D-Lib Magazine
March 1998

ISSN 1082-9873

Clips & Pointers

Digital Libraries Initiative - Phase 2

East and West Coast briefings being organized.

The solicitation for this cross-agency program was announced February 20, 1998. Sponsors include: National Science Foundation, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Library of Medicine, Library of Congress, National Aeronautics & Space Administration, and National Endowment for the Humanities. Partners are the National Archives and Records Administration and the Smithsonian Institution.

Submissions under this program may be phased. Proposal due dates are currently: July 15, 1998; May 17, 1999. Awards may be made to individuals or to groups. Ideas for projects in excess of $1,200,000 should be discussed with the NSF program officer before proposals are prepared.

The East coast briefing has been set for:

March 26, 1998
9:00AM-12:00 noon
National Academy of Sciences (main auditorium)
2100 C St. NW
Washington, DC

The West coast meeting has been set for:

April 21, 1998
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
UCLA, Los Angeles CA

The web sites should be consulted for the most current information:

Program announcement: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9863/nsf9863.htm
Information on briefings: http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/dli/start.htm

[Information updated, 3/16/98 1:02 PM]

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EU-NSF Working Group on Metadata

Thomas Baker, GMD, and Clifford Lynch, CNI

The first of two meetings of the EU-NSF Working Group on Metadata was held on February 2-3, 1998, at the Coalition of Networked Information (CNI) in Washington, DC. This is one of five groups funded jointly by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (through the University of Michigan) and by the European Union (through the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics [ERCIM]) on strategic issues in technology for digital libraries. Their final reports will identify areas appropriate for joint international research collaboration.

Present in Washington were Clifford Lynch (Coalition of Networked Information, Washington, DC), Thomas Baker (GMD, Germany; currently a visiting professor at Asian Institute of Technology [AIT] in Bangkok), Rachel Heery (UK Office of Library Networking, Bath), Gene Alloway (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Anne-Marie Vercoustre (INRIA, France; currently a visiting researcher at CSIRO in Australia), Jose Borbinha (INESC, Portugal), Howard Besser (University of California, Berkeley), Ole Husby (BIBSYS, Norway; Nordic Metadata Project), Stuart Weibel (Online Computer Library Center [OCLC], Ohio), Renato Iannella (Distributed Systems Technology Centre, Australia), Carl Lagoze (Cornell University; coordinator of the EU-NSF Working Group on Resource Indexing and Discovery in a Globally Distributed Digital Library), and Shigeo Sugimoto (University of Library and Information Science, Japan). Rose Gombay of International Programs, National Science Foundation, joined us for the opening session.

In its most common sense, "metadata" is structured data for helping users find and process documents and images. Scientists and librarians work hard to define standard categories for cataloging information in their specialized fields. Our focus was not on the semantics of such systems, but on the architectures, tools, and models needed to manage metadata in the networked environment.

From our initial brainstorming and position papers, we compiled a long list of research issues, then grouped these into clusters. One cluster bears the heading Architectures and Technologies (e,g., how to embed or associate metadata with objects, how to format metadata, and how to store or mirror metadata for harvesting, together with related tools and query languages). Another cluster includes Metadata for New Types of Resources other than traditional documents (e.g., collections as a whole, multimedia objects, time-based media, and dynamically generated objects) and New Types of Metadata (e.g., for administrative uses, authenticity and certification, terms and conditions of use, ratings, and privacy policies). A third cluster calls for Evaluation and Metrics on the effectiveness of metadata -- both technically (i.e., controlling quality, tracking deployment and usage patterns, and assessing the effectiveness of metadata for retrieval), and economically (i.e., costs versus benefits of metadata use).

When we took a straw vote on the relative importance of the clusters, over half of the votes went to the cluster Management of Interoperability. Everyone agreed that much work needs to be done on the technology of registries and crosswalks for mapping, inheriting, and extending metadata schemas of diverse types and in multiple languages. Many members of the group are involved in an effort to deploy the emerging Resource Description Framework of the World-Wide Web Consortium for a distributed registry of the Dublin Core, a set of metadata elements for simple resource description available in many of the world's major languages.

A final cluster, Theory and Foundations, defined several areas in need of fundamental research: Formal Models for underpinning registries, crosswalks, and schemas; methodologies for supporting the Evolution of Metadata on the part of diverse, distributed, multilingual user communities; and issues of legal and trans-border policy.

The group plans to complete a first draft of its report in time for a presentation in July. The second and final meeting of the group will take place September 17-18, 1998, in Bonn, Germany, at which the draft recommendations will be finalized.

The public Web page of the EU-NSF Working Groups is at http://www.si.umich.edu/UMDL/EU_Grant/home.htm.

