New & Noteworthy

Citation

(2007), "New & Noteworthy", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 24 No. 9/10. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2007.23924iab.001

New & Noteworthy

Article Type: New & Noteworthy From: Library Hi Tech News Volume 24, Issue 9/10.

INCOLSA selects Koha for Indiana Shared Library Catalog

LibLime, provider of open-source solutions for libraries, and the Indiana Cooperative Library Services Authority (INCOLSA) have announced that the Indiana Shared Library Catalog (ISLC) is migrating to Koha ZOOM for their next integrated library system (ILS) and union catalog.

First put into production in early 2000, Koha has lived up to its name, which means "gift" in the Maori language of New Zealand. From the outset, libraries understood the power of this gift. They downloaded it, they installed it, they changed it, and they contributed their solutions back to the library community. Several companies around the world support Koha, providing libraries with a full array of services including installation, migration assistance, data integrity testing, staff training, software maintenance, support and customization.

The ISLC is a diverse, multi-type resource sharing network composed of 30 member libraries including an art museum, the Indiana Supreme Court Library and a wide range of public and school libraries throughout the state. LibLime's Koha ZOOM solution will provide ISLC membership with a shared integrated library automation system, including a web-based union catalog and integrated circulation, acquisitions and serials control modules.

In providing open-source solutions for libraries, LibLime offers an alternative to expensive proprietary software. Rather than sell software licenses for static, hard-to-customize software products, LibLime promotes the benefits of open source, enabling libraries to make choices about how best to provide their communities and staff with better technology services. LibLime enables libraries to use open-source software to its full potential by providing outstanding commercial support services hosting, migration assistance, staff training, support, software maintenance, and developmentsolutions tailored to each customer's needs. Use of open source not only lowers the per-library cost of running software, it also empowers libraries with a higher level of control over customization and the overall direction of software development.

ISLC chose LibLime's fully-managed Koha ZOOM Appliance distribution method, wherein the solution is installed, operated and maintained at INCOLSA's on-site data facility. Becki Whitaker, Director of Professional Development at INCOLSA and manager of the ISLC program says:

LibLime plays a critical part in the migration. Having a resource like LibLime helps shorten the learning curve for our staff and will aid us in support of our members. They bring the expertise, support and software knowledge to get us started..

The ISLC migration is the first step in a partnership between INCOLSA and LibLime to offer affordable open-source automation solutions to INCOLSA's 768 member libraries. These offerings will include Koha ILS, Evergreen, MasterKey (a metasearch tool created by LibLime's strategic partner Index Data) and YakPac (a kids' OPAC add-on also created by Index Data). ISLC is set to go live with their system in early 2008.

More about the Koha project: http://koha.org

To try out Koha, visit LibLime's demos: http://liblime.com/demos

MyLibrary Digital Library Framework and Toolbox Revamped, Demonstrated

Eric Lease Morgan has recently created a simple and traditional library catalog of about 300,000 items using the MyLibrary software. The implementation is not necessarily intended to be a production service but rather exists to demonstrate what can be done with MyLibrary an open source digital library framework and toolbox.

The demonstration catalog (viewable at http://mylibrary.library.nd.edu/demos/catalog/) is an index of just less than 300,000 MARC records a traditional library catalog. MARC records were downloaded from the Library of Congress. MARC data was cross-walked to MyLibrary (Dublin Core) fields and imported. The content of the MyLibrary database was indexed with Kinosearch and made accessible via an SRU interface. Search results sport cover art from Amazon.com. If reviews exist, then they can be read. Users can to view the full MARC records in tagged, MARCXML, and MODS formats. Users can create accounts for themselves and have items (virtually) delivered to them.

Morgan has also designated an official home page for the significantly revamped MyLibrary, complete with documentation, demonstrations, production-level applications, sample code, and a mailing list.

MyLibrary homepage: http://mylibrary.library.nd.edu/

MyLibrary catalog demonstration: http://mylibrary.library.nd.edu/demos/catalog/

University of Pennsylvania Partners with Olive Software to Digitize Rare Documents

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries have selected Olive Software to help digitize rare and special collections into a fully indexed and searchable online archive. After completion of the project, which commenced in summer 2007, scholars worldwide will be able to use the Internet to find, access, and perform text searches on rare documents from the University of Pennsylvania, rather than just view digital images online or request reproductions via mail or fax.

