AusStage symposium
Flinders University’s Humanities Research Centre
hosted the AusStage symposium Transforming Research into Live Performance in
September 2008 to look at the Australian performing arts gateway as a tool
for research. Presenters included Julie Holledge (Flinders University),
Adrian Kiernander (University of New England), Paul Makeham (Queensland
University of Technology), Jonathan Bollen (Flinders University), Maryrose
Casey (Monash University), Helena Grehan (Murdoch University), Glen
McGillivray (University of Sydney / University of Western Sydney), Mark
Seton (University of Sydney / Macquarie University), and Lisa Warrington
(University of Otago, who gave a presentation on Theatre Aotearoa, the New
Zealand theatre database at http://tadb.otago.ac.nz). Further information
available at
http://fhrc.flinders.edu.au/research_groups/
Australian music libraries conference
The Australian Branch of the International Association of Music Libraries,
Archives and Documentation Centres held its biennial conference at Hobart in
September 2008. The conference included presentations on the Australian
musical resources, publishing, and digitisation of musical resources
Australia-wide. Web:
http://www.iamlaust.org/
Project Bamboo
Project Bamboo is an international multi-institutional, interdisciplinary
and inter-organisational effort, launched in April 2008, to bring together
researchers in arts and humanities, computer scientists, information
scientists, librarians, and campus information technologists to advance arts
and humanities research through the development of shared technology
services. A plan is anticipated in September 2009, based on the efforts of
working groups. The site includes links to relevant material at http://projectbamboo.org/
DIGITAL REPOSITORIES & DIGITISATION
Australian aborigines and
digitisation
Martin Nakata and others have published the report Australian Indigenous
Digital Collections: First Generation Issues at the University of
Technology E-Press website. The purpose of the project was to investigate
practical issues facing institutions when digitising materials generally,
particularly Indigenous materials. They conclude that, from the
institution’s perspective, legal and sensitivity issues are the major point
of disjuncture from standard digitisation processes. However, the need for
Indigenous access to Indigenous materials in collections is an over-riding
consideration. Progress has been patchy. There is a need for the development
of broader cross-sector strategies. Web:
http://hdl.handle.net/2100/803
Book Search
Satya Nadella, in Book Search Winding Down (Live Search, 23 May 2008),
reports on the announcement by Microsoft that it will end its Live Book
Search and Live Search Academic projects and focus instead on indexing
library and publisher book content in organizations' digital repositories.
Microsoft has also said it was making the scanning equipment available to
its digitisation partners and libraries to continue digitisation programs.
About 750,000 books have been digitised as a result of Microsoft's projects
and 80 million journal articles indexed. Web:
http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2008/05/23/book-search-winding-down.aspx
Copyright law
The Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and
Preservation Program has published the report International Study on the
Impact of Copyright Law on Digital Preservation (July 2008), commenting
on copyright and related laws of Australia, the Netherlands, United Kingdom
and United States and the impact of those laws on digital preservation of
copyrighted works. It also addresses proposals for legislative reform and
efforts to develop non-legislative solutions to the challenges that
copyright law presents for digital preservation. Web:
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/.
