Citation
(2004), "New & Noteworthy", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 21 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2004.23921bab.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
New & Noteworthy
OCLCEnvironmental Scan Examines Patterns in the Information Landscape
OCLC has produced a new report for its worldwide membership: The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition. The report examines significant issues and trends impacting OCLC, libraries, museums, archives and other allied organizations, positively and negatively, both now and in the future. The report provides a high-level view of the information landscape from the perspective of the "Information consumer", and intended both to inform and stimulate discussion about future strategic directions.
The report is based on interviews with more than 100 knowledge experts around the world, representing a wide variety of organizations. Their input, plus extensive research, yielded a wealth of insights on the real, day-to-day issues facing information professionals. OCLC created the report to both inform and stimulate discussion about future strategic directions.
Readers of the online version of the report can respond online to discussion questions related to each of the major areas of the report: social landscape, economic landscape, technology landscape, research and learning landscape, library landscape, and future frameworks.
To view the full report online, or to order a print copy: www.oclc.org/info/escan/
JISCLibrary Portal Case Study Published
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Portals Programme has as two of its aims:
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To have a fully developed view of the nature and role of portals within the information environment.
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To explore the potential of portals as an extendable network of "gate keepers" to content.
To support these aims, the JISC has funded a number of case studies in the assessment and implementation of portal solutions within an institution. The studies include work on institution-wide portals and more specific library portals. Case study reports will inform the JISC and the FE and HE community on the current development and use of portals in these two areas and assist with the future development of portals at both the national and institutional level.
The case study on the implementation of the MetaLib library portal at the University of Loughborough has recently been posted on the JISC Web site. The study reveals a significant increase in network database usage once the portal was launched to users, including both databases that could be cross-searched, and those that are not cross-searchable.
www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=portals_news_130104
Full text of the study: www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Metalibcasestudy.pdf
DLFSurvey of Digital Library Aggregation Services Released
A Survey of Digital Library Aggregation Services, by Martha Brogan, is a new document available from the Digital Library Federation (DLF). This report, commissioned by the DLF, provides an overview of a diverse set of more than 30 digital library aggregation services, organizes them into functional clusters, and then evaluates them more fully from the perspective of an informed user. Most of the services under review rely wholly or partially on the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI-PMH). Each service is annotated with its organizational affiliation, subject coverage, function, audience, status, and size. Critical issues surrounding each of these elements are presented in order to provide the reader with an appreciation of the nuances inherent in seemingly straightforward factual information, such as "audience" or "size."
www.diglib.org/pubs/dlfpubs.htm
NISO-Sponsored INFO URI Scheme Published
Working under the auspices of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), a joint task force of the publishing and library communities has developed and published a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme aimed at the identification of information assets. Information assets should be interpreted rather broadly to include, for example, documents and terms from classification schemes. The INFO URI scheme is a consistent and reliable way to represent and reference such standard identifiers as Dewey Decimal Classifications on the Web so that these identifiers can be "read" and understood by Web applications. Led by four NISO members and associates – Los Alamos National Laboratory, Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), Elsevier, and Manifest Solutions – the initiative builds on earlier consultations with representatives from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). An Internet-Draft for the INFO URI scheme was first published September 25, 2003 and a revision published December 5, 2003 (see www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-vandesompel-info-uri-01.txt).
Herbert Van de Sompel, Digital Library Research & Prototyping at the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Research Library, stated, "A good example of the problem that the INFO URI scheme solves involves PubMed identifiers: unique numbers assigned to records in the PubMed database maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the National Library of Medicine. PubMed identifiers originated prior to the Web, so they are not URIs. As such they do not exist naturally in the Web infrastructure because the Web only recognizes URIs as a means to identify information resources. So Web applications cannot use PubMed identifiers, and hence cannot reference PubMed records that are identified by them. The solution is to turn PubMed identifiers into URIs. The INFO Registry enables the registration of public namespaces of standard identifiers; NCBI registered its PubMed identifier namespace under the INFO Registry – their namespace is pmid – so we can now talk about the record with the PubMed identifier "12376099" in URI terms as info:pmid/12376099.
The INFO Registry is now available online at: http://info-uri.info/ for receiving new registrations. This Registry contains all the information needed by Web applications to make use of INFO namespaces. Each Registry entry defines the namespace, the syntax, and normalization rules for the representing INFO identifiers as URIs, and gives full contact information for the namespace authority for that entry. Moreover, the INFO Registry is readable by both humans and machines alike.