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries, which has 15 libraries with more than 5 million volumes and a 300-person staff, chose Olive ViewPoint as the solution that fit best into their digital architecture, which relies heavily on metadata in the METS schema (the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard which provides a mechanism for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata for digital library objects.) The first research library system to work with ViewPoint, the organization selected the software after a long review process. Library executives stressed the need for a technology solution that would allow them to manage the project in-house, given the large quantity of legacy material at stake.

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries plan to install Olive Viewpoint this month, and believe the system will be live and ready to launch in the fall. The initiative is being made possible by a gift from Library Overseer Bernard Goldstein specified for technology in libraries. The University of Pennsylvania Libraries join the institutions that have already chosen Olive to provide online access to historic materials, including Oxford University, Penn State University, and The Brooklyn Public Library.

Penn Libraries Annenberg Rare Books and Manuscript Library: http://www.library.upenn.edu/rbm/

Olive Software web site: http://www.olivesoftware.com

Leveraging Web 2.0 Tools for Technology Research

nanoHUB.org, a so-called science gateway for nano-science and nanotechnology housed at Purdue University, is taking the tools of Web 2.0 and applying them, along with a few tricks of its own, to further nano-scholarly pursuits. The result is a Web site that is a required bookmark for people who get excited about algorithms, carbon nanotubes, nanoelectronics and quantum dots the current hot topics on the site.

Soon, other science disciplines, such as pharmacy and medical research, will be launched using the same technology.

The nanoHUB is a project of the National Science Foundation-funded Network for Computational Nanotechnology, a consortium of research universities, government agencies and corporate research labs.

Michael McLennan, a senior research scientist for the Office of Information Technology at Purdue, says that just as Google is famously powered by its secret algorithms, the secret sauce of nanoHUB is a software application that is between the supercomputers at national research facilities that power the site and the web interface. This "middleware", named Maxwell's Daemon, also finds available computing resources on national science grids and sends job requests to those computers faster than the blink of an eye.

nanoHUB is the first of several planned science hubs housed at Purdue. McLennan says:

Eventually we will release Maxwell as open-source software once we test it, package it and write documentation for it. However, there are still groups that don't want to build their own hubs, even with the middleware, and we are contracting with those groups to build hubs for them.

On nanoHUB, nanotechnology researchers can share software tools, lectures and presentations, or other resources.

The nanoHUB takes advantage of several Web 2.0 technologies:

• •

  Like YouTube and Digg, nanoHUB consists of user-supplied content. On the site, users find software, podcasts, PowerPoint lectures and even Flash-based video tutorials.

• •

  Like sites such as Flickr or YouTube, nanoHUB has dynamic tags that automatically aggregate into subject categories.

• •

  Like Netflix, users can rate any resource on nanoHUB. Software, podcasts, lectures and contributors' contributions all can be rated by the community.

The one Web 2.0 technology nanoHUB is lacking is a way to connect colleagues into a social network. McLennan says they have tried a few social networking tools on nanoHUB, but none have proved to be as popular as the scientific tools.

nanoHUB: http://www.nanohub.org/

MasterKey: New Metasearch Service from CARE Affiliates

CARE Affiliates announced in August 2007 the general release and availability of MasterKey, the metasearch service based on open source software. MasterKey is a new service for those libraries wanting a very affordable and extremely fast search tool, with a very user-friendly interface that instantly retrieves results from hundreds of databases. It offers users greater satisfaction through ranked, merged results and faceted manipulation of the search results. Offered as a service, it is easy for libraries to sign up and start offering their users meta-searching, all without buying additional hardware, costly software or investing in extensive staff training.

MasterKey can search both standards enabled databases and, through a partnership with WebFeat, proprietary databases using WebFeat translators. The result is the capability to select and search thousands of databases. The service can offer, for an additional fee, customized interfaces for each library. The Masterkey federated search will submit queries into the WebFeat API, which responds with parsed XML citations from its translator library, supporting over 9,000 databases. WebFeat's translators structure and parse citations from all databases, adding value to the over 80 per cent of databases that do not offer APIs or standards-based offerings.

The MasterKey service is based on open source software developed by Index Data, CARE's strategic partner. The code is distributed under a GPL license and is available for download. This means low cost support is available from multiple open source companies; enhancements are driven by the community of users which are then incorporated into the product for all and the assurance that as a user of the product and service, libraries are not subject to vendor lock-in. A free trial version of MasterKey, searching open content, is available from the CARE web site "product" page.