Please contact:

Thomas Baker, GMD <baker@gmd.de>
Clifford Lynch, CNI <cliff@cni.org>

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A Study of Information and Communications Technology Funding Policy for the Heritage Sector

Report to be available April 1, 1998

Seamus Ross and Maria Economou
Humanities Advanced Technology & Information Institute (HATII), University of Glasgow
Glasgow, United Kingdom

s.ross@arts.gla.ac.uk
m.economou@hatii,arts.gla.ac.uk

The Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) at the University of Glasgow completed a review of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) funding policy for the UK's Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) at the end of January 1998.

The report recommended an ICT policy that would contribute to the better conservation and management of the heritage and assist in its understanding, study, and enjoyment. More specifically, the policy will:

• maximise the benefits to the conservation of our national heritage assets;
• bring tangible benefits to the public through access to heritage information;
• contribute heritage information resources of value to education and lifelong learning;
• aid the development of a heritage-rich information society; and
• minimise the risks associated with ICT.

The study was built on extensive research and consultation. This included a review of published literature on how heritage organisations and projects use ICT, as well as current research likely to have an impact on heritage applications of ICT during the next five years. In order to build these policy recommendations on an understanding of the needs and views of the heritage community, HATII consulted widely on behalf of the HLF. It:

• requested comments on the brief;
• conducted a mail survey;
• distributed the brief to heritage mailing lists on the Internet; and
• carried out seventy targeted face-to-face interviews.

These consultations led us to conclude that the HLF should support the use of ICT for creating core resources in digital form, whether their content is museum, library, or archival catalogues, sites and monuments records, records of species or habitats, or records of the built heritage. Throughout the report, technology was viewed as an enabling tool, rather than a driving force.

The report included 74 key recommendations. Here we can summarise only a few of them:

• The HLF should not normally fund the hardware and software requirements necessary for the development of network infrastructure.
• The conversion of existing catalogues, inventories, and finding aids should be supported where value is clearly added as a result (e.g., through inter-organisational projects).
• The HLF should support digitisation projects with high access and educational benefits, using proven technology.
• The digital format is not (yet) a satisfactory medium for long-term preservation except where material is at severe risk (e.g., nitrate film, some photographic prints). Further investigation into digital archiving is needed.
• The HLF should not fund the establishment of Web sites on the Internet or interactive displays unless they are a by-product of a consistent and coherent information service.
• The HLF should require that access to all ICT-based resources should be free at some level, whilst charging is acceptable if the funds received are used to sustain the project. Any digital resources created with HLF funds should be freely available for educational purposes.
• The HLF should give preference to collaborative projects, including those that harness community spirit and volunteer labour.
• The HLF should investigate the feasibility of supporting national data services (e.g., in archaeology and the biological heritage), using digital techniques, in conjunction with the statutory bodies in the field.
• The HLF will require applicants to use appropriate national and international standards, but will not normally fund the development of standards.
• A capped fund should be created to encourage innovation in the use of ICT in the heritage sector, but HLF funds should not be used to support research and development.

In February 1998, the Trustees of the HLF agreed that the report's recommendations should inform the development of the HLF's policy on the use of ICT in the projects they support. The recommendations of the report will be reflected in HLF's forthcoming application and assessment guidelines.

From April 1, 1998, the report will be available at http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/HATII//HLFICT/.

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The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) University Testbed Project (1998/99)

Jennifer Trant and David Bearman
Archives & Museum Informatics < www.archimuse.com>
Management Consultants to AMICO <www.amico.net>

About AMICO

In October 1997, twenty-three of the largest art museums in North America formed the Art Museum Image Consortium <http://www.amico.net>, a non-profit organization whose membership is open to institutions with collections of art. AMICO is creating a Library of multimedia documentation of art. This rich intellectual resource, not previously available to the university community, will be available under license for educational uses.

The University Testbed Project

Creating such a Library, though, is only the first step in integrating digital museum documentation into education. There is still a great deal to be learned about the best practices for delivering, and integrating museum multimedia in higher education, and in the K-12 and public library environments. To further this understanding, AMICO is launching a number of collaborative research projects. The first of these partnerships has just been announced: The AMICO University Testbed Project.

Universities willing to conduct research on a pre-publication release of the AMICO Library were asked to submit proposals in the fall of 1997. A public Call for Participation <http://www.amico.net/testbed.call.shtml> outlined a series of research goals that would be explored in collaboration. All probed the definition of "critical mass", reflecting a need to further our collective understanding of "who needs what, to do what, with what tools and support". Specifically, projects where asked to:

• Evaluate which content characteristics of the AMICO Library and Services are of most value to the university community. What represents quality, and to whom, in this digital resource?
• Test mechanisms for delivery and integration of the AMICO Library into campus digital resources. Which access tools, interchange formats and metadata best facilitate use?
• Design strategies to increase the impact of the AMICO Library. How can the community of educational users and AMICO members benefit from on-going dialog?