For more information about the INFO URI scheme, see the FAQ at: http://info-uri.info/registry/docs/misc/faq.html
NISO: www.niso.org
VRD 2003Proceedings Available Online
The Virtual Reference Desk (VRD) Conference 2003 Online Proceedings offers presentations, handouts, models, papers, and other materials presented at the VRD 2003 Digital Reference Conference in San Antonio, Texas, on November 17-18, 2003. Presentation categories include technology, evaluation, management, staffing and training, user behavior, information literacy, collaboration, and vendor demonstrations. Papers not appearing in the online proceedings will be published in a print publication entitled Rounding Out the Reference Experience: Integrating Theory and Practice to be published by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. in 2004.
www.vrd2003.org/proceedings/index.cfm
ICSTIProceedings, Presentations from Open Access Seminar now Available
The Seminar on Open Access to Scientific and Technical Information: State of the Art and Future Trends, co-sponsored by the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI), the Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique (INIST), and the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), was held on January 23-24, 2003. The term "open access" as used in the context of this seminar encompasses all the developments affecting access to Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) information, including technical, organizational, economic, legal and policy aspects. The overall concept therefore involves authors, publishers (primary and secondary), funding bodies, information service providers, technical standards developers, public authorities, policy makers and international agencies concerned with development. With more than 200 attendees from 18 countries, the level of presentations and discussions was very high, with the whole spectrum of the issues being raised by the different participants. The subject, which has sometimes been the subject of tension between the different interests, was discussed in an atmosphere of mutual exchange of information and with an understanding, if not a complete acceptance, of the different points of view.
The proceedings of the Seminar have been published in Information Services & Use, Vol. 23 Nos 2-3 (ISSN: 0167-5265). In addition, access to the program, presentations and visual aids as well as a copy of the Webcast, is available at: www.inist.fr/openaccess/index_en.php The site also contains a list of the participants and a list of URLs for further information.
VTLSAnnounces Enhancements and New Products at ALA MidwinterVITAL
VTLS announced the use of open-source software as the foundation of a suite of new product and service offerings. VTLS, after extensive analysis, selected Fedora from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and Cornell University, as the open source software to serve as the basis of digital asset management software to be called VITAL. Fedora began in September 2001 when the Mellon Foundation funded a project to build a digital object repository management system. The project was based on and became known as the Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (Fedora). Specifically, Fedora features:
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Datastreams. Objects in a repository may consist of content and metadata that physically reside inside or outside the repository. Fedora supports content of any MIME type.
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Batch utility. Fedora includes a batch utility as part of the management client that enables the mass creation and loading of data objects.
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OAI metadata harvesting provider. The OAI protocol for metadata harvesting is a standard for sharing metadata across repositories. Every Fedora digital object has a primary Dublin Core record that conforms to the schema.
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XML submission and storage. Digitalobjects are stored as XML-encoded files that conform to an extension of the METS schema.
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Versioning. The Fedora repository system includes the infrastructure to support versioning of digital objects and their components.
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Access control and authentication. Provides access restrictions based on IP address and HTTP basic authentication, with upcoming support for Shibboleth and digital rights management as well.
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Searching. Selected system metadata fields are indexed along with the primary Dublin Core record for each object. Fedora provides a search interface for both full text and field specific queries across these metadata fields.
VITAL builds on the Fedora repository architecture by providing VTLS developed workflow extensions, management utilities and enhanced searching capabilities. Using Fedora defined Web services, VITAL provides a mechanism to create tools, enhance the functionality provided by VTLS, or leverage the open source community for future applications. The package provides features – storing, indexing, cataloging, searching, retrieving – required to handle large text and image-rich content collections. VITAL takes advantage of technology standards such as XML, TEI, EAD and Dublin Core to describe and index an assortment of electronic resources.
VORTEX
VTLS announced the release of a new "open source" product called VORTEX. The product is an add-on to VIRTUA systems and is designed to help libraries expose their MARC-based records to OAI harvesters used in building specialized databases of information about resources, thus facilitating participation in resource sharing initiatives.
The technology of the Open Archives Initiative's Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) allows for the discovery of distributed resources by creating a simple framework for harvesting metadata about objects. Typically, services harvest this metadata from multiple resources to create specialized databases that will be searched by users. VORTEX makes library databases harvestable to those who wish to build such databases by enabling existing databases to comply with OAI-PMH.
