_____________________________________________________________
Conferences
ALCTS INSTITUTE
"Blazing the Trail: Electronic Serials from Acquisition to Access"
April 16-17, 1999
Portland Hilton
Portland, Oregon
http://www.ala.org/alcts/events/institutes/esi3.html
This Institute is designed to meet the needs of librarians from all library types and sizes seeking the practical skills to handle electronic serials and the conceptual understanding of the theoretical implications of this rapidly changing format. It follows the success of two previous institutes in Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri.
The keynote address, Electronic Serials into the Millennium: Destruction, Change and Opportunities, will be delivered by Evan Reader, Director, Software & Electronic Information Resources, Office of the Chancellor, California State University; Thomas Leonhardt, Director of the Library, Oregon Institute of Technology, will close the Institute with a presentation entitled Wrap It to Go. Sharon Cline McKay (The Faxon Company) and George Machovec (Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries) will reprise and update their presentation on management and technical considerations from last year's Institute.
A series of breakout sessions are planned to enable attendees to consider the practical aspects of electronic serials and to enter into discussion in small group sessions. Faye Chadwell (University of Oregon) will lead a session on negotiating licenses for electronic serials with a presentation entitled A License to Kill*For; Steve Shadle (University of Washington) will consider the cataloging of electronic serials with his presentation titled A Square Peg in a Round Hole: Practical Cataloging for Electronic Serials; and Raye Lynn Thomas (Sonoma State University) will share her thoughts on the technical and training aspects associated with electronic serials.
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AMERICAN
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE
LITA
PRECONFERENCE
"Making
Sense of Digital Identifiers for Internet and Other Online Applications"
June 25, 1999
Hilton
New Orleans Riverside
New Orleans, Louisiana
http://www.lita.org/ac99/precon99.htm
Profession leaders, product developers, and information scientists will be among the presenters during a day-long preconference devoted to the practical and technical explanations of the more important digital identifiers and the issues surrounding their design and applications. Among the systems to be discussed are DOI (Digital Object Identifier), SICI (Serial Item and Contribution Identifier), URN (Uniform Resource Names), URI (Uniform Resource Identifer), PII (Publisher Item Identifier), and ISWN (International Standard Work Number).
The program will include identifier design considerations, examples of identifier dependent applications, the use of identifiers in linking of records in various databases to online materials, and the value of identifiers in supporting commercial transactions and facilitating copyright control. Program speakers include William Arms, Vice President at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives; Helen Atkins, Director of Database Development at the Institute for Scientific Information ISI); Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI); Norman Paskin, Director of the International DOI Foundation; and Stuart Weibel, Senior Research Scientist for the OCLC Office of Research.
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C.I.R'99: The Challenge of Image
Retrieval Conference
February 25 -26, 1999
Forte Posthouse Hotel
Newcastle upon Tyne, Great Britain
http://www.unn.ac.uk/iidr/cir/cir99/programme.html
Among the more challenging areas of information technology research today is image data management. This second British conference on image retrieval sought to reconcile the gap between researchers and practitioners in the fast‑growing field of content-based image retrieval (CBIR). The conference brought together both groups to promote mutual understanding and cooperation to facilitate effective solutions for the management of image collections.
The conference incorporated a variety of invited presentations which fell into three main groupings: novel applications of CBIR, new CBIR techniques, and new approaches to image data management. A final session discussed the impact of emerging standards for image retrieval. The opening session was led by Dr. John Eakins and Margaret Graham of the Institute for Image Data Research at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle. They set the scene by discussing the key conclusions from their review of the current state-of-the-art in CBIR technology. Both primitive and semantic level retrieval techniques were discussed in relation to video retrieval, one of the fastest growing areas of research in the field.
Michael Swain of Cambridge Research Laboratory, Compaq Computer Corporation, began the second day of the conference with a keynote address that focused on the explosive growth of multimedia on the World Wide Web and the need for effective search engines to identify these resources. The development of two search engines, Alta Vista's Photo Finder, and WebSeer, developed at the University of Chicago, were highlighted.
