Web Magazine for Information Professionals

News and Events

Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

UKeiG Courses over May – October 2008

Searching the Internet: Google and Beyond

Karen Blakeman
Friday 16 May 2008
University of Liverpool
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2008/May/beyondgoogle.html

Searching the Internet: Google and Beyond

Karen Blakeman
Wednesday 11 June 2008
King’s College London, Guy’s Campus
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2008/June/beyondgoogle.html

UKeiG Annual Seminar

Web 2 in action - making social networking tools work to enhance organisational efficiency
Thursday 12 June
SOAS, London

Understanding metadata and controlled vocabularies - the key to integrated networking

Stella Dextre Clarke
Thursday 3 July 2008
Cilip, London
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2008/July/UnderstandingMetadata.html

Sharepoint for Intranets

Janus Boye
Tuesday 15 July 2008
Cilip, London - details will be available shortly from
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/

Information Literacy: workplace perspectives

Sheila Webber
Wednesday 22 October 2008
Cilip, London - details will be available shortly from
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/

Plus regular Intranet Forum meetings for UKeiG members

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2008 Sakai Community Conference

Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France
1-3 July 2008
https://sakai.educonference.com/conferences/

The Sakai Foundation has announced that the 2008 Sakai Community Conference will be held in Paris, France. The dates will be Tuesday-Thursday, 1-3 July, with pre-conference sessions and activities On Monday, 30 June. All meetings and conference sessions will be held at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie. The Sakai technical demonstrations will take place on Wednesday evening, 2 July 2008, at the Marriott Rive Gauche Hotel and Conference Centre, which is located nearby.

If you wish to submit a proposal, register for the conference, or make a reservation at the conference hotel, visit:
https://sakai.educonference.com/conferences/

Sakai community conferences offer extended face-to-face interactions between our community of designers, developers, pedagogists, faculty, students, user support specialists, system administrators, educational and collaborative technology managers. Sakai conferences seek to provide a welcoming and informative venue for all interested in seeing what the Sakai community and software are all about.

For general information:
contact Mary Miles mmiles@sakaifoundation.org

Mary Miles
Sakai Foundation
Administrative Coordinator
Phone: 734-764-3614
Fax: 734-763-7829
Cell: 734-395-2650

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UKeiG Course on Metadata and Controlled Vocabularies

Understanding metadata and controlled vocabularies - the key to integrated networking
CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday, 3 July 2008, 9.30-16.30
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2008/July/UnderstandingMetadata.html

Course Outline

This one-day workshop will provide an introduction to some widely used metadata schemas (such as Dublin Core, CDWA, e-GMS, IEEE-LOM) and discuss how to adapt and exploit them for our own needs. It will also explore the different types of vocabulary (taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies, etc.) that may be used for labelling the subject content of our resources. We’ll be looking very practically at how to handle the vocabulary tools, in order to achieve integrated information management. Examples and exercises will be drawn from public and private sector applications.

The programme will include:

The course will include a combination of presentations and practical exercises, with participation encouraged and plenty of opportunity for questions and answers.

Who Should Attend

Anyone who is planning efficient ways of managing information flows around the organisation should attend. Likewise webmasters who want to maximise the impact of the resources on their websites, especially by presenting them so that users can find what they want and external portals can harvest the information. Effective implementation of metadata relies on cooperative working between information professionals and their information technology colleagues, and it is good to have both sides of the house represented.

Course Presenter

A Fellow of CILIP, Stella Dextre Clarke is an independent consultant who specialises in the design and implementation of controlled vocabularies for private and public sector clients. While working with the Cabinet Office, she played a key role in development of the UK’s e-Government Metadata Standard and built the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary which forms part of it. In 2006 she won the Tony Kent Strix Award (sponsored by UKeiG), for outstanding contributions to the field of information retrieval.

