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Integration of Content and Library Services in Sakai
Contributed by: Sakai, a software infrastructure and associated tools for research and teaching, has been described as an opportunity to leverage links among open source, open access, and the culture of the academy [1]. Its development has been led by the Indiana and Stanford universities, the University of Michigan, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been fueled by a commitment among the founders of $4.4 million in institutional staff (27 FTE), plus a $2.4 million grant from The Andrew Mellon Foundation and a $300,000 grant from Hewlett Packard, a total of $6.8 million. Thus far, the components developed by the partners and a rapidly growing community (Sakai Educational Partners Program or SEPP [2]) have included essential tools and services for faculty. Few development resources, however, as yet have targeted the complex issues inherent in content integration. Over the past few months, the academic library community has awakened to the realization that 29 of the 120 Association of Research Libraries institutions and 16 of the 30 Digital Library Federation institutions are developing Sakai. At many of the universities that are setting the priorities for Sakai development, longstanding cultural and communication barriers exist between the library and information technology communities. Even while acknowledging that gulf, both communities will serve the higher education community better if we tackle the complex problems of content integration as a team, acknowledging and using expertise in both groups. Content integration challenges also exist outside Sakai and frustrate faculty and students who research and learn online. In fact, impatient scholars are urging us to fill the IT infrastructure with content with the same commitment that the academy has leveraged to build, improve, and expand the IT infrastructure [3]. Within this context, core Sakai institution libraries and Sakai representatives are meeting in early March at Stanford to shape requirements and development priorities for bringing library content and services into Sakai [4]. This work is building upon the Mellon-funded Flecker-McLean report [5], which explored the complexities of finding and using a growing body of digital library resources in course management systems and which recommended that "the community move from theoretical discussions of interoperation of content repositories and instructional systems to real-world demonstration projects". The priorities will include licensed journals and books, which are presently the most desired resources, but also images, videos, music, geographic and numerical data, finding aids and library catalogs that point to collections, plus resources such as course pages. Each of these types is supported, accessed, and preserved by different entities, some under license agreements and others freely available. Users not only want reasonable paths for discovering and amalgamating digital content, but they also want to rearrange, reformat, edit, annotate, and save digital objects for later use. Making these very different digital content pools easily available for scholarly use is the goal that needs to drive technologists and librarians [6]. As different as the library and technologist cultures are, neither group will be successful without the help of the other. Notes1 Hilton, James L. and Suzanne E. Thorin. "Sakai Update," Project Briefing: Coalition for Networked Information Fall 2004 Task Force Meeting, Portland, Oregon, December 6-7, 2004, <http://www.cni.org/tfms/2004b.fall/abstracts/PB-sakai-thorin.html>. 2 Sakai Educational Partners Program, <http://sakaiproject.org/partners.html>. 3 Ayers, Edward L. and Charles M. Grisham. "Why IT Has Not Paid Off As We Had Hoped (Yet)," virginia.edu (Spring 2004). <http://www.itc.virginia.edu/virginia.edu/spring04/hope.htm>. 4 SEPP institutions can read the group's initial discussion paper at <http://collab.sakaiproject.org>. 5 Flecker, Dale and Neil McLean. "Digital Library Content and Course Management Systems: Issues of Interoperation" Report of a Study Group. Digital Library Federation (July 2004), <http://www.diglib.org/pubs/cmsdl0407/cmsdl0407.htm>. 6 One emerging effort to use the significant content pools already assembled by libraries and others and to link them for use in learning and research is Aquifer, a project of the Digital Library Federation. It seeks to create a distributed, open digital library which comprises members' extant digital collections, institutional capacities, curatorial expertise, and historic service to scholarly communities. Members are committed to interoperability, resource sharing, and adherence to agreed standards and information architectures. <http://www.diglib.org/aquifer/index.htm>. JORUM: A Free Online Service Offering Access to Learning and Teaching Materials
