D-Lib Magazine
October 2001

Volume 7 Number 10

ISSN 1082-9873

In Brief

DINI (Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerk Information) - The German Initiative of Networked Information

Contributed by:
Friederike Schimmelpfennig
DINI (Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerk Information)
Berlin, Germany
<schimmelpfennig@rz.hu-berlin.de>

Following the example of the Coalition of Networked Information (CNI) in the United States, in January 1999 the German Initiative of Networked Information was founded in Germany as a coalition including libraries, media centers, computing centers, and the Initiative for Information and Communication of the Learned Societies. Ten propositions formulated in Information-Infrastructure in Changing: Challenges for Universities and their Information and Communication Service Centers, published in 1998, provided the basis for DINI's work.

DINI has as its mission the promotion of local, regional, and national cooperation in building information infrastructures. Central to this mission are the advancement of structural change within German academic information service facilities and strong support of information exchange and cooperation within universities.

Information services cannot be improved without first taking into account the wishes and requirements of scientists and students. DINI supports and coordinates the development of common solutions for scientific information services. To achieve its goals, DINI has created working groups to deal with specialized topics and to conduct workshops and meetings. Members of these working groups include representatives of libraries, media centres, computing centres, and the scientific community. The composition of the working groups guarantees that contributions will reflect diverse approaches and interests. Furthermore, this diversity of membership on working groups enables the establishment of best practice models, which are promoted nation-wide. Current working group topics focus on documentation and retrieval of multi-media documents and virtual teaching material, development of virtual teaching materials, development and use of video conferencing systems, management of public computer access in universities, provision of information services, adoption of standards for electronic publishing, and adherence to the standards of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI).

A major change in publishing is taking place in Germany. Increasing numbers of universities are developing or employing methods for publishing their scientific material electronically. With electronic publication, students and scientists can publish their research quickly and at low cost. The information services facility, however, must provide the technical means to do so and also must provide guidance on structuring and formatting such publications. One combined effort to develop these tools was "Dissertationen Online" which provided a complete workflow for authors. However, the existence and use of other electronic publishing models presented an obstacle for easy access to materials created using different tools. To achieve greater interoperability, the "DINI Appeal for Implementation of the Open Archive Standards" promotes the implementation of the OAI Harvesting Protocol and the use of Dublin Core Metadata to enable users to have access to all these distributed document servers. DINI conducted two seminars on the technical details of the implementation carried out by DINI and helped the OAI specifications to be disseminated. Thus far, five document servers (archives) in Germany have become OAI-compliant.

Transitions are not only occurring in terms of technical development. Organisational structures are changing also. Due to restricted budgets, the cooperation of information service facilities becomes crucial to these transitions. Libraries, computing centres, and media centres must find new ways to fill their users' needs. As mentioned before, DINI strongly promotes information exchange; however, there is more to it. Service facilities could be united to become one organizational structure with one common budget. To find out how such restructuring could be carried out, DINI is conducting a survey of existing cooperative projects to determine the impact these projects have had on their organizations. With the information gained from the survey, DINI will be able to provide an overview about ongoing technical and organizational re-structuring in German Higher Education service facilities and can support cooperation by coordinating developments.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) supports the DINI initiative; therefore clients are not only universities but also universities of applied sciences. Closer contact between these two types of Higher Education institutions is desirable. Taking part in DINI workshops, seminars, and annual meetings provides the opportunity for members of various institutions to share interests and experiences. The next annual meeting will take place on 4 December 2001 in Bonn. The meeting will focus on the transition of information service facilities in German Higher Education. The meeting will be composed of three parts: one part will concentrate on the national and federal state's Higher Education policies, the second part will present regional and local adoption of these policies; and the third part will present the research and development results of DINI working groups, including the results of the aforementioned survey.

For further information about the meeting, please contact the DINI General Office, c/o Humboldt-University, Computing Centre, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany.

Online information about DINI may be found at:

DINI: <http://www.dini.de>
CNI: <http://www.cni.org>
"Information-Infrastructure in Changing":
<http://www.tu-dresden.de/agbibrz/theses.htm>
Dissertationen Online: <http://www.dissonline.de>
DINI-appeal for the implementation of the OAI specifications: <http://www.dini.de/dokumente/appealengl.pdf>
Open Archives Initiative: <http://www.openarchives.org>

The Norwegian Museum Project

Contributed by:
Øyvind Eide
Assistant Director
The Museum Project
P.O. Box 1123 Blindern
0317 Oslo, Norway
<oyvind.eide@muspro.uio.no>

Norwegian university museums are custodians of large bodies of knowledge and data, both historical and current, about societies, culture, nature and the environment in Norway. An important role of the university museums has been the compilation and dissemination of this information. Historically, museums have formed the nucleus for the founding of Norwegian colleges and universities.

Due to the magnitude and the organization of the university collections, they have not been readily accessible for use in research, teaching and public services or for inspection by the general public. In order to maintain their position as the country's leading institutions and information pools for object-based research, university museums must revitalize their collections.

An important step in this process is the introduction of information technology at all levels in the museums. However, this calls for an extremely costly reassessment and conversion of existing archives into digital format, requiring extra effort and additional funding. In some cases, establishing these databases will entail a complete revision of museum collections.

