Web Magazine for Information Professionals

News and Events

Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

The Joint Technical Symposium (JTS) - 24-26 June, Toronto

The Joint Technical Symposium (JTS) is the international meeting for organisations and individuals involved in the preservation and restoration of original image and sound materials. This year, JTS is scheduled to be held in Toronto, Canada, June 24-26, 2004.

Preliminary program information is now available on the JTS 2004 website. See: http://www.jts2004.org/english/program.htm

For more information please see the website or contact the organization responsible for coordinating the event on behalf of the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA):

Association of Moving Image Archivists,
1313 North Vine St.,
Los Angeles,
CA 90028

Tel: 323-463-1500
Fax: 323-463-1506
Email: info@jts2004.org

[February 2004]

DC2004 - China 11-14 October: Call for Papers

International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications 11-14 October 2004 Shanghai, China http://dc2004.library.sh.cn/

Metadata based on standards such as Dublin Core is a key component of information environments from scientific repositories to corporate intranets and from business and publishing to education and e-government.

DC-2004 - the fourth in a series of conferences previously held in Tokyo, Florence, and Seattle - will examine a broad range of metadata applications, especially with a view towards improving interoperability across boundaries of language, culture, and communities of practice. Tutorials will provide an introduction to metadata for non-experts.

In conjunction with DC-2004, the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative will hold technical working-group meetings and Shanghai Library will host the 2004 Shanghai International Library Forum (http://www.libnet.sh.cn/silf2004/).

[February 2004]

ERPANET Training Seminar, 10-11 May 2004, Austrian National Library

ERPANET iannounces its training seminar on 'File Formats for Preservation'. It will be held on 10-11 May 2004 at the Austrian National Library.

File formats are a crucial layer, indeed a hinge between the bits in storage and their meaningful interpretation. The proper access to and display of content depends entirely on the ability to decipher the respective bitstream, and consequently on precise knowledge about how the information contained within is represented. Thus file formats are one of the core issues of any digital preservation approach, and file format obsolescence is a major challenge for anybody wanting to preserve digital files. The ERPANET Seminar aims at giving an overview on these issues and at offering guidance based on practical experience. Requirements and best practices for archival file formats will be discussed, and issues such as file format registries and format validation will be treated.

This training seminar is aimed at all people who are dealing with file format issues. These include practitioners in digital preservation from all kind of organisations and institutions, decision-makers and other people involved in choosing preservation file formats, and preservationists who are facing file format challenges and are looking for first-hand information and experience. In particular, people who want to exchange their experience with colleagues from all over Europe and beyond should consider attending.

We expect attendants to have basic familiarity with digital preservation and file format issues. Please see the bibliography on the seminar webpage at http://www.erpanet.org for some introductory reading.

[April 2004]

The eVALUEd Conference - 16 June 2004, Birmingham, UK

A one-day conference aimed at library practitioners, researchers and others which forms part of the HEFCE-funded eValued Project which is based at the UCE.

There will be a keynote address by Professor Charles McClure of Florida State University, who has been a consultant to the project, and a range of speakers in addressing current issues in the evaluation of Electronic Information Services (EIS) in Higher Education including:

The day will conclude with a panel drawn from the speakers who discuss a key topic.

Further details are available at http://www.ebase.uce.ac.uk/evalued/conference.htm or by contacting Sarah.McNicol@uce.ac.uk

[February 2004]

NISO Workshop: Metadata Practices on the Cutting Edge - 20 May, Washington

Information professionals: Get the guidance you need on the growing variety of metadata standards and explore issues of interoperability. The NISO one-day workshop, Metadata Practices on the Cutting Edge, will be held in Washington, DC on Thursday, May 20, 2004. Topics in the spotlight -- from both theoretical and practical perspectives -- include: metadata syndication, digital archiving, metadata quality assurance, the Joint Working Party initiative on serials and subscription metadata, METS, MODS, and more.

Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC, will keynote; confirmed speakers include:Rebecca Guenther, Library of Congress; Chuck Koscher, CrossRef; Evan Owens, JSTOR; Howard Ratner, Nature Publishing Group; and Bruce Rosenblum, Inera, Inc.

In addition, members of the NISO Standards Development Committee will discuss plans to support metadata interoperability through the development and coordination of standards and will share information about NISO's strategic planning initiative.

Please check the NISO website (http://www.niso.org) for programme and registration details.

[March 2004]

JISC agreement for the Academic Library

The Academic Library is now available through a three year JISC licence from 28 February 2004 to 28 February 2007.