Subsequent papers discussed a variety of themes, including:
· Automatic image classification and retrieval techniques
· User requirements studies
· Color indexing
· Trademark image retrieval systems using multiple features
· Automatic scene classification
· Structured navigation combining a visual browsing tool with
current query‑based methods
· Development of a flexible architecture for content and concept-based
multimedia exploration, using a multimedia thesaurus allowing
navigation via semantic content
The final session discussed the impact of emerging standards for image retrieval. Alan Lock of the Technical Advisory Services for Images (TASI) discussed the importance of standards and Michael Day of the UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN) spoke about metadata formats and emerging standards as a means of effectively organizing and retrieving digital images. Particular reference was made to a number of existing projects and efforts, particularly the Dublin Core initiative. Edward Hartley, University of Lancaster, drew the formal presentations to a close with his overview of the new MPEG‑7 standard and its potential impact. MPEG‑7 aims to provide a framework to facilitate multimedia retrieval similar to that provided for text.
The conference was organized by the Institute for Image Data Research (IIDR), University of Northumbria at Newcastle. Sponsorship of the event was provided by IIDR, The British Computer Society Information Retrieval Specialist Group, The British Library Research and Innovation Centre, The Institute of Information Scientists and The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Papers from the conference will be published in the British Computer Society's electronic Workshops in Computing series (http://www.ewic.org.uk/ewic/).
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CHEMINT'99: Chemistry and the
Internet
September 25 - 27, 1999
Georgetown University
Washington, DC
http://www.chemint.org/chemint99
The Internet has become a major avenue for communication among scientists. As with last year's conference, leaders who have developed Internet resources for chemists will present their innovations and discuss future directions for this community at ChemInt '99. The intended audience includes chemists who use the Internet on a regular basis, Webmasters and Web developers of chemistry sites, and Web publishers. The program will consist of general issues (E-commerce, computer security, electronic publishing, electronic journals) and specialized themes (using the Internet to teach introductory chemistry, implementation of a specialized chemistry information system on a corporate intranet, the NIST Chemistry WebBook). Based upon attendee feedback from last year, ChemInt'99 will include an expanded poster session.
Technical
meeting sponsors for ChemInt'99
include divisions of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Chemistry Division
of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RCS).
Corporate sponsors include ChemWeb, Inc., the Internet
Journal of Chemistry, and Elsevier Science.
High Wire Press, ChemWeb.comtm,
and Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS®) will be among the
exhibitors.
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LITA NATIONAL FORUM 1999
ATop
Technology Trends@
November 5-7, 1999
Sheraton Capital Center
Raleigh, North Carolina
http://www.lita.org/forum99/index.htm
This year's Fall LITA Forum will focus on twenty-first century technologies for decision-makers and practitioners. Topics and presenters include Using the Second Generation Internet: Learning, Libraries and Research (Christopher Buja, International Development Manager, CISCO Advanced Internet Initiatives Division); Creating an Interactive Interface for the Delivery of Database Content: One Solution for Providing Access to Electronic Journals (John W. Felts, University of North Carolina, Greensboro); Customizable Portals for Library Users (Alex Wade, University of Washington Libraries); Digital Archiving: Moving Theory into Practice (Oya Y. Rieger, Cornell University); The Isaac Network: Using Applied Metadata to Create a New Approach to Internet Resource Discovery (Debra Shapiro, Internet Scout Project); MyLibrary@NCState: A Model for Implementing a User‑Centered, Customizable Interface to a Library's Collection of Information Resources (Eric Lease Morgan and Keith A. Morgan, North Carolina State University); and OCLC's Project CORC (Terry Noreault, OCLC).