Contributed by: JORUM, a free online service offering access to learning and teaching materials, will be available to all Further and Higher Education Institutions (F/HEIs) in the UK from August 2005. JORUM has been funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [1] and will be hosted and supported by the two JISC-supported national data centres, EDINA [2] and MIMAS [3]. JORUM aims to promote the sharing, re-use and re-purposing of resources, standing as a national statement of the importance attached by the Funding Councils in the UK to the creation and provision of interoperable, sustainable materials. As a JISC funded service, JORUM has been developed to be a component of the JISC Information Environment (IE) and interoperable with other services within it. JORUM will be one component of a distributed network of repositories that may include institutional, project and regional repositories in the future. Access to the system will be via Athens and a free institutional subscription similar to other JISC funded services such as Education Media Online (EMOL). A survey will be circulated in March 2005 to all UK F/HE institutions with the aim of promoting the service and determining initial interest from the community in subscribing to JORUM. JORUM will provide long-term access to publicly funded project outputs and also offer the facility for any institution or project that chooses not to invest in and manage its own repository to store its digital resources, providing it is willing to share with colleagues in FE and HE across the UK. The JORUM repository system, intraLibrary, available from Intrallect Ltd [4] is currently being developed further to meet the requirements of the F/HE user community and content is being collated from a variety of sources, including a number of early adopters of the system. Further information on the JORUM service is available from the JORUM website <http://www.jorum.ac.uk> [5] including promotional, training and support materials. Notes1 Joint Information Systems Committee <http://www.jisc.ac.uk>. 2 EDINA national data centre, University of Edinburgh <http://edina.ac.uk>. 3 MIMAS national data centre, University of Manchester <http://www.mimas.ac.uk>. 4 Intrallect Ltd. <http://www.intrallect.com>. 5 Report <http://www.jorum.ac.uk/research/publications.html>. CASHMERE-int
Contributed by: The acronym CASHMERE-int (http://www.iwi-iuk.org/cashmere/index.en.shtml) stands for "Content Analysis Standards development Heterogeneity Metadata Retrieval - Semantic Web Development and Transmission". It is part of the competence network project supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), <http://www.bmbf.de/en/index.php>, focusing on new services, standardisation and metadata. Project partners are the Mathematics/Computer Science Faculty of Osnabrueck University (http://www.mathematik.uni-osnabrueck.de/home_ge.en.html), the "Institut für wissenschaftliche Information e.V." (http://www.iwi-iuk.org/), and the Goettingen State and University Library (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/index-e.html). The project has aims on different levels. Firstly, the CASHMERE-int project is actively involved in developing specific standards within the semantic web, preservation, and metadata context. Secondly, it is a member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) taking part in the work of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), <http://dublincore.org/>, and is also contributing to other international working groups. The project was involved, for instance, in drawing up the report on implementing digital long-term archives by the PREMIS working group (http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/pmwg/). CASHMERE-int turns special attention to the development and exploration of new services and procedures based on innovative methods and tools for machine-based and intelligent processing of information and its further use in search and retrieval processes. The knowledge being generated from this work is also being passed on to universities. The aim here is to motivate more scientists in Germany to take active part in the international standardisation of advanced web technologies and also to transfer standards, once developed, more quickly into new services. A workshop is planned for the 28th of February to 2nd of March 2005 in which the latest developments in the fields of semantic web, preservation, and tools for web services are to be presented (http://www.iwi-iuk.org/cashmere/workshop/). It will be held at the Goettingen State and University Library (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/). The third day of the workshop is organised by the DCMI Tools Working Group (http://dublincore.org/groups/tools/).
