Introducing The Source
Statement of Principles on Copyright Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Archives (Note: PDF)
From the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) website
In many countries, copyright law, through exceptions and limitations, has long supported the essential functions of libraries through statutes that permit functions such as preservation. But these laws have not adequately kept pace for uses of digital information. The international library community believes that there is an immediate need for Member States to include provisions in their national laws to address the realities of access to digital information. We have developed a set of 12 Principles for Copyright Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Archives that address many of the issues, including provisions for persons with disabilities , within the context of the work of this Committee.
Digital Cultural Heritage: Concepts, Projects, and Emerging Constructions of Heritage (Note: PDF)
From the Digital Library of Information Science and Technology (dLIST) website
This paper examines a heritage practice by which memory institutions extend their role as repositories to becoming participants in a broader discourse about heritage with the consuming public. This practice is considered by focusing on two periods - the first wave of digital library development, and a most recent trend characterized by engagement of online audiences through social networking platforms.
Federal Agencies Digitisation Guidelines Initiative
From the Federal Agencies Digitisation Guidelines Initiative website
Saving the nation’s cultural heritage is an increasingly important matter for government agencies that hold large amounts of material documenting the national record. Individual government agencies are digitising different content, yet they share many of the same technical issues and concerns so the sharing of information and tools is an idea whose time has come. To that end, the Library of Congress is participating in a new government collaboration, the results of which can be followed on the newly released “Federal Agencies Digitisation Guidelines Initiative” website.
Twelve agencies have come together to develop a common set of digitisation practices and guidelines and two working groups have been formed. A still-image working group will establish appropriate guidelines for the scanning of text, maps, photographic prints and negatives. An audiovisual working group will set standards for digitising audiovisual materials - sound recordings, videos and film.
The UK's Digital Road to Recovery (Note: PDF)
From the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) website
In this report, ITIF & LSE Enterprise estimate the impact on employment in the United Kingdom of additional investment in three important technologies: broadband Internet, intelligent transportation systems, and the smart grid.
Ten ideas for policymakers to drive digital progress (Note: PDF)
From the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) website
This US article offers 10 guiding principals for creating technology policy that spurs and sustains digital progress. Innovators continue to find new ways to use information technology (IT) to make our lives better. Looking forward, IT will continue to be a critical component of solutions to many social challenges. But policymakers must create the right environment for technological progress.
Powering ideas: an innovation agenda for the 21st century (Note: PDF)
From the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research website
This report outlines a policy framework to guide the development of Australia’s innovation system over the next ten years. According to the report, innovation will make Australia more productive and increase our capacity to build new industries, attract new investment, and create new jobs – both now and in the decades to come. It also promises us happier lives – with better health, more time for friends and family, more security, and more opportunities for all Australians to reach their full potential. Most importantly of all, it will give us the tools we need to heal and protect the environment.
The need for speed: the importance of next-generation broadband networks (Note: PDF)
From the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) website
This report from US think-tank ITIF argues that supporting the deployment of faster broadband networks will be crucial to enabling next-generation Web-based applications and services that will play important roles in improving quality of life and boosting economic growth. While getting broadband service to the Americans who lack it is an important policy target, next-generation broadband will deliver a wave of new benefits to consumers, society, businesses, and the economy.
Guidelines for Children’s Libraries Services (Note: PDF)
From the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) website
The global community and the demands of the information age have re-shaped librarianship and the use of technologies to acknowledge and enhance the economic, cultural and communication revolution in today’s world. These Guidelines, in an outline format, were written by the Standing Committee members of the Libraries for Children and Young Adults Section as an implementation tool for libraries of all sizes and economic levels.
Joint IFLA/IPA statement: Enhancing the Debate on Open Access
From the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) website
A joint statement has been released by the International Publishers Association, the International Association of Scientific Technical and Medical (STM) Publishers, and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) calling for a more rational, evidence based debate on open access. It encourages experimentation and piloting of new concepts and ideas, whilst acknowledging that the differences in the different academic disciplines and publishing traditions may lead to differentiated approaches and business models in support of authors. The joint statement is intended to move the oftentimes heated and polarised debate about open access as a model for scholarly communication towards a more measured and nuanced discourse.