The offer includes collections from Pluto Press and The Electric Book Company, with other publishers expected to join shortly. Currently the library has nearly 300 online book titles covering Anthropology and Development Studies; Cultural and Media Studies; Politics and International Relations, with an additional collection of classic texts in Political Economy. Libraries can choose to subscribe to complete collections or to select 50 or 100 titles on a pick and mix basis.

Some of the key benefits are:

This online resource is available at special rates, exclusively through the JISC. Please go to http://www.jisc.ac.uk/coll_academiclib.html for further information. To subscribe, simply complete the Sub-Licence Agreement by visiting http://www.jisc.ac.uk/coll_academiclibrary_sub.html.

[February 2004]

OCLC Research announces ResearchWorks Web site

OCLC Research announces the ResearchWorks Web site, featuring demos, prototypes, and other interactive items that showcase the current work of OCLC Researchers.

Visitors to OCLC ResearchWorks can explore the site, follow their interest from one demo to another, and comment on and discuss them with others. The idea is to display some of what's on the minds - and the "workbenches" - of OCLC Researchers. The ideas may serve as examples librarians can develop or incorporate into their own systems.

ResearchWorks features works in progress rather than full services or even polished prototypes. There are links to background information, a discussion form, and a form to send a message directly to the researcher involved with each project.

OCLC ResearchWorks is located at: http://www.oclc.org/research/researchworks/

For more information, please contact:

Shirley Hyatt
Communications & Business Transitions Director
OCLC Research
hyatts@oclc.org
+1-614-764-4389

or:

Bob Bolander
Communications & Programs Manager
OCLC Research
bolander@oclc.org
+1-614-761-5207

[February 2004]

MATES '04 - 29-30 September, Erfurt, Germany

Second International German Conference on Multi-agent System Technologies (MATES '04); Fair and Convention Centre, Erfurt, Germany, 29-30 September 2004 http://www.gi-vki.de/MATES04/

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission of papers: May, 21, 2004
Submission of tutorial proposals: June 18, 2004
Submission of exhibit/demo proposals: July 9, 2004
Notification of authors: June 21, 2004
Camera-ready papers: July 9, 2004

AIMS & SCOPE

The German conference on Multi-agent system TEchnologieS (MATES) provides an interdisciplinary forum for researchers, users (members of business and industry) and developers, to present and discuss latest advances in research work, as well as prototyped or fielded systems of intelligent agents. The conference covers the whole range from theory to application of agent- and multi-agent technologies in order to promote theory and application of agents and multi-agent systems. The conference features an exhibition of practical applications with an advanced concept of agency, as well as introductory and expert keynotes/tutorials on practical aspects of agent-based computing.

For the second time the German special interest group on Distributed Artificial Intelligence jointly with the steering committee of MATES organises this international conference in order to promote theory and application of agents and multi-agent systems. Building on the sequence of agent-related events in Germany in the past such as VDI 1998 (Chemnitz), VertIS 2001 (Bamberg), and KI 2002 (Aachen), the MATES conference series now is exclusively devoted to agents and multi-agent systems, and the cross-fertilization between agent theory and application. MATES04 is conducted as an integral part of the fifth international conference NetObject Days 2004 in an exciting joint event. The conference language is English.

Moreover, it is co-located with other agent-related events, especially the 8th International Woprkshop on Cooperative Information Agents (CIA) 2004 (http://www.dfki.de/~klusch/cia2004/index.html), and the autumn FIPA (Foundation of Intelligent Physical Agents (http://www.FIPA.org>) meeting. Finally, it is intended to exhibit and present the most relevant agent platforms and real-world agent-based applications.

[March 2004]

Education and Culture: new programmes

Education and Culture Commissioner Viviane Reding has announced details of a programme to replace the Culture 2000, Media Plus and Youth programmes which all come to an end in 2006. Running from 2007-13, the 'citizenship in action' programme puts more emphasis on fostering European culture and diversity in order to encourage and develop European citizenship.

The new Youth progamme in particular includes international and third country relationships.

The new Culture programme seeks to go 'beyond a mere project-oriented approach'. However, it will 'actively contribute to the bottom-up development of a European identity'. It will also aim to be 'more user-friendly', and 'be open to all cultural and artistic fields, without predetermined catagories, and to a greater variety of cultural operators'.

During the period 2007 to 2013, the new Culture programme aims to support around 1,400 cultural co-operation projects, including around 80 multi-annual cultural co-operation focal points. It also aims to suport around 50 networks of organisations of European interest. And there will be a series of targeted studies, together with actions for collating statistics and disseminating information.