To book a place please contact Christine Baker (see below) or visit
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2008/July/UnderstandingMetadata.html

Christine Baker,
UKeiG Administration,
Piglet Cottage,
Redmire,
LEYBURN,
DL8 4EH,
North Yorkshire,
United Kingdom
Tel & Fax: +44 (0)1969 625751
Email: cabaker@ukeig.org.uk


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JISC/CNI 2008

The JISC/CNI Meeting: Transforming the User Experience
Hastings Europa Hotel, Belfast
10-11 July 2008
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/jisc-cni-2008/

Following the success of previous conferences held in Brighton and York, The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) are proud to announce the 7th International Meeting which will be held at the Europa Hastings Hotel, Belfast, on 10 and 11 July 2008.

The meeting will bring together experts from the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom. Parallel sessions will explore and contrast major developments that are happening on both sides of the Atlantic. It should be of interest to all senior management in information systems in the education community and to practitioners responsible for delivering digital services and resources for learning, teaching and research.

Further information:

JISC/CNI 2008 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/jisc-cni-2008/
CNI http://www.cni.org/
JISC http://www.jisc.ac.uk/


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Institutional Web Management Workshop 2008 (IWMW 2008)

IWMW 2008: “The Great Debate”
University of Aberdeen
22-24 July 2008
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2008/

The Web management community is increasingly working in an environment in which users are making significant use of Web 2.0 services. We need to ask:

These are some of the issues our institutions are currently facing. And it seems there may be disagreements within the Web management community regarding the benefits and risks associated with the use of a distributed portfolio of services.

Further information:

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2008/


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The Red Island Repository Institute Fedora-focused Workshop

Red Island Repository Institute: 1st Fedora Summer Institute
Prince Edward Island, Canada
11-15 August 2008
http://vre.upei.ca/riri/

Register now for The Red Island Repository Institute on Prince Edward Island - August 11-15, 2008

Register by 16 May 2008 and reserve your spot at the Fedora-focused Repository Institute on Prince Edward Island, one of Canada’s premier travel destinations known for its sandy beaches, golfing, seafood and iconic red dirt roads. The 1-week hands-on workshop will be led by well-known Fedora “natives” Sandy Payette, Fedora Commons Executive Director; Richard Green, Manager, RIDIR, REMAP and RepoMMan Projects, e-SIG, Academic Services, University of Hull, and; Matt Zumwalt, MediaShelf.

The Institute is hands-on and is designed for individuals from institutions planning or running a repository programme and is intended for users with a wide range of experience, from managers to programmers. Attendees will be provided all the information and tools needed to implement and maintain a flexible repository programme using Fedora. Since the Institute is a combination of lecture and hands-on experience, we encourage all participants to bring their own laptops. This will allow participants to return to their place of work with a fully-functional Fedora installation for further development and testing. Those participants who are not able to bring a laptop will be provided with one to use for the duration of the Institute.

Register by 16 May for the reduced early-bird fee of $1,500 - after that the fee is $1,800. Registration includes meals (except dinners for Tuesday to Thursday), special events and all materials. A preliminary workshop agenda and registration form are now available at http://vre.upei.ca/riri/

Further information about the Red Island Repository Institute:
Contact Mark Leggott riri@upei.ca


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Modular International Digital Library Course

Modular International Digital Library Course: Digital Libraries à la Carte
Tilburg University, The Netherlands,
25-29 August 2008
http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/ticer/08carte/

Ticer’s new, modular course for librarians and publishers “Digital Libraries à la Carte” will be held at Tilburg University, The Netherlands, 25-29 August 2008.

From its ‘menu’ of seven one-day modules (some held in parallel on the same day), you can pick your choice:

Some subjects covered:

Course director is Silvia Van Peteghem, chief librarian at Ghent University. Top speakers will present their views. Below is just a small selection.

To guarantee a highly interactive programme, the number of participants is limited, lectures contain an interactive component, and two modules offer hands-on sessions in a computer room. The course is recommended by JISC, DEFF – Denmark’s Electronic Research Library, CBU/KUB – the conference of university libraries in Switzerland, NFF – the Norwegian Association of Special Libraries, the DRIVER II project, and The Helsinki University Libraries.

