Collaboration & convergence
Timothy Cole and Sarah Shreeves, in The IMLS NLG Program: Fostering
Collaboration (Library Hi Tech, vol 22 no 3, 2004: 246-248), describe
seven projects funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Service’s
National Leadership Grant program. These include: (1) state-wide and
regional collaborations between multiple types of organisations; (2)
communities of interest that have coalesced to spawn successful and
wide-ranging collaborations between information specialists and subject
specialists such as students, teachers and scholars; and (3) ongoing
research into and demonstrations of key infrastructure components that take
advantage of collaborative opportunities afforded by new technologies in a
geographically dispersed environment. Available online from Emerald at
http://hermia.emeraldinsight.com.
Mary Alice Ball, in Libraries and
University Presses Can Collaborate to Improve Scholarly Communication or Why
Can't We All Just Get Along? (First Monday vol 9 no 12, 6 December
2004), writes on the historical underpinnings and direction of scholarly
communication and on the competing cultures of book publishing and the
library profession. She concludes that, despite the perception that
university libraries are at the heart of the university, “ARL statistics
indicate a continuing decline in library expenditures as a percentage of
total university expenditures. ”Despite a view that academic presses are "an
indispensable component of the modern research university…presses are being
downsized and closed. Economic realities belie both romantic impressions.”
Web:
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_12/ball/.
Converging Culture is the title of a
plenary address by Ian Wilson, Librarian and Archivist of Canada, at the
Museums and the Web 2005 conference. Wilson is the first person to hold the
joint national responsibility for both archives and libraries. According to
the abstract, cultural institutions run the real risk of becoming virtual
ivory towers. The technology can only be used to its fullest potential when
we make the appropriate non-virtual convergences in mentality and practice.
Converging content not only means bringing together knowledge digitally, but
also bringing together all cultural and knowledge-based institutions in the
development of, and interaction with, this content.” Web:
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2005/speakers/index.html
Collections Council of Australia
With the appointment of Margaret Birtley as inaugural CEO, and with the
support of the State Library of South Australia in providing space at the
Institute Building on North Terrace, the CCA has opened its office in
Adelaide. Contact details: PO Box 263, 145 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, SA 5000,
Telephone 08 8207 7272, Facsimile 08 8207 7207. Email: Margaret Birtley,
mbirtley@hotmail.com. The CCA will publish a website in due course.
Information costs
Susan Feldman, in The High Cost of Not Finding Information (KMWorld
Magazine vol 3 no 3 March 2004) says that roughly 50% of most Web searches
are abandoned, knowledge workers spend from 15% to 35% of their time
searching for information, searchers are successful in finding what they
seek 50% of the time or less, 40% of corporate users report that they can
not find the information they need to do their jobs on their intranets, not
locating and retrieving information has an opportunity cost of more than
US$15 million annually, some studies suggest that 90% of the time that
knowledge workers spend in creating new reports or other products is spent
in recreating information that already exists. Web: http://www.kmworld.com/.
[Source: Current Cites]
Information format trends
OCLC published its latest report on information format trends, Content,
Not Containers, in October 2004. The report says that formats now matter
less than the information within the containers. The top trends for
libraries over the next 5 years are: (1) the legitimacy of open source
publishing such as blogs, (2) the rapidly expanding economics of micro
content, (3) the repurposing of ‘old’ content for new media, and (4)
multimedia content as a service for an array of devices. Web:
http://www.oclc.org/info/2004trends/.
World Summit of the Information Society
The international conference, UNESCO Between Two Phases of WSIS, will be
held in St Petersburg in the Russian Federation under the auspices of UNESCO
on 17-19 May 2005. The conference will clarify the next steps and key
decisions for building the global information society and will discuss: (1)
building the information and knowledge societies; (2) human capacity
building for knowledge societies; (3) education in knowledge societies; (4)
science and innovations in knowledge societies; (5) cultural diversity in
cyberspace; (6) universal access to public domain information; (7)
development of communications and freedom of expression; (8) stakeholders'
partnership and cooperation to foster information society development; (9)
business environment for knowledge societies; ( 10) information society
technologies for knowledge societies; (11) policies for digitisation and
preservation of digital cultural and scientific heritage. Web:
http://ifap.ru/wsis
British Library e-learning strategy
The British Library has launched a new program, Inspiring Learning for All,
aimed at creating accessible learning in museums, archives and libraries.