Visit http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/education_culture/index_en.htm for more information

[March 2004]

Workshop on Philosophy, Ontology and Information Systems - June 15, Oslo

Call for position papers

The ECOOP-04 Workshop 'Philosophy, Ontology and Information Systems' aims at providing a forum where the issues related to the use of philosophical ontology in object-oriented information systems can be discussed.

Key goals of the workshop are to secure, as far as possible, a measure of agreement on:

People interested in participating in the workshop are requested to submit a short position paper (5 pages or less) that indicates the issues they wish to have discussed in the workshop and/or relevant work they have done. The workshop organisers will review and select from the submitted papers providing feedback as needed. Position papers will be posted prior to the workshop so as to give participants the time to read the papers beforehand.

Important Dates

Deadline for submission: April 5, 2004
Notification: April 26, 2004
Workshop: June 15, 2004

Further information will be posted on the workshop page:
http://www.ifomis.uni-Leipzig.de/Events/ECOOP/2004/WS_PhilosophyOntologyInformationSystems/

[March 2004]

Association for History and Computing UK - 2004 Conference

'Recasting the Past: Digital Histories'
Institute of Historical Research, London
27 November 2004

This year the conference has taken the theme of 'Recasting the Past: Digital Histories'. The aim of the conference is to explore how the ever increasing number and variety of digital and electronic sources have changed the way in which history, and historical sources, are created, selected, researched, taught, written, presented and used. Even historians who do not use computer methodologies are likely to encounter sources in digital form or have their access to analogue sources mediated by electronic means. Whilst the digital form can transcend the constraints of time and space it brings new problems and challenges to historians and historical research. Some of the questions the this conference seeks to explore include:

Availability and Access

Research

Writing and Teaching

200 word abstracts are invited on any of the three themes above. As well as historians submissions are also encouraged from archivists, librarians, curators and others who are responsible for creating and using digital resources. Submissions from Further Education and Postgraduates are particularly welcome.

Postgraduates presenting a paper are eligible for a free place, £50 contribution towards expenses and membership of the AHC for one year.

Successful contributors will be invited to submit a full paper to the international, peer reviewed journal 'History and Computing'.

Abstracts should be sent to Dr. Ian Anderson (Convenor AHC-UK) at the address below, not later than Friday 28th May. Submission as an email attachment in MS Word or RTF format is preferred. All submissions will be 'blind' peer reviewed.

Dr. Ian G. Anderson
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII)
University of Glasgow
Email: I.Anderson@hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk
Website: http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk

[April 2004]

ERPANET Seminar on Persistent Identifiers

June 17-18, 2004
University College Cork

Co-Sponsors

University College Cork
Digital Curation Centre (UK)
MINERVA

Focus

The persistent identification of electronic resources can play a vital role in enabling long-term access and re-use and can positively impact on an object's authenticity. This seminar aims to provide an overview of current activity in the field of persistent identifiers and an understanding of the various persistent identification strategies being used and developed. Individual experiences with persistent identifiers will be explored through presentations from the library community, the higher and further education community, the scientific community and the publishing community. The seminar will also provide an update from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) working group on persistent identifiers.

Who will benefit from attending?

The seminar will bring together a wide range of participants from a variety of sectors from all over Europe. This training seminar will benefit anyone who creates or manages access to digital resources - including librarians, archivists, scientists, publishers and staff from higher and further education and government institutions.

Venue

The seminar will be held in the Main Quadrangle Building (Lecture Theatre W5), University College Cork. More information about the UCC is available on their website http://www.ucc.ie. ERPANET is extremely grateful to the University College Cork for providing the venue for this training event.

Programme (TBC)

The seminar features presentations by:

Details of these and other presentations will be available on our website soon.

Further information

A briefing paper, travel and accommodation information, and an extensive list of background documentation are available from the ERPANET site (http://www.erpanet.org). Abstracts, papers and the seminar report will be accessible via the ERPANET site following the event.

To register

The registration fee is 100 Euros. Please go to http://www.erpanet.org and follow the links to register.

For additional information, please contact british.editor@erpanet.org

[April 2004]

The European Conference on Web Services (ECOWS '04)

formerly: International Conference on Web Services Europe (ICWS-Europe)

Erfurt, Germany, September 27-30, 2004

Call for Papers

The ECOWS'04 conference will be held in conjunction with the 5th International Conference Net.ObjectDays 2004 (NODE'04) and the International Conference on Grid Services Engineering and Management (GSEM'04) in Erfurt, Germany, September 27-30, 2004.