The course Web site can be found at:
http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/ticer/08carte/

If you register before 1 June 2008, you will get a €150 discount. There are special discounts for DRIVER II participants and associates.

Further information

Ms Jola Prinsen
Manager Ticer
Tilburg University
Library and IT Services
P.O. Box 90153
5000 LE Tilburg
The Netherlands
Tel. +31 13 466 8310
Fax +31 13 466 8383
jola.prinsen@uvt.nl
http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/services/lis/ticer/


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Information Access to Cultural Heritage (IACH) Workshop

Aarhus, Denmark
18 September 2008
http://www.lsi.uned.es/IACH2008/

Organised in conjunction with the 12th European Conference On Research And Advanced Technology For Digital Libraries (ECDL 2008)
http://www.ecdl2008.org

The Information Access to Cultural Heritage (IACH) workshop held in conjunction with ECDL 2008 will bring together academics carrying out research in the area of information access and practitioners working in the cultural heritage field. The goal of the workshop is promoting exchange of ideas concerning creation, curation, storage, retrieval and use of cultural heritage information. In particular, the workshop will focus on the question of how the keepers of cultural heritage resources can improve information access by applying information technology and principles currently being developed in the area of information access.

Following current trends, users are actively engaging with cultural heritage on the Web, prompting heritage institutions to stimulate communities to grow around them. The workshop places an additional emphasis on active user participation, which creates new modes of access and contextualisation. These are challenging developments for cultural heritage organisations, due both to the variety and richness of cultural heritage resources and to the diverse range of users with varying information needs and search behaviours.

Issues in the scope of the workshop include:

1. Emerging communities of users of cultural heritage information

2. Information retrieval technology for improved access to cultural heritage resources

3. Innovative solutions for accessing cultural heritage on-line

4. Panel session focused on identifying key challenges facing access to cultural information today.

We welcome the submission poster papers, position papers (for panel participation) and extended abstracts (i.e., proposals for full papers) which should be written in English and prepared according to the Springer LNCS format guidelines. Submissions should be a maximum of 2 pages and manuscripts should be in PDF format. For further information, see http://www.lsi.uned.es/IACH2008/

Important Dates:

Call for papers: 8 April 2008
Abstracts for full length papers: 8, June 2008 Full Poster Papers/Full
Position papers due: 8 June 2008
Notification: 8 July 2008
Final version full papers due: 18 August 2008
Workshop: 18 September 2008

The IACH 2008 Organising Committee

Martha Larson, University of Amsterdam
Johan Oomen, Sound & Vision,
Kate Fernie
Juan Manuel Cigarren Recuero, UNED
http://www.lsi.uned.es/IACH2008/


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DCC Digital Curation 101

DCC Digital Curation 101 Training Programme
6-10 October 2008
The National e-Science Centre
13-15 South College Street
Edinburgh
EH8 9AA

http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/digital-curation-101-2008/

In recent years there have been a number of useful training events devoted to the preservation of digital information. However, there is a still a need to provide practical hands-on training in a life cycle approach to conceptualising, creating, preserving access to and re-using data over time. The Digital Curation Centre is developing a new residential programme to deliver practical training and develop these skills amongst the information services and scientific communities. The DCC Digital Curation 101 training programme will take place in Edinburgh in October 2008. It will produce a dynamic, practical, replicable, and extendable educational framework that will provide participants with the skills they will need to conceptualise, create, manage, describe, store, and reuse data over time.

Participation in DC101 will introduce attendees to the DCC Digital Curation Life-Cycle Model and provide them with a firm understanding of the individual role(s) they play in this life-cycle over time. The training programme will focus on the practical, rather than the theoretical, and will contribute towards bridging the gap that currently exists between a general awareness of curation and preservation issues amongst the information services and scientific community, and their ability to practically address digital curation and preservation challenges within their actual working environment.

In addition, DC101 will offer students an opportunity to network with other scientific researchers, international experts, and practitioners across disciplinary and national boundaries. More information will soon be available from the DCC Web site.


