D-Lib Magazine
April 2003

Volume 9 Number 4

ISSN 1082-9873

In Brief

Report on the NLM/AMPA Archiving Forum

Contributed by:
Nancy K. Roderer
Director, Welch Medical Library
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
<nroderer@jhmi.edu>

Following closely on the heels of Congressional funding of the Library of Congress' National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), <http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2003/03-022.html>, the NLM/AMPA Archiving Forum provided an excellent overview of the status of digital archiving activities with a particular focus on electronic medical journals. The seminar, subtitled "Preserving Digital Content (and the Opportunities It Holds) for the Long Haul", was co-sponsored by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the American Medical Publishers' Association (AMPA) in conjunction with the Publishers' Advisory Panel to the NLM, and was held in Philadelphia on March 4. The more than one hundred participants in attendance represented a good cross section of the stakeholder groups, including editors, publishers, archiving service providers, libraries and the NLM.

Clifford Lynch, Director of the Coalition for Networked Information, set the tone for the day by observing that the essence of archiving digital publications is the same as for publications in other formats, that is, placing good copies in the hands of multiple organizations that are competent to archive them. A creditable strategy is emerging at two levels: the technical level and the more challenging interorganizational level. The emerging options were described in detail in a series of three case studies, including Elsevier and the Royal Library of the Netherlands <http://www.kb.nl/kb/resources/frameset_kb.html?/kb/
pr/pers/pers2002/elsevier-en.html>, PubMed Central <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/about/intro.html>, and JSTOR <http://www.jstor.org>, and questions on BioMed Central <http://www.biomedcentral.com/> and institutional repositories rounded out exploration of the major models. Together, these projects represent a substantial amount of electronic material that has been archived.

Providing context, Deanna Marcum, president of the Council on Library and Information Resources, gave an excellent summary of national and international archival developments, and Laura Campbell, Director of the National Digital Library (NDL) Program, reviewed the Library of Congress' extensive national plans. In a closing call to action entitled "Doing Nothing is Not an Option", Donald Waters, program officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, returned to the theme of the significant organizational issues just starting to be addressed. He also reinforcing the considerable progress that has been made, and provided insightful observations on stakeholder motivations and economic issues.

The seminar began with an acknowledgement of urgency — the precarious economic sustainability of having a critical mass of STM journals in both paper and electronic form — but went on to build a strong case that the solutions to archiving of medical journals are well within reach. For both the collective information provided via the case studies, and the strong presentations by Cliff Lynch and Don Waters, viewing of the seminar is highly recommended. A listing of the program and a link to the videocast can be found at the AMPA web site, <http://www.ampaonline.org> (seminars/meetings, educational seminars).

Copyright and Licensing for Digital Preservation

Contributed by:
Margaret-Mary O'Mahony
Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough, United Kingdom
<M.M.OMahony@lboro.ac.uk>

The aim of the 18-month Arts and Humanities Research Board (United Kingdom) funded project "Copyright and Licensing for Digital Preservation" is to investigate the impact copyright legislation and licensed access to digital content has on the ability of libraries to provide long-term access to that content and to suggest ways in which the problems can be overcome.

Digital preservation strategies require some sort of copying, and the preservation of digital information is likely to require ongoing intervention. This copying could include refreshing storage media, migrating information to newer media and migrating content, migration tools and metadata to new formats. It is not clear whether preservation exceptions to current copyright legislation would allow the sort of copying needed.

Access versus ownership models of information provision also raise issues, including how to ensure persistent access to material and how to determine who is responsible for preserving digital material. The role of deposit arrangements, licences, metadata and adjustments to existing law will be explored.

The research involves a literature review covering digital preservation, legal provisions in different countries, licensing arrangements and model licences. Questionnaire surveys of content creators, publishers and libraries in the UK will investigate preservation needs, activities, awareness and attitudes. These will be followed by in-depth interviews with stakeholders, policy makers and rights organisations.

The project aims to make recommendations for amendments to UK legislation and create model licences for long-term access if appropriate. It also aims to make recommendations on how legislators, information providers and libraries can work together to ensure long-term access to digital information.

The main audiences for this research are legislators and policy makers, managers of libraries, and providers, creators and publishers of information. The research is focusing on the UK, but the issues and problems identified by the research are likely to be of wider interest and the project is collecting information on the situation in other countries.

