Digital Commons Network^™

What Are We Afraid Of? A Survey Of Librarian Opinions And Misconceptions Regarding Instant Messenger., Sarah Steiner, Casey Long

University Library Faculty Publications

Buzz about instant messaging (IM) customer service is becoming louder, both inside and outside the library field. In general, librarian opinions of IM are mixed and at times even combative. A survey was distributed to gather librarians' opinions of the usefulness of IM as compared to its feature-rich yet difficulty-prone sibling, commercial chat. Through detailed statistical analysis, this article provides an overview of trends in and opinions of IM reference, and offers analysis of its present and future in libraries.

Developing A Meaningful Digital Self-Archiving Model: Archival Theory Vs. Natural Behavior In The Minds Of Carolina Project, Megan A. Winget, Marisa L. Ramirez

Library Scholarship

This paper will review the findings from a research project concluded in 2004, which had the primary goal of learning more about the natural behaviors of people choosing materials for inclusion in a digital archive. Project participants, retiring faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had a number of tasks to perform. They had to 1) survey and choose the materials to include in the archive; 2) develop a “collection development plan” defining the nature of their materials, their intended audience, and the organizational scheme of their collection; 3) provide materials for digitization; 4) supply metadata for …

Experimenting With A Model Digital Library Of Etds For Indian Universities Using D-Space, J. K. Vijayakumar, Tav Murthy, M. T. M. Khan

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

As a part of doctoral research, a study was made to identify the importance and support of having theses and dissertations in electronic form, through a survey of Indian academics and Librarians. Based on the study and special requirements of India, a model is suggested, which can be used by universities. File formats, software, workflow, infrastructure, and required support are discussed. A prototype ETD System using D-Space software is described. Integration of metadata, support for OAI-PMH protocol and CNRI handles to share content, compatibility with multilingual standards such as UNICODE were reasons for choosing D-Space as the software for the …

Tomorrow's Library: The Building, Online Access, And Classroom, Michael Kazanjian

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

In tomorrow's library, students, teachers, and the public will increasingly partner with librarians. The public can become better acquainted with recorded knowledge. Academicians including students can search for recorded specialized and general thought contained on shelves in a building. Online technology will extend access as needed. Classrooms will extend the nature of recorded specialized and general thought as students, teachers, and librarians engage in recording and updating information in specific fields and liberal arts. Online technology to course content can allow anyone, anywhere, anytime to learn what class sessions are recording. Online and classroom capabilities empower people to learn and …

From Research Institution To Liberal Arts College: An Interview With Merrily Taylor, Eric C. Shoaf

Publications

This article presents an interview with Merrily E. Taylor, the university librarian of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. When asked on the similarities and difference of directing a small college library compared to a large one, Taylor states that it's the two libraries role to the institutional setting which makes them similar while it's their primary mission which makes them different. Taylor believes that her responsibility as a university librarian remains the same whether she is working for a small or large college library, it is the approach of carrying out the responsibilities which spells the difference.

Christian Libraries For The Next Generation: Expanding Access To Evangelical Literature, Gregory A. Smith

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent changes in the world of information present unique challenges and opportunities for the dissemination of evangelical literature. This report suggests six ways that the Association of Christian Librarians can support evangelical education and scholarship in a context that is increasingly global, Web-based, and free from the confines of the traditional college campus. Implementing a combination of these strategies could make evangelical literature much more accessible via the Web, the dominant delivery platform of our day. However, choices among available strategies must take account of competition within the marketplace.

Macro Trends In The Development Of The University Libraries Of Latin America., Atilio Bustos

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

No abstract provided.

A National Library For Australian Educational Research., Sue Clarke

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The Australian Council for Educational Research – www.acer.edu.au – is Australia’s national educational research organisation. Its mission is to “create and promote research-based knowledge, products and services that can be used to improve learning”. The ultimate goal of ACER’s work is to improve outcomes for learners. We do this through reliable, scientific research and through the development of products and services grounded in dependable research. We create and disseminate research-based knowledge and develop and offer a variety of research-based professional resources and services. The Cunningham Library serves the ACER and as such is Australia’s national library for educational research. It …

Embedding Research And Learning In Libraries., William R. Maes

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The theme of this conference is “Embedding Libraries in Research and Learning.” While this is critical within the context of the new technologies and new service expectations of scholars and students it is also important that research and learning remain embedded in libraries if they are to be an integral part of the scholarly fabric of our institutions. With continuing economic pressures on scholarly institutions and the desire to use the new technologies to change established and expensive processes and facilities, the threat to the physical academic library has perhaps never been greater This paper discusses why the physical library …

Reshaping The World Of Scholarly Communication—Open Access And The Free Online Scholarship Movement: Open Access Statements, Proposals, Declarations, Principles, Strategies, Organizations, Projects, Campaigns, Initiatives, And Related Items—A Webliography, Paul G. Haschak, Linus A. Sims

E-JASL 1999-2009 (Volumes 1-10)

[Introduction]

Since World War II, we have seen a proliferation of scholarly materials. In particular, there has been a tremendous growth in the size and cost of the primary journal literature.

With prices continuing to rise at a rate greater than the general price index, the current scholarly communication system is becoming more and more unaffordable.

The rise in the cost of serial subscriptions has forced academic libraries over the last several decades to cancel existing serial titles, add fewer and fewer new serial titles, and buy fewer and fewer books.