CARE web site: http://www.care-affiliates.com

Indiana University and ChaCha Partner on New Academic Search Service

Indiana University (IU) President Michael A. McRobbie and Scott A. Jones, co-founder and chief executive officer of ChaCha, an Indiana company that is creating a new and more focused way of providing Internet searches, announced in August 2007 they have entered into a strategic alliance for research, development and services for the next generation of internet search tools and practices.

This new partnership will incorporate the collective knowledge and experience of the university's library and information technology staff into ChaCha's new search engine architecture, which combines a sophisticated machine-based search with skilled human guides who can quickly bring focus and precision to the search product. It will enable IU and ChaCha to develop a better understanding of how guided search can best serve the complex needs of students, faculty and academic researchers. The name ChaCha comes from "cha", the Chinese word for search.

By combining machine-based searches with input from human guides, ChaCha is able to offer users the ability to receive instant results, just like a traditional search engine, but the guides help the user focus on relevant information and eliminate unwanted material. The strategic alliance between IU and ChaCha maximizes the enormous potential of guided search by linking IU's intellectual power to ChaCha's practical platform. IU librarians, information technology staff and others will serve as guides, available to help the IU community conduct searches through a live instant message chat interface, identify exactly what information the user is seeking, refine the search for the user and then display only the most relevant results.

To launch the alliance, IU and ChaCha are collaborating on several projects for implementation as early as fall semester. Underway immediately is the addition of ChaCha as the power behind IU's search portal, search.iu.edu. When IU students and faculty use the service, IU guides will be vetting and voting upon the instant search results, constantly improving them. Guides will also be available for information seekers' interaction via live chat.

IU offers a rich technology environment with 24-7 support for its faculty and students. The ChaCha platform will become part of the IU support model to enable live interaction with Support Center staff in addition to the award-winning IU KnowledgeBase, e-mail and walk-in services. ChaCha's approach to guided search provides new opportunities for efficiencies in user support. Similarly, the capabilities of IU's librarians may be expanded through application of ChaCha's guided approach to inquiry. IU Libraries' "Ask a Librarian" online tool currently provides access to librarians with extensive web-searching experience.

Other opportunities to be explored by the partners include improved web content strategies, engagement of scholarly communities and their knowledge repositories, possibilities for tutoring applications, scholarships and student internships and employment. ChaCha already has a search relationship with the IU Alumni Association including a ChaCha IU search bar for web browsers.

IU-ChaCha partnership FAQ: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/6103.html

ChaCha web site: www.chacha.com

Ask.com Releases Ask3D

Ask.com(R), a leading search engine and wholly-owned business of IAC, in June 2007, unveiled Ask3D, a completely re-engineered and redesigned version of Ask.com. Ask3D includes new search technology, an innovative three-panel design, and unique new features. With the new version of Ask.com, people get the relevant and customized information they need from the best range of content available, including videos and music clips, and makes it all accessible on one page. Ask3D replaces the previous version of Ask.com and is now available at: www.ask.com

"Morph," Ask3D's new algorithmic content-matching and ranking technology, is the underlying technology that delivers the most relevant content for each search query, and places that content onto one single page. Morph chooses from content of all types, including web pages, images, video, music clips and news, and transforms the page to each individual query. Morph technology works in tandem with Ask.com's unique ExpertRank algorithm, which determines the most relevant search results by identifying expert communities on the web instead of simply displaying links by popularity. The combination of Morph and ExpertRank enables Ask.com to understand each person's needs and provide them with what they want, faster.

Ask3D's three-panel design displays more customized results, taken from the range of content available on the web, all on one page. Representing the three dimensions of search, Ask3D's panels are:

1. 1.

   "Query expression" in the left panel. This panel serves as the search "control panel", where people can quickly refine their search without ever having to leave the page by offering automatic suggestions to help narrow, expand or find related search terms. This service, called "Zoom Related Search", is the number one most-used feature on Ask.com and relied on for more than 30 percent of all searches.

2. 2.

   "Results" within the center panel. Here, people can find their primary search results with links to web pages and immediately preview sites directly from the results page by using an upgraded "Binoculars" feature, saving significant time and effort. Binoculars let people preview a web page and are now 50 percent larger and faster than before. They also offer information such as the number of pop-ups on a given site, whether or not a site is flash-based, and the amount of time it will take a site to load on a 56K connection. The top of this panel also shows the top Smart Answer, which provides quick snippets of information to help people get what they need, faster.