Digital preservation
Neil Beagrie, Najla Semple, Peter Williams and Richard Wright have published
a Digital Preservation Policies Study as part of the UK Joint Steering
Committee’s Digital Preservation and Records Management Program. They note
that a major business driver in all universities and colleges over the past
decade has been harnessing digital content and electronic services. The
priority in recent years has been on developing e-strategies and
infrastructure to underpin electronic access and services. However any
long-term access and future benefits may be heavily dependent on digital
preservation strategies underpinned by relevant policy and procedures. This
should now be an increasing area of focus in our institutions. Their study
aims to provide a model for digital preservation policies and to analyse the
role that digital preservation can play in supporting and delivering key
strategies for higher and further education institutions. Although focussing
on the UK higher and further education sectors, the study draws widely on
policy and implementations from other sectors and countries and will be of
interest to those wishing to develop policy and justify investment in
digital preservation within a wide range of institutions. They have created
two tools: (1) a model/framework for digital preservation policy and
implementation clauses based on examination of existing digital preservation
policies; (2) a series of mappings of digital preservation links to other
key institutional strategies in UK universities and colleges. They recommend
that (a) funders utilise the study to evaluate and encourage best practice
in institutional preservation policies and procedures and (b) that JISC
consider funding case studies on how the generic digital preservation policy
in the study might apply in practice to specific activities, digital content
or units. Web: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/
International survey of library & museum
digitisation projects
Research and Markets Ltd has published its latest Survey of Library &
Museum Digitization Projects covering practices in more than 100 library
and museum digitisation programs in the United States, Canada, Australia,
Germany, the UK and other countries. The report presents data on funding,
collaboration within and outside of institutions, staffing of digitisation
projects, spending on hardware and software, practices on copyright,
outsourcing, staff training, cataloguing issues, marketing and other
aspects. Web:
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/
Collaboration among libraries, archives
and museums
Diane M Zorich, Günter Waibel and Ricky Erway’s 59-page report Beyond the
Silos of the LAMs: Collaboration Among Libraries, Archives and Museums (OCLC,
2008) is the result of an RLG program, Library, Archive and Museum
Collaboration, which set out “to explore the nature of library, archive and
museum (LAM) collaborations, to help LAMs collaborate on common services and
thus yield greater productivity within their institutions, and to assist
them in creating research environments better aligned with user
expectations—to move beyond the often-mentioned silos of LAM resources which
divide content into piecemeal offerings.” Five RLG Programs partner sites
were selected to participate in the workshops: the University of Edinburgh,
Princeton University, the Smithsonian Institution, the Victoria and Albert
Museum, and Yale University.
Although the scope of the investigation was limited to LAMs in a campus
environment or under a single administrative umbrella, a number of
observations may be applied when assessing the potential for collaboration
among independent LAMs. (1) A general vision for national and international
LAM collaboration has been articulated in many different contexts, and most
often by those not affiliated with collecting institutions. In the US
context, probably the best exemplars of strides toward realising the vision
of independent LAMs coming together have been state-wide digitisation
projects. (2) While many independent LAMs can articulate a broad and
compelling vision of network-level access to their resources, they generally
lack the unifying influence of a mandate that would propel the LAM community
toward that vision. (3) Mandates must be funded. Governments and other
entities can have a significant impact in realizing a more collaborative
environment through strategic investment. (4) Beyond funding, staff
incentives to partake of the sweeping vision of LAMs at the network level
remain unclear. Local staff are rewarded for achievements with local impact,
and as this report has shown, the implicit definition of “local impact”
determines the nature of collaborative initiatives and disincentivises
collaborative efforts in broader LAM communities.
On an international scale, the highly successful Global Biodiversity
Information Facility (GBIF) provides a case-study of a cross-domain
international collaboration: the vision of how science could be advanced
with an integrated dataset of biodiversity information led to a mandate from
an international coalition of governments, expressed in a “memorandum of
understanding between countries, economies, or organisations.” Since its
founding in 2001, GBIF and its partner organisations have created standards
and a clearly articulated information architecture, as well as integrated
access to biodiversity information. Staff routinely get seconded to work on
GBIF projects, since they (and their institutions) perceive being part of a
large international effort as a compelling incentive. In this manner, GBIF
has moved a vast community (including many LAMs) far to the right side of
the collaboration continuum. GBIF, however, is the exception.
