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New & Noteworthy

Library Hi Tech News

ISSN: 0741-9058

Article publication date: 1 September 2006

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Citation

(2006), "New & Noteworthy", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 23 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2006.23923HAb.001

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

New & Noteworthy

OAIS

Five Year Review of the Reference Model for an OAIS Standard

The "Reference model for an open archival information system (OAIS)" was developed for use in facilitating a broad, discipline independent, consensus on the requirements for an archive or repository to provide permanent, or indefinite long-term, preservation of digital information. It was also intended to support the development of additional digital preservation standards and to encourage digital preservation support by vendors. An OAIS is an archive consisting of an organization of people and systems that has accepted the responsibility to preserve information and make it available to a designated community. The standard defines a set of responsibilities that an OAIS archive must fulfill and this allows an OAIS archive to be distinguished from other uses of the term "archive".

Since its adoption as both an Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) and an ISO standards, the OAIS Reference Model has been welcomed and widely adopted by virtually all types of digital preservation communities. Most modern digital archiving initiatives reference the OAIS Reference Model standard. It has also been widely used by organizations to inform their implementations of new or upgraded archiving systems.

In compliance with ISO and CCSDS procedures, a standard must be reviewed every five years and a determination made to reaffirm, modify, or withdraw the existing standard. The "Reference model for an open archival information system (OAIS)" standard was approved as CCSDS 650.0-B-1 in January 2002 and was approved as ISO standard 14,721 in 2003. While the standard can be reaffirmed given its wide usage, it may also be appropriate to begin a revision process which the CCSDS Data Archives Ingest (DAI) Working Group has undertaken.

It is the view of the DAI Working Group that any revision must remain backward compatible with regard to major terminology and concepts and there is no plan to expand the general level of detail. There is a particular interest in reducing ambiguities and to fill in any missing or weak concepts. To this end, a comment period has been established. Recommendations for updates that will reduce ambiguities or improve missing or weak concepts are being solicited. The group also wants to know if the preference is that no changes be made. Comments for changes should be categorized under one of the following:

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    Updates needed for clarification.

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    Updates to add missing concepts or strengthen weak concepts.

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    Identification of any outdated material.

For this consideration, comments must be received by 30 October, 2006.

Comments may be submitted to: OAIS-support@delight.gsfc.nasa.gov

ISO Archiving Standards web site: http://nost.gsfc.nasa.gov/isoas/

Data Archives Ingest (DAI) Working Group: www.ccsds.org/docu/dscgi/ds.py/View/Collection-243

LII

Selects Siderean Software to Provide Navigation Software

Siderean Software, a leading provider of standards-based solutions for cost-effectively aggregating, navigating and humanizing digital information, has announced that Librarians' Internet Index (LII.org) has selected Siderean's navigation software to improve access to its high quality web content. LII is a publicly-funded web site and weekly newsletter serving California, Washington state, the nation, and the world. Many thousands of librarians, academics and journalists consider LII a web site they can trust for finding content on a broad range of topics. With Seamark Navigator 4.0, these users will be able to leverage powerful faceted navigation functionality to facilitate browsing, illuminate hidden content, and enhance discovery to improve their overall search experience on the site.

"One of the key reasons for selecting Siderean's Seamark Navigator was its front-end navigation features," said Karen G. Schneider, director of LII. "By replacing our existing, cumbersome search capabilities with faceted navigation, our growing community of users will be able to quickly and easily browse our vast collection of peer-reviewed content. With more than 10 million hits per month and a repository of 18,000 items categorized in 14 main topics, 300 primary topics, and 5,000 subtopics, we needed a way for people to rapidly browse these collections to improve discovery. We also needed a way to highlight collections and feature new and custom collections. Faceted navigation allows us to illuminate these items. Users also will be able to avoid standard search `dumps' or result lists, which lead to dead-ends. Instead, Siderean will present results in logical categories to enable users to navigate selections through LII's rich metadata. This is a tremendous benefit to our users."

LII is funded primarily through the Library Services and Technology Act, distributed in California by the State Librarian. Its users rely on the site for quick access to continuously updated information on topics ranging from taxes to tragedies. In addition to serving librarians, academics, journalists and general information consumers through its site, LII also offers a weekly newsletter and e-mail service highlighting the best of new additions and serves a rapidly-growing RSS readership, including more than 19,000 Bloglines users.