3. 3.

   "Content" within the right panel. This panel provides people with information that goes beyond standard links to web pages. The right panel offers a wide variety of content including images, news items, blogs, weather, time, videos and music clips. People can even preview videos and listen to music clips, right from the results page. Where most other major search engines serve ads in this area, Ask3D delivers even more content and continues to offer the fewest number of ads on a page.

Ask3D offers people additional new tools and features to make their search experience faster and easier:

• •

  An all-new omepage.

• •

  See and hear more, right from the results page.

• •

  Location-based results.

• •

  Introducing video search.

• •

  Finding images, faster.

For a complete list of features at Ask.com: http://about.ask.com/en/docs/about/site_features.shtml

Fedora Commons Awarded Grant to Develop Open Source Software

Fedora Commons announced in August 2007 the award of a four year, $4.9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to develop the organizational and technical frameworks necessary to effect significant change in how scientists, scholars, museums, libraries, and educators collaborate to produce, share, and preserve their digital intellectual creations. Fedora Commons is a new non-profit organization that will continue the mission of the Fedora Project, the open-source software collaboration between Cornell University and the University of Virginia. The Fedora Project evolved from the Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (Fedora) developed by researchers at Cornell Computing and Information Science.

With this funding, Fedora Commons will foster an open community to support the development and deployment of open source software, which facilitates open collaboration and open access to scholarly, scientific, cultural, and educational materials in digital form. The software platform developed by Fedora Commons with Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funding will support a networked model of intellectual activity, whereby scientists, scholars, teachers, and students will use the internet to collaboratively create new ideas, and build on, annotate, and refine the ideas of their colleagues worldwide. With its roots in the Fedora open-source repository system, developed since 2001 with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the new software will continue to focus on the integrity and longevity of the intellectual products that underlie this new form of knowledge work. The result will be an open source software platform that both enables collaborative models of information creation and sharing, and provides sustainable repositories to secure the digital materials that constitute our intellectual, scientific, and cultural history.

Recognizing the importance of multiple participants in the development of new technologies to support this vision, the Moore Foundation funding will also support the growth and diversification of the Fedora Community, a global set of partners who will cooperate in software development, application deployment, and community outreach for Fedora Commons. This network of partners will be instrumental for making Fedora Commons a self-sustainable non-profit organization that will support and incubate open-source software projects that focus on new mechanisms for information formation, access, collaboration, and preservation.

Sandy Payette, executive director of Fedora Commons noted:

The open-source software that is developed and distributed by Fedora Commons can impact the entire lifecycle of what is often referred to as "e-research" and "e-science';, including storage of experimental data, analysis of experimental results, peer review, publication of findings, and the reuse of published material for the next generation of scholarly works. We will also continue our work with libraries and museums to facilitate the sharing of digitized collections, making previously locked away material available to wide audiences. Also, building on our attention to digital preservation in the Fedora open-source repository system, Fedora Commons will continue to stress the importance of the sustainability of digital information in applications of our work.

Fedora Commons will initially be located in the Information Science Building at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Fedora Commons web site: http://www.fedora-commons.org

University of Pittsburgh Digital Research Library and Bungee View

In conjunction with CMU research scientist Mark Derthick, the Digital Research Library at the University of Pittsburgh now offers an experimental visualization prototype for viewing selected Historic Pittsburgh image collections. Bungee View is a visualization prototype developed at Carnegie Mellon University to support casual users gaining an understanding of an image collection as a whole, and in finding patterns in such collections.

Bungee View is free software and available for download from the website. It does require the installation of Java 1.4 or later, which includes the Java Web Start plug-in.

The motivation for the research project, as taken from the project web site, is as follows:

Web search engines have attracted widespread demand for information retrieval from unstructured documents. The number of structured and semi-structured documents available on the web is also huge, and collections of these are more amenable to data mining. Yet there has been no similar explosion of interest in this kind of exploration. Finding patterns in databases of political contributions, environmental data, or hospital and school performance would surely interest many citizens. The main research question for this project is how to support such exploration for users with little or no training in statistics or programming. In contrast to other data-mining systems, Bungee View focuses on learnability, responsiveness, robustness, and providing a satisfying user experience.