The absence of the unifying, orchestrating and directing impetus of a single
administrative entity emerges as a systemic handicap in this cursory look at
collaboration among independent LAMs. Without many of the catalysts at play,
it is difficult to imagine deep, long-term collaborations among independent
LAMs. It requires extraordinary motivation, committed resources over a long
time horizon and significant changes in institutional perspective and
behaviours. Each institution’s sense of primacy would need to yield to
efforts that focus on a larger, extra-institutional goal. While the
inclination of campus-based LAMs was to do so by focusing on delivery and
access through their individual Web sites, current patterns of user access
and engagement increasingly take place at a broader network level. Users
accustomed to using the Internet for the majority of their information needs
will soon stop thinking about resources that are not indexed by Google and
other search engines. Web analytics show where the users are and LAMs need
to respond. This very real requirement may motivate cross-domain
collaborations aimed at increased access to cultural heritage. Web:
www.oclc.org/programs/publications/reports/2008-05.pdf
Cyberlearning
The National Science Foundation has published Fostering Learning in the
Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge, which provides
guidance to NSF on the opportunities, research questions, partners,
strategies, and existing resources for cyberlearning. The report identifies
directions for leveraging networked computing and communications technology.
It also calls for research to establish successful ways of using
technologies to enhance educational opportunities and strengthen proven
methods of learning within the scope of NSF’s charter, which focus on the
STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and the
social, behavioural, and economic sciences based in the US. It makes five
recommendations: (1) promoting cross-disciplinary communities of
cyberlearning researchers and practitioners including technologists,
educators, domain scientists, and social scientists; (2) instilling a
“platform perspective”—shared, interoperable designs of hardware, software,
and services—into NSF’s cyberlearning activities; (3) emphasising the
transformative power of information and communications technology for
learning, from “K to grey”; (4) adopting programs and policies to promote
open educational resources; (5) taking responsibility for sustaining
NSF-sponsored cyberlearning innovations. Web:
http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf08204.
Virtual organisations
The National Science Foundation has published the report Beyond Being
There: A Blueprint for Advancing the Design, Development and Evaluation of
Virtual Organizations, based on a workshop, sponsored by the NSF, to
advance collaboration in research and education through cyberinfrastructure.
After exploring the nature of virtual organisations, the report recommends:
(1) encouraging cross-disciplinary studies involving both technologists and
social scientists working with domain-centered VOs; (2) combining knowledge
from multiple studies to present a framework that can inform further VO
research and practice; (3) developing a checklist of necessary VOs
features—technological, social, organisational —to ensure that new VOs start
off on the right track; (4) designing instrumentation, metrics, and
evaluation as part of a VO from the beginning rather than adding
measurements systems post-mortem; (5) supporting human capital development
around Vos; (6) investigating whether technological and organisational
factors that support effective virtualisation can be standardised or
provided as commoditised infrastructure; (7) offering awards for supporting
community services at all levels, including the development of new
scientific applications, operation of technology infrastructures, and
ongoing maintenance of these services; (8) identifying incentives and offer
rewards for “metacontributors” to VOs—the people who build or reorganise
features to make it easier for others; (9) supporting the development of
hardened common tools and protocols for sharing knowledge and data; (10)
creating proposal funding models that support the use and reuse of VO
infrastructures; (11) encouraging universities to support VOs with
substantial, complementary investments; (12) establishing cross-directorate
funding opportunities that could more appropriately evaluate and support
projects uniting social scientists, computer scientists, and domain
scientists. Web:
http://www.ci.uchicago.edu/events/VirtOrg2008/VO_report.pdf
Future libraries
The Council of Library and Information Resources’s report No Brief
Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century (Washington,
DC: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2008) contains papers from
a meeting of librarians, publishers, faculty members, and information
technology specialists convened by CLIR in February 2008. It urges a change
in the way research libraries reinvent themselves to deal with rapidly
developing digital technologies and other issues. Change cannot be executed
by a single profession. It calls for a new approach in hiring and providing
professional development. Research libraries need to be redefined as
multi-institutional entities. “The latter entails a mandate to eliminate
redundancy by calibrating resources, staff, and infrastructure functions to
the collective enterprise of the federated institutions,” in a way that
transcends the traditional concept of a library while preserving their
strengths. Change should “enhance intellectual productivity in a far more
cost-effective fashion." Web: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub142/pub142.pdf.
