Web Magazine for Information Professionals

News and Events

Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

UKeiG Training: Developing and managing e-book collections

The UK eInformation Group (UKeiG), in co-operation with Academic and National Library Training Co-operative (ANLTC), are pleased to present a course entitled 'Developing and managing e-book collections', to be held in Training Room 1, The Library, Dublin City University, Dublin 9 on Tuesday, 12 September 2006 from 9.30a.m. to 4.30p.m.

Course Outline

This course opens the door to a new electronic format. In the last six years, there has been an unprecedented growth in the publishing of e-books with an increasing array of different types available for all sectors. The programme will give you the opportunity to explore a range of different e-books including a range of commercially-published and free reference works, monographs, textbooks, and fiction. Examples will include individual titles and also collections of e-books, such as those offered by NetLibrary and Oxford University Press. The course will also facilitate consideration of the new opportunities e-books offer for librarians and users, and the significant collection management and promotional issues which challenge information and library staff.

The course is designed to offer:

In addition to talks by the presenters, the course includes two practical exercises. The first allows delegates to explore examples of online e-books in a structured way. The second comprises an activity in which delegates will be divided into small groups to examine the major collection management, and marketing and promotion issues. A plenary session led by the course presenters will then be held to enable delegates to discuss their findings in the light of current research, practice, and the work of the JISC e-Book Working Group.

To register your interest in this meeting, reserve a place, or request further details: please email cabaker@ukeig.org.uk

ANLTC members should contact Miriam Corcoran, email miriam.corcoran@dcu.ie

Further details:

Available via the UKeiG Web site http://www.ukeig.org.uk/ and the ANLTC Web site at http://www.anltc.ie/

Back to headlines

Qualitative Archiving and Data Sharing Scheme (QUADS) Showcase Day 28 September 2006, Museum of London

QUADS is the ESRC Qualitative Archiving and Data Sharing Scheme, running from April 2005 until October 2006. The aim of the scheme is to develop and promote innovative methodological approaches to the archiving, sharing, reuse and secondary analysis of qualitative research and data. A range of new models for increasing access to qualitative data resources, and for extending the reach and impact of qualitative studies will be explored. The scheme also aims to disseminate good practice in qualitative data sharing and research archiving. This is part of the ESRC's initiative to increase the UK resource of highly skilled researchers, and to exploit fully the distinctive potential offered by qualitative research and data.

QUADS is a small initiative and is dedicated to the mission of learning more about sharing, representation and reuse of qualitative data, in all of its disparate shapes and forms. Five small exploratory projects were funded together with a co-ordination role, run by ESDS Qualidata at Essex. The projects address both methodological, information and technical matters. Four common challenges were identified for the QUADS scheme: defining and capturing data context; audio-visual archiving; consent, confidentiality and IPR; and Web and metadata standards. Capturing degrees of context enables informed reuse of data. QUADS is devising and recommending a minimum set of contextual constructs that would be necessary to document a collection of qualitative data to enable informed secondary use. The methods of archiving and sharing digital audio-visual data from qualitative research are fairly new.

As many of the QUADS projects are handling these kinds of data, the scheme provided an opportunity to share expertise in presenting and reusing such sources. Consent, confidentiality and copyright perhaps provide the greatest challenges for reusing qualitative data and many the QUADS projects have addressed specific consent and copyright issues.

This one-day conference will showcase the demonstrators from the five projects and some additional partner projects that cover many of these cutting edge issues. Participants will have an opportunity to hear about the projects and the teams experiences, and see the Web sites and tools created by the projects. The projects afford unique case studies that can be used in the future to help inform those wishing to publish online and share qualitative data.

Further details including programme and booking: http://www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/news/eventdetail.asp?ID=1588

Back to headlines

TASI announces Autumn workshops

TASI (Technical Advisory Service for Images) has released details and dates for its forthcoming training programme.

Practical hands-on workshops running between September and December 2006 include:

There are still places on the following workshops for September:

12 September 2006 - Image Capture Level 1

13 September 2006 - Image Capture Level 2

28 September 2006 - Image Capture Level 3

29 September 2006 - Introduction to Image Metadata

Full details of all our workshops and the online booking form can be found on TASI's Web site: http://www.tasi.ac.uk/training/


Back to headlines

iPRES 2006 - The International Conference on the Preservation of Digital Objects

The International Conference on the Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES 2006) will be held over 8-10 October 2006 at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY U.S.A.

The theme of this year's iPRES is Words to Deeds: Collaboration in the Realm of Digital Preservation. Following on the successful iPRES 2005 held over 14-16 September in Goettingen, Germany, iPRES 2006 Plenary Sessions will kickoff with a keynote presentation by Ian Wilson, Librarian and Archivist of Canada. Plenary Sessions will explore topics in Preserving Multimedia Objects, e-Journal Preservation, Certification, and National Efforts in Digital Preservation. Concurrent sessions on Tools of the Trade, eScience and Digital Preservation, Repositories, and New Initiatives will also be held.