VORTEX features include: OAI-PMH compliance, UNICODE UTF-8 encoding, support of three metadata schemes including: Dublin Core, MARC 21 and MODS. The product also supports selective harvesting and flow control.
FRBR implementation in virtua
VTLS announced a significant achievement in its implementation of the Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model in online catalogs. The FRBR catalog was first introduced by VTLS in January 2003 in Release 42. VTLS Release 43 added features dealing with the ease of use in the day-to-day workflow in cataloging and circulation activities.
Enhancements were also made in the critical area of "peaceful co-existence" of a FRBR catalog in a largely unFRBRized world. Libraries have to deal with external agencies like Union Catalogs, Book Vendors and serials suppliers. These external agencies require records but may or may not be familiar with the FRBR model of cataloging. Thus, from an operational point of view, functional capabilities had to be provided to FRBRize records (one by one or in large batches) for internal use and to dynamically "UnFRBRize" them to send to external agencies that are not in a position to deal with FRBRized records.
In January 2003, The Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium, continuing its tradition as a Virtua pioneer, became the first university library in the world to commit to a production FRBR catalog. Since that time, Vaughn Public Library in Canada has committed to become the first public library to embrace FRBR. Beginning in early 2004, UCL's FRBRized catalog will be open to the public. UCL will be maintaining a "mixed" catalog including some FRBR records and others in the traditional format. Both record types will exist in the same database and may be accessed with a single search. The Virtua FRBR software will automatically detect the type of record (FRBR or non-FRBR) in order to display it accordingly.
EndeavorAnnounces XML Gateway to Scirus
Endeavor Information Systems has announced the development of an XML gateway to the Scirus science-specific search engine through the ENCompass system for managing, searching and linking Web and journal collections. Through this XML gateway, ENCompass will be able to search and display results from Scirus (www.scirus.com), a powerful free Internet search tool developed especially for finding scientific information.
Available in early 2004, the development between ENCompass and Scirus allows true interaction between Web and journal citations available through Scirus and the advanced user-focused research capabilities of ENCompass. The XML gateway to Scirus is one of several XML gateways to content and resources now searchable through ENCompass.
Designed to respond to the needs of scientists for focused, comprehensive and reliable overviews of relevant scientific information, Scirus is a free scientific search engine with a number of innovative features that enable researchers to chart and pinpoint data, locate university sites, and find reports and articles in a clutter-free, user-friendly and efficient manner.
Scirus: www.scirus.com
ENCompass: http://encompass.endinfosys.com/
University of MinnesotaReleases LibData, Open Source Software for Library Web Management
The University of Minnesota Libraries (Twin Cities) has announced the open source software release of LibData: Library Web Management System. LibData is a library-oriented Web-based application consisting of an integrated database architecture and authoring environment for the publication of subject pathfinders, course-related pages, and all purpose Web pages. This application was designed for, but is not limited to, academic and public libraries. LibData was built with open source components (Apache, mySQL, and PHP) and is being offered as open source to the library community under the GNU Public License.
The goal of publishing dynamically-generated library Web pages through a system that integrates easy-to-use Web authoring tools with a large database of information resources led the University of Minnesota Libraries to build LibData. Like many large research libraries, Minnesota provides access to thousands of resources, both licensed and freely available. Access is presented to users in numerous ways, including through the libraries' Web site, subject pathfinders, and course-customized library Web pages. LibData's master database – which offers a framework for containing records for resources, services, library locations, staff, and more – was designed to allow for easier management of these resources and their rapid retrieval and incorporation into the variety of Web presentations that librarians create for users. LibData currently offers three distinct page authoring tools useful to both novice and expert librarian users:
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Research QuickStart Subject Builder (for subject pathfinders).
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CourseLib (for customized course-related pages).
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PageScribe (for free-form, all purpose pages).
These tools are tightly integrated with the main database, making resource management easier to control, and ensuring that library users receive well-managed, current information. LibData also features a robust staff management system, user and page statistics, and complete customizability and extensibility. LibData was successfully moved into production at the University of Minnesota Libraries during the summer and fall of 2003. The libraries' instance uses a central authentication and security mechanism (campus-wide .x500 directory), and has some additional functionality for enterprise portal connectivity. LibData's thorough documentation and easily-understood source code greatly enables this sort of localization and integration. Through this open source release, the development team invites the library community to build on the foundation of LibData v.1.0 and share in its future growth and development.