The software was utilized in the Historic Pittsburgh image collection project. The default collection when viewing from the Bungee View web site is the images from the American Memory Collection. The metadata was harvested using OAI.

Bungee View: http://cityscape.inf.cs.cmu.edu/bungee/

Digital Research Library: www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/drl/

NASA and Internet Archive Team to Digitize Space Imagery

NASA and Internet Archive of San Francisco are partnering to scan, archive and manage the agency's vast collection of photographs, historic film and video. The imagery will be available through the internet and free to the public, historians, scholars, students, and researchers. Currently, NASA has more than 20 major imagery collections online. With this partnership, those collections will be made available through a single, searchable "one-stop-shop" archive of NASA imagery.

NASA selected Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization, as a partner for digitizing and distributing agency imagery through a competitive process. The two organizations are teaming through a non-exclusive Space Act agreement to help NASA consolidate and digitize its imagery archives at no cost to the agency.

Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and founder of Internet Archive said:

We're dedicated to making all human knowledge available in the digital realm. Digitizing NASA's imagery is a big step in Internet Archive's ongoing efforts to digitize a vast spectrum of content and make it freely accessible to the public in an easily searched online destination.

Under the terms of this five-year agreement, Internet Archive will digitize, host and manage still, moving and computer-generated imagery produced by NASA. In the first year, Internet Archive will consolidate NASA's major imagery collections. In the second year, digital imagery will be added to the archive. In the third year, NASA and Internet Archive will identify analog imagery to be digitized and added to this online collection.

In addition, Internet Archive will work with NASA to create a system through which new imagery will be captured, catalogued and included in the online archive automatically. To open this wealth of knowledge to people worldwide, Internet Archive will provide free public access to the online imagery, including downloads and search tools. The imagery archive also may include other historically significant material such as audio files, printed documents and computer presentations.

More information about NASA: http://www.nasa.gov

More information about Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org

Cornell University Library Is Newest Partner in Google Book Search Library Project

Cornell University Library is partnering with Google Inc. to digitize materials from its collections and make them available online. Google will digitize up to 500,000 works from Cornell University Library and make them available online using Google Book Search. As a result, materials from the library's collections will be easily accessible to students, scholars and people worldwide, supporting the library's long-standing commitment to make its collections broadly available.

Materials from Mann Library, one of 20 member libraries that comprise Cornell University Library, will be digitized as part of the agreement. Mann's collections include some of the following subject areas: biological sciences, natural resources, plant, animal and environmental sciences, applied economics, management and public policy, human development, textiles and apparel, nutrition and food science. Janet A. McCue, director of Mann Library said:

Mann Library's collections complement the contributions of the other Google library partners. Whether talking about entomology or plant biology, nutrition or human ecology, Mann Library has outstanding collections in the agricultural and life sciences as well as the related social sciences. Having Google index our collections is like having a massive concordance to the information in our books.

Cornell is the 27th institution to join the Google Book Search Library Project, which digitizes books from major libraries and makes it possible for Internet users to search their collections online. Over the next six years, Cornell will provide Google with public domain and copyrighted holdings from its collections. If a work has no copyright restrictions, the full text will be available for online viewing. For books protected by copyright, users will just get the basic background (such as the book's title and the author's name), at most a few lines of text related to their search and information about where they can buy or borrow a book. Cornell University Library will work with Google to choose materials that complement the contributions of the project's other partners. In addition to making the materials available through its online search service, Google will also provide Cornell with a digital copy of all the materials scanned, which will eventually be incorporated into the university's own digital library.

More details at: www.library.cornell.edu/communications/Google/

Berkeley Electronic Press Expands Role with Digital Commons

ProQuest and The Berkeley Electronic Press ("bepress") have reached an agreement for bepress to purchase ownership of Digital Commons™, a hosted institutional repository solution. Bepress will be adding sales and marketing staff and augmenting its existing customer support and services in addition to the hosting and technology services that it has always provided Digital Commons customers.

ProQuest continues to believe that institutional repositories play an important role in the mission of academic libraries. In the future, it plans to offer tools that enhance or are complementary with institutional repositories. ProQuest is confident that bepress will offer a high standard of customer service for Digital Commons subscribers.

Founded by academics in 1999, The Berkeley Electronic Press is both a publisher of peer-reviewed electronic journals and a software developer, having created a variety of tools to facilitate open access publication. Bepress's core mission is to promote efficient Scholarly Communication. The bepress Institutional Repository platform currently powers the eScholarship Repository of the University of California system as well as over 50 schools using Digital Commons™.