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NORTH AMERICAN SERIALS INTEREST GROUP (NASIG)
14th ANNUAL CONFERENCE
"From Carnegie to Internet2: Forging the Serials Future"
June
10 - 13, 1999
Carnegie
Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
http://www.library.cmu.edu/Conferences/NASIG/
This year's NASIG program includes several sessions relating to digital access, organization, and management. A preconference program will address the creation and application of Metadata (Stuart Weibel, OCLC Office of Research; Jane Greenburg, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, School of Library and Information Science; and Bradley McLean, KnowledgeCite, Inc.). Several workshops will address issues relating to Web organization and electronic full-text journals, including:
· Push Technology: Applications for Scholarly Communication & Information Management (Amira Aaron and David R. Fritsch, The Faxon Company)
· Hybrid Methods of Desktop Journal Article Delivery (Murray L. Bradley, Naval Research Laboratory)
· Organizing Web Resources (Claire Dygert and Linda Chase, American University Library)
· Toward Better Access to Full-Text Aggregator Collections (Yumin Jiang,Cornell University, Mann Library)
· Forging the Future for Archival Concerns and Resource Sharing (Mary I. Wilke and Majorie Bloss, Center for Research Libraries)
·
Taming the Octopus: Coming
to Grips with Electronic Resources (Nancy Markle Stanley and Angelina F. Holden, Pennsylvania State University)
The Plenary Sessions include Moving the Network Revolution in Knowledge Management Beyond Random Acts of Progress (William Graves, COLLEGIS Research Institute); Information Ecologies (Vicki O'Day, University of California, Santa Cruz); and Shift Happens (Stephen Abram, IHS Micromedia). Noteworthy presentations from the Issues Sessions include:
· Initial Articles (PEAK Project) (Linda Bills, Bryn Mawr College; John Haar,Vanderbilt University; Sharon Cline McKay, The Faxon Company; Dr. Maria Bonn, University of Michigan)
· Unified Searching of Locally-Mounted and Distributed Web Journals (LauraStackpole, Naval Research Laboratory; Robert A. Kelly, American Physical Society)
· Breaking the Database Barrier: Multi-Disciplinary Searching and Access to Full Content On the Web (Peter Ciuffetti, KnowledgeCite, Inc.; Corillee Christou, LEXIS-NEXIS)
· Developing a Web Collection: Selection and Evaluation (Rick Lawson,HealthGate Data Corp; James Testa, Institute for Scientific Information (ISI); Hal P. Kirkwood, Jr. , Purdue University; Angela Hitti, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts)
· Redefining the Serial: Issues for the Next Millennium (John Cox, John Cox Associates; Dr. Peter B. Boyce, American Astronomical Society)
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Training
CIMI INSTITUTE AND THE CANADIAN HERITAGE INFORMATION NETWORK
"The ABCs of Metadata"
May 3, 1999
Château Laurier Hotel
Ottawa, Canada
http://www.cimi.org/cimi_institute/
In conjunction with the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), the CIMI Institute, the teaching arm of the Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI), will co-sponsor a full-day introduction and review of key metadata schemes and their application to managing network access to museum information resources. This workshop will provide in-depth information, practical examples, and guidance for understanding the ever-expanding world of metadata. At the same time it will provide a significant technical overview for those interested in using the Dublin Core, XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and RDF (Resource Description Framework).
Topics to be covered include:
· What is metadata, why is it important and why it's different from traditional cataloging?
· The Dublin Core for resource discovery - current state and future developments
· Use of metadata in digital libraries and museums
· Uniquely identifying digital resources
· XML and RDF for expressing metadata
The workshop presenters are all internationally-recognized authorities on current metadata work: Carl Lagoze, Digital Library Scientist at Cornell University, and member of the Technical Advisory for the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative; John Perkins, Executive Director of CIMI and participant in the CIMI Metadata testbed, and member of the Dublin Core Policy Advisory Committee; Lyn Elliot Sherwood, Director-General of CHIN and member of the CIMI Executive Committee; and Stuart Weibel, organizer of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and Senior Research Scientist at OCLC Online Computer Library Center.
