Table of contents: issue50

Editorial Introduction to Issue 50: Side-Stepping Babel

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Richard Waller introduces Ariadne 50.

With Dyson and parts of Burberry disappearing points east, leaving their design departments behind them [1] [2], there are possible grounds for arguing that the (previously) industrialised countries must live by their wits and the emerging knowledge economy.

A Dublin Core Application Profile for Scholarly Works

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Julie Allinson, Pete Johnston and Andy Powell describe a Dublin Core application profile for describing scholarly works that makes use of FRBR and the DCMI Abstract Model.

In May 2006, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [1] approached UKOLN [2] and the Eduserv Foundation [3] to collaborate on the development of a metadata specification for describing eprints (alternatively referred to as scholarly works, research papers or scholarly research texts) [4].

Models of Early Adoption of ICT Innovations in Higher Education

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Melanie Bates, Sue Manuel and Charles Oppenheim provide an overview of some considerations for change agents attempting to introduce an innovative new information communication technology service into Higher Education institutions.

Web Curator Tool

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Philip Beresford tells the story (from The British Library's perspective) of the development of new software to aid all stages of harvesting Web sites for preservation.

In September 2006 The National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, The British Library and Sytec, announced the successful development of a Web harvesting management system.

The system, known as Web Curator Tool, is designed to assist curators of digital archives in collecting Web-published material for storage and preservation.

New Search Engines in 2006

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Phil Bradley takes a look at some of the search engines that he noticed in 2006 and provides quick assessments.

ONIX for Licensing Terms: Standards for the Electronic Communication of Usage Terms

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Francis Cave, Brian Green and David Martin describe the purpose, development and potential of standards for the electronic communication of licensing terms between publishers, libraries and other licensees.

With an increasing number of publications being made available digitally, and new supply chains and business models emerging for trading them, an urgent need has been identified for a standard way of expressing and communicating usage terms, and linking those terms to the publications.

Reflecting the development pattern of the markets, this need was first identified in the scholarly journals sector. More recently, a similar requirement has been articulated for the communication of usage terms between publishers' digital repositories and search engines such as Google.

Collecting Born Digital Archives at the Wellcome Library

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Chris Hilton and Dave Thompson discuss plans for work with born digital archival material at the Wellcome Library.

Limits to Information Transfer: The Boundary Problem

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Jon E. Lervik, Mark Easterby-Smith, Kathryn Fahy and Carole Elliott discuss the challenges in integrating knowledge across boundaries between specialised knowledge communities within an organisation.

What Happens When We Mash the Library?

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Paul Miller looks at recent attempts to make library resources more appealing, including the Talis competition to build library 'mashups'.

Over the summer of 2006, there was much talk about extending and enriching the online offerings of the library. Reports for the Library of Congress [1] and University of California [2] were still being cogitated upon. North Carolina State University's [3] Endeca-powered catalogue was attracting a lot of interest [4].

Wikido: Exploiting the Potential of Wikis

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Marieke Guy reports on a one-day workshop, held in Birmingham in November 2006, which took a closer look at the potential of Wikis for educational institutions.

JISC CETIS Conference, 2006

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Paul Walk reports on the third annual CETIS conference held in Salford, Manchester, over 14 -15 November 2006.

2nd International DCC Conference 2006: Digital Data Curation in Practice

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Alexander Ball and Manjula Patel provide an overview of the second annual conference of the Digital Curation Centre.

The International Digital Curation Conference is held annually by the Digital Curation Centre [1] to bring together researchers in the field and promote discussion of policy and strategy. The second conference in this series [2], with the theme 'digital data curation in practice', was held between 21-22 November 2006 in Glasgow.

Cultural Heritage Online: The Challenge of Accessibility and Preservation

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Alastair Dunning reports on a conference in Florence about the preservation and accessibility of cultural heritage material.

Hosting a conference next to Florence's Uffizi Gallery and the sculpture-studded Piazza dei Signori is not a bad place for a conference on preservation and access to digital cultural heritage. And the condition of the courtyards, palaces, frescoes around the city show that someone has done a pretty good job at old-style preservation - give or take the occasional flood. But could the same be said of the preservation of digital culture being created in the present?

Take a Peek Beneath the EPrints V3 Wrappers

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

With v3 officially launched at the Open Repositories Conference in San Antonio last week, William Nixon and Peter Millington report on the EPrints 3 pre-launch briefing in London, 8 December 2006.

News and Events

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) Training Programme

Either: Birmingham, Bristol or London, 8 February to 27 April 2007
http://www.tasi.ac.uk/training/

The TASI programme of practical hands-on training includes three brand new workshops:

Book Review: Digital Libraries - Integrating Content and Systems

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Chris Awre finds a useful toolset to guide librarians and LIS students on the future use of IT to deliver their services.

We are not short of information on digital libraries and the technologies involved in building them. There have been multiple papers in many journals, of which Ariadne itself is key, many books and, now, many blogs enthusiastically informing us of the technical directions it is best to take. Nevertheless the constant evolution of available technologies, makes book publishing in the field a tricky business, risking irrelevance prior to release.

Book Review: Digital Preservation

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Maureen Pennock reviews a release in Facet's Digital Futures series.

Digital Preservation is a promising volume that will prove useful to information professionals wishing to learn more about digital preservation, particularly in a cultural heritage context. This edited collection offers perspectives and overviews of different aspects of preservation, such as strategies, costs and metadata, by a select number of widely acknowledged experts. Other chapters cover Web archiving and Web archiving initiatives, European approaches to preservation, and digital preservation projects from around the globe.

Book Review: Google Hacks

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Phil Bradley looks at a work offering programming 'know-how' to create resources that will do things with the search engine that might otherwise prove difficult or impossible.

The subtitle for the book is 'Tips and tools for finding and using the world's information' which does neatly sum up its content. This is the third edition, so it is clearly popular, and has been updated to include information and hacks for Google maps, talk and desktop. As with any O'Reilly title, it is very clearly laid out, easy to read, with extremely good illustrations, small icons to indicate tips or notes of caution, plus an in-depth and thorough index. Each hack is clearly indicated by typography, an icon and the top corner of each page indicates the numbered hack.

Book Review: Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography

editor — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Nigel Goldsmith reviews a new book on digital photography by the accomplished American landscape photographer Stephen Johnson.

Although there are some hints on the cover, it isn't until you scan the contents page that you can fully appreciate the scope of this book. Over the course of seven sections Stephen Johnson's book leads the reader on a journey: from the invention of the early electronic fax and cathode ray tube in the 1800s; through his own encounters as a pioneering digital photographer; and ending with his personal digital imaging manifesto.