The deadline for early registration is 1 September 2006.

For details about the iPRES 2006 agenda and to register, please visit our web site: http://ipres.library.cornell.edu/


Back to headlines

Audiovisual Preservation for Culture, Heritage and Academic Collections: 1-day course 10 November 2006, at King's College London, Centre for Computing in the Humanities.

Seventy percent of all audiovisual material is under immediate threat of deterioration, damage or obsolescence - and seventy percent of collection managers don't know it. Surveys have found serious shortages of trained staff and equipment, and an even more serious shortage of concerted preservation actions. The immediate needs are: awareness - and help.

This one-day course will provide basic information on the problems of audiovisual material, what to do about them - and where to get help and more information. The targets are culture, heritage and academic collections, to focus on a group of people and collections with broadly similar issues and solutions.

Fee: £60 includes lunch for non-profit making organisations (VAT will not be charged) or £180 (plus VAT) for the corporate sector (who will be allocated any remaining places not taken).

Early registration is advised, as numbers will be limited to approximately 25 persons. For registration and further information http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/AVpres.htm

Programme for the day:

Basics: (1.5 hrs)

Case Studies: (1.5 hrs)

Advanced topics: (2 hrs)

Attendees may book 15 minute individual consultancy sessions with the speakers from BBC, AHDS, KDCS and Prestospace after the end of the course until 6.00pm.


Back to headlines

2nd International Digital Curation Conference opens for bookings

Bookings are now open for the 2nd International Digital Curation Conference to be held at the Hilton Glasgow over 21-22 November 2006. The conference will explore the topic of Digital Data Curation in Practice. Keynote speeches will be made by Dr Hans F Hoffmann, CMS Team Leader, CERN and Clifford Lynch, Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI).

For further details see: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/dcc-2006/


Back to headlines

Conference: Connecting Culture and Commerce: Getting the Right Balance

26 January 2007, National Gallery, London
http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/mcg2007/

The Museums Copyright Group in association with Kings College London has announced the following confirmed speakers:

The conference will provide a forum for the invited expert speakers and international representatives from the cultural, media, education, commerce, Government and other interested sectors to debate how to balance cultural and commercial interests.

This is a critical time for owners and users of cultural content. Issues surrounding creative industries, technology and new media together with discussions about Intellectual Property Rights are being played out at the highest political levels and the landscape has the potential to be reshaped dramatically. Cultural heritage organisations need to embrace these developments and position themselves to ensure that they are represented as a sector that provides cultural content, free at the point of access, whilst looking to the rights that they own themselves to develop models to sustain their core activities and achieve high levels of service to their commercial users. This conference will provide an exciting forum to simulate debate and discussion about these key areas with suppliers and users of cultural content set within one of the foremost collections of art in the world.

Programme: http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/mcg2007/programme.htm

Registration for the conference has now opened at: http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/mcg2007/registration.htm


Back to headlines

The MLA releases its 2004-2006 review

MLA's biennial review of activities between April 2004 and end of March 2006. The review reports on key organisational aims and activities: putting museums, libraries and archives at the heart of national, regional and local life; increasing and sustaining participation; leading sector strategy and policy development; and establishing a world class and sustainable sector.

Copies of the review document are available on the MLA Web site at: http://www.mla.gov.uk/website/information/publications

[Source: MLA]

[Received: August 2006]
Back to headlines

JIBS User Group Weblog

The JIBS User Group has created a Weblog to help to communicate news to the UK HE community about its activities. It plans to include news from its enhancement groups, announcements of forthcoming events, and also to highlight relevant items from MIMAS, EDINA, JISC and eduserv chest.

The blog is at: http://jibsnews.blogspot.com/

News can only be posted by members of the JIBS Committee see: http://www.jibs.ac.uk/contacts/) but comments on news items which can be added to the blog will be warmly welcomed.

[Source: JIBS User Group Committee]

[Received: August 2006]
Back to headlines

Report now available on Campus Research Computing Cyberinfrastructure

Internet2, with support from NSF and Penn State, held a workshop over 25-27 April 2006 dealing with Campus Research Computing Cyberinfrastructure. The final report of this workshop is now available at http://middleware.internet2.edu/crcc/docs/internet2-crcc-report-200607.html

You can find more background on the workshop at http://middleware.internet2.edu/crcc/

This material should be quite helpful for institutions involved in cyberinfrastructure planning and strategy development.

[Source: CNI]

[Received: August 2006]
Back to headlines

The National Archives' DROID tool goes Open Source

The National Archives (TNA) has announced the release of a new version of DROID, its automatic file format identification tool. DROID is being released for the first time under an open source licence, and is freely available to download from the DROID project Web site: http://droid.sourceforge.net/

DROID 1.1 incorporates a number of enhancements, resulting from user feedback, and new TNA requirements. These include:

To support integration of DROID with other software systems, full documentation, including javadocs, is available from the project Web site.