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METADATA FOR INTERNET RESOURCES
April 22 - 23, 1999
Dominican University
Graduate School of Library and
Information Science
River Forest, Illinois
http://www.dom.edu/Academic/GSLIS/Activities.html
This institute is designed to be a comprehensive and practical introduction to developing resource descriptions for Internet resources from selection and collection management, to cataloging, classification, and catalog maintenance. It will explore the application of traditional MARC and AACR2 cataloging to Internet resources. In addition, the institute will introduce complementary and alternative metadata schema such as the Dublin Core (DC), Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) headers, the Encoded Archival Description (EAD), and others. The underlying concepts of these approaches and their practical implementation in projects such as the Cooperative Online Resource Cataloging Project (CORC) will be discussed. Software tools for supporting metadata record creation, subject analysis and classification will also be explored.
The institute's faculty are Priscilla Caplan, Assistant Director for Library Systems, University of Chicago Library; Rebecca S. Guenther, Senior MARC Standards Specialist, Network Development and MARC Standards Office, Library of Congress; and Gertrude Koh, Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dominican University.
Among the Institute's themes are:
· Intellectual access for networked resources
· Introduction to metadata
· Cataloging rules and MARC
· Analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and applications
· Metadata schemes
· Managing metadata
· MARC as a metadata standard
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INTERNATIONAL WORLD WIDE WEB
CONFERENCE
"Metadata for Networked
Resources"
May 11, 1999
Toronto, Canada
WWW8 Tutorials
http://www8.org/tutorials.html
A tutorial devoted to metadata will be among those offered at the Eighth International World Wide Web conference. The aim of this tutorial is to provide organizations and individuals the background information, practical examples, and information on future developments. While the material of the tutorial draws heavily on the experience of the Dublin Core workshops, the information is applicable to other metadata efforts. Carl Lagoze (Cornell University), Eric Miller (OCLC), and Stuart Weibel (OCLC), all recognized leaders in the Dublin Core, RDF, and metadata communities, are the tutorial presenters.
The conference, one of the oldest of its type, will also offer tutorials devoted to eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL), XML (eXensible Markup Language), and RDF (Resource Description Framework).
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INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL ON THE
DIGITAL LIBRARY
August 15- August 27, 1999
Tilburg Innovation Centre for
Electronic Resources
Tilburg University, The
Netherlands
http://cwis.kub.nl/~ticer/summer99/index.htm
The Tilburg Innovation Centre for Electronic Resources (TICER), in cooperation with Tilburg University, will hold the fourth International Summer School on the Digital Library this August. As with past sessions, the goal of this year's program is to provide librarians and other information specialists with the practical knowledge needed to establish their own digital library. The sessions will be held at Tilburg University, an institution world-renowned for its advanced information technology infrastructure and innovative library. TICER is a private company founded by Tilburg University to make its expertise on digital libraries and information technology and infrastructure available to third parties. The intended audience is mid- and upper management level librarians who work at academic, college, research or special libraries.
Major themes of the program include a review of innovative digital libraries, information technology, strategic planning, digital documents, and digital content, organization, and integration. The faculty of the two-week course includes administrative and research personnel affiliated with European and North American universities, research centers, computer companies, scholarly publishing, and library service bureaus.
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PROJECTS
CORC:
COOPERATIVE ONLINE RESOURCE CATALOG
http://www.oclc.org/oclc/research/projects/corc/index.htm
CORC (Cooperative Online Resource Catalog) is an OCLC research project exploring the cooperative creation of descriptions of quality Web resources. The main difference between CORC and the OCLC InterCat project is that CORC integrates recent metadata initiatives with MARC In addition, CORC emphasizes exporting the records in forms usable on the Web (e.g., HTML and XML). The expected outcome of the project is the dynamic generation of Web pages suitable for assisting users to navigate their library’s local resources, Web resources subscribed to by a library, and general Web resources.
