Editorial

Citation

Gelfand, J. and Riggs, C. (2003), "Editorial", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 20 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2003.23920aaa.001

Editorial

Library Hi-Tech News begins its 20th volume year with this issue. That is no easy feat in this publishing marketplace and we are pleased to continue as co-editors. Hopefully, the journal continues to meet the needs of readers as we highlight trends in library automation, technology training, new product development and the variety of partnerships between libraries and providers who make information transfer and readership services as progressive as can be supported in all library environments. There are many challenges facing the library community and we want to promote case studies where it can be shown how libraries are solving problems and utilizing the latest technologies and resources.

This issue opens with many conference reports reflecting an international spectrum of meetings and seminars that took place in the last quarter of 2002. As time, financial resources and availability often prove to be difficult obstacles these reports should suggest a barrier free situation in which readers can gain insights into the conference culture and the most critical content of the conference without being there. We hope that you will review the diary and suggest when you can make contributions to this section of our journal by submitting a conference report.

This issue covers the following conferences:

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  Second European Workshop on the Open Archive Initiative at CERN.

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  Central Asia 2002 Conference on "Internet and Libraries: Information Resources in Science, Culture, Education and Business" held in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

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  Ethics of Electronics Information conference in Memphis.

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  LITA Annual Forum in Houston.

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  Internet Librarian Conference in Southern California.

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  Second conference by the Center for Research Libraries and the Association of Research Libraries on Coordinated Collection Development in Atlanta.

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  Virtual Reference Desk Conference in Chicago.

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  Annual meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) in Philadelphia.

There are two excellent feature articles that we hope you enjoy. Portals are increasingly important to libraries and there are some very encouraging new methods of creating information portals. Being able to provide access to a variety of information products with a single interface is the challenge of portal development and Matthew Goldner, from Fretwell-Downing, Inc., writes about that process and what it means for libraries in his submission, "Go Portal". We also have an update from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on the eVALUEd project that has matured and is described by Rebecca Hartland-Fox and Stella Thebridge.

We have the usual columns found in each issue. Gerry McKiernan writes about Energy Files for e-Profile, and e-Book Currents has lots of new and exciting content for instruction, digital libraries and other applications. There are many new books to consider in the New Books column. This issue of the New & Noteworthy and the Calendar is the last one prepared by Monica Blake. We want to thank her and acknowledge her contributions to LHTN and her service this past year as a contributing editor when Emerald incorporated Online and CD Notes, formerly published by ASLIB into LHTN.

There are many issues and developments in library technology and we look forward to another full year of ten important issues. Many new writers will be introduced and exciting and timely topics will be explored. We invite your participation not only as a reader but as a contributor and commentator. Why not consider it?

Julia Gelfand(jgelfand@uci.edu)Colby Riggs(cmriggs@uci.edu)Co-editors