The 2004 European Conference on Web Services (ECOWS'04) is the a international conference focusing on Web Services. ECOWS'04 is a forum for researchers and industry practitioner to exchange information regarding advancements in the state of art and practice of Web Services, as well as to identify emerging research topics and define the future directions of Web Services computing. ECOWS'04 has special interest in papers that contribute to the convergence of Web Services, Grid Computing, e-Business and Autonomic Computing, or those that apply techniques from one area to another. The conference is a sister event of the International Conference on Web Services 2004 held in San Diego and the sucessor of the International Conference on Web Services Europe 2003.

The program of ICWS-Europe'04 will continue to feature a variety of papers, focusing on topics ranging from Web Services and Dynamic Business Process Composition, Web Services and Process Management, Web Services Discovery, Web Services Security, Web Services Based Applications for e-Commerce, Web Services based Grid Computing, Web Services Standards and Technologies, Web Services Solutions, Web Services Industrial, and other emerging technologies or solutions.

Suggested Topics

We invite research papers, work-in-progress reports and industrial experiences describing advances in all areas of Web Services, including, but not limited to:

Submission Guidelines

Full papers must not exceed 15 pages (see http://www.netobjectdays.org Menu For Authors). All papers should be in Adobe portable document format (PDF) or PostScript format. The paper should have a cover page, which includes a 200-word abstract, a list of keywords, and author's e-mail address. Authors should submit a full paper via electronic submission to submission@ecows.org.

Important Dates

Extended Submission Deadline: May 7, 2004.
Notification: June 11, 2004.
Final Version Due: July 9, 2004.

[April 2004]

Information Architecture

8-9 June 2004, Paris

Information Architecture is an intensive 2-day conference about how to design and organise information systems that enable better search, navigation, and collaboration within organisations.

http://www.infotoday.com/iaparis/programme.shtml

The 8th annual Internet Librarian conference and exhibition

Monterey

The ONLY event designed for librarians and information professionals who are using, developing, and embracing Internet and Web-based strategies.

http://www.infotoday.com/il2004/

Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL) 2004

Theme: Global Reach and Diverse Impact
June 7-11, 2004
Tucson, Arizona, USA
http://www.jcdl2004.org/
(Advanced Registration Deadline: May 9, 2004)

The Joint Conference on Digital Libraries is a major international forum focusing on digital libraries and associated technical, practical, and social issues.

The intended community for this conference includes those interested in aspects of digital libraries such as infrastructure; institutions; metadata; content; services; digital preservation; system design; implementation; interface design; human- computer interaction; performance evaluation; usability evaluation; collection development; intellectual property; privacy; electronic publishing; document genres; multimedia; social, institutional, and policy issues; user communities; and associated theoretical topics.

Conference Theme: Global Reach and Diverse Impact

In addition to the listed digital library research topics, JCDL 2004 encourages submission of papers that illustrate digital library's global reach and diverse impact.

Conference Location

JCDL 2004 will be held in Tucson, Arizona on June 7-11, 2003.

Important Dates:

May 9, 2004 Last date for Advance Registration
May 10, 2004 Late Registration fees begin
May 26, 2004 Last date for cancellation with 80% refunds; no refunds after this date
May 31, 2004 Last date for Online Registration; only onsite registration available after this date
June 7, 2004 First day of conference tutorials
June 8, 2004 Conference
June 9, 2004 Old Tucson Studios Tour and Barbecue

[April 2004]

mod_oai Project Aims at Optimising Web Crawling

Norfolk VA & Los Alamos NM - The Computer Science Department of Old Dominion University and the Research Library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory announce the launch of the "mod_oai" project. The aim of the project is to create the mod_oai Apache software module that will expose content accessible from Apache Web servers via the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). The mod_oai project is generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Apache is an open-source Web server that is used by 63% - approximately 27 million - of the Websites in the world. The OAI-PMH is a protocol to selectively harvest from data repositories. The protocol has had a considerable impact in the field of digital libraries but it has yet to be embraced by the general Web community. The mod_oai project hopes to achieve such broader acceptance by making the power and efficiency of the OAI-PMH available to Web servers and Web crawlers. For example, the planned OAI-PMH interface to Apache Web servers should allow responding to requests to collect all files added or changed since a specified date, or all files that are of a specified MIME-type.

Contact: Michael Nelson mln@cs.odu.edu and Herbert Van de Sompel herbertv@lanl.gov

More information about the mod_oai project can be found at http://www.modoai.org.

More information about the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting can be found at http://www.openarchives.org/.

More information about Apache can be found at http://www.apache.org/.

More information about the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation can be found at: http://www.mellon.org/.