It is believed that CORC can make a substantial contribution to the cataloging process by helping to automate selection, initial description, classification, subject heading assignment, link maintenance, and final page creation. In addition to supporting Dewey Decimal Classification 21 (DDC21) for classification, CORC will support the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and probably Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), for subject assignment.
The CORC catalog has been seeded with InterCat records from WorldCat, NetFirst records from FirstSearch, and records based on pages harvested from OCLC member sites. There are also plans to load records from other Internet description projects, notably those based on the Dublin Core.
The CORC system became available in January 1999 and is conceived as a 12- to 18-month pilot project. For the first year or more, CORC will remain a project of the OCLC Office of Research. Additional features will be added over time based on input from participants. It is expected that OCLC will develop the CORC technology into a product but has not yet committed to a formal release date. Currently there is limited general access to the CORC Catalog for OCLC members from the project home page. In the future, system constraints will probably require that CORC be available only to project sites.
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INTERCAT
CATALOG SNAP-SHOT
http://orc.rsch.oclc.org:6990/
Number of Records as of December 31, 1996 8,478
Number of Records as of December 31, 1997 23,291
Number of Records as of April 5, 1999 76,087
Number of Records Added in 1998 40,291
Percentage Growth (1997 to 1998)
273 %
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netLIBRARY
http://www.netlibrary.com/
netLibrary provides 'anytime, anywhere access' to an extensive collection of full-text electronic books (eBooks) and information via the Internet. From its Web site, users can view the entire contents of eBooks online and search hundreds of volumes quickly and efficiently. Designed to harness the power and efficiencies of the Internet, netLibrary provides an online library that expands traditional library services beyond what is possible with physical books. netLibrary recognizes and retains the time-honored function of traditional library systems and offers a broad range of reference, scholarly, and professional works from the world's major publishers. With netLibrary, users can:
· Access the collection 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
· Search thousands of titles by key word, phrase, subject, author, title, or idea
· Check out eBooks and view them online
· Download eBooks to view offline
· Annotate, highlight text, and bookmark pages
· Purchase electronic or hard-copy versions
By helping libraries to efficiently manage large collections of electronic titles, netLibrary can lower the costs of acquiring and maintaining materials. More then 2000 digital books are currently available and the number is expected to quadruple by the end of 1999. netLibrary also provides usage reports to enhance collection development and management. Sample reports include the number of times a book is checked out, how often a book is used, and the number of people who have reserved a specific title. Current participating publishers include major university presses (e.g., Cambridge University Press) and commercial publishers (e.g., McGraw-Hill Companies).
Current library alliances include the Ohio Library Network, Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, the University of Texas system, and PALINET, whose constituents number over two million customers. netLibrary was founded in 1998 and is a privately-held company headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.
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PUBLICATIONS
Article
"Cataloging
the Net: Can We Do It?"
By
Norman Oder
Library
Journal 123(6), 47 - 51
(ISSN
0363‑0277)
Norman Oder, Associate Editor for LJ News, has prepared an excellent survey article on current efforts by the library community to enhance access to Internet resources. The review profiles a number of major initiatives and approaches by librarians and library service agencies to index and catalog these remote electronic resources. Most notable among these are the INFOMINE project co-founded by Steve Mitchell of the University of California - Riverside; the Internet Public Library (IPL) associated with the University of Michigan School of Information; the Scout Report Signpost housed at the University of Wisconsin, Department of Computer Science; and the Michigan Electronic Library (MEL), a service sponsored by The Library of Michigan and the University of Michigan.
The article also characterizes some of the better commercial sites that provide value-added organization to selected Web collections, notably the LookSmart directory service, Northern Light, with its category folders and access to full-text articles from UMI and IAC, and the Mining Company's 500-plus Web subject guides. In addition, OCLC's effort to provide quality access to Net sources are discussed, notably its coordination of the InterCat project, NetFirst, and the Dublin Core initiative. Also noted are Kilroy and Scorpion, two experimental projects developed at the OCLC Office of Research which seek to provide advanced harvesting and organization of Web resources.