The project is being carried out at the Department of Information Science of Loughborough University, United Kingdom.

For more detailed information, please visit the project's Web site at: <http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/CLDP/index.htm>.

Or contact: Margaret-Mary O'Mahony
<M.M.Omahony@lboro.ac.uk>

The Public Knowledge Project

Contributed by:
John Willinsky
Pacific Press Professor of Literacy and Technology
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
<john.willinsky@ubc.ca>

The Public Knowledge Project, <http://pkp.ubc.ca/>, is a federally funded research initiative located at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. The project seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality of academic research through the development of innovative online environments. Over the last five years, the project has designed websites for fostering public access to relevant research in the context of newspaper series, government policy development, and provincial elections. It has also developed open source conference and journal systems that can be readily installed and set up on webservers anywhere.

The first of these software developments was Open Conference Systems (OCS), <http://pkp.ubc.ca/ocs>, which enables conference directors to manage all of the components of the typical academic conferences, including online submissions, peer reviews, scheduling presentations and posting papers. It indexes the papers following Open Archives Initiative protocols, thereby creating a valuable pre-conference resource, as well as, after the conference, an open access archive of the event. OCS has been used on an international basis for almost two years and is now in version 1.1.3 — thanks to the suggestions of users — with development continuing and plans for a Conference Proceedings addition in the works.

More recently, the Public Knowledge Project has released Open Journal Systems (OJS), <http://pkp.ubc.ca/ojs>, and the initial reviews, <http://pkp.ubc.ca/ojs/ojs_comments.html>, have been very positive for this publishing and management open source software. OJS assists with every stage of the publishing process for refereed journals. From managing submission reviews through to online publication, editors can organize and structure how their journal looks and operates by using OJS's wide range of management and publishing options and templates. OJS comes with detailed instructions for those new to journal editing, as well as to online systems. The PKP staff are working with a number of journal editors who are starting new e-journals and converting existing ones (including their archives), in efforts that are leading to further improvements in OJS.

Both the conference and journal systems include a Research Support Tool (RST), <http://pkp.ubc.ca/demos/rsttour/index.html>, aimed at improving the scholarly and public quality of these information environments. The RST accompanies published papers in OCS and OJS, and identifies the published item's refereed status and provides access to its metadata and to the author's background. Using the item's keywords, the RST can be used to search a number of open access research, media, and government databases to help readers build a richer context for interpreting and evaluating the published item. These Support Tools come in 12 disciplinary flavors and will soon come in a modular form customizable by the journal editors and conference directors using the PKP systems, as well as being made available for installing in other sorts of document management systems.

The development of these websites, systems and tools is supported by a series of research papers and presentations, <http://pkp.ubc.ca/publications/index.html> — addressing the intellectual, economic, legal, political, and social issues of scholarly publishing — that have been prepared by the Public Knowledge Project Team and are available, along with working demos of its materials, on the Project's website.

Manifesto on Open Access to Scholarly Literature

Contributed by:
Alex Byrne
University Librarian and Deputy Chair of Academic Board
University of Technology, Sydney
Sydney, Australia
<alex.byrne@uts.edu.au>

Open access to scholarly and research literature has been an issue of increasing concern for librarians and scholars. It is a complex problem that intertwines many issues, including ever increasing costs, loss of control by researchers and scholars, diminution of fair dealing, extension of copyright periods, onerous contractual conditions and concerns about long term preservation and access. A number of strategies are being pursued including those advanced by SPARC, the Public Library of Science, and the Budapest Open Access Initiative, among others. IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) supports the widest possible access and is therefore preparing a draft document IFLA Manifesto on Open Access to Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation to that effect. A consultation copy is presented below. Comments would be very much appreciated — preferably by or as soon as possible after 30 April 2003. Comments should be sent to Alex Byrne, Member IFLA Governing Board and Chair IFLA Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression, <alex.byrne@uts.edu.au > by 30 April 2003.

Draft IFLA Manifesto on Open Access to Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation

IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) is committed to ensuring the widest possible access to information for all peoples in accordance with the principles expressed in the Glasgow Declaration (see http://www.ifla.org).

IFLA declares that comprehensive open access to scholarly literature and research documentation is vital to the understanding of our world and to the identification of solutions to global challenges.