Founded on four principles – people, places, partnerships, and
polices/plans/performance - the framework is designed to stimulate
professionals to focus on and improve the way learning is supported. Working
from a broad definition of learning - ie it is not related solely to formal
curriculum, but rather to everyone's ability to access information, cultural
resources or entertainment in order to develop as individuals - the program
recognises that people learn in different ways and require a variety of
stimuli to engage them in the learning process. It stresses that museums,
libraries and archives need to remove barriers to access, cater for
individual learning styles (not just ages), create exciting environments,
use innovative methods, value learning experts, consult with users, and
reach out to new users. Web: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/papers/102e-Brindley.pdf
{Source: ShelfLife]
Digital libraries need transformative change
The report Knowledge Lost in Information: Report of the NSF Workshop on
Research Directions for Digital Libraries, emerging from a workshop
sponsored by the National Science Foundation in June 2003, recommends that,
in order to maintain national expertise and achieve necessary gains in
research and education, the NSF should provide US$20 million per year for
innovative and exploratory research to address challenges in the creation,
collection, organisation, use and long-term availability of digital
resources of all sorts in a rapidly evolving global information
infrastructure. The report also suggests that US$40 million per year be
budgeted for transformative change to infrastructure and practice. The
danger facing digital libraries is an abundance of information paired with
insufficient information management. As a result, individuals and
communities risk losing the ability to control and manage their own data.
Web: http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~dlwkshop/report.pdf. [Source: Shelf List]
Library costs
Roger C Schonfeld, Donald W. King, Ann Okerson and others, in The
Nonsubscription Side of Periodicals: Changes in Library Operations and Costs
between Print and Electronic Formats (Council on Library and Information
Resources, June 2004) use data from 11 US academic libraries to examine the
effects of the shift to electronic resources on library operations and
costs. These shifts point to the need for staff with new skills, a new array
of reader services geared to digital delivery, and a willingness to
negotiate new relationships with other units on campus, from academic
computing to facilities management. Web: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub127/pub127.pdf.
[Source: Current Cites]
The Association of Research Libraries, in The Project on the Future of
Higher Education (ARL Bimonthly Report 234 June 2004), commenting on the
changing electronic publishing marketplace, anticipates significant loss of
budget and purchasing power in libraries over the foreseeable future.
Consequently, librarians need to develop new models for making decisions
about how to invest limited resources. One strategy is to think about
library material prices in the broadest context. For example, if we think
only in terms of percentage increase, the price of a US$1,000 journal with a
US$50 increase appears to have gone up less than a US$300 journal with a
US$25 increase. But automatically cancelling the less expensive journal as a
result demonstrates flawed thinking. The problem is not the price, but the
price increase. Instead of focusing on the percentage increase, focus on the
total price. Is the more expensive journal worth the cost of three that are
less expensive? Automatically paying the increases on high-dollar titles
penalises publishers who keep prices low and now find cancellations rising
because libraries have little funding left after the big bills are paid.
Web:
http://www.arl.org/newsltr/234/investing.html
Library innovation in small chunks
Roy Tennant, in the Library Journal 15 March 2004, suggests that innovation
can happen in small chunks. By mixing and matching small solutions,
libraries can make big ideas a reality. Web http://www.libraryjournal.com.
[Source ShelfLife]
Open WorldCat
OCLC launched WorldCat about a year ago to help libraries make their
collections visible and available on the open Web. In more recent
developments, the entire Worldcat collection of 57 million records has been
made available for harvesting by the search engines (compared with the
original 2 million records) and hot linked subject headings have been added.
Web:
http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/default.htm
Reference work
Jana Ronan, Patrick Reakes and Gary Cornwell, in Evaluating Online
Real-Time Reference in an Academic Library: Obstacles and Recommendations
(The Reference Librarian, vol 38, issue 78/79, 2002/2003: 225-240),
present a broad overview of the current state of reference services using
chat technology and related obstacles - organisational structure, scarcity
of resources, newness of the service, and the difficulty of developing
techniques of assessment of applying existing methodology. They recommend,
among other things, that we use traditional methods of measuring reference
performance where possible and treat user feedback and usage statistics with
a grain of salt. [Source: Current Cites].
Endangered Archives Program
The British Library, with funding from the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Trust,
has launched an Endangered Archives Program, a £10 million global effort to
help save endangered archives. The program will be administered by the
British Library in conjunction with a panel of international experts.
Institutions and academic researchers will be able to apply for grants to
identify endangered records and relocate them to local institutional
archives. It will also provide funds for overseas librarians and archivists
to foster improved archival management and preservation for the longer term.