Unlike commercial search engines, which provide users with unreliable search results, librarians consider LII to be an invaluable resource when looking for information on the Web because LII's librarians filter the content and give it structure and organization. This has broad appeal because users have a more efficient way of locating quality information compared to plowing through massive searches. By adding navigation features to this rich repository, users will benefit from an ideal partnership that will make this content far more manageable and accessible, making the site even more user-friendly.

Librarians' Internet Index: www.lii.org/

Siderean Software web site: www.siderean.com/

Library Technology NOW!

Releases New Version 2.0

Library Technology NOW is proud to announce the release of Library Technology NOW 2.0 and related Web 2.0 tools. Library Technology NOW 2.0 is an Online Social Networking Site with the purpose of bringing library people together to discuss technology. The other Web 2.0 tools include a LTN Wishlist where people can share their library technology wishes with each other. LTN Question and Answer is described as an "Advice" column for library technology run by library peers. LTN Review It is a less structured approach to the traditional library technology reviews. All Library Technology NOW Web 2.0 tools were built using the Ning.com platform.

Library Technology NOW! was founded in early 2004 by the North Texas Regional Library System's Technology Committee and the Automation and Technology Round Table of the Texas Library Association. Other partners include Texas Woman's University, University of North Texas, Texas A&M Kingsville and University of Texas at Arlington.

Library Technology NOW 2.0 Social Forum: http://ltngroup.ning.com

Library Technology NOW web site: www.librarytechnologynow.org/

Institute for the Future of the Book

Introduces MediaCommons

The Institute for the Future of the Book has been exploring the future of electronic scholarly publishing and its many implications, including the development of alternate modes of peer-review and the possibilities for networked interaction amongst authors and texts. McKenzie Wark's innovative text GAM3R 7H30RY is an excellent example of this experimentation. They have recently announced the launch of MediaCommons a digital initiative in the field of media studies. MediaCommons reflects in shift in thinking about electronic scholarly publishing from an "electronic press" to a "scholarly network". The key elements that the modes supported by MediaCommons will share share, made possible by digital technologies, are their interconnections and their openness for discussion and revision.

According to a posting on their blog, they "decided to focus our efforts on the field of media studies for a number of reasons, some intellectual and some structural. On the intellectual side, scholars in media studies explore the very tools that a network such as the one we're proposing will use, thus allowing for a productive self-reflexivity, leaving the network itself open to continual analysis and critique. Moreover, publishing within such a network seems increasingly crucial to media scholars, who need the ability to quote from the multi-mediated materials they write about, and for whom form needs to be able to follow content, allowing not just for writing about mediation but writing in a mediated environment. This connects to one of the key structural reasons for our choice: we're convinced that media studies scholars will need to lead the way in convincing tenure and promotion committees that new modes of publishing like this network are not simply valid but important. As media scholars can make the "form must follow content "argument convincingly, and as tenure qualifications in media studies often include work done in media other than print already, we hope that media studies will provide a key point of entry for a broader reshaping of publishing in the humanities."

A preliminary description, though this is a work in progress, follows: "we imagine MediaCommons as a wide-ranging network with a relatively static point of entry that brings the participant into the MediaCommons community and makes apparent the wealth of different resources at his or her disposal. On this front page will be different modules highlighting what's happening in various nodes (`today in the blogs'; active forum topics; `just posted' texts from journals; featured projects). One module on this front page might be made customizable (`My MediaCommons'), such that participants can in some fashion design their own interfaces with the network, tracking the conversations and texts in which they are most interested."

MediaCommons will support the publication and discussion of a wide variety of forms of scholarly writing through a series of venues. Those may include:

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    electronic "monographs", which will allow editors and authors to work together in the development of ideas that surface in blogs and other discussions, as well as in the design, production, publicizing, and review of individual and collaborative projects;

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    electronic "casebooks," which will bring together writing by many authors on a single subject – a single television program, for instance – along with pedagogical and other materials, allowing the casebooks to serve as continually evolving textbooks;

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    electronic "journals," in which editors bring together article-length texts on a range of subjects that are somehow interrelated;

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    electronic reference works, in which a community collectively produces, in a mode analogous to current wiki projects, authoritative resources for research in the field; and

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    electronic forums, including both threaded discussions and a wealth of blogs, through which a wide range of media scholars, practitioners,’policy makers, and users are able to discuss media events and texts can be discussed in real time.