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4th International Digital Curation Conference

4th International Digital Curation Conference:
“Radical Sharing: Transforming Science?”
Hilton Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
1-3 December 2008
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/dcc-2008/

In partnership with the National e-Science Centre we are holding our 4th International Digital Curation Conference on 1-3 December 2008 at the Hilton Grosvenor Hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The DCC invites the submission of full papers, posters and demos from individuals, organisations and institutions across all disciplines and domains engaged in the creation, use and management of digital data, especially those involved in the challenge of curating data in e-science and e-research.

Full details are available at http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/dcc-2008/

Sent on behalf of:
Chris Rusbridge
Director of the Digital Curation Centre


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Online Educa Berlin 2008

Online Educa Berlin 2008:
14th International Conference on Technology Supported Learning and Training
Hotel InterContinental Berlin, Budapester Str. 2, D-10787 Berlin, Germany
3-5 December 2008
http://www.online-educa.com/

Online Educa Berlin 2008 welcomes Michael Wesch as a keynote speaker. The event is the largest global e-learning conference for the corporate, education and public service sectors and will take place from December 3 - 5 at the Hotel InterContinential in Berlin.

Michael Wesch is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, USA. In his work he explores the impacts of new media on human interaction. Wesch is well known for his groundbreaking work in digital ethnography, and he is also active in developing innovative teaching techniques.

His research gained broader attention as the result of his award-winning video “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us”, in which he describes in short sequences the power of Web 2.0 applications. The video - which is available on YouTube - has been viewed by more than five million people so far and instantly made him a household name within the blogosphere.

Michael Wesch’s presentation at Online Educa Berlin 2008 will contribute to one of the event’s overriding themes: “Meeting the learning needs of Generation Y”. International experts will be discussing the challenges of teaching and training media-savvy students who grew up with the Internet. In his speech, Wesch will take a closer look at how emerging technologies affect our understanding of teaching and how Web 2.0 tools can help solve the crisis of significance that education is facing today, especially in the eyes of our students.

Further information:

For more information on Micheal Wesch, visit his blog “Digital Ethnography”: http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/

The “Digital Ethnography” YouTube Channel with all his videos can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/mwesch

Organisers:

ICWE GmbH, Leibnizstr. 32, 10625 Berlin, Germany
Tel: +49 (0)30 310 18 18-0
info@online-educa.com
http://www.online-educa.com/


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{C}{C}{C}

New Deal Gives Library Users Access to World-class Online Reference Material

A new agreement, managed by the MLA, will enable public libraries in England to achieve significant financial discounts on high-quality online reference resources. The last such agreement resulted in over £3.5m savings for public libraries in England.

The ground-breaking Reference Online initiative was originally launched in February 2006 with the intention of finding ways in which public libraries in England could provide their users with the best possible range of online resources at the most economic price and to streamline the procurement process for both libraries and suppliers. The second Reference Online Framework Agreement, which comes into force this month, offers subscription opportunities to all public libraries in England. The 2008 agreement will last for four years and sees an increase in the number of MLA-approved suppliers to 22 and the number of products double to fifty.

The resources offered for libraries to choose from via Reference Online include general reference material, business, legal and financial information, subject-based encyclopaedias, dictionaries, directories, serials, newspapers and newspaper archives, and - for the first time - materials for children and streamed music services. Materials to which libraries subscribe will be available either in the library or remotely 24⁄7 to anyone with library membership.

Roy Clare said: “MLA’s Reference Online programme enables library services to purchase world class online resources at lower costs. The agreement opens up a huge amount of reference material to library users both at home and in their local library. It also represents very good value for money and I welcome very warmly the successful outcome of a great deal of work by Susi Woodhouse of the MLA, and others who have supported her in negotiating this outcome.”

For further information, including a full list of all available products and services visit http://www.mla.gov.uk/programmes/digital_initiatives/reference_online

[Source: MLA]

[Received: April 2008]
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Relaunch of Online Resource Provides Access to Visual Arts Collections

Students and academics looking for visual arts images now have online access to a collection of over 100,000 images with the launch of the Web site at: http://www.vads.ac.uk/

The Web site has been developed by VADS (Visual Arts Data Service) which rebranded and re-launched itself in April 2008 and contains collections as diverse as the National Inventory of Continental European Paintings, the Woolmark Company Archive, and the Central Saint Martins Museum and Study Collection.