Universities were invited to suggest additional areas of research.

The Participants

Research will be conducted on twenty campuses in the 1998/99 academic year. The following universities will subscribe to the "beta" AMICO Library, containing documentation of over 20,000 works of art, delivered through the Research Libraries Group:

• Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
• California State Universities, CA, USA
• San Jose State, San Jose, CA
• Long Beach, Long Beach, CA
• Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
• Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
• Harvard University, Boston, MA , USA
• Herron School of Art, Indianapolis, IN, USA and
• Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, IN, USA
• Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
• Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
• University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
• University of Illinois, USA
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
• University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
• University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands
• University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA
• University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• University of Toronto at Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario,
• University of Toronto at Scarborough, Scarborough, Ontario
• Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA
• Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, USA
• Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA

Activities proposed range from user studies, to assessing the tools and support needed for faculty, to exploring the integration of AMICO metadata with university library catalogs, to image-based retrieval studies. A Project Briefing session at the upcoming CNI meeting <http://www.cni.org> will report on this agenda and provide a opportunity for dialogue with researchers in the broader digital library community. Results will be widely reported and shared.

Other Distribution Channels

AMICO believes that content is best delivered by service providers who know their users' requirements and needs. The Consortium has developed a strategy of collaboration with existing and developing networked information providers to make the Library as widely available as possible. In addition to the Research Libraries Group, which has agreed to make the AMICO Library available to its higher education users, AMICO is in discussions with the California Digital Library initiative and the OhioLINK Consortium to act as distributors to their higher education constituencies beginning with the 1999/2000 academic year. A number of other distributors will serve Public Libraries and Kindergarten through Grade 12 (K-12) Educational Institutions beginning in 1999/2000.

Other Activities

In addition to these studies within the University Testbed Project, AMICO is collaborating with the OCLC R&D Division on the representation of AMICO Library in extended Dublin Core semantics in the XML/RDF syntax. AMICO is also studying the overlap between terminology in AMICO museum records and the published vocabularies of the Getty Information Institute (the Union List of Artists Names, the Art and Architecture Thesaurus and the Thesaurus of Geographic Place Names) as a prelude to research on the use of controlled vocabularies as search intermediaries.

More Information

For more information about the AMICO University Testbed Project, or to discuss access to the AMICO Library for other purposes, contact David Bearman <dbear@archimuse.com> or Jennifer Trant <jtrant@archimuse.com>

[Hyperlink to the Call for Participation, http://www.amico.net/testbed.call.shtml, corrected, 3/18/98 3:55 PM]

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In Print

• EC Metadata Workshop, Luxembourg, 1-2 December 1997. DGXIII/E-4 organized a workshop devoted to developing and applying metadata for the classification of content relevant to libraries, museums and archives. The first of two was held in Luxembourg on 1 and 2 December, and contained a tutorial, project presentations and breakout sessions discussing various aspects. The objectives were to establish a platform for coordination between projects concerned with metadata in a broad sense, to raise awareness of developments in the standards arena and to stimulate feedback from the projects to the standards. The workshop report is now available on the web.

• MARC and the Year 2000. Library of Congress, Network Development and MARC Standards Office, March 1998. This document explains how the data elements in the various MARC formats will be affected and modified by the century change (2000). Links to relevant supporting and related documents and guidelines are included.

• The report on the impact of the Internet in Pennsylvania public libraries is now available on the World Wide Web. It is entitled "Linking People to the Global Networked Society -- Evaluation of the OnLine at PA Libraries Project: Public Access to the Internet Through Public Libraries" and is authored by Charles McClure and John Carlo Bertot. The report is in PDF.

• W3C RDF Resource Description Framework draft specification. RDF is a work in progress and is the result of a number of metadata communities bringing together their needs to provide a robust and flexible architecture for supporting metadata on the web. The W3C RDF Model and Syntax Working Group cautions: "While the design has stabilized quite a bit since the previous version and we do not anticipate substantial changes, we still caution that further changes are possible and therefore we recommend that only experimental software or software that can be easily field-upgraded be implemented to this specification at this time."

• Building the Collections of the California Digital Library. Susan S. Starr, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship (Winter 1998) describes the proposed structure, services, and content of this digital library, based on the libraries of the nine campuses of the University of California system. The collections development policy is described in some detail. This description includes the principles and implementation strategy.