In is apparent, that the crisis in the scholarly …

Fedora: An Architecture For Complex Objects And Their Relationships, Carl Lagoze, Sandy Payette, Edwin Shin, Chris Wilper

Edwin Shin

The Fedora architecture is an extensible framework for the storage, management, and dissemination of complex objects and the relationships among them. Fedora accommodates the aggregation of local and distributed content into digital objects and the association of services with objects. This allows an object to have several accessible representations, some of them dynamically produced. The architecture includes a generic Resource Description Framework (RDF)-based relationship model that represents relationships among objects and their components. Queries against these relationships are supported by an RDF triple store. The architecture is implemented as a web service, with all aspects of the complex object architecture …

Reaching Out To Physicists, Pat Viele

Upstate New York Science Librarians Conference

No abstract provided.

Building Interoperable Vocabulary And Structures For Learning Objects, Jian Qin, Naybell Hernández

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

The structural, functional, and production views on learning objects influence metadata structure and vocabulary. We drew on these views and conducted a literature review and in-depth analysis of 14 learning objects and over 500 components in these learning objects to model the knowledge framework for a learning object ontology. The learning object ontology reported in this paper consists of 8 top-level classes, 28 classes at the second level, and 34 at the third level. Except class Learning object, all other classes have the three properties of preferred term, related term, and synonym. To validate the ontology, we conducted a query …

Data Distribution And Archiving In Support Of The Agricultural Ecosystems Program, Gail Steinhart

Upstate New York Science Librarians Conference

No abstract provided.

American Library Association (Ala) Midwinter Meeting Report, Christopher Cox, Hui Hua Chua, M. Claire Stewart, S. G. Ranti Junus

UNL Libraries: Faculty Publications

The American Library Association Midwinter Meeting was held in San Antonio, Texas, January 20–25, 2006. The following are highlights from the meeting. We have a range of coverage and reviewers. Christopher Cox gives us an update on groups discussing digital media such as HD-DVD and Blu-ray, electronic reference books, and RFID issues. Hui Hua Chua writes about a discussion on federated searching. M. Claire Stewart reports on the inaugural meeting of the ALCTS Preservation and Reformatting Section’s Digital Preservation Discussion Group and a whirlwind meeting on standards, which included the discussion of five standards and the overall National Information Standards …

Redefining Open Access For The Legal Information Market, James G. Milles

Journal Articles

The open access movement in legal scholarship, inasmuch as it is driven within the law library community over concerns about the rising cost of legal information, fails to address - and in fact diverts resources from - the real problem facing law libraries today: the soaring costs of nonscholarly, commercially published, practitioner-oriented legal publications. The current system of legal scholarly publishing - in student-edited journals and without meaningful peer review - does not face the pressures to increase prices common in the science and health disciplines. One solution to this problem is for law schools to redirect some of their …

Yale Leaf Morphology Digitization And Network Project, David Stern

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

This article describes a digitization project inspired by the innovative leaf morphology classification work of a faculty member in the Geology and Geophysics Department and the Peabody Museum at Yale University. We began our initiative by scanning the Flora Fossilis Arctica, a 7-volume fossil leaf identification tool covering various geological areas, published between 1868 and 1883. This classic paleobotany resource was digitized, creating tiff, pdf, and searchable pdf files. We are now converting the searchable pdf files into ASCII text, enhancing the raw data with metadata elements, placing this material on the web for searching and display; and linking this …

Information Commons Services For Learners And Researchers: Evolution In Patron Needs, Digital Resources And Scholarly Publishing, D. Russell Bailey

Library Commons

Since approximately 1990, the Information Commons has emerged as an effective model of integrated library public services. The Information Commons combines traditional, paper-print, high-touch library services and resources with computer technologies and digital resources in a relatively seamless service environment. Extensive computer resources for Web research, free Web resources and proprietary electronic databases complement the full spectrum of productivity software and specialty scanning, digitization and multimedia resources. Numerous examples from North America and elsewhere and links to others will be provided.

The Information Commons model considers change and evolution in patron needs vis-à-vis 1. staff training and attitude, 2. quantity, …

When Not All Papers Are Paper: A Case Study In Digital Archivy, Catherine Stollar Peters

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Hypertext poet Deena Larsen is worried about the potential loss of her digital poetry, but she has a plan to save it. In a 2004 article, “The Uncertain Fate of Scholarly Artifacts in a Digital Age,” Larsen revealed her plans for preserving her hypertext work Marble Springs. “Ms. Larsen started collecting old Macintosh computers so people will always be able to read Marble Springsin its original format. She has 100 computers in her two-bedroom apartment.” Although Larsen’s two-bedroom mausoleum of circa 1990s technology is one strategy for saving born-digital hypertext works, it is probably not the best. An …

Provenance Xxiv, Reagan Grimsley

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

No abstract provided.

South Carolina Goes Digital: The Creation And Development Of Usc’S Digital Activities Department, Kate F. Boyd, Douglas King

Faculty and Staff Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the University of South Carolina's Digital Activities Department's history and development.

Design/methodology/approach – This article recounts the development of the Digital Activities Department and examines local policies and procedures. In addition, the article discusses the fundamental issues of choosing a digital repository, creating metadata, and scanning images. The authors take a practical, in-depth approach in discussing their experiences.

Findings – After just a few years, the Library has launched the department and successfully provided online access to a growing number of digital collections. Collaboration has been the key element in …