MediaCommons will be a membership-driven network; membership will be open to anyone interested, including writers and readers both within and outside the academy, and that membership have a great deal of influence over the directions in which the network develops. It is proposed that the network's operations will be led by an editorial board composed of two senior/coordinating editors, who will have oversight over the network as a whole, and a number of area editors. The editorial board will have the responsibility for setting and implementing network policy, but will do so in dialogue with the general membership.

More information: www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/tags/mediacommons/

Institute for the Future of the Book web site: www.futureofthebook.org/

New Electronic Titles

From ACLS and Rutgers UP Include Sound and Video

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) History E-Book Project (HEB) and Rutgers University Press are pleased to announce the cooperative publication of two new electronic titles that bring sound and video into the electronic monograph. Through HEB the Press has issued e-versions of Fred Nadis, "Wonder shows: science, religion, and magic on the American stage" (http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;cc=acls;idno=heb90024.0001.001;view=toc), and Krystyn Moon, "Yellowface: creating the Chinese in American popular music, 1850s-1920s" (http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;cc=acls;idno=heb90023.0001.001;view=toc). The first incorporates several short films that document the American fascination with the wonders of science and technology. The second uses a series of complete musical performances that accompany the sheet music and analysis. Both titles include standard HEB features such as complete cross-searchability, robust XML text and annotation, enhanced image handling, related historiography and online reviews that create an interoperable network of scholarship and its analysis.

For a list of HEB's open-source XML tools and features see www.historyebook.org/xml-features.html

Subscribers to HEB may access these complete e-books along with 1,300 other titles currently in the collection.

ACLS History E-Book Project: www.historyebook.org/

Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects

A new book, documenting the major strands and issues of open access, was published in July 2006. It covers the rationale, history, economics, technology and culture of open access, views from major stakeholders, updates from around the world, and visions of the future. The book is Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects, Jacobs, N. (Ed), 2006, Chandos Publishing, Oxford.

The following authors have contributed: Alma Swan, Charles W. Bailey, Jr, Jean-Claude Guédon, Andrew Odlyzko, Michael Kurtz, Tim Brody, Chris Awre, Stevan Harnad, Arthur Sale, Robert Terry, Robert Kiley, Matthew Cockerill, Mary Waltham, Colin Steele, Leo Waaijers, Peter Suber, Frederick J. Friend, John Shipp, D. K. Sahu, Ramesh C. Parmar, Clifford Lynch, Nigel Shadbolt and Les Carr. Many of the chapters are, of course, available open access on the web.

Open access pre-prints:

Further details of the book are available at: www.chandospublishing.com/catalogue/record_detail.php?recordID=103

SPARC-ACRL Forum on Open Data at ALA Annual Conference

Available via Podcast

During the past several years, Open Data has become a field of urgent interest to researchers, scholars, and librarians. With the amount of scientific data doubling every year, issues surrounding the access, use, and curation of data sets are increasing in importance. The data-rich, researcher-driven environment that is evolving poses new challenges and provides new opportunities in the sharing, review, and publication of research results. Ensuring open access to the data behind the literature will play a key role in seeing that the scholarly communication system evolves in a way that supports the needs of scholars and the academic enterprise as a whole.

As Open Data moves to the forefront of scholarly communication, librarians, administrators, and researchers will be responsible for considering new access policies for data and data curation issues. This SPARC-ACRL forum introduced Open Data as an emerging focus, explored the challenges of managing the data deluge, and gave participants insights for crafting their own digital data preservation and curation policies.

Speakers at the forum, presented on June 24, 2006 at the American Library Association Annual Conference in New Orleans, included: Ray English, Director of Libraries, Oberlin College and Chair, SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Steering Committee; Clifford Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information; Christopher Greer, Cyberinfrastructure Advisor, Office of the Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, National Science Foundation; and Robert Hanisch, Project Manager, US National Virtual Observatory, Space Telescope Science Institute.

Podcast available at: www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/ala06/

New Pew Internet Report on Bloggers

The ease and appeal of blogging is inspiring a new group of writers and creators to share their voices with the world. A new, national phone survey of bloggers finds that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology. Related surveys by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that the blog population has grown to about 12 million US adults, or about 8 percent of adult internet users and that the number of blog readers has jumped to 57 million US adults, or 39 percent of the online population.

These are some of the key findings in a new report issued by the Pew Internet Project titled "Bloggers":

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    54 percent of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44 percent say they have published elsewhere.

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    54 percent of bloggers are under the age of 30.

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    Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46 percent of bloggers and men 54 percent.