Safeguarding Collections at the Dawn of the 21st Century: Describing Roles & Measuring Contemporary Preservation Activities in ARL Libraries (Note: PDF)
From the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) website
Preservation has long been considered a fundamental responsibility of research libraries. Data on preservation activities by its members has been collected by the Association of Research Libraries since 1987, but changing digital technologies and the research, teaching, and learning environments in which research libraries are engaged created a need to review and examine assumptions about the types of qualitative and quantitative data needed to characterize current and emerging preservation programs. The report is organized around three themes: Preservation functions; Networked digital environment; Collaboration. Within each section, background and analysis are provided and recommendations for consideration by ARL are posed.
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Call for feedback: The Delete Generation
Kia ora koutou
I am giving a presentation to the IFLA conference in August and I'd really appreciate your help with it.
In March this year I gave a presentation called "The Delete Generation: Citizen-created content, digital equity and the preservation of community memory".
I'm looking to build on that presentation, to get wider views across the New Zealand Library sector on the areas I cover around the preservation and protection of digital assets, particularly in relation to communities and citizen-created content.
I'd love your help, so please have a look at the video or download the transcript, and post your ideas, comments or views in the comments. My advisor Karin Kos and I will be reading and responding to your feedback as it comes in, and it will all go towards my final presentation for IFLA.
To get you started, here's the abstract for the talk:
A quiet, web-roots-led, revolution is challenging the way librarians have traditionally viewed the protection and preservation of knowledge. While the complex issues concerning the protection and preservation of digital assets are better understood by the information professions, there is still much thinking required about the preservation and protection of the new wave of citizen-created content.
Traditionally information professionals in all types of memory institutions have clearly met the need for and nature of the preservation activities around formal and authoritative knowledge services and systems. However informal, citizen-created, knowledge activities are far less straightforward in terms of preservation. These activities arise and evolve as individual citizens develop as authors, content creators, thought leaders, film-makers, blog diarists, etc. There is at present an extraordinary unleashing of content creation by individual citizens.
This development challenges established organisational systems and professional practice in an unprecedented way. This paper outlines some of the issues involved in the preservation of digital assets in this environment. It explores how all memory institutions including archives, galleries, museums and libraries in particular, can value and protect a country’s digital assets in both formal and informal arenas.
This paper explores the challenges and unlimited potential of Web 2.0, in reshaping thinking about what digital assets to collect and protect over time.
Many thanks,
Penny Carnaby
Friday, May 22, 2009
The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web
Introducing The Source
Informing Innovation: Tracking Student Interest in Emerging Library Technologies at Ohio University (Note: PDF)
From the American Library Association (ALA) website
This publication examines one institution’s efforts to move away from technolust and towards a “culture of assessment." It presents findings from an environmental scan conducted at Ohio University, which investigated the convergence of students, libraries, and emerging information, communication, and academic tools.
The identification of student behaviours related to emerging and social technologies and the implications indicated by those behaviours are central to this study. The need for local user assessment is a fundamental message in this volume, which shares practical research strategies and methods with the reader. University and college libraries can use this case study and its appended survey instrument template to conduct similar investigations on their campuses.
Digital collections summit 2006: final report (Note: PDF)
From the Collections Council of Australia website
This is the Final Report arising from the Digital Collections Summit convened by the Collections Council of Australia in 2006. It brings together information shared by people working in archives, galleries, libraries and museums at the Summit. It also incorporates feedback received in respect of the Australian Framework and Action Plan for Digital Heritage Collections arising from the Summit and released as an Exposure Draft in 2007. This Report also identifies the next steps in advancing the vision and objectives identified at the Summit.
Australia in the Digital Economy: research report series
From the Australian Communications and Media Authority website
The internet has become increasingly prevalent in Australian homes and businesses and its effect has been far-reaching; transforming economic and social interactions, traditional services such as voice telephony, the distribution of content as well as underpinning the development of the digital economy.