VADS has been providing services to the academic community for some 11 years and has built up a portfolio of visual art collections. The image resources are free and copyright-cleared for use in UK Higher and Further Education, providing a valuable resource to students and academics which can be incorporated into lectures, seminar presentations and essays.

VADS is continuously adding to its catalogue and just this year has added a collection of photographs from the East End Archival Project which includes 500 images of the Spitalfields area from the 1970s to the 1990s - a period of rapid social and physical change; furniture from the Frederick Parker Chair Collection which demonstrate 350 years of British chair design and manufacture; as well as the archive of post-war British sculptor Peter King.

Other memorable collections available online through the site are ‘Spanish Civil War Posters’, ‘Concise Art’, and ‘Posters of Conflict’ all from the Imperial War Museum, and the Design Council Archives.

In addition to providing and building on its online visual arts resource, VADS also offers expert guidance and help for digital projects in arts education. The expert VADS team also offers web development and hosting services for visual arts organisations and projects.

For further information:
Amy Robinson
VADS
+44 (0)1252 892723
amy@vads.ac.uk
http://www.vads.ac.uk/

[Source: VADS]

[Received: April 2008]
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SPARC Europe Award 2008 for Leo Waaijers

Dr Leo Waaijers has won the 2008 SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications. The award was presented to him during the fourth Nordic Conference on Scholarly Communications at the University of Lund, Sweden. Over recent years Leo Waaijers has proved himself an advocate for open access to research results via the Internet for SURF, the collaborative organisation for Higher Education institutions and research institutes aimed at breakthrough innovations in ICT.

SPARC encourages better communication between researchers and between the scientific community and the public. By presenting Leo Waaijers with this award, the jury has acknowledged his unceasing efforts to promote open access to research results via the Internet. It was under his leadership that SURF’s DARE Programme created DAREnet, which provides access to the 150,000 publications contained in the repositories of all the Dutch universities. More than a hundred publications are added every day.

Waaijers’ influence is not limited to the Netherlands. DAREnet has made the country a frontrunner in Europe and has served as the model for the European DRIVER programme. Waaijers also initiated the successful petition asking the European Commission to guarantee public access to publicly financed research results. The petition garnered worldwide support.

This is the third SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications. The first Award, in 2006, went to the UK’s Wellcome Trust (which finances medical research provided that the results are published via Open Access) and the second, in 2007, went to the SHERPA Group (the University of Nottingham’s Open Access programme). This is the first time that the Award has been presented to an individual.

For more information:
SURFshare programme: http://www.surf.nl/surfshare

SURF’s view on Open: http://www.surf.nl/en/OverSURF/Pages/SURFenOpen.aspx

SPARC Europe: http://www.sparceurope.nl

DRIVER: http://www.driver-community.eu

EC Open Access petition: http://www.ec-petition.eu/

Leo Waaijers has written for Ariadne:
“The DARE Chronicle: Open Access to Research Results and Teaching Material in the Netherlands” by Leo Waaijers, October 2007, Ariadne Issue 53
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue53/waaijers/

Other relevant articles in Ariadne:
Article Title: “DRIVER: Building the Network for Accessing Digital Repositories across Europe”
Authors: Martin Feijen, Wolfram Horstmann, Paolo Manghi, Mary Robinson and Rosemary Russell
Publication Date: 30-October-2007 Publication: Ariadne Issue 53
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue53/feijen-et-al/

Article Title: “DRIVER: Seven Items on a European Agenda for Digital Repositories”
Author: Maurits van der Graaf
Publication Date: 30-July-2007 Publication: Ariadne Issue 52
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue52/vandergraf/

Article Title: “A Recipe for Cream of Science: Special Content Recruitment for Dutch Institutional Repositories”
Author: Martin Feijen and Annemiek van der Kuil
Publication Date: 30-October-2005 Publication: Ariadne Issue 45
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue45/vanderkuil/