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Point-to-Point

• The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures is an on-line presentation of the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program and the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Fifty-three films made from 1898 to 1901 of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection are included in the first phase of this project; fifteen more films are scheduled to be added in April 1998, along with selected sound recordings. These early films were made by the Edison Manufacturing Company and the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. Comprehensive catalog records, interpretive essays, and other materials are also available. The motion pictures are available in MPEG and Quicktime formats.

• Catalogo delle Biblioteche Liguri [Catalog of Ligurian Libraries]. The On-line Public Access Catalog (OPAC) of the Catalog of Ligurian Libraries (Catalogo delle Biblioteche Liguri - CBL) is available at: http://opac.regione.liguria.it/cgi-win/hiweb.exe/a3. It is managed by the Ligurian Regional Administration (Regione Liguria), Genova, Italy. A forms-based interface (in Italian) provides access via author, title, Dewey classification number, ISBN, and other bibliographic data.

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Goings On

• Digitisation Summer School '98, Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute, July 5-18, 1998, Glasgow, UK

  The availability of high-quality digital content is central to improved public access, teaching, and research about heritage information. Archivists, librarians, and museum professionals are among the many groups heavily involved in creating digital resources from analogue collections. Skills in understanding the principles and best practice in the digitisation of primary textual and image resources have broad value. Participants in this two-week summer school will examine the issues of and acquire the skills to develop digital collections of heritage materials through seminars and practicals. It will consider such issues as those involved in creating, curating, and managing access to such collections.

  Full details about the summer school can be found at: http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/HATII/Courses/SummerDigi98/index.html

• The Third International Summer School on the Digital Library, August 2 - 14, 1998, Tilburg, The Netherlands

  The Third International Summer School on the Digital Library will be held at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, from Sunday, August 2, 1998, up to and including Friday, August 14, 1998. The course provides an excellent refresher for librarians from university, college, research and business libraries as well as for teachers at library schools. Some 30 lectures, case studies and demonstrations will be presented by international experts. The programme of the Summer School is now available at http://cwis.kub.nl/~ticer/summer98/index.htm, where there is also a list of lecturers and a list of participants. The maximum number of participants is 45. Lecturers include:

  • David Alsmeyer (British Telecom, UK)
  • William Y. Arms (Corporation for National Research Initiatives, USA)
  • Roland J. Dietz (Elsevier Science, USA)
  • Hans Geleijnse (Tilburg University, NL)
  • Emanuella Giavarra (Chambers of Mark Watson-Gandy, UK)
  • John A. Hearty (OCLC, Inc., USA)
  • Richard Luce (Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library, USA)
  • Prof. John Mackenzie Owen (Ticer B.V., NL)
  • Eugenie Prime (Hewlett Packard Company, USA)
  • Albert Prior (Swets & Zeitlinger, UK)
  • Herbert Van de Sompel (University of Ghent, BE)

  Themes include:

  • the changing information chain (publishers, subscription agents, scientists)
  • the future role of libraries
  • strategic planning
  • organisational and financial issues
  • electronic documents (formats, journals, research papers, licensing)
  • information technology (networks, CD-ROMs, integrated desktops)
  • Internet and WWW
  • users in an electronic environment
  • preparing your library staff

  The Summer School is organized by Ticer (Tilburg Innovation Centre for Electronic Resources) in cooperation with Tilburg University.

  For more information:

  Ticer B.V., P.O. Box 4191, 5004 JD Tilburg, the Netherlands
  Telephone +31-13-4668310, telefax +31-13-4668383
  Electronic mail: ticer@kub.nl
  Web: http://cwis.kub.nl/~ticer/

• Call for Participation in the CIMI Dublin Core Metadata Testbed. Closes March 20, 1998.

  CIMI is pleased to announce the CIMI Dublin Core (DC) Metadata Testbed Project <http://www.cimi.org/documents/metafinalPD.html>. This opportunity will afford those charged with responsibility for making museum object collections available for resource discovery and retrieval to explore the potential of the DC metadata scheme to describe heterogeneous collections.

  The selected group of participants will work with CIMI to create a pilot implementation of DC metadata records. This testbed will serve as the foundation for an evaluation of assumptions concerning the discovery and retrieval of resources within an electronic, networked environment such as that offered by the World Wide Web. The CIMI DC Metadata Testbed offers an opportunity to explore these assumptions within a systematic context, and to make the more generically applicable findings available to the wider DC community. Please see the complete project description at <http://www.cimi.org/documents/metafinalPD.html>.