In the NewsExcerpts from Recent Press Releases and AnnouncementsJhove Beta 3 ReleasedFebruary 10, 2004 announcement from Stephan Abrams, Harvard University - "A new beta version of JHOVE (the JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment, pronounced "jove") is now available at <http://hul.harvard.edu/jhove/>." "JHOVE is an extensible framework for format-specific object identification, validation, and characterization. Format identification answers the question, 'I have an object; what format is it?' Validation answers the question, 'I have a format purportedly of format F; is it?' Characterization answers the question, 'I have an object of format F; what are its salient properties?'" "This version, rel. 1.0 beta 3 (2005-02-04), includes the following enhancements:
"Further details of the changes introduced with this version can be found in the release notes." "We anticipate this to be the last BETA version of JHOVE; the first PRODUCTION release is tentatively scheduled for April 2005." "Please direct all comments to <jhove-support@hulmail.harvard.edu>." "JHOVE is made available under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)." "JHOVE is a joint project of JSTOR and the Harvard University Library. Development of JHOVE was funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through a grant to JSTOR for its Electronic-Archiving Initiative. " Masters of Science in Digital LibrariesFebruary 10, 2005 announcement from Alan Poulter, University of Strathcylde - "M.Sc. in Digital Libraries is a brand new course, starting in October 2005, which focuses on start-of-the-art research in the design and deployment of digital libraries. This course is intended for students who have pertinent experience of library or information work, including membership of a relevant professional body and a good Undergraduate degree and/or a Masters degree in librarianship or a cognate discipline." "Digital libraries are a major area of research expertise in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS) at Strathclyde University (Glasgow, Scotland) encompassing several research groups and the work of the CDLR (the Centre for Digital Library Research)." "Students will be taught in formal classes but will also participate in research seminars and in actual digital library research work on placement at the CDLR or an equivalent provider." Contact details: JANET enables learners to bring language into the classroomFebruary 9, 2005 - "Connection to JANET (http://www.ja.net/), the UK's education and research network, is helping colleges take full advantage of new and innovative technologies. By providing a reliable, broadband connection to the rest of the JANET community and beyond, colleges are encouraged to try out new ways of bringing the outside world into the college environment and into their teaching and learning activities." "The JANET connection has enabled Langside College (http://www.langside.ac.uk/) to implement a wireless solution throughout its campus sites. This has been the basis of many innovative developments, including Class in a Box, a transportable computer suite. This new facility has brought noticeable benefits and flexibility to the teaching and learning experience of its learners." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=wireless_technology_aids_tesol_learner_news_090205>. President's Budget Requests $262,240,000 for Institute of Museum and Library ServicesFebruary 7, 2005 - "Washington, DC - The President's Budget requests $262,240,000 for fiscal year 2006 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The request, which represents an increase of $21,565,000 in funding for IMLS core programs, includes:"
"'This budget underscores the Bush Administration's continued solid support for libraries and museums in the United States,' Dr. Robert Martin, Director of IMLS, remarked. 'We are especially pleased that, with a request for $26 million, this budget continues to demonstrate the President's strong support for the Librarians for the 21st Century program. Since its inception in 2003 the program has supported innovation, ingenuity, and diversity while helping to recruit and educate the next generation of librarians. To date nearly 1,200 students have benefited from this initiative.'" For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/whatsnew/current/020705.htm>. Katherine Kott Named Aquifer DirectorFebruary 4, 2005 - "Washington, D.C. - Katherine Kott has been named director of the Digital Library Federation's Aquifer initiative. Her appointment became effective January 1, 2005. Kott comes to the DLF from Stanford University Libraries, where she was head of cataloging and metadata services. As Aquifer director, she will continue to work from Stanford." "Aquifer is an initiative of the DLF that will support research, teaching, and learning with high-quality online special collections and distinctive information services. It will leverage extant digital collections, institutional capacities, curatorial expertise, and library services to benefit scholarly communities. Eleven DLF member libraries are currently participating in Aquifer. Aquifer's products and services will be shared freely with other DLF participants and with the library community at large." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.clir.org/news/pressrelease/05kott_pr.html>. NIH Calls on Scientists to Speed Public Release of Research PublicationsOnline Archive Will Make Articles Accessible to the Public February 3, 2005 - "The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today a new policy designed to accelerate the public's access to published articles resulting from NIH-funded research. The policy—the first of its kind for NIH—calls on scientists to release to the public manuscripts from research supported by NIH as soon as possible, and within 12 months of final publication." "These peer-reviewed, NIH-funded research publications will be available in a Web-based archive to be managed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), a component of NIH. The online archive will increase the public's access to health-related publications at a time when demand for such information is on a steady rise...." "...Beginning May 2, 2005, the policy requests that NIH-funded scientists submit an electronic version of the author's final manuscript, upon acceptance for publication, resulting from research supported in whole or in part by NIH. The author's final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all modifications from the publishing peer review process." "The policy gives authors the flexibility to designate a specific time frame for public release—ranging from immediate public access after final publication to a 12 month delay—when they submit their manuscripts to NIH. Authors are strongly encouraged to exercise their right to specify that their articles will be publicly available through PubMed Central (PMC) as soon as possible." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/feb2005/od-03.htm>. DOE/OSTI Joins CrossRef to Assign DOIs to Technical ReportsFebruary 3, 2005 - "Lynnfield, MA: CrossRef, the reference-linking service for scholarly and professional content, is pleased to announce that the Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) has joined CrossRef. OSTI plans to assign Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to its Information Bridge platform, which currently contains 94,000 scientific and technical reports.>." "Information Bridge serves as an open source to full-text and bibliographic records of DOE research in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics. It consists of full-text documents produced and made available by the Department of Energy National Laboratories and grantees from 1995 forward. Additional legacy documents are also included as they become available in electronic format." For more information, please see <http://www.crossref.org/>. Excerpts from Recent Press Releases and AnnouncementsInstitute of Museum and Library Services Awards More Than $160 Million to State Libraries"Dr. Robert S. Martin, director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, announced over $160 million in grants to state library agencies. 'This is the premier federal grant program for the nation's libraries,' explained Director Martin. 'It plays an important role in building the capacity of libraries to help communities address their changing educational, economic, and social needs.'" "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 for every $2 of federal support." "Technology investment continues to be a priority for libraries across the nation. In addition to offering vital community access to the Internet, libraries use funding to pool resources for database subscriptions, for technology upgrades, and even for Web-based virtual reference services." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/whatsnew/current/012505.htm>. Ground Breaking New Web Site on African American Migration Experience Ushers in Black History MonthFebruary 1, 2005 - "The Institute of Museum and Library Services is proud to announce its support of In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience launched today in honor of African American History Month. Created by New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the groundbreaking new Web site makes accessible to the general public more than 16,500 pages of essays, books, articles, and manuscripts, 8,300 illustrations, 100 lesson plans, and 60 maps that will help users understand the peoples, places, and the events that have shaped African America's migration traditions of the past four hundred years." "The project is made possible in part by a $2.4 million dollar grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus. Other project components include the book, In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience, released by National Geographic in January 2005; a Black History Month education kit comprised of illustrations and photographs, maps, lesson plans and a bibliography; and an exhibition in the Schomburg Center Exhibition Hall. Through images, maps, narratives and music, the exhibition presents, chronicles, and interprets the migratory movements that have formed and transformed the African-American community and the nation in the last century. Visit the Web site at <http://www.inmotionaame.org>." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/whatsnew/current/020105.htm>. Keynote Speakers for JCDL 2005January 20, 2005 - Announced by Sarah Giersch: "The following people have been selected to deliver keynote addresses to the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2005:" "Hector Garcia-Molina, Ph.D. "Deanna Marcum, Ph.D. "Guy (Bud) Tribble, M.D. - Ph.D. "Their expertise in disciplines critical to a national cyberinfrastructure will provide a context for and further the dialog about the role of digital libraries in an evolving framework of computation, information management, networking, and intelligent sensing." Read more about each speaker at the conference website: <http://www.jcdl2005.org>. EC gives grant to audiovisual project TAPEDecember 20, 2004 - "The European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA) has received one of the subsidies granted to multiannual projects in the framework of the Call 2003 of the Culture 2000 programme of the European Commission in Brussels for its project 'Training for Audiovisual Preservation in Europe' (TAPE). " "The TAPE project deals with audiovisual collections, of sound and moving images, which are an essential part of the European cultural heritage. It is aimed at cultural and research institutions that (also) hold audiovisual collections that do not, however, constitute the core of their holdings. The project's aim is (1) to promote awareness of the need to preserve audiovisual collections, (2) to provide training for professionals involved in preservation and digitisation of audiovisual materials and (3) to develop supporting training materials." Activities TAPE partners The TAPE site is now online. For more information see the project's website at <http://www.tape-online.net/>. Copyright 2005 © Corporation for National Research InitiativesTop |
Contents doi:10.1045/february2005-inbrief |