Herbert Van de Sompel
digital library research & prototyping
Los Alamos National Laboratory - Research Library
Tel: + 1 (505) 667 1267
URL: http://lib-www.lanl.gov/~herbertv/

[April 2004]

 

FOIS-2004 International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems

http://fois2004.di.unito.it/
November 4-6, 2004, Torino (Italy)

Just as ontology developed over the centuries as part of philosophy, so in recent years ontology has become intertwined with the development of the information sciences. Researchers in such areas as artificial intelligence, formal and computational linguistics, biomedical informatics, conceptual modeling, knowledge engineering and information retrieval have come to realize that a solid foundation for their research calls for serious work in ontology, understood as a general theory of the types of entities and relations that make up their respective domains of inquiry. In all these areas, attention has started to focus on the content of information rather than on just the formats and languages in terms of which information is represented. The clearest example of this development is provided by the many initiatives growing up around the project of the Semantic Web. And as the need for integrating research in these different fields arises, so does the realization that strong principles for building well-founded ontologies might provide significant advantages over ad hoc, case-based solutions. The tools of Formal Ontology address precisely these needs, but a real effort is required in order to apply such philosophical tools to the domain of Information Systems. Reciprocally, research in the information science raises specific ontological questions which call for further philosophical investigations. The purpose of FOIS is to provide a forum for genuine interdisciplinary exchange in the spirit of a unified ontological analysis effort. Although the primary focus of the conference is on theoretical issues, methodological proposals as well as papers dealing with concrete applications from a well-founded theoretical perspective are welcome.

Invited Speakers

Peter Gärdenfors, Lund University Cognitive Science, Sweden
Amie Thomasson, Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, USA

For details see: http://fois2004.di.unito.it/

[April 2004]

Institutional Repositories - PALS Conference

Institutional Repositories and Their Impact on Publishing
24 June 2004, London, UK

Institutional repositories (IRs) have been attracting increasing attention since the launch of MIT's Dspace in 2002. Their contents - journal article eprints, theses, dissertations, datasets and other grey literature - are generally freely available and they are seen by their advocates as a promising route to open access to scholarly research. But how will they affect the traditional scholarly communication model?

This conference, organised by the PALS group (see below), aims to go some way to answer this question by gathering together members of the publishing and higher education worlds to look at where the IR agenda is at present and how it is likely to develop, who is using IRs and how, and what the practical issues are for universities and publishers.

Find Out About

Venue - Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, 27 Sussex Place, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RG, UK.

Organised by - The PALS group (JISC, ALPSP and The Publishers Association) - see below.

Supported by - The Times Higher Educational Supplement

Chair - Jon Conibear, Managing Director, Taylor and Francis

Speakers

Who Should Attend?

This conference is essential for those potentially affected by the deployment of institutional repositories:

Costs

£195 + VAT @ 17.5% (Total = £229.13) - includes lunch and refreshments

About PALS

PALS (Publisher and Library/Learning Solutions) is the ongoing collaboration between UK publishers (ALPSP and the Publishers Association) and higher/further education (JISC). PALS aims to foster mutual understanding and work collaboratively towards the solution of issues arising from electronic publication. For more information about the work of the PALS group, go to http://www.palsgroup.org.uk

For more information and to book go to http://www.palsgroup.org.uk/ or contact Lesley Ogg on events@alpsp.org or telephone 01245 26057

[April 2004]

Want to learn about Return on Investment for your library?

It is becoming more and more important to demonstrate the economic impact of libraries and information services to management or client environment. For the very first time, these important management issues have been tailor- made in a course context for library managers.

Where and when

Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Sunday evening 27 up to and including Tuesday 29 June 2004.

Target group

Those working in libraries and knowledge centres as directors, librarians, senior managers, deputy managers, department managers and at those aspiring to these positions. Participants will rapidly be able to apply the acquired skills to their own organisation as they will learn - by means of case studies and the associated practical appraoch - to deal with the problems and challenges that different organisations face.

Subjects

The issues of the organisational benefits from libraries or information services, expressed in Return of Investment, business case, fluctuating budgets, financial and functional models, and the activities and responsibilities connected to these topics.

Organisation

The course is organised by Ticer B.V.

Website http://www.ticer.nl/04roi/

Registration, via http://www.ticer.nl/form/form04.htm.

More information can be found on the Ticer website, via http://www.ticer.nl/plans.htm.

Other courses given in 2004

Contact

Ticer B.V.
Ms Anja Huijben and Ms Esther Bruls
Email: ticer@uvt.nl
URL: http://www.ticer.nl/

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Publication Date: 30-April-2004
Publication: Ariadne Issue 39
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue39/newsline/