  Goals of the testbed include:

  • Evaluating the efficacy and utility of DC for the museum community
  • Bringing to the surface and providing a forum for understanding and resolving issues concerning the operational aspects, technical infrastructure, intellectual challenges, and economics of DC record creation
  • Promoting international consensus on DC practices in the museum and cultural heritage community

  CIMI is seeking responses from interested parties who:

  • are interested in acquiring practical experience in creating and converting from legacy databases a sizeable number of DC records, including identification and discussion of intellectual, operational, technical, and economic issues
  • represent the widest possible range of institution size, geographical/cultural dispersion, charter, and information management requirements and practices, including vendors
  • have or can secure access to a digital collection suitable for project use
  • have demonstrated commitment to dedicate resources
  • are or are willing to become a member of CIMI <http://www.cimi.org/about/how_to_join.html>

  International participation from organizations representing a diverse collection of digital objects of varying aggregation levels and disciplines is strongly encouraged.

  Participants will receive a $1,000 U.S. dollar stipend (to defray expenses of testbed participation including approximately three meetings to be held in conjunction with professional conferences when possible).

  Participants will:

  • Identify a set of objects representing a broad range of disciplines, formats, and aggregation levels for description by DC Simple and Qualified elements
  • Create a task list and timetable for accomplishment of work items
  • Create, convert, and manage a sizeable number of DC records
  • Maintain a detailed activity log and complete questionnaires describing progress, task outcomes, and issues
  • Support content analysis of the derived DC records by availing existing catalog representations and objects
  • Participate in three meetings to discuss intellectual, operational, technical, and economic issues concerning record creation
  • Assess the adequacy of DC to map both from existing metadata and to end-user-oriented CIMI Access Points
  • Understand the relationship of DC to other resource discovery and retrieval mechanisms

  Interested parties are asked to supply an expression of interest to Erin Stewart by March 20, 1998. <erins2@mail.airmail.net.> CIMI will evaluate responses and contact eligible institutions to answer questions and discuss expected project outcomes in greater detail. CIMI will then select up to 10 participants for the DC Metadata Testbed Project. All participants must be or be willing to become CIMI members.

• Internet Risks and Liability: An Intensive One-Day Workshop, March 25, 1998, Baltimore, Maryland USA

  This workshop is directed toward: webmasters, web-content developers, lawyers, risk managers, librarians, judicial administrators, and public relations directors. Topics covered include: technology, computer law and policy, how to avoid liability, recent cases and legislation, developing effective policies and practices, common mistakes and how to avoid them, and policy pros and cons. The cost of the seminar is $475. Information on this and future seminars may be found at: http://www.sce.cornell.edu/html/irl.html.

• The Twenty-Sixth Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, October 3-5, 1998, Alexandria, Virginia USA. Call for papers closes, March 27, 1998.

  The Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) is now soliciting research papers or session proposals for presentation at its 1998 conference. Papers should be based on current theoretical and/or empirical research relevant to the making of communication and information policy, and may be from any disciplinary perspective. National, international, or comparative studies are welcomed. Subject areas of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

  • 1996 Telecom Act
  • Universal Service
  • Wireless Services
  • Unintended Consequences of Regulation
  • Unbundling the Local Loop
  • State Regulation
  • Convergence: Technological Developments and Regulatory Implications
  • Privacy (Crypto, Anonymity, Personal Data)
  • Intellectual Property
  • Content Control
  • Information Infrastructure Security
  • Taxation of Internet Services
  • Antitrust, Concentration and Mergers
  • Household Information Environments
  • Internet and Telephone Numbers and Names
  • Internet Jurisdiction
  • Software Competition
  • Internet/Intranet Effects on Organizations
  • Electronic Commerce
  • Communication Reform in Developing Countries
  • Spectrum Allocation and Auctions
  • New Satellite Systems
  • Infrastructure Investment
  • Pirate Broadcasting
  • Transition to Digital TV
  • Competitive Models of Mass Media

  Submissions must be sent electronically to Dawn Higgins at <tprc@ei.com> and should consist of an abstract of a paper or session proposal in ASCII text. If a paper is available, it should be sent as an attachment in MS Word or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. In addition, it would be helpful to the Program Committee if abstracts were submitted with one-page CVs, which include citations of relevant work. Submissions are due no later than March 27, 1998.

  Selected papers will be required to be no more than 30 pages and will be due to TPRC by September 7, 1998. TPRC intends to provide access to all accepted papers either through publication on our web site or through a link to its publisher.

  Inquiries may be made to:

  Dawn Higgins: (202) 452-9033
  Telecommunications Policy Research Conference
  P.O. Box 19203
  Washington, DC 20036 USA
  <tprc@ei.com>

• Metadata Registries Workshop, April 15-17, 1998, Washington, DC. Call for Participation.

