Volume 8 Number 2
ISSN 1082-9873
Editorial
Refurbishing Ready Reference
In D-Lib's early days, the magazine's editor created an online Ready Reference web site to serve as a portal to information for digital library researchers and developers. The web site was begun when resources related to digital libraries were few and not especially easy to find. Search engines were not as powerful as they are today, and metadata was infrequently assigned to digital resources.
It has been a goal of mine to weed out the D-Lib Ready Reference collection, retaining only links to resources that still might have value to the digital library community, and to add new ones to meet current needs. The challenge is deciding which links to weed and which to add.
Last month, D-Lib's calendar of meetings, conferences and workshops (http://www.dlib.org/groups.html) was redesigned, and lists of past events were moved to other web pages, where they will be retained for historical purposes.
The connection between D-Lib Magazine's "Clips and Pointers" column and the Ready Reference calendar of events page may not be immediately discernable, so this might be a good time to explain it. Upcoming events are listed once in "Clips and Pointers" under "Goings On", and listed a second time 30 - 45 days before the event occurs under "Deadline Reminders". However, as soon as the event is listed in "Goings On", it is also listed in the calendar in Ready Reference for those who wish to quickly look up the details of a meeting, conference or workshop without having to search back issues of D-Lib Magazine to find them.
The calendar was the easiest Ready Reference section to weed and redesign because it was the most recently and consistently maintained section. Now comes the more difficult task of refurbishing the rest of D-Lib's Ready Reference site. In upcoming months, other parts of the site will be analyzed and reorganized, and new links added.
What resources would you expect or hope to see in an online ready reference site for digital library researchers and developers? What features or functions would you find most helpful? I welcome your suggestions and comments as the redesign of D-Lib's Ready Reference web site proceeds.
Bonita Wilson
Editor
Copyright © 2002 Corporation for National Research Initiatives
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DOI
: 10.1045/february2002-editorial
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