The software and its extensive documentation can be downloaded from SourceForge. For more information, please contact John Butler (jbutl@umn.edu), Director, University Libraries Digital Library Development Lab, or Paul Bramscher (brams006@umn.edu), LibData Lead Developer.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/libdata/
CornellDigital Preservation Management Tutorial now Available
The Cornell University Library Department of Preservation and Collection Maintenance has announced that their online tutorial, Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short-term Strategies for Long-term Problems, is now available. The online tutorial partners with the related Digital Preservation Management workshop, both developed with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The stated goals of this initiative are to foster critical thinking in a technological realm and to provide the means for exercising practical and responsible stewardship of digital assets. The online tutorial was designed as a prerequisite to the workshop but is also publicly available as a stand-alone tool.
Workshops and tutorials: www.library.cornell.edu/iris/research/workshops-tutorials.html
Digital preservation management tutorial: www.library.cornell.edu/iris/tutorial/dpm/index.html
JDCJournal of Digital Contents Launched
The international Journal of Digital Contents (JDC) is a quarterly journal about the management, presentation and uses of contents in digital environments covering research, technical, design and practical issues aimed at researchers, developers and teachers. The scope of the journal is intended to be truly international, covering the topic of digital contents in the fields of education, computer and information/library sciences, and the sociological, technological, and legal arenas. Special issues on protection of digital contents, and on digital libraries, are planned for publication in 2004.
New Weekly NewsletterCovers Information Technology and Research Universities
A new weekly e-newsletter from the US National Academies' Forum on Information Technology and Research Universities began publication in December 2003. The newsletter includes updates on relevant National Academies' reports and events, as well as articles and resources on IT and higher education, IT industry, and IT and society linked on the Forum's weblog (www7.nationalacademies.org/itru) during the previous week.
www7.nationalacademies.org/itru/ITRU_Newsletter.html
New BlogFor "Techie" Librarians
Sarah Houghton, e-Services Librarian for Marin County Free Library has created a new blog for "tech-librarians": LibrarianInBlack. Her objective was to create one blog that pulls from dozens of Web sites, blogs, and RSS feeds related to librarianship, technology, Webmastery, and current issues regarding those posts that would be of interest to librarians who work with technology. It also provides an RSS feed.
GSDLDigital Resources for Understanding the Link between Gender and Science
The Gender and Science Digital Library (GSDL) is a collaborative project between the Gender and Diversities Institute at Education Development Center (EDC) and the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC) at Ohio State University, with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The GSDL is an interactive collection of high-quality, gender-equitable science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) resources for K-12, higher education (community college and university), women's studies, teacher preparation programs, and informal learning environments. The GSDL will assist educators and researchers in promoting and implementing gender-equitable STEM education in both formal and informal settings, to both male and female students, and assisting in increasing female involvement in the sciences. It will also provide resources for researchers and others working to understand the link between gender and science – how gender influences the development of science and the role of women within science. While focusing on gender-equitable STEM resources as the core of its content, the GSDL will also develop a number of related categories such as gender fair science curriculum, teacher guides for integrating gender-equitable instruction into existing curricula, resources on women in science, and strategies to bridge gender and racial divides in the sciences.
The GSDL collection will focus primarily on original source and classroom materials for the K-16 classroom in both formal and informal settings such as: curriculum, lesson plans and classroom activities; research and course materials for undergraduate/graduate courses; teacher guides for equitable science instruction; professional development and pre-service resources; global research on gender issues in science; evaluation and assessment tools; software applets, video and audio segments. Sources of materials are wide-ranging, beginning with both EDC and ENC's collections, as well those of organizations such as Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates Network (WEPAN), the Society for Women Engineers (SWE), the National Council for Teachers in Mathematics (NCTM), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Library of Congress, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), and many other high-quality, gender and STEM online resources. The GSDL also solicits submissions from a variety of sources, including visitors to the site. These resources will only be included in the collection after they have been thoroughly evaluated by external reviewers and found to meet the criteria for inclusion. The project is actively seeking contributions in a variety of areas including digital content submissions, reviewers, focus group participation, collaboration links and overall promotion of the existence and benefits of the collection. More information on contributing to the project is available on the "contribute" page of the GSDL Web site.