Source: British Library News Release 16 Nov 2004)
http://www.bl.uk/cgi-bin/press.cgi?story=1455
US government e-records & web content
The US National Archives & Records Administration has embarked on a plan to
archive billions of electronic government documents "so that anyone,
anywhere, anytime, far into the future, can access these records with the
technology in use then." As part of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA)
program, NARA has instructed federal agencies that, by 2007, they must have
their digital records organised for inclusion in an operational archive. The
finished system is to include features such as online access to an
archivist, perhaps using live-chat technology. As part of the project
activities, managers will be shown how to communicate effectively with
information technology personnel in charge of the systems. An ultimate goal
of the project will be to make it possible for researchers to access nearly
all of the services as if they were using a physical library. Carlin
predicts new products and processes to be developed will benefit other
archivists, including colleges and universities, libraries and archives,
small businesses and large corporations. Source: US National Archives &
Records Administration Prologue Spring 2004. Web:
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/spring_2004_archivist.html
Meanwhile, Florence Olsen, in FCW.com, 21 June 2004, reports on
the The Federal Depository Library Program, which has fallen behind in
cataloguing and preserving access to government documents published only on
the Web. Daniel Greenstein, head of the California Digital Library,
representing ten libraries in the Program, says this is not a problem – it’s
a crisis. A recent California Digital Library study found that about 85% of
the Deep Web is in the .gov domain. To capture such documents, the
Government Printing Office is contemplating use of Web-harvesting
technologies, but officials acknowledge Web-crawler and datamining
technologies might prove to be inadequate. Greenstein says that, while
Web-crawlers are fairly good at capturing documents from the Web's surface,
they miss much of the information on the Deep Web. The GPO has enlisted the
University of North Texas Libraries to maintain a collection of electronic
documents known as the Cyber Cemetery, but acknowledges it has no idea how
many fugitive documents they're missing. [Web:
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0621/pol-crisis-06-21-04.asp
Digital images metadata
The Research Libraries Group in the United States has published Automatic
Exposure: Capturing Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images,
promoting the need for a suite of tools to give cultural heritage
institutions the ability to preserve their digital images and the full range
of associated metadata. The RLG-led initiative aims to lower the barrier for
institutions to capture the data elements proposed by NISO Z39.87-2002 (AIIM
20-2002) Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images. Web: http://www.rlg.org/longterm/ae_whitepaper_2003.pdf..
See also
http://www.niso.org/standards/standard_detail.cfm?std_id=731. [Source:
Shelflife].
Digitisation
As an alternative point of view to those expressed in recent reports
encouraging large scale rationale approaches to digitisation, Terence Huwe,
in Building Digital Libraries: Scanning Is Still Hip High-Tech
(Information Today Nov-Dec 2004), looks at the strategic value of scanning
by small libraries. Tech-savvy collection specialists can create a
modest-sized, manageable digitisation project, he says, using the new
generation of scanners without relying on outside funding. The first step is
to conduct a thorough survey of the collection, look for photographs or
other historical materials of high value, select a small, manageable
portion, scan and upload them to your Web site. Creating a prototype digital
library from scratch can help attract outside funding, may yield a new
revenue stream, or help build a relationship with a consortium, based on new
awareness of what the collection has to offer. Web:
http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/nov04/huwe.shtml
DigiCULT reports
Among Digicult’s recent publications include Info Issue 9, with articles on
digital contextualisation for knowledge acquisition, reproducing Greek masks
for performance, and other subjects. The other, Thematic Issue 7, The Future
Digital Heritage Space- An Expedition Report (December 2004) ventures
predictions on the future of digital heritage in the next 10-15 years and
warns of ‘blind spots’ in an emerging ambient environment. The report gives
recommendations that may be “useful for ensuring the creation of a thriving
and inclusive future digital heritage space. Web:
http://www.digicult.info
Email and document management
Xerox Research Centre Europe, according to Florence Olsen in Federal
Computer Week 2 Mar 2004, has developed an automated categorisation software
tool that performs "deep linguistic analysis" to read a document, categorise
it by subject, and then routes it to a relevant e-mail address (based on a
pre-set user profile). Current categorisation tools, according to Olsen,
treat each subject category as a discrete grouping, unconnected to any
other, but the Xerox system uses a hierarchical model that is able to
understand the interdependency between two subjects - such as biochemistry
and biophysics. The system can handle documents in up to 20 languages and is
easily customised for specific user requirements. Web:
http://www.xerox.com.
Federated searching
Barbara Fiehn, in Federated Searching: A Viable Alternative to Web
Surfing (TechNewsWorld 21 March 2004), presents an overview of the topic
and future challenges, focusing on school library media centres and the
products available for that market. Dynix/Horizon, Follett, Sagebrush and
Sirsi currently offer federated search or portal add-ons to go with their
automation systems. Alexandria's SearchAll and Mandarin's Enhanced Web OPAC
portals are also anticipated. Some vendors are also working to add XML
capabilities to take advantage of existing Web clients, protocols and tools.