  The purpose of the workshop is to bring together persons implementing or intending to implement Metadata Registries to:

  • provide a forum for information exchange
  • encourage collaboration in the development and exchange of metadata content between registries and
  • encourage collaboration in the development of metadata registries.

  The workshop will focus on metadata registries that are based on international and national standards including ISO/IEC 11179, Specification and Standardization of Data Elements and ANSI dpANS X3.285, Metamodel for the Management of Shareable Data. The registries may be World Wide Web (WWW) accessible, using standards such as HTML, XML and the Resource Description Framework (RDF) for both human and machine interfaces. IEEE P1489, Draft Standard for Data Dictionaries for Intelligent Transportation Systems is another standard that is based upon the ISO/IEC 11179 standard.

  Dates and Location

  April 15 - 17, 1998, Wednesday through Friday
  Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2 Massachusettes Avenue
  Washington, D.C.

  Sponsors

  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
  • U.S. Census Bureau
  • U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (DOL/BLS)
  • U.S. Department of Transportation Intelligent Transportation Systems (DOT/ITS)
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
  • NCITS L8 National Committee for Information Technical Standards (NCITS) L8, Data Representation
  • Department of Defense - Health Affairs Office of Information Management, Technology & Reengineering

  More complete information is available at the workshop's web site.

• Managing Metadata for The Digital Library: Crosswalks or Chaos, May 4-5, 1998, Washington, DC USA Registration deadine, April 17, 1998.

  Part of the challenge of building digital libraries is developing the metadata infrastructure needed to manage, maintain, and deliver digital materials. Metadata for the digital library encompasses not only traditional cataloging information, but also all of the information necessary to construct, preserve, and control the access to and presentation of digital content. This institute brings together experts in the metadata and digital library fields to present the latest developments, standards, and tools, and to explore the impact of digital library development on our existing catalogs and processes.

  This institute is sponsored by the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). ALCTS and LITA are divisions of the American Library Association.

• IEEE ADL '98: Advances in Digital Libraries Conference, April 22-24, 1998, Santa Barbara, California USA. Call for Participation

  Digital Libraries are a critical component of the emerging "distributed knowledge environments" that will provide people with universal access to virtually all areas of human knowledge, with the concomitant hope of improving standards of health, education, and economic well-being as well as the quality of life. As such, the field of digital library research and technology encompasses information creation, acquisition, access, distribution, evaluation and processing. Major applications of digital library research and technology include education, science, commerce, medicine, and the arts.

  The goal of this conference is to share and disseminate information about important current issues concerning digital library research and technology. This goal will be achieved by means of research papers, invited talks, workshops, and panels involving leading experts, as well as through demonstrations of innovative and prototype technologies. Topics of sessions include but are not limited to: evaluation, electronic publishing, datamining, information retrieval, artificial intelligence, and interface design. The conference has the additional goal of indicating the importance of applications of digital library technologies in the public and private sectors of the economy.

  Program Summary

  April 21, 1998
  Tutorial 1: Software agents for information retrieval
  Tutorial 2: Building geospatial collections

  April 22, 1998
  Track A
  Plenary Session: Towards the construction of operational digital libraries
  Special Session: What have we learned from the first NSF/DARPA/NASA digital library initiative?
  Paper Session: Automating the process of information extraction in digital libraries
  Paper Session: Datamining technology and its application in digital libraries
  Track B
  Paper Session: Issues in the construction of usable digital libraries
  Paper Session: Indexing and information access in digital libraries

  April 23, 1998
  Track A
  Plenary Session: The future of digital publishing
  Paper Session: Electronic publishing: defining the technical and scientific information package of the future
  Paper Session: Electronic publishing: obstacles to the creation of electronic documents
  Paper Session: Electronic publishing in digital library environments
  Track B
  Paper Session: Applications of artificial intelligence techniques in digital libraries
  Special Session: What have we learned from the first British digital library initiative (ELIB)
  Paper Session: Combining supercomputing environments and digital libraries
  Paper Session: The human in the loop: making better use of human cognition to improve performance of digital libraries
  Track C
  Panel Session: Aspects of information retrieval in a distributed digital government
  Panel Session: Adoption of digital library technologies by various communities
  Paper Session: Querying digital libraries and the world wide web

  April 24, 1998
  Track A
  Paper Session: Meta-Information environments in digital libraries
  Paper Session: Electronic publishing: obstacles to using electronic documents
  Paper Session: Digital libraries and support for geospatially-indexed information: towards a GeoLib
  Track B
  Panel Session: Evaluation of digital libraries
  Panel Session: Digital library users and interface design
  Paper Session: Images and visual information in digital libraries

