Table of contents: issue52

DRIVER: Seven Items on a European Agenda for Digital Repositories

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Maurits van der Graaf provides results and conclusions from the DRIVER inventory study.

ARROW and the RQF: Meeting the Needs of the Research Quality Framework Using an Institutional Research Repository

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

David Groenewegen and Andrew Treloar describe the role of repositories in the forthcoming Australian Research Quality Framework (RQF) and the responses of the ARROW Project to the needs of the RQF.

This paper describes the work of the ARROW Project to meet the requirements of the forthcoming Research Quality Framework (RQF). The RQF is an Australian Federal Government initiative designed to measure the quality and impact of Australian research, and is based partly on the existing Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) held in the UK. The RQF differs from the RAE in its reliance on local institutional repositories for the provision of access to research outputs, and this paper will explain how it is envisaged that this role will be filled, and the challenges that arise from this role.

Access to Scientific Knowledge for Sustainable Development: Options for Developing Countries

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Barbara Kirsop, Leslie Chan and Subbiah Arunachalam consider the impact of donor access and open access to research publications on the sustainable development of science in developing countries.

The SPP Alerting Portlet: Delivering Personalised Updates

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Virginia Knight describes the open-source alerting portlet which has been developed as part of the SPP Subject Portals Project (SPP) and the results of user feedback.

Repository Thrills and Spills

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Sue Manuel and Charles Oppenheim take a look at recent developments in the digital repositories field and present a light-hearted project narrative.

Much can be learned from looking back and reflecting on events in the repository arena over the past few years. Repository systems, institutional managers, repository managers, advisory organisations and repository users have all come a long way in this short time. Looking back acts as a way of grounding prior activity in the present context. It can also provide invaluable insights into where repositories are headed. The activity of deliberating on past events may be of value to a range of individuals engaged in repository activities.

Institutional Repositories and Their 'Other' Users: Usability Beyond Authors

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Dana McKay summarises the literature on the usability of institutional repositories, and points to directions for future work.

24 Hour Museum: From Past to Future

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

As 24 Hour Museum rebuilds and looks outwards to new partnerships, Jon Pratty looks at challenges faced over the last seven years.

24 Hour Museum [1] is a successful and sustainable cultural Web site. Type the word 'museum' into Google UK and up it pops as a top five search result. Unlike the other top sites, all national museums or galleries, 24HM's remit covers the whole country, in eclectic subject areas, reaching a wide variety of audiences with simple and accessible content.

IIPC Web Archiving Toolset Performance Testing at The British Library

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Jackson Pope and Philip Beresford pick up the threads from an initial contribution in issue 50 and report on progress at The British Library in installing and performance testing the Web Curator Tool.

The British Library is adopting the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) Toolset [1] - comprising the Web Curator Tool (WCT), NutchWax and the Open Source Wayback Machine (OSWM) for its evolving Web archiving operations, in anticipation of Legal Deposit legislation being introduced within the next few years. The aim of this performance-testing stage was to evaluate what hardware would be required to run the toolset in a production environment.

EThOSnet: Building a UK E-Theses Community

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Jill Russell outlines progress towards an e-theses service for the UK.

Capacity Building: Spoken Word at Glasgow Caledonian University

editor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Iain Wallace, Graeme West and David Donald give an account of the origins, nature and establishment of Spoken Word Services at Glasgow Caledonian University.

At Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) the Spoken Word [1], a project in the JISC / NSF Digital Libraries in the Classroom (DLiC) programme [2], was conceived in 2001-2002 in response to a set of pedagogical and institutional imperatives. A small group of social scientists had, since the 1990s, been promoting the idea of using 'an information technology-intensive learning environment' to recapture some of the traditional aspirations of Scottish Higher Education, in particular independent, critical and co-operative learning [3].