Rebecca Miller, in Future-Proof Your Library (Library Journal, 15
August 2008) reports the thoughts of "movers and shakers" about the key
aspects for providing library services in the future. New thoughts seem to
depend on implementing past approaches – using talent and marketing. Focus
on staff above all else, staff who are adept at change, are computer and
social networking experts, who scan the horizon. Staff who are helpful.
Market the library by being relevant rather than ‘sustainable’, being open,
being user-centred, providing local value, being problem solvers, by getting
out from behind the desk, by gaining trust, by being collaborators. Web:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6585850.html.
Library cooperation
Janifer Gatenby, in The Networked Library Service Layer: Sharing Data for
More Effective Management and Co-operation (Ariadne, no 56, 30 July
2008) writes on the evolution of library management systems, current library
priorities, matching systems to priorities, data storage, collection,
acquisition and management issues at the network level and the need for
standardisation before concluding: “Moving appropriate data to a network
level data with basic enquiry and update Web services is a first step in
re-engineering library systems. In fact it is not only the ILS that needs
re-engineering, but also the newer solutions that, like ILS, have created
silos of data, often locked inside proprietary systems and databases. It is
important for libraries to own and control their data resources; to be free
to share them, provide access to them and to expose the data. It is less
important that the libraries own or run the software that manipulates and
manages the data." Web:
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue56/gatenby/).
Sustainability
Ricky Erway, in Seeking Sustainability, reflects on the success and failures
of the RLG Cultural Materials and Trove.net programs, focusing on efforts to
make access to the digitised special collections of cultural heritage
institutions self-sustaining. The project has been discontinued. The RLG
Cultural Materials was launched in 1999 with the aim of increasing awareness
of the institutions and their special collections, working collaboratively
to address some of the issues surrounding the digitisation, description of
cultural materials and management of rights, developing a body of digital
surrogates and related descriptions for the works and artefacts documenting
culture and civilization collected by libraries, archives, and museums,
providing access to that resource for educational use, identifying ways to
reach new audiences, explore means for sustaining such an activity and
returning revenue to contributors. By 2006, fifty-four institutions had
joined the alliance. Thirty-six institutions had contributed 117 digitised
special collections and created Cultural Materials subscription resource,
represented a quarter of a million works (which, in turn, represented almost
a million digital objects). The Trove.net service set out to seek commercial
gain through licences for images. She concludes: “Our attempt with Trove.net
to put the images on the open Web, where users are looking, was a step in
the right direction. However, we learned that the bulk of inquiries that
made it through to Trove.net were from people doing very specific searches,
typically for ancestors. Although we had lots of interesting content related
to the great quantity of more general searches, we didn’t achieve the
ranking that would push Trove.net content near the top of search-engine
result lists. Web: http://www.oclc.org/
Using Facebook
Belinda Weaver, in Researcher Profiles and Portfolios: Use Cases of the
Facebook Service and the University of Queensland Researchers Service
(D-Lib Magazine July/August 2008), describes the University of Queensland’s
online research profiling system, UQ Researchers, to showcase the expertise
of its academic staff and postgraduate students. External users can search
for topical areas and seek opportunities for research collaboration. The
take up of the service has been patchy. Not all staff participate in the
service, and postgraduate student take up is extremely low. On the other
hand staff and students have been more than willing to spend time showcasing
themselves and their work via social networking sites like MySpace and
Facebook. Facebook offers a number of useful features that could be adapted
for users in the academic environment. It also offers a more 'live',
real-time view of a researcher, and it provides a much more engaging and
interactive experience. Recommendations are made to make the UQ Researchers
more appealing and useful, Web: http://www.dlib.org
Australian Digital Recordkeeping
Initiative
The Australasian Digital Recordkeeping Initiative (ADRI) has announced
progress on recent activities: (1) it has endorsed a suite of online
publications for the Australia and New Zealand global collaboration on
software requirements, which, according to ADRI promises significant
benefits to the software industry and eliminates confusion caused by varying
jurisdictional standards; (2) it has prepared a statement on the dangers of
digital rights management technology, which may impair the ability of
governments in Australia and New Zealand to capture full and adequate
records ensuring the preservation of and access to government business,
decisions and communications; and (3) it applauds international consensus on
protocols for the exchange of digital records, in which the Public Record
Office Victoria played a major contributing in the project conducted by the
United Nations and the Centre for European Normalisation (CEN). Each of the
three new products can be found at: http://www.adri.gov.au/content.asp?cID=3.