Article Title: “The Dawning of the Dutch Network of Digital Academic REpositories (DARE): A Shared Experience”
Author: Annemiek van der Kuil and Martin Feijen
Publication Date: 30-October-2004 Publication: Ariadne Issue 41
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue41/vanderkuil/

Article Title: “ The SURF foundation “
Authors: Jaqueline Pieters Publication Date: September-1996
Publication: Ariadne Issue 5
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue5/surf/

[Source: SURF]

[Received: April 2008]
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Internet2 Community Releases Shibboleth Version 2.0

New Major Release of Open Source Federated Authentication Suite Provides Enhanced Functionality; Enables More Seamless Installation and Operation

Internet2 recently announced that it has released Shibboleth 2.0, the latest major version of a widely-deployed federated authentication implementation. Developed by the Internet2 community and its partners around the world, the latest release greatly enhances several key elements of Shibboleth in an effort to ensure interoperability with other commercial and open-source federated identity solutions; to improve personalisation and security; as well as to ease installation, management and operation processes.

The goal is to provide a more robust and interoperable platform that will help catalyze the worldwide growth of higher education and research federations like the InCommon Federation which serves the U.S. Higher Education sector and provides a framework for participating organisations to collaborate and share resources using Shibboleth technology.

“We are grateful for the tremendous collaboration in developing this important new release and look forward to working with the worldwide Shibboleth community to further roll out and refine this technology,” said Ken Klingenstein, Internet2 senior director of middleware and security.

Shibboleth 2.0 adds an open source implementation of the OASIS SAML 2.0 standard to the suite of protocol implementations available in previous releases. The software provides a secure, single-sign on mechanism for institutions to enable their users to access protected online resources within their campuses and from their external service provider partners while at the same time protecting individual user privacy.

Shibboleth 2.0 also adds new security features to ensure additional protection of user information. It includes encryption technology specified in the SAML 2.0 standard and provides an improved method for usage logging at the home institution to better track abuse or inappropriate use of the system.

As organisations continue to deploy identity management solutions like Shibboleth, the vision is to move these institutions and their service providers into “trust federations.” Federations bring together multiple organisations with common needs into one group or association to leverage the use of a common set of attributes, practices and policies to exchange information about their users and resources to simplify the management of collaborations and transactions.

To support the continued growth of federations, Shibboleth 2.0 enables organisations to seamlessly comply with a federation’s policies and practices without changing campus directory infrastructures, and extends automated support for federation processes. For instance, as new service providers or institutions are added to a federation, new “metadata” is required to setup the technical exchange for collaboration. In the past, adding new metadata required IT staff to develop their own methods to update the information. Shibboleth 2.0 automatically downloads the metadata as often as the organisation specifies.

In addition, as federations continue to proliferate, it becomes increasingly important to support multiple protocols to ensure interoperability between federations. Using Shibboleth, federations and partners that use any authentication architecture built on popular standards such as SAML 2.0 and Active Directory Federation Services specifications will have the ability to interoperate and interfederate with any federation or partner using those standards.

Beyond the multi-protocol support, Shibboleth offers additional features for the Higher Education and research communities: management of attribute release policies on a site, group and user basis; policy-based management of attribute acceptance; real scalable support for large-scale federations; and strong support for application integration.

Further information:
Internet2 and its partners announced the release of Shibboleth 2.0 at the annual Internet2 Spring Member Meeting held in Arlington, VA, USA from 21-23 April 2008. Meeting sessions on middleware technology like Shibboleth and InCommon, include: http://www.internet2.edu/middleware/2008SMM-MW.html

For more information on Shibboleth, visit: http://Shibboleth.internet2.edu
For more information on InCommon, visit: http://www.incommonfederation.org/

[Source: CNI]

[Received: April 2008]
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New Intute Subject Booklets

Eight new Intute subject booklets have been published this month, each providing a taster of the scholarly Internet resources that can be found by using Intute:

Internet resources for environmental science
Internet resources for materials engineering
Internet resources for film and theatre
Internet resources for philosophy
Internet resources for education
Internet resources for Olympic studies
Internet resources for biological sciences
Internet resources for pregnancy and childbirth

Print copies of the booklets are being distributed to teaching staff in UK universities, to remind lecturers that they can use the Intute database to guide their students to Web sites that are relevant to Higher Education courses, and the Intute Virtual Training Suite to help their students develop Internet research skills for university work.