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    76 percent of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others.

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    64 percent of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.

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    When asked to choose one main subject, 37 percent of bloggers say that the primary topic of their blog is "my life and experiences."

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    Other topics ran distantly behind: 11 percent of bloggers focus on politics and government; 7 percent focus on entertainment; 6 percent focus on sports; 5 percent focus on general news and current events; 5’percent focus on business; 4’percent’on technology; 2 percent on religion, spirituality or faith; and additional smaller groups who focus on a specific hobby, a health problem or illness, or other topics.

The report, written by Senior Research Specialist Amanda Lenhart and Associate Director Susannah Fox, says that bloggers are avid consumers and creators of online content. They are also heavy users of the internet in general. A total of 44 percent of bloggers have taken material they find online – like songs, text, or images – and remixed it into their own artistic creation. By comparison, just 18 percent of all internet users have done this. A whopping 77 percent of bloggers have shared something online that they created themselves, like their own artwork, photos, stories, or videos. By comparison, 26 percent of internet users have done this.

Some additional data points from the Bloggers report:

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    87 percent of bloggers allow comments on their blog.

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    72 percent of bloggers post photos to their blog.

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    55 percent of bloggers blog under a pseudonym.

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    41 percent of bloggers say they have a blogroll or friends list on their blog.

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    8 percent of bloggers earn money on their blog.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has created an online version of the Blogger Callback telephone survey and invites participation from the general public. The resulting answers will not be a representative sample, but the online survey will give observers a chance to see the questions in context and to comment on some specific aspects of blogging. The survey is online at the following address: www.psra.com/PewBloggerSurvey.html

Pew Internet and American Life Project: www.pewinternet.org

OCLC

To Participate in CLOCKSS Initiative

Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) is the newest member to join CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS – Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), a not-for-profit community approach to securing access to electronic scholarly content for the long term. More than 53,000 libraries in 96 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials. Partners in the CLOCKSS initiative include publishers (American Medical Association, American Chemical Society, American Physiological Society, Blackwell Publishing, Elsevier, Institute of Physics, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Nature Publishing Group, Oxford University Press, Sage Publications, Springer, Taylor and Francis) and research libraries (Indiana University, New York Public Library, OCLC, Rice University, Stanford University, University of Edinburgh, University of Virginia).

OCLC's partnership with CLOCKSS coincides with a recent contract from the Library of Congress to the CLOCKSS partnership for collaboration with the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. "The partnership between OCLC and CLOCKSS is a natural combination and aligns with our common goal to ensure the perpetual preservation of our scholarly materials," said Jay Jordan, President and Chief Executive Officer, OCLC.

CLOCKSS is an innovative cooperative approach to the challenge of keeping today's digital materials safe for the very long term. CLOCKSS, a not-for-profit community partnership among publishers and libraries is developing a distributed, validated, comprehensive archive to preserve and ensure continuing access to electronic scholarly content. Developed through a community-based and open process, and funded initially by its members, the CLOCKSS partnership uses the robust technology underpinning the acclaimed LOCKSS Program. LOCKSS ensures data accuracy through a sophisticated set of control digital audit and repair mechanisms. CLOCKSS differs from LOCKSS by both its structure and purpose: it is conceived as a small, responsible network providing a safety net on behalf of a much broader community.

Content archived in CLOCKSS nodes can only be made available following a "trigger event" that could result in long-term disruption of availability from the publisher. On such a trigger event, the publishers and librarians decide collaboratively whether stored materials should be made available to all, and whether for a limited or an indefinite period.

The CLOCKSS initiative, which began early in 2006, is implementing and evaluating both social and technical models over a two-year period. The initiative is building a full-scale production system. The work of the initiative is transparent and will be independently assessed, with findings reported to the wider community.

The Library of Congress has awarded a contract to the CLOCKSS partnership for collaboration with the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program.

www.lockss.org/clockss/Home

CTG

State Government Digital Information Preservation Survey Results Released

The Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the University at Albany has released Preserving State Government Digital Information: A Baseline Report and State Government Digital Preservation Profiles. These complimentary resources are based on results generated from a survey administered in January of 2006 to state/territorial librarians, archivists, and records managers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four US territories, and was designed to create a state government digital information preservation baseline. The survey was undertaken as part of a two-year project to assist the US Library of Congress in working with US states and territories to form collaborative arrangements and develop strategies for preservation of significant state and local government information in digital form.