Throughout the article Oder contrasts a variety of philosophies on selection, indexing, cataloging, preservation, and access to Web resources, including those of noted scholar and librarian Michael Gorman, library director at California State University, Fresno; Martin Dillon, Executive Director of the OCLC Institute; Gerry McKiernan, Curator, CyberStacks(sm), Iowa State University; Roger Brisson, Editor for Network Applications and Access, Journal of Internet Cataloging; Eric Lease Morgan, Network Technologies Development Librarian at North Carolina State University; and Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information.
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Bibliographies
"Selected References on the
Digital Library"
Special Libraries Association,
Electronic Information Packets
http://www.sla.org/membership/irc/digital.html
Among the bibliographies found within the 'Electronic Information Packets' section of the Information Resources Center Web clearinghouse maintained by the Special Libraries Association (SLA) is a list of select and key articles and monographs that provide an introduction to digital libraries. While a number of citations are quite recent, several date from the mid-1990s and refer to significant early digital library research projects. Several entries are hyperlinked to their full-text source. In addition, this packet includes a list of significant digital library Web sites.
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Guidelines
"Draft Interim Guidelines for Cataloging Electronic Resources"
Library of Congress, Cataloging Directorate,
Cataloging Policy and Support Office
http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/elec_res.html
http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/dcmb19_4.html
In late 1996, stimulated by increased activities in the area of digitization, the Library of Congress Cataloging and Support Office invited a small group of staff members to develop interim guidelines for cataloging electronic resources. The purpose of the Draft Interim Guidelines is to establish a working set of guidelines to promote a common conceptual context and a common terminology to be used for cataloging electronic resources in the Library of Congress. They are intended to be applied to resources of divergent character produced under varying circumstances and managed by different entities, and expected to create a set of conventions for bibliographic control that will enable generalized, standard practice in a diverse, dynamic environment. The guidelines include:
· Policies on when to use multiple records and when to use a single record
· Conventions developed especially for the single-record technique
· Directions for indicating the existence of other physical formats
· Directions related to electronic location
· Directions relating to collocating records and linking them
· Directions relating to identifying records related to specific projects
The guidelines have been reviewed within the Library of Congress by representatives of the units most directly concerned with cataloging electronic manifestations, particularly by the staff who have been involved for some time with materials that LC is digitizing from its own collections. The initial draft of the guidelines has now been made available for general comment.
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Magazine
D-Lib
Magazine: The Magazine of Digital Library Research
(ISSN 1082-9873)
(DOI:10.1045/dlib.magazine)
Corporation
for National Research Initiatives (CNRI)
http://www.dlib.org/
D-Lib Magazine is an electronic-only monthly compilation of contributed stories, commentary, and briefings about digital libraries for researchers, developers, and the intellectually curious. A separate list of all cited Net resources is also provided in each issue. Users can browse current as well as back issues, scan the collective tables of contents of all published issues, keyword-search the publication database, or perform author or title searches. The magazine is published eleven times a year and is released on the World Wide Web monthly (except the July and August issues, which are combined and released in July). New issues are published on the 15th of each month.
Individuals interested in learning of the publication and contents of future issues of D-Lib Magazine can subscribe to an e-mail notification service (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/subscribe.html). Mirror sites for D-Lib Magazine are graciously maintained by UKOLN: The UK Office for Library and Information Networking, the Australian National University Sunsite, and the State Library of Lower Saxony and the University Library of Göttingen.