This report series aims to contribute to a greater understanding of the digital economy and will cover issues such as: attitudes and behaviours to online security and privacy; digital confidence and skills; take-up and use of the internet; and factors which influence people’s decisions to participate or not participate online.
Unlocking Audio: Towards an Online Repository of Spoken Word Collections in Flanders
From the D-Lib Magazine website
Currently, Flanders lags behind many other European regions with regard to disclosing its oral history collections. Despite recent attempts undertaken by cultural heritage institutions to make Flemish audio collections more accessible over the Internet, the widespread distribution of these historical sound materials has yet to be realized. Based on discussions with stakeholders, the authors of this article map the current situation in Flanders regarding the preservation and dissemination of spoken word collections. Furthermore, we critically assess the technological and, in particular, the organisational feasibility of an innovative disclosure application by means of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. With our findings, we hope to inspire cultural heritage and archive institutions to digitise and open up their audio-visual collections. We hope as well to provide food for thought about possible opportunities and pitfalls for similar archiving projects.
Review of the European Data Protection Directive (Note: PDF)
From the Rand Corporation website
The Directive can be regarded as a unique legal instrument in how it supports the exercise of a right to privacy and rules for personal data protection. Its principles are regarded in many quarters as a gold standard or reference model for personal data protection in Europe and beyond. However, the Directive must remain valid in the face of new challenges, including globalisation, the ongoing march of technological capability and the changing ways that personal data is used. Although the flexibility of the Directive helps it to remain current, its effectiveness is undermined by the complexity of the cultural and national differences across which it must operate. In order to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Directive and to suggest ways in which European data protection arrangements may remain fit for purpose, the study team reviewed the relevant literature, conducted 50 interviews with privacy practitioners and regulators, experts and academics, and ran a scenario-based workshop to explore and evaluate potential avenues for improvement.
Friday, May 15, 2009
The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web
Introducing The Source
Embracing the future, preserving our past (Note: PDF)
From the National Archives website
'Embracing the future, preserving our past' is a new publication explaining what The National Archives is and what we do.
It describes our strategic priorities for this year, shows why they are important to us, and demonstrates how they are relevant to the work that we do now and our plans for the coming months. It also shows the breadth of the services we provide for members of the public, for government and for the archive sector across the UK.
Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World (Note: PDF)
From the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) website
The genesis of this report was a discussion between colleagues in the Higher Education Academy and the Joint Information Systems Committee. It arose from the observation of exponentially increasing use of Web 2.0 technologies, particularly – but not exclusively – by those of school age. Alongside this was the perception that this use was not only changing behaviour – for example the crossover of the typical time watching TV in favour of time spent online – but was also changing attitudes. By 2007 such changes were, anecdotally, beginning to be noticed in students who had recently entered higher education, and not just in the way they spent their time and accessed the web, but also in their views of their place in the institution and their expectation of participation and influence. Our hope is that this report provides a coherent and accessible account of the potential for Web 2.0 technologies in higher education and that our recommendations will enable higher education institutions (HEIs) and the agencies which support them to navigate their own paths in such interesting times.
University Scholarly Knowledge Inventory System: A Workflow System for Institutional Repositories (Note: PDF)
From the E-prints in Library and Information Science (E-LIS) website
This report provides workspace for institutional repository staff. U-SKIS tracks files, communications, and publishers’ archiving policies to determine what may be added to a repository. A team at the University of Utah developed the system as part of a strategy to gather previously published peer-reviewed articles. As campus outreach programs developed, coordinators quickly amassed thousands of journal articles requiring copyright research and permission. This article describes the creation of U-SKIS, addresses the educational role U-SKIS plays in the scholarly communication arena, and explores the implications of implementing scalable workflow systems for other digital collections.
