Editorial

Citation

Gelfand, J. and Riggs, C. (2005), "Editorial", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 22 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2005.23922iaa.001

Editorial

Information technology is a moving target. So many new products and initiatives, procedures and methods, partnerships and collaborations, that the conducting of business in libraries of all kinds is anything but usual these days. We continue to try and bring you evidence of all this cacophony and add some clarity with how problems are being solved, what librarians are exploring and doing and what kind of relationships they are cultivating with their users and suppliers over the myriad of changes underway. The added complexity is often due to economic factors and costs, changing staffing patterns, new expectations, and other issues. Libraries do not appear to be much different than other institutions or organizations or processes because information technology is clearly evident in many things we do where in the past it was not possible. Some examples include voting with eVoting hazards and scares yet more reliable and faster outcomes, new practices in instruction and learning with the remote clicker increasingly popular in the classroom so students can respond to a question and the instructor can determine the range of answers and continue to teach to correct misunderstandings and emphasize the correct response within a relevant context right away.

In this issue we have several pieces that tie together well themes that explore the diversity. We start with a series of conference reports:

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  World Conference in Computers in Education held in South Africa.

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  Nigerian Library Association National’Conference.

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  Chemistry, Physics-Astronomy and Mathematics, and Science & Technology Divisions of the Special Library Association.

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  International Federation of Library Association's World Libraries and Information Congress held in Oslo, Norway.

Our features are many and force you to explore a range of themes. "Relevant issues in the provision of digital information in Africa," where we see the current landscape through a very clear lens of the needed changes in infrastructure to better support digital library development is an important call for attention to the digital divide but indicates that a knowledge base is increasing and once the economic, commercial and legal issues are better resolved, major changes will occur throughout Africa.

An update on ARTstor and new developments in this vast digital image repository is included. It introduces readers to the new functionality created by this XML gateway that enables federated searches initiated locally via a metasearch engine to include results from the ARTstor Digital Library; and the development of a standard Application Programming Interface (API) that will allow content stored in local repositories or other licensed resources to be searchable and retrievable via the ARTstor software.

One of the new information sources that has proven itself in recent years is the blog. We have an article that demonstrates the variety of utilities blogging has for instruction and how librarians are introducing blogs on their subject pages and to communicate with library users.

Building on the extensive conference report of the recent Nigerian Library Association is an interview with the new president of the Association, Ms Victoria Okojie, and it is no coincidence that we offer this interview in this issue. Her new five year term is a major challenge with all the changes in infrastructure currently taking place among many kinds of libraries there. Thanks to our contributing editor from Nigeria, Esharenana E. Adomi, Library Hi-Tech News showcases many developments in library technology from Nigerian libraries.

As always, this issue contains a heavy list of new books and resources that may inspire new reference skills, a quick read or a more serious undertaking of a new topic. Lots of other current information about what is happening in the information industry is found in the New & Noteworthy and Calendar columns. Again, we encourage you to please contact us if you want to contribute a conference report, a book review, an interview with an interesting colleague or share with us some of the successes of projects underway at your institutions.

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