  For the full program, see: http://www.alexandria.ucsb.edu/conferences/adl98/program.html

  The conference is sponsored by Alexandria Digital Library, CESDIS, IEEE Computer Society, Library of Congress, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and National Library of Medicine

  For further information including registration and local arrangements, see

  http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu/conferences/ADL98/

  General Chair:

  Sally Howe
  National Coordination Office
  For Computing, Information, and Communications
  howe@cicc.gov

  Program Chair:

  Terence R.Smith
  Department of Computer Science
  University of California at Santa Barbara
  smithtr@cs.ucsb.edu

• Museums and the Web: An International Conference, April 22-25, 1998, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  Professionals from museums, galleries and cultural organizations as well as consultants and technologists from around the world have registered for or been invited to attend the only International Conference in 1998 focused on Museums and the Web. In 1997, over 400 participants came to Los Angeles to hear reports and analyses by over 50 speakers from 11 countries. This year, a more extensive program features more than 60 speakers from 16 countries. Three days of conference sessions (April 23-25, 1998) aim to explore issues and controversies, highlight museum applications, and take an in-depth look at particular uses of the Web at exceptional museum sites. Other events will include an exhibition of on-line art "Beyond Interface: net art and art on the net", the second annual Best of the Web" juried museum web competition and on-line sessions.

  This conference has been organised by Archives & Museum Informatics and is sponsored by the Canadian Heritage Information Network.

• Information Online & Ondisc 99: Strategies for the Next Millennium, January 19-21, 1999, Sydney, Australia. Call for papers closes May 1, 1998.

  Innovative, practical and research papers are invited on all aspects of the electronic information environment. These include broad societal trends such as:

  • Social and cultural impacts of technological change
  • Strategic alliances and planning for the electronic information environment
  • Globalisation of information and education
  • Building electronic communities
  • Knowledge management and knowledge workers

  The program description also invites papers on the following:

  • Technology trends
    • Standards -- e.g. Z39.50, metadata, PICS
    • Data mining and data warehousing
    • Preservation and archiving
    • Document delivery
    • Push and pull technologies
    • Collaborative tools and groupware
  • Rights for the electronic age
    • Security
    • Privacy
    • Copyright, intellectual property, licensing
    • Authentication
    • The user and the law
  • Information management and retrieval
    • Marketing
    • Competitive intelligence
    • Searching -- searchers, search engines, filters
    • Intelligent agents
    • Resource evaluation
  • Interfaces
    • Convergence
    • Interfaces
    • Web design and architecture
    • Electronic publishing

  In addition proposals for subject focus sessions are invited. Examples include:

  • Government information
  • Law
  • Business and competitive intelligence
  • Education
  • Science and technology
  • Copyright and intellectual property rights

  The Conference is sponsored by the Information Science Section of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and includes presented papers, subject focus sessions, trade exhibits, an Internet Centre with specialized problem solving sessions, and pre- and post-conference events.

  For additional information see: http://www.csu.edu.au/special/online99

• Understanding and Using Metadata, May 11-13, 1998, Dublin, Ohio USA.

  Seminars in this new series offered by The OCLC Institute offer an intensive 2 and 1/2-day theoretical and practical exploration of metadata and its applications. The next seminar will take place May 11-13, 1998 in Dublin, Ohio.

  Participants will be provided the opportunities to:

  • Understand the foundations of resource description and its application to the Internet
  • Understand emerging Web standards such as XML, RDF, and the Dublin Core and their application in resource description systems
  • Evaluate your information management needs and determine the appropriateness of metadata for a variety of applications
  • Use Dublin Core metadata in a real-world application

  This seminar consists of lectures, structured lab exercises, and group discussions. First, participants will receive an overview of Web-based resource description systems and detailed instruction in the Dublin Core metadata. Then, as a member of a small project team, each participant will design and implement a MARC- or web server-based resource description system using metadata records for a "real-world" collection. Finally, participants will evaluate the resource description system in terms of design and functionality, including data input, storage, retrieval, and display.

  This seminar is designed especially for:

  • Internet/metadata catalogers
  • Systems librarians
  • Intranet managers
  • Knowledge managers
  • Anyone managing an information resource on an intranet or the Internet

  For complete details, including seminar dates and location information, and to register on-line, visit the OCLC Institute home page at http://purl.org/oclc/institute or contact Erik Jul at jul@oclc.org.

• International Joint Workshop on Digital Libraries, September 7-9, 1998, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand. Proposals to participate due by the end of May 1998.