Moving into multiple business models: Outlook for Newspaper Publishing in the Digital Age (Note: PDF)
From the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) website
The global publishing industry is going through a period of turmoil, as broadband penetration rises and new devices for delivering digital content arrive on the scene. Consumers are increasingly switching from traditional print media to digital media, although the manner in which they are making the transition varies with age, gender and nationality. In this study, we have examined the outlook for newspaper publishers, advertisers and media buyers, as they adapt to the digital revolution and deal with a global economic slowdown.
The Next Age of Discovery
From the Wall Street Journal website
In a 21st-century version of the age of discovery, teams of computer scientists, conservationists and scholars are fanning out across the globe in a race to digitize crumbling literary treasures.
Some manuscripts are in poor condition, like this worm-eaten, 17th-century Christian Arabic Book of Hours from Balamand Monastery, Lebanon.
In the process, they're uncovering unexpected troves of new finds, including never-before-seen versions of the Christian Gospels, fragments of Greek poetry and commentaries on Aristotle. Improved technology is allowing researchers to scan ancient texts that were once unreadable -- blackened in fires or by chemical erosion, painted over or simply too fragile to unroll. Now, scholars are studying these works with X-ray fluorescence, multispectral imaging used by NASA to photograph Mars and CAT scans used by medical technicians.
IdeaPaint
From Stephen's Lighthouse blog (Stephan Abram)
IdeaPaint is a single coat roller applied paint that turns any smooth surface into a dry-erase writing surface. It can be used to transform office walls, desks, and hallways into collaborative spaces. With IdeaPaint, work environments become areas of increased functionality that evoke creativity and impromptu teamwork and cultivate innovation by providing a dry-erase writing surface without seams, borders, or restrictions. IdeaPaint can be used in a myriad of ways including in open work areas, conference rooms, offices, hallways, and even on columns."
Friday, May 8, 2009
The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web
Introducing The Source
Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want (Note: PDF)
From the OCLC website
An end user’s expectations and work practices on the Web influence his or her decision to use a library online catalog. Catalog interfaces matter, but catalog data quality is also a driving factor of the catalog’s perceived utility — and not only for end users, but also for librarians and library staff. To gain a rounded, evidence-based understanding of what constitutes “quality” in catalog data, OCLC formed a research team to:
• Identify and compare the data quality expectations of catalog end users and librarians
• Compare the catalog data quality expectations of types of librarians
• Recommend catalog data quality priorities, taking into account the perspectives of both end users and librarians
The findings suggest two traditions of information organization at work — one from librarianship and the other from the Web. Librarians’ perspectives about data quality remain highly influenced by their profession’s classical principles of information organization, while end users’ expectations of data quality arise largely from their experiences of how information is organized on popular Web sites. What is needed now is to integrate the best of both worlds in new, expanded definitions of what “quality” means in library online catalogs.
Preservation of Art in the Digital Realm (Note: PDF)
From the British Library website
This paper discusses the challenges of preserving art in the digital context. It provides an overview of the broader digital preservation challenge, and then considers new media art within that context. Through several case studies, it illustrates and discusses problems, issues and proposed solutions to digital art preservation. We will see that while work has been done towards digital preservation, significant issues remain.
Long-term Preservation of Electronic Literature (Note: PDF)
From the British Library website
This paper, given at iPRES 2008 (British Library Conference Centre, 29-30 Sept. 2008), discusses the threats to electronic literature and efforts in Germany by the German Literature Archive, German National Library and nestor to address the challenges of developing preservation strategies for this material.
Looking to Big-Screen E-Readers to Help Save the Daily Press
From the New York Times website
The iPod stemmed losses in the music industry. The Kindle gave beleaguered book publishers a reason for optimism. Now the recession-ravaged newspaper and magazine industries are hoping for their own knight in shining digital armor, in the form of portable reading devices with big screens.
The Mobile Difference
From the Pew Internet & American Life Project website
Mobile connectivity is now a powerful differentiator among technology users. Those who plug into the information and communications world while on-the-go are notably more active in many facets of digital life than those who use wires to jack into the internet and the 14% of Americans who are off the grid entirely.