Existing DROID users are advised that the new DROID signature file schema is not compatible with previous versions of DROID. Users are recommended to upgrade to DROID 1.1, in order to take advantage of future signature file updates from PRONOM.

TNA will continue to develop PRONOM and DROID as key parts of its preservation programme. Requirements are currently being defined for the next releases and feedback is welcomed.

Further information on the PRONOM technical registry is available from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pronom/

Comments and feedback are welcomed at pronom@nationalarchives.gov.uk

[Source: Digital Preservation Coalition discussion list]

[August 2006]
Back to headlines

Mellon Foundation provides reports on repository interoperability

Over 20-21 April 2006 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation hosted an invitational meeting in New York City, convened jointly by Mellon, Microsoft, CNI, JISC and DLF. The meeting aimed to explore issues in repository interoperability, with a view to mapping out a development agenda.

General information on the meeting is available at: http://msc.mellon.org/Meetings/Interop/

The report from this meeting, entitled "Augmenting Interoperability Across Scholarly Repositories" was prepared by Jeroen Bekaert and Herbert Van de Sompel of LANL, and is available at: http://msc.mellon.org/Meetings/Interop/FinalReport

Further announcements of additional work in this area are anticipated in the coming months.

[Source: CNI]

[Received: August 2006]
Back to headlines

User feedback results on subject-based cross-repository resource discovery service from PerX

One of the PerX (Pilot Engineering Repository X-search) project aims is to assess the potential usefulness of a subject-based cross-repository resource discovery service for engineering. To do this, PerX developed a Pilot search tool and then used it as a testbed to ascertain from a selection of academic end-users their opinions on the appropriateness of the subject-based approach and the effectiveness of the search tool.

Some initial feedback results from the first batch of testing are now available from:
http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/perx/userfeedback.htm

This includes a report analysing Web Questionnaire Results, and a report from a Focus Group.

Both reports should be of interest to anyone interested in resource discovery services, digital repositories, etc., and not just those in engineering.

The PerX home page is: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/perx/
The Pilot is available from: http://www.engineering.ac.uk/
A news feed is available: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/perx/news/perx.rss

[Source: Roddy MacLeod, Senior Subject Librarian, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh]

[Received: August 2006]
Back to headlines

APSR publishes three reports on different issues of digital sustainability

The Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR) has announced the publication of three reports on different issues of digital sustainability.

The PREMIS Requirement Statement (PRESTA) Project Report has been prepared by Bronwyn Lee, Gerard Clifton and Somaya Langley of the National Library of Australia. The objective of this report was to develop a requirements specification for preservation metadata based on the PREMIS (PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies) final report, the Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata.

Copies of the report are available at http://www.apsr.edu.au/publications/presta/

Preservation of Word-Processing Documents and Preservation of TeX/LaTeX Documents by Ian Barnes both address issues relating to the long-term availability of text documents. Dr Ian Barnes teaches and conducts research in the Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University.

Preservation of Word-Processing Documents addresses the questions:

Copies of Preservation of Word-Processing Documents are available at http://www.apsr.edu.au/publications/presta/

Copies of Preservation of TeX/LaTeX Documents are available at http://www.apsr.edu.au/publications/LaTeX-preservation.pdf

[Source: Margaret Henty, Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories]

[Received: August 2006]
Back to headlines

Repository search integrates with Firefox 2/ IE 7 search feature

The latest version of the OJAX metasearch service is now tightly integrated with the Firefox 2 / IE 7 search feature. Repositories powered by OJAX, a prototype Ajax-powered metasearch service providing a dynamic user interface to a federated search service for OAI-PMH-compatible repository metadata, can now be searched directly from the browser search bar. There is no need to download or configure extensions or plugins.

OpenSearch Discovery

OJAX now supports OpenSearch Discovery. When users visit any OJAX repository search page, their browser will automatically detect that the repository can be searched via OpenSearch and will offer to add the repository to the set of search plugins installed in their browser.

Once added, OJAX can be selected in the browser search bar and repository searches can be performed at any time without having to navigate back to the repository search page.

Search Suggestions (Auto-Completion)

Firefox 2.0 has extended the OpenSearch protocol to allow auto-completion in the browser search bar (which Firefox calls "Search Suggestions"). OJAX is one of the first search engines to implement the server side of this extended OpenSearch protocol, after Google, Yahoo! and Answers.com. It is arguably the first open source search engine to do so.

Because OJAX 0.6 uses the increasingly popular OpenSearch 1.1 search descriptions, the new features described above require the latest versions of the two major browsers: Firefox 2.0 or Internet Explorer 7.0.

Fof further information, demo and download see: http://ojax.sourceforge.net/

[Source: Dr Judith Wusteman, School of Information and Library Studies, University College Dublin]

[Received: August 2006]
Back to headlines

Return to top

Publication Date: 30-July-2006 Publication: Ariadne Issue 48
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue48/newsline/