ADRI is also currently working on the development of generic business cases
for digital recordkeeping, training modules on digital recordkeeping and
virtual archiving, generic specifications for digital archive hardware and
software functionality, guidelines for managing digital recordkeeping
metadata in archival systems, and a standardised recordkeeping metadata
element set consistent with ISO 23081 Metadata for Records. http://Web:
www.adri.gov.au
German archives union catalogue
Andres Imhof, in Using International Standards to Develop a Union
Catalogue for Archives in Germany: Aspects to Consider Regarding
Interoperability between Libraries and Archives, reports on a project of
the Bundesarchiv (National Archives of Germany), involving a portal finding
aids for archival records in SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) and FDGB
(Free German Trade Union Federation). The project transformed data formats
into a common profile using the Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Encoded
Archival Context (EAC) and Encoded Archival Guide (EAG). Despite the use of
these standards, many aspects needed special attention because of the
differences between library and archive materials, and the different needs
and traditions of libraries and archives. Important congruent data
structures for the integration of all the catalogue data from libraries,
archives, and museums into a European digital library [EDLproject], Imhof
says, are still lacking. International standards cannot guarantee
interoperability between libraries and archives. It is more appropriate to
accept the heterogeneity of these institutions and to plan and execute a
common presentation, taking into consideration the aspects discussed in this
article. After conducting a full text search, users will still need an
orientation in the respective context of resources. Only then will the
results of the search be understood fully. Web:
http://www.dlib.org/)
National Archives of Australia
The Rudd Government has transferred the National Archives of Australia from
the Department of Finance and Deregulation to the Department of the Prime
Minister and Cabinet, where it joins the Australian Public Service
Commission, Commonwealth Ombudsman, Australian National Audit Office,
Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Office of the Privacy
Commissioner and the Office of Freedom of Information. Web:
http://www.naa.gov.au
NZ Create and Maintain Recordkeeping
Standard
Archives New Zealand has published an exposure draft of Standard on Creation
and Maintenance of Full and Accurate Records. Web:
http://continuum.archives.govt.nz/
US archives digital strategy
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has released its
Strategy for Digitising Archival Materials for Public Access, 2007-2016,
building on Preserving the Past to Protect the Future: The Strategic Plan of
the National Archives and Records Administration, 2006-2016. The strategy
addresses efforts to digitise and make available historical documents to the
public online rather than "born digital" material, which are addressed in
its Electronic Records Archives (ERA) project. Five strategies are proposed:
(1) gathering and making available on the web archival materials that have
already been digitised in the course of performing agency functions, but for
one reason or another are not available online; (2) establishing
partnerships with organisations from a variety of sectors (private, public,
non-profit, educational, Government) to digitise and make available
holdings; (3) conduct digitisation projects on its own with materials that
are not appropriate for partnerships; (4) pursuing digitisation of archival
materials as part of its preservation reformatting approach; (5) continuing
to make its online catalogue (currently the Archival Research Catalog, ARC)
a hub for discovering NARA's digital images. The strategy also includes NARA
Principles for Partnerships to Digitise Archival Materials, covering
non-excusive rights, transfer of rights to NARA, support for the goals of
increased access, enhanced preservation of archival materials and other
issues. Web:
http://www.archives.gov/digitization/strategy.html
Federated search software
Alexis Linoski and Tine Walczyk, in Federated Search 101 (netConnect, 15
July 2008)m review the state of the library metasearch market and how to
approach system selection. All products have their strengths, they say, and
the right choice will boil down to the features best suited to libraries and
their users. They also provide comments on open source products which
provide comparable features and no cost. These products, however, will need
IT support to install the software. But in many cases the installation,
maintenance and upgrading could be cheaper than a subscription-based
product. Open source products include LibraryFind from Oregon State
University Libraries, dbWiz from Simon Fraser University, and Pazpar2 from
Index Data. Web:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6571320.html.