[Source: Current Cites]. Web:
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/33160.html
Library software trends
David Dorman, in American Libraries March 2004, gives his thoughts on the
key library software trends emerging from a recent ALA meeting and trade
exhibition. There is a high interest in partnerships to expand
functionality. There is a focus on product differentiation to create market
advantage. And data mining and metasearch services have emerged as major
areas for innovation and development. The vendor pendulum tends to swing
from convergence to divergence. After a decade in which vendors moved closer
together, the pendulum is now swinging back the other way. But it will be a
few years before the new developments reach maturity. Web:
http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/techspeaking/techspeak2004/mar2004roundup.htm
Metadata
The American Library Association has published Diane Hillmann and Elaine
Westbrooks’ Metadata in Practice (Chicago, IL: American Library
Association, 2004), a set of reports on how metadata is being used today in
libraries. Web: http://www.ala.org.
Bradford Lee Eden for Library Hi Tech vol 22 no 1 2004, has edited a special
issue MARC and Metadata: METS, MODS, and MARCXML: Current and Future
Implications, as the first part of a two-part series. The issues includes
Metadata and Librarianship: Will MARC Survive, the MARC Standard and Encoded
Archival Description, Pulling it All Together: Use of METS in RLG Cultural
Materials Service, and A Preliminary Crosswalk for METS to IMS content
packaging.
DPC/PADI’s What's New in Digital Preservation Bulletin no. 9 (July-December
2004) has information on the recently released National Library of New
Zealand's Metadata Extraction tool and the National Archives of Australia's
XENA (XML Electronic Normalising of Archives) tool, among other initiatives.
Web:
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/whatsnew/
Newspaper clipping thesaurus
Gregor Retti and Birgit Stehno, in The Laurin Thesaurus: a Large,
Multilingual, Electronic Thesaurus for Newspaper Clipping Archives
(Journal of Documentation vol 60 no 3 2004 p. 289-301), describe the Laurin
thesaurus, which is used for indexing and searching in the Laurin system, a
software package for digital clipping archives. As a multilingual thesaurus
it complies with corresponding standards, but also presents some approaches
that go beyond some of the standards. The Laurin thesaurus integrates all
kind of indexing terms, including keywords and proper names. Web:
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/jd.htm
RSS
Tony Hammond, Timo Hanay and Ben Lund, in The Role of RSS in Science
Publishing: Syndication and Annotation on the Web (D-Lib Magazine vol 10
no 12 December 2004) explain RSS technology and its development,
particularly its use in the world of scientific publishing. The article has
extensive notes and a bibliography. Web:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december04/hammond/12hammond.html.
Searching
According to Emarketer 22 June 2004, a recent survey by FIND/SVP found that
84% of business executives think that Web searches using commercial search
engines take longer than they should because they tend to deliver too many
irrelevant results. This results in an estimated loss of US$31 billion in
lost productivity. In addition, 74% expressed doubts that the results are
reliable and 39% felt that information found online is outdated. Despite
their reservations, 67% indicated it would be difficult or impossible to do
their jobs without Web-based search tools, with 28% reporting they spend
between 6 and 10 hours a week researching online. The most sought
information was financial information and reports, followed by information
on competitors. [Source: ShelfLife]
Technology in educational environments
The EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee, in Surveying the Digital
Landscape (Educause Review vol 39, no 6 Nov/Dec 2004: 78-92), explores the
impacts of evolving technologies on the higher education sector in six
areas: (1) spam management; (2) legal P2Ps; (3) learning objects; (4)
convergence of libraries, digital repositories and web content management
(5) nomadicity and (6).regional networks. On spam management, they conclude
that most higher education organisations should be developing and
implementing interim strategies to reduce spam, while technology companies
and government agencies must address the problem from technical, legislative
and enforcement perspectives. Legal P2Ps (such as MP3 downloads) have
arrived and are unlikely to go away: higher education institutions need to
be aware of the options. On learning objects, they conclude that
institutions must become involved collaboratively to shape the future of how
the medium can help faculties and students can achieve their educational
goals: it is a mistake to ignore them. On convergence it concludes that,
regardless of an institution’s budgetary climate, it must garner support for
integrating IT and library services: local convergence projects can serve as
springboards for an educational campaign highlighting the value of
convergence in terms of improved system interoperability, improved user
experience, and improved communication across organisational lines. “A
little convergence could go a long way toward solving the problem of
duplication in university digital asset management, course management,
student information, library management and content management systems”.
Nomadicity is likely to have a profound impact on services because nomads
are likely to be more advanced users of new technologies and open source
information. New funding and help-desk may be required. Management of
educational interests has been proved to work through regional networks.
Regional networks will enable colleges and universities to bring some of the
brightest talents together to teach, to learn and to work. Web:
http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm04/erm0464.asp
This issue of Cross Currents compiled by Paul
Bentley
The
Wolanski Foundation would be grateful for feedback
on the scope, format and content of this bulletin..
