D-Lib Magazine
December 1996
ISSN 1082-9873
Clips and Pointers
John Kirriemuir, UKOLN Information Officer
The United Kingdom Serials Group held a one-day workshop on 21st November 1996. The audience of 170
people came from a wide range of mainly UK-based backgrounds, namely electronic journal (e-journal)
research, publishers, e-journal service providers, academics, and public library and university librarians.
The morning session consisted of views of e-journals from university, industrial and end-user perspectives.
The first of these concentrated on how the Pilkington Library at Loughborough University made access
available to freely available Internet-based journals, as well as commercially published journals. The end-
user perspective explained some of the advantages: e.g., navigation, information immediacy, global
distribution, searching, and disadvantages: e.g., reliance on networks, credibility of electronically based
information over print-based journals.
The afternoon session consisted of a demonstration of two products offering access to a range of e-journals,
namely, Blackwells Electronic Journal Navigator and the BIDS Journal Online service. This was followed
by a wrap-up open forum, where people could discuss those e-journal issues of concern.
Though the day did not result in any solutions, many of the problems with e-journal production, access,
charging mechanisms and formats were aired. Key issues that were repeated through the day were:
- the irritation of needing a set of different usernames or passwords for access to a range of e-journals
- the pro’s and con’s of PDF, SGML and HTML when used in e-journal production
- the differences between the traditionally printed, screen-based, and screen-dumped versions of e-journal
articles
- costing and the economies of e-journals as opposed to their print equivalents, especially in UK
academia
- the variable ease of navigation, and quality of presentation, of e-journals
As an introduction to e-journals, their variety, advantages, disadvantages and problems, the day was deemed
to be well-spent by many of the delegates.
The
National HPCC Software Exchange (NHSE) comprises a
distributed collection of software and other material important to the high performance and parallel
computing community, including a web site with pointers to software, information on new technologies,
activities and programs, and other information (such as databases and publications). New resources at this
site include:
The Bodleian Library, Oxford, has released its first digital imaging project, the
Bodleian Library/Toyota Imaging Project, a
collection of some 8000 images of transport and motoring
material from its John Johnson Collection of Printed
Ephemera on the web. The project focuses on 15 boxes of Motor Car material held by the John Johnson
Collection, considered the most important
collection of printed ephemera in the United Kingdom and
possibly in the world and comprising more than a million
items, divided into 700 subject headings and covering the period, 1508 to the present.
Bibliographic information for each item has been converted to SGML format, conforming to the TEI (Text
Encoding Initiative) scheme. The SGML records are processed by a TCL
script and converted to HTML for display on the World Wide Web. The interface permits users to browse
the collection topically, returning thumbnails of the images as well as text descriptions, and also supports
searching.
The Surgical Planning Laboratory of the Department
of Radiology at
Brigham and Women's Hospital and
Harvard Medical School have established a series of web
sites devoted to the Brain Atlas datasets. These resources embody several advanced information technology
applications: the data have been recovered via magnetic resonance (MR) and computerized tomography
(CT) diagnostic imaging
techniques and reconstructed as three-dimensional images; use of java applets enable dynamic interaction
with the images (e.g., rotation); and a series of MPEG movies allow users to "fly through" various
anatomical structures. The relevant sites include:
-
The Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the University of Wisconsin General Library System, and the
Division of Information Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have cooperated in the
creation of the
SouthEast Asia images and Texts project
(SEAiT). The project involves digitally encoding photographs from Southeast Asia and storing them
on photo CD-ROM and has also resulted in release of an interactive multimedia database on the Internet,
which offers important materials supporting the study of Southeast Asia. Images in the collection can be
searched by keyword; curriculum materials and "guided tours" (i.e., canned searches) are also available at
the site.
- The Groupe interuniversitaire de recherche en sciences de l'information et de la communication
(GIRSIC) has released
Solaris, an annual review devoted to
covering research in information science and communications, including digital libraries. All three issues
(1994, 1995, and 1996) are now available at the web site. Articles in the journal are in English as well as in
French.
Buildings, books, and bytes is a report issued by the
Benton Foundation at the request of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The study describes research on the
future of libraries in the "digital age" based on several complementary methodologies including written
responses, telephone interviews, focus groups, and surveys.
The World Intellectual Property Organization Diplomatic Conference will conclude on December
20, 1996. A Draft Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Databases was made available for comment
in August. A copy of the
proposed treaty has been posted by the
Library of Congress. The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) accepted public comments. Selections of
these may be viewed at
Stanford University Libraries Copyright
and Fair Use.
- First European
Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, 1-3 September 1997, Pisa,
Italy
Carol Peters, Istituto di Elaborazione della Informazione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche,
Pisa
As part of its Digitial Library Initiative, the European Research
Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) has decided to organize
a series of conferences on research and advanced technology
for digital libraries. These conferences are partially funded by the
Training, Mobility and Resources (TMR) programme of the European Union.
The aim is to give researchers from universities,
research centres, industry and government the opportunity to meet once a year to
discuss evolving research issues and applications. The intention is to provide a
European forum in which to identify key problems, and to propose and
encourage specific, high-priority research themes.
The first Conference will be held in Pisa in early September 1997. For up-to-date information, see:
http://www.area.pi.cnr.it/ErcimDL/.
- ASIS 1997 Annual
Meeting: Digital Collections: Implications for Users, Funders, Developers, and Maintainers.
Submissions for this conference, to be held November 1-6, 1997, will close December 15, 1996. For a
preliminary program description, instructions for submissions, and up-to-date information, see:
http://www.asis.org/annual-97/ASIS97.htm
Second Annual Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) Symposium, Monterey, California, February
24-26, 1997. VRML 97 is an academic and technical symposium sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH and
SIGCOMM, in cooperation with the VRML Consortium are sponsoring the Second Annual Virtual Reality
Modeling Language (VRML) Symposium. The conference will provide a range of technical papers,
educational opportunities, demonstrations, and exhibits. More information is available at
http://www.sdsc.edu/vrml97.
hdl:cnri.dlib/december96-clips