Hidden Web
Kat Hagedorn and Joshua Santelli, in Google Still Not Indexing Hidden Web
URLs (D-Lib Magazine vol 14 no 7/8, July/August 2008) investigate
whether Google had increased the number of OAI-based resources in its search
index and conclude that its indexing doesn’t appear to have retrieved more
of these hidden web resources since 2006, when around half of the digital
resources in OAIster were hidden. They were not certain that Google is
crawling URLs of OAI-based resources. and note that the search engine has
recently dropped support of OAI for website indexing. Web:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july08/hagedorn/07hagedorn.html.
Metadata practices
Karen Smith-Yoshimura, in RLG Program's Descriptive Metadata Practices
Survey Results (OCLC, 2007, http://www.oclc.org), reports on an OCLC
program to change RLG metadata creation processes, The project began in 2007
with a survey of 18 RLG partner institutions, representing libraries,
archives and museums, to obtain an understanding of current descriptive
metadata practices. Those involved in the work were struck by the high
levels of customisation and local tool development, the limited extent to
which tools and practices are, or can be, shared (both within and across
institutions), the lack of confidence institutions have in the effectiveness
of their tools, and the disconnect between their interest in creating
metadata to serve their primary audiences and the inability to serve that
audience within the most commonly used discovery systems such as Google and
Yahoo.
Six categories of tools were considered —archival management systems,
Collection Management Systems (CMS), Digital Asset Management Systems
(DAMS), digital collections software, Integrated Library Systems (ILS), and
Institutional Repository software. Given the prominence of ILS, it was no
surprise that MARC emerged as the most widely used data structure standard
among the fourteen cited. Dublin Core (ie Dublin Core Unqualified and Dublin
Core Qualified) was the second most common data structure, followed by
Encoded Archival Description (EAD). Few institutions reported using any of
the established profiles for Dublin Core. CDWA (Categories for the
Descriptions of Works of Art and CDWA Lite) represented about half of those
using VRA (Visual Resources Association) Core, designed to cover most visual
materials. The survey found that a surprising number of respondents still
used APPM (Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts) rather than DACS
(Describing Archives: A Content Standard), which was approved by the Society
of American Archivists in 2004. Most were using both APPM and DACS,
indicating perhaps that it takes more than three years for one content
standard to replace another. ISAD(G) (International Council on Archives,
General International Standard of Archival Description) and ISAAR (CPF)
(International Council on Archives, International Standard Archival
Authority for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families) were used in both the
United Kingdom and United States. The relatively new CCO (Cataloguing
Cultural Objects) had a surprising uptake of 21%. The number one data
content standard used was still AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd
revised edition), which correlates with the use of an ILS and MARC. In the
area of controlled vocabularies, most respondents use the Library of
Congress Subject Headings, Library of Congress Name Authority File, and Art
& Architecture Thesaurus. About half the respondents build and maintain one
or more local thesauri.
Smith-Yoshimura makes the following conclusions. (1) In analysing the
results of this survey, there appears to be an inward focus—the use of local
tools to reach a generally local audience. (2) The customised systems in use
are only shared to a limited degree with others within an institution,
alongside a moderate sharing of discovery mechanisms, descriptive
strategies, and metadata creation guidelines. Despite customisation, the
tools used are at best only “partly effective” by the respondents’ own
evaluation criteria. (3) One benchmark for effectiveness is to provide
access to all of one’s collections. With the prevalence of backlogs and
inability to keep up with additions to one’s collections, institutions will
fall farther behind without some substantial changes in descriptive
strategies, tools, or both. (4) While most count the public among the
audience for their resources, respondents still see their primary audience
as restricted to affiliated users (students, faculty, and staff). Both
affiliated and unaffiliated audiences congregate in large-scale information
hubs, which current disclosure strategies target only to a limited degree.