The report and profiles provide the baseline knowledge necessary to launch these critical partnership development efforts. The report includes an analysis of the results across states and territories and presents several observations on the current digital preservation environment and the challenges facing state government digital preservation initiatives. Recommendations to library, archives, records management and information technology professionals, agency executives, elected officials, and many others at all levels of government, on how to use this baseline information to build digital preservation partnerships are also included in the report. The state profiles present information by state to support the efforts of states to learn about each other, to identify potential partners, and to initiate partnership development efforts.

State libraries and archives have traditionally managed, preserved, and provided access to significant government information in paper and other traditional formats. More and more, however, this information is created in digital form. Much of it has short-term value, but a considerable fraction must remain available for many years, in some cases, permanently. Unfortunately, states are finding their current preservation capabilities do not extend from paper to digital formats. All signs point to continued growth in the volume and complexity of this information, yet library, archives and records management professionals are hampered in their efforts to respond to this growth by a host of resource gaps. These gaps include a lack of comprehensive program strategies, personnel and funding as well as a lack of technology infrastructure and appropriate and sufficient skills.

"The survey report and state profiles identify numerous `launching points' for strengthening partnerships and undertaking joint preservation of state government digital information projects not only within the state archives community but, more importantly, with other necessary partners in the state libraries, IT departments, and other key agencies across the three branches of government", said Victoria Irons Walch, executive director of the Council of State Archivists.

CTG developed the survey in cooperation with an expert group of individuals representing the Council of State Archivists, Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, the Society of American Archivists, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This group was brought together by the Library of Congress in late August of 2005 to help CTG develop a national survey. The report includes a copy of the survey, a description of the survey process and a breakdown of the survey respondents.

Download the report: www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/digital_preservation_baseline

State profiles at: www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/digital_preservation_profiles

British Library

Content Strategy Documents Published

On 25 April 2006 the British Library published a consultation document: "The British Library's Content Strategy – Meeting the Knowledge Needs of the Nation". This sets out the Library's proposals for what information resources we should collect and connect with, in order to meet the needs of UK research, both today and in the future. This strategy has been developed in response to the rapid pace of change in scholarly communications and also in response to the Library's recent integration of its major catalogues which puts them in a position for the first time to be able to consider the collection as a unified entity.

The document forms the first part of a two-stage process. In this first stage they have articulated the overarching principles of their content strategy, and in addition have applied these in some detail to the areas of arts and humanities and social sciences. In a second, later, stage, they will consult in detail on their science/technology/medicine (STM) strategy. Comments on the proposals were solicited from April to July 2006.

These documents can be downloaded from the web site:

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    The British Library's Content Strategy (PDF format) – 263kb.

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    The British Library's Content Strategy appendices (PDF format) – 385kb.

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    Covering letter and pro forma for responses (Word document) – 49kb.

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    Covering letter and pro forma for responses (PDF format) – 63kb.

After the closing date for the comments period they will undertake a thorough analysis of all the feedback. They will summarise the views expressed and make this summary available on www.bl.uk/contentstrategy by the end of 2006. They will then take the feedback into consideration to develop a firm but dynamic content strategy during 2007.

The British Library Strategy web site: www.bl.uk/about/strategic/contentstrategy.html

CNI/JISC

Envisioning Future Challenges: Presentations from CNI/JISC Joint Conference

The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) and the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) held a conference in York, UK on July 6-7, 2006 entitled "Envisioning future challenges in networked information". Many of the speaker presentations from the conference are now available for viewing at the conference web site. Topics included access and preservation, how users are changing, open access, e-theses, massive digitization projects, and resource discovery. Additional presentations will be added to the web site as they become available.

Speakers and topics included:

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    Joan Lippincott, Associate Executive Director, CNI – Trends in Learning Spaces in the USA.

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    Rachel Heery, Assistant Director, UKOLN and Andy Powell, Head of Development, Eduserv Foundation – Digital Repositories Roadmap: looking forward.

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    Vinod Chachra, CEO and Chairman of the Board, VTLS Inc. – VITAL-A new Fedora-based institutional repository software and development partnerships and future’outlook.

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    Les Carr, Senior Lecturer, University of Southampton (ePrints UK) – EPrints: institutional services and software futures.

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    Anthony Troman, Product Development Manager, The British Library – UK Electronic Theses On-line Service (EthOS) project infrastructure, business model and IPR.

  • •

    Gail McMillan, Director of the Digital Library and Archives, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University – An ETD Sampler.

