortunately, I was unable to contribute to the decennial issue at the editors' invitation due to a family bereavement, but since it was such a good idea to take a look back at where we were, and then relate it to the present day and beyond, I did not want to miss the opportunity in this issue.

Digitising an Archive: The Factory Approach

editor — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Duncan Burbidge describes a new approach to digitising an archive both as a future-proof substitute and for Web delivery.

The FP6 PrestoSpace Project [1] aims to develop systems that will permit quick, efficient and economically accessible preservation of analogue media [2].

Preserving Electronic Scholarly Journals: Portico

editor — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Eileen Fenton outlines issues relating to the long-term preservation of digital resources and the characteristics of an archival entity responding to this need.

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].

Retrospective on the RDN

editor — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Debra Hiom, in the first of a two-part series on the Resource Discovery Network, looks back at the development of the RDN and its activities to date.

Introduction

This article will describe the history of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) [1], charting the development of subject gateways in the UK since 1993 to the present day. To help set the history of the gateways in the wider context of the resource discovery landscape in the last decade or so, readers are encouraged to refer to Lorcan Dempsey's recent article on the development of digital libraries [2].

RDN Timeline

admin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:50:13 +0000

Debra Hiom provides a timeline of the RDN's development, which accompanies her main article.

January 1994 - ESRC funds SOSIG as a pilot project - return to text
June 1994 - SOSIG subject gateway demonstrator goes live with 300 records
Spring 1995 - EEVL, OMNI and SOSIG awarded funding under the eLib Programme: Access to Networked Resources.

QMSearch: A Quality Metrics-aware Search Framework

editor — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Aaron Krowne and Urvashi Gadi present a framework which improves searching in the context of scholarly digital libraries by taking a 'quality metrics-aware' approach.

In this article we present a framework, QMSearch, which improves searching in the context of scholarly digital libraries by taking a 'quality metrics-aware' approach. This means the digital library deployer or end-user can customise how results are presented, including aspects of both ranking and organisation in general, based upon standard metadata attributes and quality indicators derived from the general library information environment.

Metasearch: Building a Shared, Metadata-driven Knowledge Base System

editor — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Terry Reese discusses the creation of a shared knowledge base system within OSU's open-source metasearch development.

Surveying the current metasearch tools landscape, it is somewhat surprising to find so few non-commercial implementations available. This is especially true considering that, as a group, the library community has cultivated a very vibrant open source community over the past ten or so years. One wonders then, why this particular service has been ceded to the world of commercial vendors. One can speculate that the creation and management of a metasearch knowledge base has likely played a large role [1].

Stargate: Exploring Static Repositories for Small Publishers

editor — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000

R. John Robertson introduces a project examining the potential benefits of OAI-PMH Static Repositories as a means of enabling small publishers to participate more fully in the information environment.

With the wider deployment of repositories, the Open Archives Initiative - Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is becoming a common method of supporting interoperability between repositories and services. It provides 'an application-independent interoperability framework based on metadata harvesting' [1]. Nodes in a network using this protocol are 'data providers' or 'service providers'.

Folksonomies: The Fall and Rise of Plain-text Tagging

editor — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Emma Tonkin suggests that rising new ideas are often on their second circuit - and none the worse for that.

Despite the stability of many key technologies underlying today's Internet, venerable workhorses such as TCP/IP and HTTP, the rise of new candidate specifications frequently leads to a sort of collaborative manic depression. Every now and then, a new idea comes along and sparks a wave of interest, the first stage in the Internet hype cycle.

Serving Services in Web 2.0

editor — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Theo van Veen shows with the help of an example, how standardised descriptions of services can help users control the integration of services from different providers.

"I want my browser to recognise information in Web pages and offer me functionality to remix it with relevant information from other services. I want to control which services are offered to me and how they are offered."