Online versions (pdf for downloading and printing, and HTML for online access with clickable links) are freely available to everyone via the Intute Web site at: http://www.intute.ac.uk/subjectbooklets.html

Over 24 booklets have been published by Intute in recent years, and readers are welcome to copy, re-purpose and distribute the printed or electronic versions for non-profit, educational use with suitable attribution, as the work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Staff in UK universities are welcome to order further print copies of the booklets via the Intute Help Desk (while stocks last): http://www.intute.ac.uk/feedback.html

[Source: Intute]

[Received: April 2008]
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Portico announces agreement with the National Library of the Netherlands

Portico and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands (the KB) have announced they have reached an agreement for an off-line copy of the Portico archive, which exceeds 6 million articles and 60 million files, to be held for safekeeping by the KB. Through its e-Depot programme the KB has demonstrated its role in the vanguard of digital preservation. Placing a Portico-owned copy of the archive, in a secure access- and climate-controlled facility operated by the KB is one component of the replication strategy Portico is working to ensure the safety and security of the archive upon which a growing, international community relies.

“I am very pleased that Portico will work with the KB, an internationally recognized leader in digital preservation, to strengthen the network of archives meeting the digital preservation challenge” said Eileen Fenton, Executive Director of Portico. Noting the KB has worked vigorously to advance the digital preservation agenda, Dr. W. van Drimmelen, Director General of the KB, said, “Preserving electronic scholarly publications is a key priority for the KB, and formalizing this arrangement with Portico is a natural extension of the KB’s active archival role.”

Additional information about Portico is available at http://www.portico.org/.
Additional information about the KB’s digital preservation programme, including the e-Depot, is available at: http://www.kb.nl/dnp/e-depot/e-depot-en.html

Eileen Fenton, Executive Director of Portico, has written for Ariadne:
“Preserving Electronic Scholarly Journals: Portico”
Eileen Fenton
April 2006, Ariadne, Issue 47
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue47/

[Source: PORTICO]

[Received: April 2008]
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NSF Cyberinfrastructure Director Daniel Atkins to Receive Paul Evan Peters Award

The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and EDUCAUSE are pleased to announce that Daniel E. Atkins, inaugural Director of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a distinguished professor in the School of Information and in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan, has been named the 2008 recipient of the Paul Evan Peters Award. The award recognises notable, lasting achievements in the creation and innovative use of information resources and services that advance scholarship and intellectual productivity through communication networks.

“Dan’s long and diverse record of accomplishments, and his continuing vision for the changes that information technologies can enable for the future of scholarship worldwide, make him a perfect choice for this award. I’m thrilled to see his work recognised in this way, particularly because the values that inform Dan’s work resonate so closely with those of the late Paul Peters,” said Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information.

In 2003, the NSF Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure, chaired by Atkins, issued the highly influential report Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure. The document, now referred to as “The Atkins Report,” catalyzed new priorities and led to the establishment of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI) at NSF.

The OCI coordinates and supports the acquisition, development, and provision of state-of-the-art cyberinfrastructure resources, tools, and services essential to the conduct of 21st-century science and engineering research and education. Cyberinfrastructure includes supercomputers, information management systems, high-capacity networks, digitally enabled observatories and scientific instruments, and an interoperable suite of software and middleware services and tools for computation, visualisation, and collaboration. In June 2006, Atkins joined NSF, on leave from the University of Michigan, to lead the cyberinfrastructure effort.

Atkins has focused on research and teaching in the area of distributed knowledge communities and open learning resources. He has directed several large experimental digital library projects as well as projects to explore the socio-technical design and application of “collaboratories” for scientific research.