* Some 39% of Americans have positive and improving attitudes about their mobile communication devices, which in turn draws them further into engagement with digital resources – on both wireless and wireline platforms
* 8% of adults use mobile devices and broadband platforms for continual information exchange to collaborate with their social networks
* 7% of adults actively use mobile devices and social networking tool, yet are ambivalent about all the connectivity
* 8% of Americans find mobility lighting their information pathways, but have comparatively few tech assets at home
* 16% of adults are active conduits of content and information for
* 61% are anchored to stationary media; though many have broadband and cell phones, coping with access is often too much for them
Semantic Web Awareness 2009: A Comparative Study on Approaches to Social Software and the Semantic Web (Note: PDF)
From the Semantic Web Company (SWC) website
The Semantic Web Awareness Barometer 2009 aims at providing the reader with a brief overview over current trends and possible future topics in the fast evolving and dynamic field of web semantics. It also addresses Social Software, since these two areas are expected to condition each other. The data analysed in this survey was primarily collected among Semantic Web specialists from science and industry.
New Inks Cut Costs of Office Color Printing
From the New York Times website
After years of research, Xerox will release the first in a new series of large machines this month that it claims will change the economics of printing large volumes of colour documents at offices. Unlike traditional laser printers that use cartridges of powdery, sometimes messy toner, the revamped products rely on hunks of ink that remain solid at room temperature and then melt when heated.
New Study Examines Technology Generation Gap in the Workplace (Note: PDF)
From the LexisNexis website
A national survey of American white collar workers found that while technology is widely embraced among working professionals, significant gaps exist among generations regarding its use and application in the workplace. The newly released Technology Gap Survey found generational differences in the effect of technology on workplace etiquette, the blurring boundaries between personal and professional tasks, and the impact of technology overload.
Twitter for Libraries (and Librarians)
From the Information Today website
For many people, the word “twitter” brings to mind birds rather than humans. But information professionals know that Twitter is a fast-growing, free messaging service for people, and it’s one that libraries (and librarians) can make good use of—without spending much time or effort.
Ex Libris' URM - the new generation library software platform
I’m currently in Richmond, Virginia at the Ex Libris User Group of North America (ELUNA) Conference, where on Wednesday afternoon (US time) there was a Plenary Session by Oren Beit-Arie from Ex Libris on their thinking around Service Oriented Librarianship, and in particular, the outlines of their ‘new-generation’ library software platform, URM (Unified Resource Management).
Background links:
- Many quotes and ideas came from the paper No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century published by the Council on Library and Information Resources in August 2008
- Above the Clouds: A Berkeley view of cloud computing by Michael Armbrust et al, February 2009
- Ex Libris’ URM Resource Center (sic)
- Ex Libris White Paper on URM, which I haven’t read yet, so much of this may be duplicated information, but read on…
So, on to the presentation – I haven’t had time to coalesce my thoughts on this yet, so this is basically a dump from the PowerPoint that I hope you’ll find interesting.
There are 4 current trends in scholarship/research.
Trend 1 more research, more data
Trend 2 more interdisciplinary activity
Trend 3 changes in scholarly communication models
Trend 4 changes in technology models eg cloud computing , Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
Against this background, libraries have 3 areas of working, the Traditional, or what we do now, the Transitional, which involves doing new things in support of the traditional, and the Transformational, which involves doing entirely new and different things.
Hence the development of the URM Framework. Basically it breaks down into 4 parts.
1. Unified Research , Discovery and Delivery (URD2). This is where search occurs – local, remote & deep), also the linking UI, recommendation, and user preferences.
2. URM – this sits under URD2 and comprises selection, acquisition, activation, patron data, fulfilment, cataloguing, access rights, publication and inventory maintenance.
3. Data Services layer. This sits aside the URD2 & URM and comprises metadata management, usage data, the knowledge base, vendor information and user created content such as tags and reviews.
4. And beyond… Sitting alongside the Data Services layer, this comprises institutionasl repositories, preservation, new product bX (a recommender service) http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/category/bXOverview etc.
It was emphasised that across all of these products is an open platform.
So, how is this going to work?