IFLA acknowledges that the discovery, contention, elaboration and application of research in all fields will enhance human well being, progress and sustainability. The peer reviewed scholarly literature is a vital element in the processes of research and scholarship. It is supported by a range of research documentation which includes preprints, technical reports and records of research data.

IFLA notes that the worldwide network of library and information services provides access to past, present and future scholarly literature and research documentation; ensures its preservation; assists users in discovery and use; and educates users to develop appropriate information literacies.

IFLA advocates the adoption of the following open access principles by all involved in the recording and dissemination of research — including authors, editors, publishers, libraries and institutions — in order to ensure the widest possible availability of scholarly literature and research documentation:

1. Acknowledgement and defence of the moral rights of authors, especially the rights of attribution and integrity.

2. Recognition of objective and effective peer review processes to assure the quality of scholarly literature irrespective of mode of publication and without distortion to support extraneous purposes such as confirmation of tenure or promotion of faculty.

3. Promotion of measures to facilitate publication of quality assured scholarly literature and research documentation by researchers and scholars in developing nations, from indigenous peoples and among those otherwise disadvantaged.

4. Protection under copyright of all scholarly literature and research documentation for a strictly limited period determined by law for the benefit of authors followed by succession to the public domain for the benefit of all peoples.

5. Strengthening of fair dealing provisions in international copyright agreements and directives, national laws, and publishing contracts and licences to ensure unhindered access by other researchers and the general public.

6. Assurance of the availability to all peoples of all scholarly literature and research documentation which has been designated by its authors to be made available through preprints, open access journals and archives, or other means.

7. Implementation of affordable mechanisms to enable access to scholarly literature and research documentation by the peoples of developing nations and all who experience information inequality including the disabled and otherwise disadvantaged.

8. Inclusion of provisions in law, contracts and licences to ensure preservation in perpetuity of all scholarly literature and research documentation in libraries and archives in formats and under conditions which will ensure enduring availability and useability.

9. Operation of effective systems by libraries and publishers to ensure the preservation in perpetuity of all scholarly literature and research documentation with authenticity and continuing useability guaranteed.

The Internet Archive OAI-PMH Implementation

Contributed by:
Jonathan Aizen
Web Engineer
Internet Archive
San Francisco, California, USA
<jon@archive.org>

In an effort to participate and exchange information with other digital libraries and research groups, the Internet Archive, <http://www.archive.org>, has implemented the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), <http://www.openarchives.org>. The base URL for the repository is <http://www.archive.org/services/oai.php>.

Currently, the repository makes available metadata for over 1,700 films, 8,500 texts, 3,700 concerts, and 8,400 software titles. The films are mostly ephemeral titles from the Prelinger Archives, including many about the cold war, political campaigns, and health. The metadata for these films includes sponsorship and producer information, as well as detailed descriptions and topic categories. Also available is metadata for Stewart Cheifet's long-running PBS programs Computer Chronicles and Net Café. Metadata for the popular SIGGRAPH animation series will be available shortly as well. Specific rights information is included where available. For an example see <http://www.archive.org/services/oai.php?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=
oai_dc&identifier=oai:archive.org:movies/189>

The texts come from a wide variety of sources including Project Gutenberg, the Million Books Project, and Open Source Texts (user-contributed texts). Also of interest are memos and other documents regarding ARPANet. Metadata for texts includes subjects, publication or availability dates, descriptions, and title and authorship information.

The software set metadata is currently comprised of the names, titles, publishers, subjects, and release dates of roughly 8,400 CD-ROM titles developed with Macromedia products and published under the Made with Macromedia™ program.

The set of live concerts is a particularly vibrant collection. Updated daily with revisions and new items, this set contains detailed metadata about performances, including artist names, geographic locations, venues, performance dates, names of individuals responsible for taping, transferring, and uploading the performances, as well as full lists of songs performed. Given the consistent updates to this information, selective harvesting by date (using the OAI from argument) is likely to be of great use here.

Plans to provide metadata for thousands of reviews and discussion posts are in the works. Also planned for the future is the incorporation of an additional metadata format (a qualified form of Dublin Core) that specifies the relationships (and their natures) between items in the Archive (e.g., a relationship between two items, each of which is one part of the same film). Currently, metadata can be harvested in sets, with a top level set for each media type and each of these sets split into different collections. Future work will involve the construction of additional sets depending on the needs of harvesters.