(5) To reach users wherever they are, the RLG community needs to disclose
more metadata to OAI harvesters, Web crawlers, and also push metadata out
directly to information hubs. For disclosure to be effective, search engine
optimisation is crucial. (6) RLG Programs will be following up on the
questions raised by the survey in its Renovating Descriptive and Organizing
Practices agenda. Its goals: maximising resources to generate as much
metadata as quickly as possible; optimising descriptive data with Web
information hub targets in mind; sharing tools and descriptive strategies as
much as possible; and leveraging terminologies from as many sources as
possible.
Open source software
Philip A Laplante, in Open Source: The Dark Horse of Software?
(Computing Reviews, 15 July 2008) describes the major issues facing
evaluation and implementation of open source software and gives some
practical tips. He concludes “there are more than 200,000 open-source
projects, ranging from simple academic pursuits to games, programming
languages, tools, and enterprise-level applications…It is definitely
changing the way that software engineers think about software.” Future
research, however, is needed to resolve many of these issues and challenges.
Questions include: Is the economic incentive to contribute to open-source
projects sufficient to drive innovation at a level attractive to for-profit
enterprises? Will OSS remain largely in the purview of academicians and free
software proponents? What are the motives for participating in open-source
communities and can these be reconciled with loyalty to company and country?
Is the security and reliability proposition for OSS strong enough for
commercial applications and even secure government deployment? Is the
quality of OSS better, worse, or the same as closed-source software? Will
the for-profit companies that have sprung up around the open-source movement
be able to survive and grow, or are they simply a momentary phenomenon? Web:
http://www.reviews.com/hottopic/hottopic_essay_09.cfm
Persistent identifiers
Emma Tonkin, in Persistent Identifiers: Considering the Options (Ariadne
no 56, 30 July 2008), describes the range of persistence identifiers such as
URN, PURL, DOI, NBN, ARK, and OpenURL and discusses related issues including
opacity, authority and centrality, semantics, flexibility and complexity,
availability and viability, and technical solutions versus social
commitment. She concludes that "technology cannot create a persistent
identifier, in the digital library community's sense of the term" and that
it is an area "in which there are more questions than answers." Web:
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue56/tonkin/
PREMIS and METS
Rebecca S. Guenther in Battle of the Buzzwords: Flexibility vs.
Interoperability When Implementing PREMIS in METS (D-Lib vol 14, no 7/8
July/August 2008) looks at ambiguities in using the e PREMIS Data Dictionary
for Preservation Metadata with the Metadata Encoding and Transmission
Standard (METS). She describes metadata types in both schemes, redundancies
between them, and issues in linking them. In conclusion, she describes
efforts by working groups to create guidelines for using PREMIS in METS to
resolve some of the uncertainties. “ “It is clear that the PREMIS in METS
guidelines are a work in progress, and experimentation will lead to
revisions. The working group that developed them has attempted to provide
initial guidance for implementations. It is important that implementers
provide feedback to the Library of Congress, members of the working group,
or to the PREMIS Implementers' Group list. As implementers gain experience
in using the guidelines and exchanging METS documents conforming to them,
the guidelines will be revised.” Web:
http://www.dlib.org.
Social software
Matthew Bejune and Jana Ronan, in Social Software in Libraries: SPEC Kit
304 (Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, July 2008), look
at ten types of applications—social networking, media sharing, social
bookmarking, wikis, blogs, RSS, chat and IM, VoIP, virtual worlds, and
widgets. Most libraries now use some kind of social software application. IM
and chat are the most popular applications. Although implementation is
widespread, half the libraries surveyed report that social software
activities remain uncoordinated and are often reliant upon the efforts of
individual librarians. The executive summary is available free at
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec304web.pdf.
This issue of Cross Currents compiled by Paul
Bentley
FEEDBACK
The
Wolanski Foundation would be grateful for feedback
on the scope, format and content of this bulletin..