Traditional Services
These are moving to a network level eg SaaS, Cloud computing. The move of software to a centralised, hosted environment will benefit by bringing down Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and enable options for Data as a Service (new acronym alert DaaS?)
So library’s metadata will be sitting in hosted units and on top of this data layer sits the Metadata Management & Central Knowledge Base. The stated goal is to enable libraries to preserve their uniqueness and to move towards a new model of bibliographic control.
- Library Zone where a library has control of local versions of their metadata.
- Community Zone which allows the creation of & links to shared description. The sharing of metadata will decrease the need for libraries to store and manage locally
- Centralised authority control
- Collaboration – allowing the potential for peer-to-peer sharing
Transitional Services
Leveraging the capabilities of SaaS. New infrastructure support will allow:
- Integration with vendor systems
- Collaborative collection development within consortia or ad-hoc groups
- Shared purchasing
- Integrated anonymised usage data from similar institutions.
Transformational Services
Will there be a new paradigm for search? Are we moving away from search to an era of ‘discovery’?
Preservation – sustaining the digital investment
e-science, e-scholarship, e-research – libraries are necessary for data curation, management and use brining up the idea of the Librarian as Middleware (from Rick Luce’s paper (http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/ff08luce.pdf) Making a Quantum Leap to eResearch Support: a New World of Opportunities and Challenges for Research Libraries.
The End.
That was it really, and along the way we got to see a few initial screenshots of workflows in what may be the UI .
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
This is how we do it: @nlnz on Twitter
Oprah's there. Ashton's there. Cats do it, dogs do it, even transportation infrastructure does it. And so do we; tweet away on Twitter.
It's safe to assume that the LibraryTechNZ readership is au fait with Twitter, but just in case; Twitter http://twitter.com is a microblogging service that lets you post 140-character updates to the web. If you want to know why that's useful, even addicitive, check out Tim O'Reilly's post.
Twitter seems to satisfy two strong human needs: our desire to tell people about ourselves, and our desire to know what's going on with the people around us (physically or virtually). When we’re explaining Twitter, we often point to these Personal Items columns in early 20th century newspapers, where small goings-on in the community were printed for all to read.
Libraries and other cultural institutions have taken to Twitter with huge enthusiasm; some do it incredibly well, others are still finding their feet.
We're pretty happy with how our Twitter works. Sure, we're not rockstars; currently, we're verging on 700 followers. But we get some great feedback
And awesome interaction
So, this is how we do it
Chelsea set up the Twitter account last September, to talk to attendees at the LIANZA 2008 conference. However when the conference was over we were left with a communications channel and not enough to communicate. The Library doesn't run enough events or release enough news to sustain a daily Twitter feed. So we had a bit of a think about it, invoking what have become our three favourite "so, you want to start a [insert social media site name here] account?" questions, and this is what we came up with.
What content do you have to share?
Twitter lends itself so well to a pithy comment and a hyperlink that it rapidly became obvious that posting links to items in digital collections such as Papers Past and Manuscripts & Pictorial was a natural use for the @nlnz account.
An advantage of this approach is that there's no need for any clearances – we're taking people through to collection items in their natural habitat, not reproducing the items elsewhere.
Who's going to run this thing?
Answer: Chelsea and Courtney.
We sit next to each other, which makes it really easy to coordinate. We both twitter ourselves, so we've got a grasp of the mechanism. And we're both really interested in the collections; partly, this activity grew out of the fact we've being passing links and comments between us via IM for ages. Occasionally people send us a recommendation for the stream, but so far no-one has wanted to join in as a regular poster.
It was really important to both of us that we had our names on the account, drawing inspiration from Shelley Bernstein at Brooklyn Museum and from this post & discussion on Nina Simon's Museums 2 blog.
To make it easier for ourselves, we made up some rules:
- We post twice a day (that's why they're called #tbreaktweets: we try to time our posts with the Library's traditional morning and afternoon tea times)
- We restrict the tweeting to the #tbreaktweets; we don't do events or systems outages or media releases. Hopefully this means we're predictable, in a good way.