Anyone interested is encouraged to use this implementation of the OAI-PMH. Potential users might include administrators for websites of bands whose concerts are being archived, niche community websites about topics covered in any of the Archive's collections, or any research- or service-providing groups. It should be noted that the collections are works in progress and the metadata associated with the items is far from perfect. Much of the metadata is in need of caretaking and improvement. Any help in this area would be much appreciated, including volunteers to clean up entries.

ERPANET Launches Two New erpaProducts

Contributed by:
Peter McKinney and Monica Greenan
ERPANET
Electronic Resource Preservation and Access Network
<coordinator@erpanet.org>

ERPANET, a European Commission funded project, works to enhance the preservation of cultural and scientific digital objects by raising awareness, providing access to experience, sharing policies and strategies, and improving practices. To achieve this, ERPANET has put in place a number of services, accessed through our web portal. Two new services are now available: erpaAssessments and erpaAdvisory.

erpaAssessments
erpaAssessments are authoritative commentaries on key articles, monographs, and projects in the field of digital preservation offering critical insight and contextualising literature within the field. The service offers:

• Review-based gateway to activities;

• Analytical reviews of pivotal published and online literature; and

• Assessment of relevant technical guidelines and standards.

Our editors have reviewed some 200 key articles and a wide range of important projects and initiatives. They constantly check over 100 journals for new and critical contributions to digital preservation knowledge, identifying and evaluating a wide range of information resources.

erpaAdvisory
erpaAdvisory is a fully web-based multi-lingual advisory service open to all those with a stake in the preservation of, and the provision of access to, digital materials. This service:

• Provides the community with access to digital preservation professionals;

• Makes available a resource of authoritative answers to digital preservation questions; and

• Makes accessible examples of best practice.

Over the past year, ERPANET has been disseminating information on digital preservation through its products and continues to bring together experts from all sectors to further the extent of knowledge in this field. erpaAdvisory is the next stage in ERPANET's cross-sectoral exchange of information, skills, and knowledge. This vital resource makes transparent the work that has been ongoing in this field, and delivers help and advice. erpaAdvisory is intended not only for newcomers to the challenges of digital preservation, but also for those who have been working in the field for a number of years. Questions can be submitted in English, Italian, French and German and is accessed via a fully searchable database.

Access is available to registered users for both erpaAdvisory and erpaAssessments. Registration is free and offers access to all ERPANET products, which are available at <http://www.erpanet.org>.

BOAI Discussion List Launched

Contributed by:
Peter Suber
Professor of Philosophy
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana, USA
<peters@earlham.edu>

February 14, 2003, was the first anniversary of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI). The initiative marked the occasion by launching the BOAI Forum, a discussion list moderated by Peter Suber. The BOAI will use the forum to announce new funding programs, publications and news, and hopes that its supporters will use it to share insights, tips, perspectives, and experiences in working for the cause of open access.

The topic at the center of the BOAI and the new forum is open access to peer-reviewed research articles and their preprints. In this context, "open access" means that the articles are available (1) online, (2) free of charge for everyone with an internet connection, (3) with the copyright holder's consent to unrestricted reading, downloading, copying, sharing, storing, printing, searching, linking, and crawling.

Open access in this sense takes two primary forms endorsed by the BOAI: archives and journals. The chief difference between them is that journals perform peer review and archives don't. But this difference affects their costs, which affects the ease with which they may offer open access to their contents. Archives may contain preprints or postprints or both, and may be associated with institutions or disciplines. They can be built with open-source software and hosted by universities at negligible cost. Open-access journals typically let authors retain copyright, and cover the costs of peer review and production by charging a processing fee paid by the author or author's sponsor (university, foundation, government) after an article has been accepted. Because the processing fee covers all the costs of producing and disseminating the article, the journal loses nothing by providing open access to it.

The BOAI Forum welcomes discussion of open access in general, and open-access archives and journals in particular. In the short time since its launch, the forum participants have discussed: open access in developing countries, self-censorship by science journals, Clifford Lynch's recent article on open-access archives, two ways of making distributed archives interoperable, and the IFLA draft Manifesto on Open Access to Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation. The moderator's opening message explained the purpose of the list and summarized some of the highlights of the BOAI in its first year of life.

Although subscriptions to the forum are limited to those who have signed the BOAI public statement, signing the statement is free of charge, and the archive of postings is readable by non-subscribers.