  An International Joint Workshop on Digital Libraries will be held on September 7-9, 1998, at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. The three days will include a two-day School on Digital Libraries, with tutorials on networks, metadata, XML, and management issues for the benefit of librarians and information providers in Southeast Asia. On the third day, a scientific workshop will focus on multilingual retrieval and metadata registries. The scientific workshop will be the twelfth in a series of Digital Libraries Workshops sponsored and organized by the University of Library and Information Science (ULIS) in Tsukuba, Japan. Aside from ULIS, the three-day event will be sponsored by the Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand), Kasetsart University (Thailand), the Library Association of Thailand, and the National Center for Science Information Systems (Japan). Researchers interested in participating in the scientific workshop should submit a 2000-word extended abstract by the end of May 1998 to Thomas Baker <thomas.baker@cs.ait.ac.th> and Asanee Kawtrakul <akak@beethoven.cpe.ku.ac.th>.

• Information Landscapes for a Learning Society: Networking and the Future of Libraries,  June 29 - July 1, 1998, The University of Bath, UK.

  This is the third in the series Networking and the Future of Libraries; it marks the 21st anniversary of UKOLN and its antecedent organisations at the University of Bath.

  This conference takes as its starting point the construction of "information and learning landscapes". The four main sessions are:

  • Information architectures: constructing the digital library
  • Information landscapes: the accommodation of knowledge
  • Information and the public sphere: an informed citizenry
  • Information exchanges: the library, the network and the future

  Speakers include:

  • Brian Lang, Chief Executive, The British Library, UK
  • Peter Lyman, University Librarian, University of California, Berkeley, USA
  • Clifford Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information, USA

  The language of the conference will be English.

  Further information, including a booking form, can be found at:

  <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/ukoln-conf-98/>.

---

Pointers in This Column

Art Museum Image Consortium	http://www.amico.net
Building the Collections of the California Digital Library Susan S. Starr Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship (Winter 1998)	http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/98-winter/article2.html
Catalogo delle Biblioteche Liguri [Catalog of Ligurian Libraries]	http://opac.regione.liguria.it/cgi-win/hiweb.exe/a3
CIMI Dublin Core Metadata Testbed Call for Participation	http://www.cimi.org/documents/metafinalCFP.html
Digital Libraries Initiative -- Phase 2 (solicitation)	http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/dli/start.htm
Digitisation Summer School '98 Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute July 5-18, 1998 Glasgow, UK	http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/HATII/Courses/SummerDigi98/index.html
EC Metadata Workshop December 1-2, 1997 Luxembourg Report	http://hosted.ukoln.ac.uk/ec/metadata-1997/
EU-NSF Working Group on Metadata	http://www.si.umich.edu/UMDL/EU_Grant/home.htm
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) Report on Funding (available as of April 1, 1998)	http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/HATII//HLFICT/.
IEEE ADL '98: Advances in Digital Libraries Conference April 22-24, 1998 Santa Barbara, California USA Call for participation	http://www.alexandria.ucsb.edu/conferences/adl98
Impact of the Internet on Pennsylvania Public Libraries Report	http://research.umbc.edu/~bertot/OnLinePA.html
Information Landscapes for a Learning Society: Networking and the Future of Libraries June 29 - July 1, 1998 The University of Bath, UK	http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/ukoln-conf-98/
Information Online & Ondisc 99: Strategies for the Next Millennium January 19-21, 1999 Sydney, Australia Call for papers	http://www.csu.edu.au/special/online99
Internet Risks and Liability: An Intensive One-Day Workshop March 25, 1998 Baltimore, Maryland USA	http://www.sce.cornell.edu/html/irl.html
Managing Metadata for The Digital Library: Crosswalks or Chaos May 4-5, 1998, Washington, DC USA	http://www.ala.org/alcts/events/institutes/metadata.html
MARC and the Year 2000	http://www.loc.gov/marc/yr2000.html
Metadata Registries Workshop April 15-17, 1998 Washington, DC Call for Participation	ftp://sdct-sunsrv1.ncsl.nist.gov/x3l8/other/registry-workshop/meta00.htm
Museums and the Web An International Conference April 22-25, 1998 Toronto, Ontario, Canada	http://www.archimuse.com/mw98
Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures	http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/sawhtml/sawhome.html
Third International Summer School on the Digital Library August 2 - 14, 1998 Tilburg, The Netherlands	http://cwis.kub.nl/~ticer/
Twenty-Sixth Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference October 3-5, 1998 Alexandria, Virginia USA Call for Papers	http://www.si.umich.edu/~prie/tprc/
Understanding and Using Metadata May 11-13, 1998 Dublin, Ohio USA.	http://www.oclc.org/institute/metadata.htm
W3C RDF Resource Description Format Draft Specification	http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-rdf-syntax/

Copyright (c) 1998 Corporation for National Research Initiatives

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