- We try to make sure we're at our desks for 30 minutes after the tweet goes out, in case anyone writes back. If we're not open to conversation, what's the point of being there?
We follow anyone who follows us (unless they're a bot selling stuff)
Who is your audience community?
We knew that the kind of people we already hung out with on Twitter were happy to be momentarily distracted with a worthwhile link. We're those kinds of people ourselves. But honestly, we couldn't have predicted the kind of audience we attracted. Our followers include cultural institutions, friends and acquaintances, art lovers, history lovers, library lovers, information lovers, New Zealand lovers, humour lovers. It's an eclectic mix.
What has evolved over the past 4 months is nothing short of awesome. It was a pleasant surprise to see that our interest in the National Library's digital collections was shared among so many other people. And our sense of humour wasn't lost on them either!
What's great about Twitter, among other social networking sites, is that what appears on the surface to be a cacophony of disparate voices is sometimes just a simple conversation among friends.
Sharing the love
For us, #tbreaktweets is about sharing the love. In that spirit, here are some of our fav NZ culture tweeters:
http://twitter.com/auckland_museum
http://twitter.com/TePapaColOnline
http://twitter.com/nzlive
http://twitter.com/NZHistorydotnet
http://twitter.com/ChchArtGallery
http://twitter.com/te_ara
A joint post by Chelsea Hughes & Courtney Johnston, tbreaktweeters
Friday, May 1, 2009
The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web
Introducing The Source
E-journals: their use, value and impact
From the Research Information Network website
This article takes an in-depth look at how researchers in the UK use electronic journals, the value they bring to universities and research institutions and the contribution they make to research productivity, quality and outcomes.
Collaborative Librarianship: New Light on a Brilliant Concept
From the Collaborative Librarianship website
Libraries around the world have enjoyed a remarkable history of working together. The present contexts of collaboration in other sectors of society, of a growing literature on collaborative management theory and practice, of the Colorado experience in library collaboration, constitute fertile soil that nurtures new initiatives in collaboration. No Brief Candle provides perspectives on the importance of collaboration for libraries of the 21st century.
Library of the Future Debate
From the JISC website
What is the library of the future? This public question and answer debate discussed what information and library provision mean in these changing times; technology has had a huge effect on the behaviour of both information consumers and service providers. We asked what the library currently is and what do libraries need to do to support knowledge, innovation and society for the future? These issues were examined from several different perspectives through a range of high profile speakers who presented their vision for the library of the future.
We Need Publishing Standards for Datasets and Data Tables
From the OECD (The World Economy) website
This paper details the problems with user ability to locate and reference online data. Datasets are a significant part of the scholarly record and being published much more frequently but with widely inconsistent metadata, links and citations. The paper proposes bibliographic metadata standards that could be implemented to provide users and librarians with data that is as accessible and as easy to find and catalogue as written works like journal articles and book chapters. By following existing scholarly metadata standards, datasets can easily utilise the existing discovery channels that are used by e-journals and e-books, including library systems, cross reference linking, publishing platforms, and search engines.
Semantic publishing: the coming revolution in scientific journal publishing (Note: PDF)
From the ImageWeb website
Recent developments in Web technology can be used for semantic enhancement of scholarly journal articles, by aiding publication of data and metadata and providing 'lively' interactive access to content. Such semantic enhancements are already being undertaken by leading STM publishers, and automated text processing will help these enhancements become affordable and routine. Publisher, editor, and author all have primary roles in that process; an incremental approach is needed. Publication of data and metadata to the Web make possible added-value 'ecosystem services'; semantic publishing will bring substantial benefits to scholarly communication.
Adventures In Semantic Publishing: Exemplar Semantic Enhancements Of A Research Article
From the PLoS Computational Biology website
Scientific innovation depends on finding, integrating, and re-using the products of previous research. Here we explore how recent developments in Web technology, particularly those related to the publication of data and metadata, might assist that process by providing semantic enhancements to journal articles within the mainstream process of scholarly journal publishing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