More information: www.bepress.com/

Duke University Press Chooses Tizra™ Agile PDF to Expand Their eBook Offerings

Duke University Press has signed an agreement with Tizra to use Agile PDF, a hosted publication sales and delivery service, to repackage, deliver and sell their book-based content in an easy to read electronic form. Duke University Press publishes approximately 120 books annually, placing it among the 20 largest university presses in America. Its journal program is in the top 5, with more than 30 titles.

The white-labeled Tizra platform will allow Duke to create and manage a fully searchable, Duke-branded online storefront to sell their books to individuals and institutions. Buyers will be able to purchase individual chapters or pages, as well as collections combining multiple works under a variety of licensing and pricing models.

Driven by a web-based control panel, the storefront is easy to use and designed to be controlled by non-technical publishing staff. With direct control over visual design, content, and sales terms, the Agile PDF web service enables rapid exploratory development and testing of products and pricing, differentiating it from sites like Google and Amazon, whose product organization and presentation are not under the control of the publisher.

According to David Durand, CEO of Tizra:

Duke University Press holds a leadership position among university presses in applying technology to scholarly communication. We are delighted have them as a charter customer, and to have the opportunity to help them deliver content with such enduring value. Agile PDF simplifies the management of a branded publication site just the way blogging software simplified personal homepages, delivering PDF content that was originally developed for print to readers with the ease and familiarity of a custom-designed HTML website. We think that Tizra's on-demand platform offers advantages to publishers who want a partner to help them get online without being subsumed into a single iTunes-style marketplace that limits control of product definition and branding.

Duke University Press: www.dukeupress.edu/

Tizra, Inc.: http://www.tizra.com/

Syndetic Solutions Introduces ICE

Syndetic Solutions, a subsidiary of R.R. Bowker and a provider of enriched content for a library's online catalog, announced in June 2007 the introduction of Syndetics Indexed Content Enrichment (ICE), an enhancement that allows library patrons to search all Syndetics content directly from the library's Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). Syndetics ICE is initially available by annual subscription to libraries using Syndetic Solutions and the AquaBrowser Library search and discovery platform.

The new tool unlocks a wide range of information from Syndetics' value-added content that was previously undetectable through traditional MARC record data searches in library information systems. This includes access to tables of contents, annotations and fiction profiles, as well as supplemental options such as Title Link and Customized Fiction Connection, which work to give patrons an easier and more productive search experience in the library.

John Krafty, director of product management in the library business unit of R.R. Bowker said:

Each night, our Syndetics content is matched to the library's AquaBrowser index, so any new content is available for searches on the very next business morning. This ease-of-use and efficiency of deployment means that patrons achieve more successful searches and libraries achieve higher circulation.

Content offered by Syndetic Solutions is designed to integrate directly with a library's OPAC system in order to provide the library patron with an enriched and seamless experience in the online catalog. Syndetics content includes full-text reviews, cover images, tables of content, awards data, biography profiles, fiction profiles, excerpts, summaries and author notes.

Syndetics ICE: www.bowker.com/syndetics/ICE/

New Initiative from The New York Times Provides Content for Online Course Materials

The New York Times has introduced a new online initiative that pairs Times content with faculty course material for both credit-bearing and continuing education courses. Educators will now have the opportunity to select Times articles, archival content, graphics and multimedia content, including videos and webcasts, gathered around specific subjects, and make them available to students online, along with other course materials. Students will benefit from access to thematic content that is drawn from the vast array of Times reporting on a countless number of issues.

This innovation is a significant expansion of The New York Times Knowledge Network, a program that has provided copies of the paper, accompanied by curriculum guides, to faculty at colleges and universities for several years, bringing the resources of The Times into classrooms as part of the learning experience. Now, with this new component of the Knowledge Network, Times content will be readily available to students online, whether they're enrolled in an on-campus course or continuing their education through a distance learning program.

In addition to enhanced course offerings for college students and lifelong learners, the Knowledge Network will serve as a global networking and professional and academic development resource for faculty, students and alumnae. Users will be able to share work with colleagues, create their own academic or professional ePortfolios (digital repositories of a person's work), invite peer review and establish professional contact with people around the globe based on common academic pursuits and research.

