Rosemary Russell and Lorcan Dempsey
A Distributed National Electronic Resource? was the sixth MODELS workshop and one of the largest to date. Around 50 invited participants gathered at the Stakis Hotel in Bath on…
Abstract
A Distributed National Electronic Resource? was the sixth MODELS workshop and one of the largest to date. Around 50 invited participants gathered at the Stakis Hotel in Bath on 5–6 February 1998, to discuss management and access approaches to the growing mass of currently unconnected resources provided by libraries, data centres, archives, subject gateways, electronic journals, clumps and others. We are grateful to Richard Heseltine of University of Hull, for once again chairing a workshop which posed a number of challenging management questions.
With Rosemary Russell, the library systems specialist at the Library Information Technology Centre, taking over the VINE editorship for issue 94, VINE once again became an all…
Abstract
With Rosemary Russell, the library systems specialist at the Library Information Technology Centre, taking over the VINE editorship for issue 94, VINE once again became an all LITC affair. Until taking up a new post at UKOLN earlier in 1995, she became adept at juggling VINE, consultancy contracts and other LITC projects, somehow managing to keep all airborne simultaneously! In her five issues she unravelled the mysteries of topics such as EDI, Z39.50 and electronic copyright as well as continuing the VINE tradition of reviewing new systems including Genesis, Calm 2000 and Innopac. In this article she looks at the current role and work of UKOLN.
Lorcan Dempsey, Rosemary Russell, Robin Murray and Richard Heseltine
Recommendations for increased resource sharing between libraries have been emerging from a range of sources in recent years. However, the majority of local library management…
Abstract
Recommendations for increased resource sharing between libraries have been emerging from a range of sources in recent years. However, the majority of local library management systems currently in use do not inter‐operate, so resources are fragmented and there is no unified access. The situation is complicated by organisational and business issues. This was the basis for the fifth MODELS (Moving to Distributed Environment for Library Services) workshop, which explored more effective management of access and resource sharing, and the development of a supporting systems framework. The focus was on public library developments and cross‐sectoral cooperation. The paper develops some of the key issues, together with discussion of the emerging MODELS Information Architecture.
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Lorcan Dempsey and Rosemary Russell
The MODELS (MOving to Distributed Environments for Library Services) project is based around a series of five workshops. The third of these, “Organising access to printed…
Abstract
The MODELS (MOving to Distributed Environments for Library Services) project is based around a series of five workshops. The third of these, “Organising access to printed scholarly material”, proposed a co‐ordinated approach to providing access to a managed, distributed bibliographic resource. This article has two main ambitions: firstly it explores the influential outcomes of the third workshop, and secondly, it places this discussion in the wider MODELS context.
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Lorcan Dempsey, Rosemary Russell and John Kirriemuir
Z39.50 is an information retrieval protocol. It has generated much interest but is so far little deployed in UK systems and services. This article gives a functional overview of…
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Z39.50 is an information retrieval protocol. It has generated much interest but is so far little deployed in UK systems and services. This article gives a functional overview of the protocol itself and the standards background, describes some European initiatives which make use of it, and outlines various issues to do with its future use and acceptance. It is argued that Z39.50 is a crucial building block of future distributed information systems but that it needs to be considered alongside other protocols and services to provide useful applications.
Tracy Gardner and Rosemary Russell
The Agora project recognises that effective communication is a key to achieving successful project outcomes. One of its objectives is to develop an integrated communications…
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The Agora project recognises that effective communication is a key to achieving successful project outcomes. One of its objectives is to develop an integrated communications environment for both internal and external communications. Collaborative workspace software to support asynchronous communication is seen as the core application within such an environment. Requirements for such software were developed, together with an evaluation plan. Three collaborative workspace products (Web4Groups, BSCW and AltaVista Forum) that passed preliminary criteria were selected for detailed evaluation. Results showed that BSCW met Agora's needs most closely and the project is currently in the process of implemention.
Lorcan Dempsey, Rosemary Russell and Robin Murray
The management of autonomous, heterogeneous network resources and services provides new challenges which libraries are now addressing. This paper outlines an approach based on the…
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The management of autonomous, heterogeneous network resources and services provides new challenges which libraries are now addressing. This paper outlines an approach based on the construction of broker services which mediate access to resources. It outlines a framework – the MODELS Information Architecture – for thinking about the components of broker services and their logical arrangement. It describes several development projects and services which show how brokers are developing. It uses examples drawn from the serials environment to describe some of the issues. Technologists understand that they must build more stable and unobtrusive media. They must establish more coherent contexts into which the technology may disappear.
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The serials control package from Swets, SAILS, has been around for many years but has so far made little impact on the library automation market. The system originated on…
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The serials control package from Swets, SAILS, has been around for many years but has so far made little impact on the library automation market. The system originated on mainframe systems but has recently been rewritten for the PC market and is about to be marketed commercially for the first time. The article describes the background to the development of the SAILS and its functionality.
Speak to anyone who has been involved in library automation in the UK and it's a pretty safe bet that they are familiar with VINE and have probably contributed to it in some shape…
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Speak to anyone who has been involved in library automation in the UK and it's a pretty safe bet that they are familiar with VINE and have probably contributed to it in some shape or form over the years. Produced for librarians by librarians, it has always aimed to be practical, topical, and objective in approach whilst inevitably reflecting the individual style of each of its successive editors (see the roll‐call at the end of this article). Its sometimes erratic publishing schedule may be legendary, but the commitment to four issues a year has been met, with the occasional bonus one or two in the early days. It is a unique and somewhat idiosyncratic journal which forms a recognised part of library automation publishing: as reported in the editorial of VINE 95, a survey carried out by Graeme Muirhead(1) found VINE to be the most popular journal read by systems librarians.
C.J. Armstrong and A. Wheatley
The article reports on one area of research in an eLib MODELS supporting study which had three investigative areas: an examination of current database producers’ guidelines for…
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The article reports on one area of research in an eLib MODELS supporting study which had three investigative areas: an examination of current database producers’ guidelines for their abstract writers, a brief survey of abstracts in some traditional online databases, and a detailed survey of abstracts from three types of electronic database (print‐sourced online databases, Internet subject trees or directories, and Internet gateways). The examination of database producers’ guidelines, reported here, gave a clear view of the intentions behind professionally produced traditional (printed index based) database abstracts and provided a benchmark against which to judge the conclusions of the larger investigations into abstract style, readability and content. The article concludes with a summary of recommendations for abstract writers.