Three nonprofit organisations—the Coalition for Networked Information, the Association of Research Libraries, and EDUCAUSE—sponsor the Paul Evan Peters Award, which was established with additional funding from Microsoft and Xerox Corporations. The award honors the memory and accomplishments of Paul Evan Peters (1947–1996). Peters was a visionary and a coalition builder in higher education and the world of scholarly communication. He led CNI from its founding in 1990 with informed insight, exuberant direction, eloquence, and awareness of the needs of its varied constituencies of librarians, technologists, publishers, and others in the digital world.

For more information visit the award Web site at http://www.educause.edu/PaulEvanPetersAward/852 or contact CNI Communications Coordinator Diane Goldenberg-Hart at diane@cni.org

[Source: CNI]

[Received: April 2008]
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TAPE Publishes Overview of Audio and Video Carriers

The TAPE Project has issued an overview of audio and video carriers by Dietrich Schüller of the Phonogrammarchiv, Austrian Academy of Sciences. The text systematically describes recording principles, storage and handling, maintenance of equipment, format and equipment obsolence, for each type of carrier, and includes a list of recommended reading. It provides a solid, non-technical introduction for all those professionally managing sound and video collections.

The overview is a full text version of presentations used in TAPE workshops by Dietrich Schüller and Albrecht Haefner. It is available as a PDF file (330 KB) at: http://www.tape-online.net/docs/audio_and_video_carriers.pdf

Further information:
The TAPE (Training for Audiovisual Preservation in Europe) Project is supported by the Culture 2000-programme of the EU. See: http://www.tape-online.net

[Source: European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA)]

[Received: April 2008]
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HILT Project Phase IV: Making Terminology Services Useful to Information Services

The JISC-funded HILT (High-Level Thesaurus) Project is looking to make contact with staff in information services or projects interested in helping it test and refine its developing terminology services. The project, now in Phase IV, is currently working to create pilot Web services that will deliver machine-readable terminology and cross-terminology mappings data likely to be useful to information services wishing to extend or enhance the efficacy of their subject search or browse services. Based on SRW/U, SOAP, and SKOS, the HILT facilities, when fully operational, will permit such services to improve their own subject search-and-browse mechanisms by using HILT data in a fashion transparent to their users. On request, HILT will serve up machine-processable data on individual subject schemes (broader terms, narrower terms, hierarchy information, preferred and non-preferred terms, and so on) and interoperability data (usually intellectual or automated mappings between schemes, but the architecture allows for the use of other methods) - data that can be used to enhance user services. The project is also developing an associated toolkit that will help service technical staff to embed HILT-related functionality into their services. The primary aim is to serve JISC-funded information services or services at JISC institutions, but information services outside the JISC domain may also find the proposed services useful and wish to participate in the test and refine process.

Although the primary focus of the work is to improve interoperability during cross-search or browse by subject, the facilities offered can also be used for other purposes. Examples of possible uses include:

The project is also looking to test other associated facilities it intends to offer for embedding in JISC or institutional information services - for example a spell-check mechanism and machine to machine delivery of Wordnet data.

The test and refine process began in April 2008 and will continue until at
least autumn 2008. Individuals or services interested in participating, should begin by joining the HILT-Collaborators email list.

Note that, at this stage, both the facilities and the subject schemes are only being made available for testing purposes - to allow services to help us test and refine them (and, in time, evaluate their usefulness). They cannot and should not be built into operational services.

Further information:
Knowledge Organisation Systems: see, for example:
http://www.db.dk/bh/lifeboat_ko/CONCEPTS/knowledge_organization_systems.htm

HILT-Collaborators email list:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=hilt-collaborators

HILT Contacts:
Emma McCulloch, Project Manager e.mcculloch@strath.ac.uk
Anu Joseph, Programmer anu.joseph@strath.ac.uk
Dennis Nicholson, Project Director d.m.nicholson@strath.ac.uk

[Source: HILT]

[Received: April 2008]
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Publication Date: 30-April-2008
Publication: Ariadne Issue 55
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue55/newsline/