This new component of Knowledge Network is available via the EpsilenTM Environment (www.epsilen.com), a newly developed web-based software package that provides a wide range of tools and services for faculty members and students, including ePortfolios, Global Learning System (courseware), group collaboration, object sharing, blogs, messaging, and social and professional networking. Users receive a lifelong identity on the EpsilenTM system, enabling them to maintain their academic and professional ePortfolios throughout their careers, regardless of their affiliation with individual institutions.

The Times has collaborated in the development of this online education initiative with Dr. Ali Jafari, director of Cyberlab, a research and development laboratory within the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at Indiana University, Purdue University Indianapolis (www.iupui.edu). In his capacity at Cyberlab, Dr Jafari was the architect of the Epsilen™ Environment, which is the result of more than six years of research.

Dr Jarari said:

The Epsilen™ Environment is a new concept and technology framework allowing faculty and students continued access to their work after switching schools, entering the job market or retiring. It is a prototype of the Web 2.0 concept built on the ePortfolio foundation and the power of social networking. The Epsilen™ concept suggests that every student and professional should own a lifelong ePortfolio enabling them to collaborate and exchange intellect in a global community.

Students will register for Knowledge Network courses through their universities. Access will be available through NYTimes.com/knowledge or their university portals. Fees will be determined by the participating universities. Creation of basic ePortfolio accounts is free for all registered students and faculty of US colleges and universities (visit www.epsilen.com/).

More information: www.epsilen.com/

LIBER and DRIVER Collaborate on European Digital Repository Research Infrastructure

LIBER and DRIVER have identified demand for co-operation in order to progress and enhance the provision, visibility and application of European research outputs through digital repositories, i.e. systems providing access to texts, data or other types of content.

DRIVER is a joint initiative of European stakeholders, co-financed by the European Commission, setting up a technical infrastructure for digital repositories and facilitating the building of an umbrella organization for digital repositories. DRIVER relies on research libraries for the sustainable operation of repositories and provision of high quality content through digital repositories.

LIBER represents and promotes the interests of research libraries in Europe and assists these to become a functional network across national boundaries. As an early supporter of the Open Access movement, LIBER supports the development and interconnectivity of repositories in European research libraries. LIBER and DRIVER share the vision that research libraries should contribute actively and cooperatively to a common, pan-European data and service infrastructure based on digital repositories.

Among all objectives and activities of LIBER and DRIVER, intersections can be clearly identified. Over the last years, research libraries have been opening up digital repositories for exposing institutional research outputs to the world. Net works of individual repositories and overarching information services for aggregation, retrieval, sharing and re-use are being built for some regions or countries or subject areas. The next steps are:

1. 1.

   The further development of existing approaches for networks of repositories.

2. 2.

   Active spreading of "best practices" in countries or regions without such approaches.

3. 3.

   The forming of a European umbrella for repository networks and services.

LIBER and DRIVER will cooperate on these issues and will draw up a Work Plan, identifying lines of action, deliverables, resources, requirements, and timescales. The Work Plan and progress reports will be disseminated widely amongst the European Digital Library and research communities.

LIBER home page: www.libereurope.eu/

DRIVER home page: www.driver-repository.eu/

DRIVER-LIBER agreement: www.libereurope.eu/node/245

DLF Aquifer Metadata Working Group Announces Two New Resources

In August 2007 the DLF Aquifer Metadata Working Group announced the availability of two new resources aimed at helping Aquifer participants prepare metadata for aggregation.

(1) An FAQ for institutions implementing the DLF/Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records.

The FAQ is designed to supplement the DLF/Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records http://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/confluence/download/attachments/28330/DLFM>ODS_ImplementationGuidelines_Version1.pdf and MODS Guidelines Levels of Adoption http://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/confluence//x/q24 to help institutions understand the rationale behind the metadata guidelines designed by the Aquifer project. The Aquifer Metadata Working Group plans to add to this FAQ over time.

(2) The DLF Aquifer MARCXML to MODS XSL Stylesheet, version 2007-08-10.

http://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/confluence//x/K4AQ

The Aquifer stylesheet for record conversion is based on the MARCXML to MODS stylesheet for MODS version 3.2 made available by the Library of Congress on the MODS web site www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/MARC21slim2MODS.xsl, and is based on a version incorporating LC's revisions up to number 1.15.

