Editorial

Citation

(2014), "Editorial", Library Review, Vol. 63 No. 6/7. https://doi.org/10.1108/LR-07-2014-0082

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Library Review, Volume 63, Issue 6/7

This latest double issue of Library Review is devoted entirely to publishing selected revised, updated and extended papers from a series of conferences organised by the Department of Library Science and Information Systems of the Technological Educational Institute of Athens (TEI - A) in 2012 and 2013. The origin of this conference series and its scope are given below in a short preface written by the Conference Chairs, Professor Georgios A. Giannakopoulos, Technological Educational Institute of Athens and Dr Damianos P. Sakas, University of Peloponnese.

The papers selected reflect not only the wide range and contemporary themes of the conference series but also reflect the broad scope of the journal currently. The first study from Zervos and Grimani examines bookbinding from the perspective of a library preservation measure, an approach which one reviewer considered both “welcome and important because this reality is not necessarily widely appreciated”. Eleni Galiotou’s paper which follows has a closely related theme, namely, the use of digital corpora for preserving and processing cultural heritage texts. Again, a topic of enormous contemporary significance and one which is of interest not only to librarians and archivists but also to scholars such as theologians, historians, philologists and palaeographers amongst others.

Archival studies, in the broadest sense, underpin the next two papers. The first from Giannakopoulos and Koumantakis is a wide-ranging study, exploring our understanding of archival science as an information discipline and, as such, how this contributes to developing our knowledge and understanding of the integrated field of information. It is both conceptual and empirical in scope and serves, in part, as a contextual study for the conference series as a whole. From a differing perspective, Karanikolas and Skourlas explore issues in relation to managing and creating a digital archive of relevant research information from an individual or personal perspective, concluding that “the technology is mature enough for building up Personal Digital Libraries (PDLs)”.

Changing the focus somewhat to description, retrieval, access and usability issues, the following two papers examine policy and practice perspectives. Daphne Kyriaki-Manessi examines the major policy issues in relation to creating a Greek Citation Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences. In particular, she addresses the challenges arising when attempting to design “an information tool in a unique language environment and in isolation from the international indexing community”. A team of researchers led by Houssos report the results of their project developing a software server able to “wrap existing systems or even metadata records in plain files as OAI-PMH sources”. The practical implications of which are that:

[…] exposing data via OAI-PMH to aggregators like Europeana is made feasible/easier for digital collections owners, even when their software infrastructure does not inherently support the required protocols and standards.

Community and communication issues constitute the themes of the remaining four papers. In the first of these, Kavoura explores issues in relation to the use of social media to create, develop and sustain online research communities of all types. Barbara Sen of the Sheffield Information School also explores issues of community and communication, presenting a model illustrating the complexity of the public library “as a societal organization with multiple stakeholder perspectives” based on her recent research in Cumbria. A key finding of Sen’s research is the central role of an effective leader in such environments, not only in motivating staff but also in ensuring the involvement of all stakeholders in creating an effective service relevant to complex community needs. In the penultimate paper, Bikos et al. present the results of their study examining student and teacher perceptions of the impact of school libraries on learning and academic performance.

We end as we began with a study relating to books – in this instance, a report of a research project part-funded by the Greek Ministry of Education and Eudoxus project. The latter project is “co-financed by Greece and the European Union, in the context of Operational Programme “Digital Convergence” of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2007-2013”. In this study, Kouis and Konstantinou explore advantages and challenges arising from the use and adoption of electronic textbooks in the Higher Education and Publishing Community of Greece, concluding that their:

[…] findings reflect a situation where e-textbooks will replace the printed, but not in the near future as both technology providers and publishers have to overcome many technical obstacles. Students are expecting the transition to occur soon, but still remain very reluctant about the inconvenience [this] might cause to their reading habits.

The above selection of papers constitutes a fascinating contemporary insight into the wide range of issues and challenges facing the profession and the discipline currently. I am happy to publish highlights from this conference series in Library Review, not solely as a reflection of the current range and scope of the journal but also as this conference furthers research into practice, enabling communication and knowledge exchange between scholars and practitioners, activities to which I remain deeply committed.

Judith Broady-Preston