For further information, see:

BOAI home page
<http://www.soros.org/openaccess/>.

BOAI Forum home page
<http://www.soros.org/openaccess/forum.shtml>.

BOAI Forum archive
<http://threader.ecs.soton.ac.uk/lists/boaiforum/>.

ERIL: Electronic Resources in Libraries

Contributed by:
Joan Conger
Database Performance and Assessment Librarian
University of Georgia Libraries
<jconger@uga.edu>

ERIL: Electronic Resources in Libraries is a community of librarians concerned with the practical aspects of managing electronic resources in libraries. We are from acquisitions, administration, archives, collection development, cataloging, reference, serials, systems, and other library services. We frequently fulfill many of these roles simultaneously, and at times we even blur these designations to better serve our library users. The group was formed to allow librarians around the world to share, learn and advocate for better management of electronic resources for library customers.

The listserv ERIL-L, is the central forum for discussions of all aspects of electronic resource management. All questions and observations concerning electronic resource management are welcome. Membership includes librarians from around the world. At this time ERIL-L is limited to librarians and library assistants and does not accept subscription requests from sales or customer-support staff located at vendor, publishing, consultant or other related professional organizations.

The ERIL website, <,http://www.arches.uga.edu/~jconger/ERIL/> contains a Resource List pointing to resources mentioned on ERIL-L and those that ERIL-L members have indicated help in the daily management of electronic resources. Links include those to journals, "blogs", reports, other listservs, and workshops.

The ERIL founders are Abigail Bordeaux, <bordeaux@binghamton.edu> and Emily McElroy, <emcelro@lumc.edu>, (listowners) and Joan Conger, <jconger@uga.edu>, (web editor).

In the News

Recent Press Releases and Announcements

ALPSP Awards 2003

Announced by Debbie Stoddart, Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), April 9, 2003

"We are pleased to announce the prestigious ALPSP and ALPSP/Charlesworth 2003 Awards which recognise significant achievement in the field of learned and professional publishing. The six categories are:"

• ALPSP/Charlesworth Award for House/Membership Journals
• ALPSP/Charlesworth Award for Learned Journals
• ALPSP Award for Service to ALPSP
• ALPSP Award for Service to Not-for-Profit Publishing
• ALPSP Award for Publishing Innovation
• ALPSP Award for Publisher/Library Relations

"The Awards are international and are open to all eligible publishers and organisations. If you would like to enter please contact Lesley Ogg, email: <events@alpsp.org>, or telephone: 01245 260571. Alternatively, further details and application and nomination forms can be found at : <http://www.alpsp.org/awards2003.htm>. "

"The deadline for applications is 31 May 2003."

US Art Museums: Charging Models and Policy for Digital Resources

Announced by Simon Tanner, HEDS Digitisation Services, April 8, 2003.

"The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has made a grant of $200,000 to HEDS for a study of USA art museum policy and practice regarding the market for digital resources."

"The study for the Mellon Foundation aims to examine the new market realities and opportunities cultural institutions face due to the transition to digitized collections. The project will explore the cost and policy models adopted in arriving at pricing structures for delivering surrogates of unique or rare items as digital objects. Further, it aims to discover the key factors that affect the willingness of museums to collaborate and enable digital content to be shared. The results will provide a unique examination of a fast evolving market of international cultural significance."

"Details of the study are available at <http://heds.herts.ac.uk/mellon/US_art_charging.html>."

"The USA study is an extension of HEDS previous work for the Mellon Foundation, which looked into pricing policy within UK and other European libraries and museums. The results of the previous study are available at <http://heds.herts.ac.uk/mellon/charging_models.html>."

"Any enquiries about this project should initially be directed to Simon Tanner via email: <s.g.tanner@herts.ac.uk> at HEDS."

USC Among Four SEC Universities to Collaborate on $500,000 Distance Learning Project

University of South Carolina — April 4, 2003: "The University of South Carolina's School of Library and Information Science and the history department's public history program are teaming up with three Southeastern colleges to offer graduate students more opportunities in the field of archives management."

"Through a $500,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Louisiana State, Kentucky and Auburn universities will join USC to create a comprehensive advanced-studies curriculum in archives management that will be taught completely through distance education."

"Dr. Robert Williams, a School of Library and Information Science professor who is coordinating the project for USC, said the three-year pilot program, called the Southeast Archives Education Collaborative, could lead to collaboration in other fields."