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Manual
"Remote
Access Computer File Serials"
CONSER Cataloging Manual, Module
31
By Melissa Beck, University of
California, Los Angeles
With the assistance of Bill
Anderson, Les Hawkins, and Regina Reynolds,
Library of Congress
http://lcweb.loc.gov/acq/conser/module31.html
Cataloging remote access computer file serials raises practical questions as well as theoretical issues, the solutions to which are continuing to evolve. As defined within this module, a remote access computer file serial is "a work issued in designated parts for an indefinite period of time, computer file format, and accessed 'via input/output devices connected electronically to a computer'." This module provides cataloging guidelines that are workable in the current professional and technological environment. It discusses:
· Cataloging of computer file serials which are accessed remotely by computer
· Computer file expertise required to record essential bibliographic information
· Areas where the cataloging is similar and where it differs from that of print serials
· CONSER cataloging guidelines for online versions of printed serials
In view of the changing nature of electronic materials and the anticipated variety of practices and policies that will emerge as more catalogers begin to create records, the module will be continuously updated.
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Newsletter
RLG DigiNews
Research Libraries Group
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/
RLG DigiNews is a bimonthly web-based newsletter intended to:
· Focus on issues of particular interest and value to managers of digital initiatives with a preservation component or rationale
· Provide filtered guidance and pointers to relevant projects to improve awareness of evolving practices in image conversion and digital archiving
· Announce publications, in any form, that will help attain a deeper understanding of digital issues
In addition to general featured articles, this lengthy newsletter contains featured articles on technical issues, a highlighted Web site, a calendar of events, announcements, FAQs, hotlinks of the issue, and news of the Research Libraries Group (RLG). Users can browse current as well as back issues, scan the collective tables of content of all published issues, or search the entire collection. RLG DigiNews is prepared in cooperation with the Cornell University Library Department of Preservation and Conservation, and funded in part by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). It is available internationally via the RLG PRESERV Web site (http://www.rlg.ord/preserv/).
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Recommendations
"Resource Description
Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification"
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
W3C Recommendation 22 February
1999
Edited by Ora Lassila, Nokia
Research Center and Ralph R. Swick, W3C
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/
By providing interoperability between applications that exchange machine‑understandable information on the Web, Resource Description Framework (RDF) serves as a foundation for processing metadata. This document introduces a model for representing RDF metadata as well as a syntax for encoding and transporting this metadata in a manner that maximizes the interoperability of independently developed Web servers and clients. RDF can be used in a variety of application areas; for example: in resource discovery to provide better search engine capabilities, in cataloging for describing the content and content relationships available at a particular Web site, page, or digital library, and by intelligent software agents to facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange, and in content rating.
The syntax presented here uses the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). One of the goals of RDF is to make it possible to specify semantics for data based on XML in a standardized, interoperable manner. RDF and XML are complementary: RDF is a model of metadata and only addresses by reference many of the encoding issues that transportation and file storage require, such as internationalization and character sets.
The broad goal of RDF is to define a mechanism for describing resources that makes no assumptions about a particular application domain, nor a priori defines the semantics of any application domain. The definition of the mechanism should be domain neutral, yet the mechanism should be suitable for describing information about any domain. RDF has drawn influence from several different sources. The main influences have come from the Web standardization community in the form of HTML metadata and PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection), the library community, the structured document community in the form of SGML and more importantly XML, and also the knowledge representation (KR) community. Other areas of technology that contributed to the RDF design include object‑oriented programming, modeling languages, and database structure and organization.
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Reports
"Annual Report of the
Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT) 1998"
Library of Congress
Cataloging Directorate
http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/beat/beat98_annual.html
The Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT) was formed in December 1992 as a Cataloging Directorate program and charged with the development and implementation of initiatives to improve the tools, content, and access to bibliographic information. The membership represents the core cataloging divisions, Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS), acquisitions, and also has members from Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) and Constituent Services. The Team aims to develop tools to aid catalogers, reference specialists, and searchers in creating and locating information, seeks to enrich the content of Library of Congress bibliographic records as well as improve access to the data the records contain, and conducts research and development in areas that can contribute to furthering these efforts. BEAT's primary focus has continued to be small business and entrepreneurship, but all of the Team's projects are undertaken with the understanding that they can be expanded to other areas. The chair of the group is John Byrum, Chief of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, which also acts as the Secretariat for the Team.
