Editorial

Citation

Gelfand, J. and Riggs, C. (2005), "Editorial", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 22 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2005.23922haa.001

Editorial

As we near the last quarter of the year when this issue goes to press, we often pause and reflect on the new and emerging technologies that are going to influence our professional and personal lives. What is coming down the pipe that now has unfolded with some earnest excitement? We are anxiously monitoring some currently low profile developments that are sure to attract lots of attention in coming months and concur with InfoWorld writers about the following trendsetters who include:

• •

  Applying Memory Firewall technology as a method to protect the Windows operating environment from intrusion. An example of this is by Determina (www.determina.com/company/team.asp).

• •

  XQuery (http://www.xquery.com/) which has three major facets of finding, emitting and correlating XML fragments that span an increasingly scope of applications in environments where XML is the programming language of choice to support web documentation.

• •

  Wiki applications such as JotSpot (http://www.jotspot.com/) which allows one to create new documents for others to edit or edit files others have created. This kind of new application will contribute to a new generation of project management options individuals and collaborators should be very excited about that can make library-based work more efficient and orderly.

We are always on the lookout to always promote creativity, good business ideas and products and encourage innovation that will take us to new places and opportunities (see Table I for deadlines for 2006).

This issue is a mega dosage about what has been going on in the library world in recent months. It is a terrific read cover-to-cover if we the editors can do some self-promotion. Our contributions in this issue are really outstanding. Technology issues are plentiful as the library community of users and readers, staff and the information trade keep thinking of new things to create and new ways of doing things. Digital publishing and collections remains in a youthful state, rapidly maturing but likely to enjoy a life of longevity.

The Conference Reports take us around the globe and do not let anyone fool you by suggesting that librarians stay home in a quiet role and read. They are out and about exploring all sorts of things we will share with you in this issue. A host of issues makes the world a bit smaller when we see an increasing number of common elements birthed, discussed and even buried at all these meetings as new ways of thinking and new methods of doing and new modes of technology come along all the time.

We cover the following conferences in this issue:

• •

  The International CALIBER Conference in Kochi, Kerala, India.

• •

  The Enriching Indigenous Southeast Asian Collections in Libraries Conference (e-iseacol) in Manila, Philippines.

• •

  The Libraries in a Digital Age Conference (LIDA) in Dubrovnik and Mljet, Croatia.

• •

  International Association of Technological University Libraries (IATUL)’in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

• •

  EDUCAUSE Southeast Regional Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

• •

  American Library Association Annual’Conference in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

• •

  Fifth International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists’(ICAHIS) in Pretoria, South Africa.

• •

  Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington,’USA.

• •

  North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In addition to the many conference reports, we have a wonderful feature from Susan Gardner and Susanna Eng from the University of Southern California. Their article compares the results of a sample search on homeschooling” in Google Scholar against the results in three fee-based article index databases in the social sciences: PsycINFO, Social Science Citation Index, and ERIC. The comparisons are done in the areas of content, currency, relevancy, and overlap. The results of their survey are quite interesting and will be helpful for users of Google Scholar.

Our eProfile for this issue is part 1 of a 2-part series on wikis called WikimediaWorld.” A wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit web page content using any web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. Gerry McKiernan introduces the technology and focuses on the implementation and use of the Wikipedia in part 1.

We look forward to hearing from you.

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