"...The number of libraries, historical societies and archival repositories in the United States has nearly doubled in the past 30 years, but many of these repositories lack qualified archivists. This pilot program will enable USC and the other universities to fill this need."

For further information, please see the full press release at <http://uscnews.sc.edu/hist-lbrs098.html>.

NISO is Developing the Next Generation of Standards for Controlled Vocabularies and Thesauri

"Bethesda, MD, USA — (April 2, 2003) — The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announced a new initiative to revise the leading standard for thesaurus construction Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Thesauri (ANSI/NISO Z39.19). Leading the development team is Dr. Amy Warner, principal of Lexonomy. Grants from the H.W. Wilson Foundation, The Getty Foundation, and the National Library of Medicine are supporting this new area of work."

"'The core strength of NISO's Thesaurus guideline is that it offers a standardized way to organize many kinds of information,' noted Dr. Amy Warner, chair of the revision team. 'However, information providers face lots of challenges today. They are serving a changing audience. Searching and browsing of information systems are no longer limited to information professionals-individuals of all ages, professions, and nationalities are using search tools. Developers of Internet and Intranet-accessible Web pages, databases, and information systems need better metadata to support non-expert information searches, and metadata developers are recognizing the need for incorporating controlled vocabularies and taxonomies into their schemes.' The revised standard will:

• Reflect the ways that users search or browse, the many types of content they will find, and the new technologies they are using.

• Address the needs of a variety of information organizations and content- beyond the traditional abstracting and indexing services-and add explicit examples that are relevant to business and industry.

• Introduce more user-friendly language and include the why and how behind the key concepts and principles."

"Working with Dr. Warner is an Advisory Group made up of representatives from the project sponsors, NISO members, and other interested organizations, including: Vivian Bliss, Microsoft; Carol Brent, ProQuest Information and Learning; John Dickert, U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Technical Information Center; Lynn El-Hoshy, Library of Congress; Patricia Harpring, The Getty Foundation; Stephen Hearn, American Library Association; Sabine Kuhn, American Chemical Society, Chemical Abstracts Service; Pat Kuhr, H.W. Wilson; Diane McKerlie, Consultant; Peter Morville, Consultant; Stuart Nelson, National Library of Medicine; Diane Vizine-Goetz, OCLC; and Marcia Lei Zeng, Special Libraries Association. Emily Fayen is the NISO Standards Development Committee liaison to the activity."

News on this activity is featured on the NISO website (http://www.niso.org): <http://www.niso.org/committees/MT-info.html>.

SEPIA Descriptions of Photograph Collections

Announcement from Anne Muller, European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA), April 2, 2003.

"Amsterdam, 2 April 2003: Within the framework of the EU-funded Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access (SEPIA)-project (URL:http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia), the working group on descriptive models has been working on an advisory report to provide recommendations on how to describe a photographic collection. A draft version of this report is now available for comments at: <http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/workinggroups/wp5/advisory30.pdf>, (PDF, 1619 KB)."

"The task of the working group has been to analyse existing methods to describe photographs and devise a basic model. The SEPIA model will be presented in an advisory report and applied in a software tool. The draft report contains an extensive overview of the multi-level structure and individual elements of the model, a recommended mapping to Qualified Dublin Core and a summary of core elements. The core elements are meant to be used as guidelines for institutions that wish to have a basic description model for their photo collection. The model as a whole provides a more detailed set of guidelines."

"The final version of the advisory report (and the software tool that will implement it) is scheduled for August 2003. We would very much appreciate receiving your comments before the 28th of April. Please feel free to contact me for any additional information."

Edwin Klijn
SEPIA Working group on Descriptive Models,
telephone ++31-20 551 08 47
e-mail: <edwin.klijn@bureau.knaw.nl>

"The SEPIA working group on descriptive models consists of:

• Stockholm City Museum
• Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority
• National Library of Spain
• Finnish Museum of Photography
• European Commission on Preservation and Access."

NISO Launches Initiative on Metasearching Standards and Guidelines

"Bethesda, MD, USA (April 2, 2003) - The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces an initiative to develop guidelines and standards for the metasearching environment. The initiative is an outgrowth of a session held at the American Library Association midwinter meeting in Philadelphia in January 2003. Attendees from a cross section of content providers agreed that metasearching — also referred to as cross database searching, parallel searching, broadcast searching, and federated searching — is a high growth area with many unresolved issues. This NISO Initiative will identify and address metasearch issues while implementations are still in their early stages. Details on the Initiative are featured on the NISO website: <http://www.niso.org/committees/MetaSearch-info.html>."