JISC/CNI Conference web site: www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/jisc-cni-2006/programme.html

MetaGlossary Harvests Definitions from the Entire Web

MetaGlossary harvests definitions from the entire web, the world's largest, constantly-updated repository of information. Hence, it surpasses traditional dictionaries, which grow more out of date with each passing day. MetaGlossary is as dynamic as the web, offering the most current information out there on the most contemporary topics.

However, unlike other search engines, MetaGlossary is able to precisely extract the meanings of terms and phrases from the often frustratingly unmanageable mass of information on the web. It provides concise, direct explanations for terms and phrases, not just endless links to sift through in search of a comprehensive definition.

In addition, MetaGlossary organizes these meanings based on topic and usage, to help the user quickly and easily find the one desired. Since MetaGlossary spans the expanse of the web, even the most field-specific requests for terms, phrases, acronyms, technical jargon, and slang, will be successfully met.

MetaGlossary (beta version): www.metaglossary.com/

H-INFO

H-Net Network for Information and Information Institutions

H-Net, an international network of scholars in the humanities and social sciences that creates and coordinates electronic networks with a common objective of advancing humanities and social science teaching and research, has announced the launch of the H-INFO discussion list. H-INFO is an arena in which the multiple interests of librarian scholars, library historians, book historians, cultural historians, archivists, and information scientists can converge and, ideally, engage and enrich a broader community of discourse.

It is a revival of the H-LIS network which ran on H-Net from 1997-2000, covering the interdisciplinary study of libraries and information broadly construed to include literacy and reading, print culture, libraries and archives, computerization and automation, information retrieval and documentation, and electronic information and communication. H-INFO services include general dialogue, sharing of references, syllabi, and other materials, reviewing of relevant books, and journals.

H-INFO: www.h-net.org/~info/

To subscribe: www.h-net.org/lists/subscribe.cgi?list=H-Info

dLIST

Adds Access to Works by Ranganathan

The editors of dLIST, the Digital Library of Information Science & Technology, have announced that the dLIST Classics Project has received permission from the Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science (SRELS) to provide open electronic access to the following works by S.R. Ranganathan:

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    Five Laws of Library Science, 1931.

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    New Education and School Library, 1973.

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    Philosophy of Library Classification, 1950.

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    Prolegomena to Library Classification, 3rd ed., 1967.

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    Classification and Communication, 1951.

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    Documentation: Genesis and Development,’1973.

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    Documentation and Its Facets, 1963.

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    Library Book Selection, 2nd ed., 1966.

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    Reference Service, 2nd ed., 1961.

Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (1892-1972) was a pioneer in the field of Library and Information Science. S.R. Ranganathan's The Five Laws of Library Science, the main premise of which is "books are for use," is arguably the most influential work in LIS to date. A preliminary scan of the prefatory matter and first chapter from the original 1931 edition of S.R. Ranganathan's Five Laws is now available at dLIST: http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/1220/

dLIST is a cross-institutional, subject-based, open access digital archive for the Information Sciences. dLIST Classics is a new project that is making fundamental and leading Library and Information Science texts openly accessible in dLIST. For more information, please visit dLIST at: http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/

National Science Digital Library Researchers

Win Best Paper Award at JCDL 2006

Carl Lagoze, Tim Cornwell, Naomi Dushay, Dean Eckstrom, Dean Krafft and John Saylor won the Vannevar Bush Best Paper Award sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for their paper entitled "Metadata aggregation and automated digital libraries: A Retrospective on the NSDL Experience".

In presenting the paper at the 2006 Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL), Lagoze reviewed NSDL 1.0 architecture and workflow and emphasized that NSDL had found "low barriers" to participation were not low enough for many NSDL metadata providers.

He also presented some surprising statistics: "A cross section of email (primary method of interaction with all providers) archives of 8 representative providers revealed over 2,700 messages, or around 170 messages per provider per year."

The paper concluded that while the NSDL 1.0 architecture led to the successful deployment of a digital library, the human effort costs were inordinately high and the resource discovery benefits gained from the structured metadata were compromised due to quality and incompleteness.

Lagoze commented, "Our reaction in NSDL is to focus our efforts on the deployment of a FEDORA-powered NSDL 2.0 architecture that focuses on resource context rather than structured description."

"Metadata Aggregation and Automated Digital Libraries: A Retrospective on the NSDL Experience": http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DL/0601125

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