Their goal in making this version available is to make it easier for institutions having digital content they wish to contribute metadata to the DLF Aquifer project, American Social History Online. For institutions with MARC records, the stylesheet may help to convert their metadata to MODS records in a way that better meets the requirements and recommendations of the Aquifer Guidelines. The changes address the needs of the Aquifer project, specifically the requirements and recommendations of the Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records, but may be useful to consider for other aggregators who are mapping MARCXML to MODS or other formats for OAI sharing.

Questions about the stylesheet may be addressed to any Metadata Working Group member; addresses can be found in the Roster of members http://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/confluence/x/Sm8. The members of the MARC to MODS subcommittee were Laura Akerman, John Chapman and Tracy Meehleib.

DLF Aquifer Wiki: http://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/confluence/display/DLFAquifer/DLF+Aquifer+Wiki

FAQ for Institutions Implementing Guidelines: http://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/confluence/x/MYAH

Preserving Creative America: Long-Term Preservation of Creative Digital Works

The Library of Congress, through its National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), has announced eight partnerships as part of its new Preserving Creative America initiative to address the long-term preservation of creative content in digital form. These partners will target preservation issues across a broad range of creative works, including digital photographs, cartoons, motion pictures, sound recordings and even video games. The work will be conducted by a combination of industry trade associations, private sector companies and nonprofits, as well as cultural heritage institutions.

Several of the projects will involve developing standardized approaches to content formats and metadata (the information that makes electronic content discoverable by search engines), which are expected to increase greatly the chances that the digital content of today will survive to become America's cultural patrimony tomorrow. Although many of the creative content industries have begun to look seriously at what will be needed to sustain digital content over time, the $2.15 million being awarded to the Preserving Creative America projects will provide added impetus for collaborations within and across industries, as well as with libraries and archives.

Preserving Creative America is the most recent initiative of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (www.digitalpreservation.gov), authorized by Congress in December 2000. The authorizing legislation specifies that the Library should enlist the private sector to help address the long-term preservation of digital content. A cornerstone of NDIIPP has been the establishment of a broad network of partners committed to the continuing stewardship of digital content of value to Congress and the nation. With the new awards, the NDIIPP network grows to more than 90 partners, including other government agencies, educational institutions, research laboratories and organizations, both in the United States and abroad. Previous NDIIPP projects have involved primarily educational and cultural heritage institutions.

Following are the lead entities and the focus areas of the projects.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). AMPAS, best known for its annual Academy Awards, devotes considerable resources to a host of motion picture-related educational, scientific and cultural endeavors, including the preservation of motion pictures. The Digital Motion Picture Archive Framework Project will build upon AMPAS' current research on digital preservation issues from the perspective of the major motion picture studios, extending the effort to include independent filmmakers and smaller film archives.

American Society of Media Photographers. This project has two major objectives: to expand an existing set of guidelines, the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines, with recommendations for refined production workflows, archiving methods and best practices based on image use and capture methods; and to promote the use of the guidelines through a web site and awareness campaigns within the professional photographer community.

ARTstor. This project aims, through training and tools, to enable photographers to submit archive-ready images to repositories such as ARTstor. Development of a tool will allow photographers to capture technical and preservation metadata early in the creation workflow and embed the metadata in their digital images.

BMS/Chace. The project focuses on creating a standardized approach for gathering and managing metadata for recorded music and developing software models to assist creators and owners in collecting the data. A standardized metadata environment will allow content creators, record labels, individuals and cultural heritage institutions to document, archive and manage "born digital" recordings effectively.

Stock Artists Alliance (SAA). Essential information about stock images is frequently lost as images are disseminated across multiple distributors, licensees and end users, making the archiving and repurposing of these images difficult. SAA, through online resources and educational seminars at professional trade shows and in key cities, will promote the importance of metadata for long-term usability of digital photographs.

Universal Press Syndicate. Universal Press Syndicate, a newspaper syndication company, will use a collection of Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" comic strips and Pat Oliphant's editorial cartoons to model and test the transfer of digital content to the Library of Congress.

UCLA Film & Television Archive. The long-term sustainability of digital works has received little attention within the independent film community. This project award supports awareness and education within the independent film community through symposia and workshops at major film conferences.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Preserving Virtual Worlds project will explore methods for preserving digital games and interactive fiction. Major activities will include developing basic standards for metadata and content representation and conducting a series of archiving case studies for early video games, electronic literature and Second Life, an interactive multiplayer game.

Full press release available at: www.loc.gov/today/pr/2007/07-156.html