"Specific topics to be examined include:

• Authentication/certification mechanisms and the impact on search target(s)

• Sorting, ranking, and ordering of search results from multiple sources and multiple protocols

• Display of complete content including branding information and copyright notices

• Statistics and use measurement."

"The Metasearch Initiative planning committee is co-chaired by Oliver Pesch of Ebsco Information Services and Pat Stevens of OCLC, Inc. Members of the committee include Paul Cope (AutoGraphics, Inc.), Brenda Bailey-Hainer (Colorado State Library), Oren Beit-Arie (ExLibris USA), Brad Buckley (Gale Group), Laurie Davidson (Innovative Interfaces, Inc.), Todd Fegan (ProQuest Information and Learning), Matt Goldner (Fretwell-Downing Informatics), Betsy Graham (Innovative Interfaces, Inc.), Sandra Hurd (Innovative Interfaces, Inc.). Ted Koppel (The Library Corporation), Marc Krellenstein (Elsevier Science, Inc.), Peter Noerr (MuseGlobal, Inc.), Ted Pastorious (Gale Group), Sara Randall (Endeavor Information Systems, Inc.), Ed Riding (Dynix Corp.), and Jenny Walker (ExLibris USA)."

"Individuals and organizations, from both the user and provider communities, interested in participating in this initiative to develop metasearch standards and guidelines are encouraged to contact Pat Harris, Executive Director of NISO. (Phone: 301-654-2512; Email: <pharris@niso.org>)."

Institute of Museum and Library Services Awards Over $150 Million to State Libraries: Libraries Will Use Money to Improve Technology and Provide Service to America's Neediest

"Washington, DC - Dr. Robert S. Martin, Director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, announced grants totaling $150,435,000 to state library agencies in the fifty States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories. 'This is the premier federal grant program for the nation's libraries,' explained Director Martin. 'These grants help provide library service to America's rural and urban residents, particularly to children living in poverty. The grants also provide libraries with technology to keep the public connected to the important information they need and use.'"

"The grants are awarded under the Library Services and Technology Act and are made to each State according to a population-based formula; the State's Library Administrative Agency administers the funds. States provide at least $1.00 for every $2.00 of federal support."

"State Library Agencies report using the federal funds to help patrons prepare for and find employment through skills and career assessments testing, resume and cover letter writing workshops, and by providing free access to local electronic job banks."

"Early childhood education is also a priority at libraries. Libraries team-up with organizations such as Head Start, WIC, and housing authorities to promote school readiness, provide family literacy programs, and disseminate children's books and information on local pre-school programs."

"Libraries will continue to use these federal funds to invest in technology. Information available via the Internet has increased. So, too, have visits to the library. Public libraries remain the number one point of online access for people without Internet connections at home, school, or work — 95% of them provide free public access to the Internet. "

For further information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/whatsnew/current/040103.htm>.

Roy Tennant's Presentation at OCLC Now Online As Part of the Distinguished Seminar Series at OCLC

"Roy Tennant, well-known columnist and digital librarian speaks on current problems and opportunities; and proposes imaginative thinking, bold action, and a propensity to take risks as the investments needed today to build tomorrow's payoff."

"Mr. Tennant spoke February 26 at OCLC, Dublin (Ohio), as part of the Distinguished Seminar Series. Presentation slides (PowerPoint) and a digital audio recording (mp3:19.9MB) are now available from the OCLC Research Web site."

"Direct links:
Roy Tennant's home page: <http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant>
Distinguished Seminar Series home page: <http://www.oclc.org/research/dss/date.shtm>
Presentation announcement/abstract: <http://www.oclc.org/research/dss/tennant.shtm>
PowerPoint presentation file: <http://www.oclc.org/research/dss/tennant.ppt>
Digital audio recording file (mp3): <http://www.oclc.org/research/audio/dss_tennant.mp3>."

For further information, please contact Robert C. Bolander <bolander@oclc.org>.

Top | Contents
Search | Author Index | Title Index | Back Issues
Journal Review | Clips & Pointers
E-mail the Editor

DOI: 10.1045/april2003-inbrief