Digital TOC
In 1997 BEAT initiated an experiment to establish whether the Library could develop an efficient process to link Table of Contents (TOC) data with underlying MARC records using access through the World Wide Web to present the information to catalog and other users. Using automated means, this process uses scanning and optical character recognition, as well as programming developed by the BEAT and Cataloging Directorate staff, to create the Web-based TOC files and their links to MARC records. TOC files contain HTML meta tags that provide index terms to Internet search engines. Users of the World Wide Web can find TOC in results list of their Web and connect to the TOC for items of potential interest. The TOC in turn allows the display of the catalog record and provides an additional link that allows further online searching of the Library's catalogs. Results of Web-based online searches of the Library's catalogs also provide links to TOC data. Catalog searches can be conducted from http://lcweb.loc.gov/catalog/ .
The digital TOC project is intended to supplement the ever increasing availability of TOC resulting from expansion of the electronic CIP (E-CIP) program where TOC data are included in the MARC records for about 50% of the titles processed as E-CIPs.
BEOnline
Originally conceived as
a pilot project intended to serve as both a model and a catalyst for developing
approaches to meet the challenges of identifying, selecting, and providing
bibliographic and direct access to electronic works that are remotely available
on the World Wide Web, BEOnline concentrates on business- and economics-related
materials, especially those which will facilitate business reference in the area
of entrepreneurship and small business. The
BEOnline Web site address is: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/business/beonline/beohome.html.
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"Assessment
of Formats and Standards for the Creation, Dissemination,
and Permanent Accessibility of
Electronic Government Information Products"
U.S. Commission on Libraries and
Information Science
Submitted by Majory S. Blumenthal
and Alan S. Inouye
National Research Council,
Computer and Telecommunications Board
http://www.nclis.gov/info/gpo1.html
The purpose of this study is to examine some of the issues concerning access to electronic government information and to derive conclusions and recommendations to improve public access.
The objectives of this assessment were to:
· Identify formats most appropriate for dealing with electronic information products throughout their life cycles
· Evaluate government agency plans for long-term electronic information accessibility
· Assess the cost-effectiveness and usefulness of various electronic formats
· Assess formats most conducive to maintaining permanent accessibility
· Identify the different information containers, media, and formats that are used and the reasons for their use
· Identify the issues concerning the evolution towards standards or other means for simplifying access to ease the burden on users
The report is
intended to facilitate improved public access to electronic Federal government
information made available through the Federal Depository Library Program and
could facilitate improved public access to electronic Federal government
information in general. It was
prepared under an Interagency Agreement with the U. S. Government Printing
Office (USGPO) in cooperation with The Computer Science and Telecommunications
Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council (NRC).
*****
"Discovering Online
Resources Across the Humanities:
A Practical Implementation of the
Dublin Core"
Edited by Paul Miller and Daniel
Greenstein
on behalf of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) and the UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN)
(ISBN 0‑9516856‑4‑3)
http://www.ahds.ac.uk/public/metadata/discovery.html
Discovering Online Resources provides a practical introduction to the importance and use of Dublin Core metadata for the purposes of describing and discovering humanities information resources online. Resulting from an extensive study funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (UK) and involving hundreds of information specialists, and humanities scholars, the publication will be of value to those interested in cataloguing, finding, or integrating access to distributed online information resources.
The work includes six chapters and an extensive bibliography providing pointers to those who require further information about metadata, the Dublin Core, cataloguing standards currently in use in the humanities, and the Z39.50 network application protocol. The work has been conducted under the auspices of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) and the UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN). It grew out of a common understanding that scholars require access to information resources irrespective of where, how, and by whom they are stored, described, and managed. For UKOLN, the understanding developed from research into the means of networking access to scholarly materials; for the AHDS it grew out of a need to integrate user access to information from very different collections of scholarly data being developed by five geographically distributed service providers, each of which is working on behalf of a particular arts and humanities community.
The report contains detailed recommendations regarding metadata and its benefit in supporting genuine cross-domain resource discovery not only in the humanities, but in all subjects.