The Museum Project was established in the spring of 1998 as a national collaborative project involving all four Norwegian universities. It is planned to run until 2005 with an annual budget of 1-2 million Euro. The aims to develop common database systems for the management of collections for all the Norwegian universities museums. Ideally, these database systems should be able to handle all reference information related to artifact and specimen collections inside and outside the museums. Important aspects include internal requirements regarding the management of collections, fieldwork, research and dissemination, and external demands from the authorities and the public concerning access to reference data.

The work is motivated by an ambition to develop IT-based systems that will offer users centralized and efficient access to information regarding the Norwegian cultural and natural heritage. With the help of common user interfaces and links between data from different fields of study, it will be possible to generate new information combinations and new insights in the various disciplines.

The Museum Project includes a systems development group responsible for modeling and constructing the databases. In addition, the project employs scientific consultants situated at the museums for each of 15 sub-projects. Each consultant is responsible for follow-up of the scientific aspects of the digitization process and works in close cooperation with colleagues in the relevant field and with the project's system developers.

The Museum Project involves the museums of natural history as well as the museums of cultural history. It is organized in various subsections, with sub-projects in the fields of archaeology, ethnography, cultural history, botany, zoology, geology and palaeontology. Each of the sub-projects is responsible for the digitization of large collections -- some so complex that even developing an overview is difficult. Once the digitized material is recorded, it undergoes a quality control procedure before being entered into databases. The computer programs and methods used for the electronic recording of data are determined by the structure of each collection, and to some extent by the traditions of each discipline. The completed databases are all built on the same platform. This implies that while each database accommodates the specific features of each collection, the different databases will nonetheless be interoperable with one another.

For more information about the Museum Project, visit the project web site at <http://www.muspro.uio.no>.

Report on the Inaugural International Conference of MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Teaching)

Contributed by:
Edward M. Cooper
CEO
MERLOT
Boulder, Colorado, USA
<ecooper@merlot.org>

The Inaugural International Conference of MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Teaching) was held in Tampa, Florida on August 12 - 15, 2001. The University of South Florida hosted the conference.

The MERLOT Conference attracted over 400 participants from the ranks of faculty, librarians, instructional designers, academic administrators, technical support specialists, faculty development professionals, members of professional organizations, authors of instructional materials as well as MERLOT users and potential Institutional Partners.

Through over fifty sessions and roundtables, the Conference served to:

• Showcase the ways in which authors and faculty use MERLOT learning materials in their classrooms

• Enable discipline communities to share information on teaching and learning with web-based materials

• Provide hands-on practical experiences

• Promote discussion among shared content providers

• Enhance the arena of digital scholarship.

In all, the Conference enabled participants to enhance their learning about such topics as shared content, peer reviews, learning objects, standards and online communities. The conference schedule and the links to presentations are available on the MERLOT website at <http://taste.merlot.org/conference/program.html>.

In the Opening Plenary Session, "Conditions for Transformation: Infrastructure is not the Issue," Carole Barone and Paul Hagner asserted that the role of technology in teaching and learning may take four forms: technology literacy, classroom presentations, discipline/specific applications and, finally and importantly, systemic applications. They cited twelve campus conditions for transformation: choices, courage, capacity/competency, complexity/confusion, creativity, cooperation, commitment, consistency, curriculum, culture/context, community and communication, but they indicated that the most important elements for systemic change in the use of technology for learning and teaching are leadership, inclusion and communication. Distributed learning, the authors maintained, requires institution-wide transformation that involves reconceptualizing the curriculum, and such transformation requires flexible and energetic governance processes. Moreover, the degree of transformation is determined by the degree of tangible commitment by the institution itself.

Other sessions at the Conference focused on the "Use of Digital Learning Objects to Stimulate Creativity in Problem Solving," "Interactive Learning Strategies in Mathematics," "Tricks and Tips for Using Blackboard Tools," and "An Introduction to MERLOT."

In a Keynote Session, "From Craft to Connoisseurship: Learning for Scholarship in the Construction of Learning Objects," Peter Taylor of the Griffith Institute suggested that although the use of information and communication technologies in all areas of the operation of Australian universities is expanding rapidly, there is only limited research on their impact on student learning. Also, he suggested that because faculty involvement in the development of learning objects can be at the expense of their research productivity, there is need for recognition and reward for this type of faculty work. MERLOT, he indicated, is a response to the challenge of disseminating much-needed information about learning objects as well as the knowledge behind their design and construction. For a complete text of Taylor's presentation, go to: <http://taste.merlot.org/conference/presentations/craft.html>.

The Second International MERLOT Conference is in the planning stage. Look for a future announcement of the date and location.

The Digital Library for Earth System Education - Version 1.0 Released

Contributed by:
Mary Marlino
Director, DLESE Program Center (DPC)
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Box 300
Boulder, Colorado, USA
<marlino@ucar.edu>

The Community Vision

Science educators have repeatedly called for an information system that can effectively deliver quality educational materials in readily accessible formats, with a high degree of confidence in their usefulness, interest, and effectiveness. In the past two years, the Earth system education community has organized and begun development of the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE), a community-sponsored and community-governed digital library.

What is DLESE?

DLESE serves the unique needs of earth system educators and learners at all academic levels, in both formal and informal settings, by providing:

• Interfaces and tools to allow exploration of geospatial materials and Earth data by educators and learners.

• Rapid, sophisticated access to collections of peer-reviewed teaching and learning resources.

• Digital and human-mediated services to help users effectively create and use learning resources.

• A community center to facilitate sharing and collaboration among Earth system educators and learners.

To date, significant progress has been made on many aspects of the library building process: the community has been organized, a governance structure has been established, a useful collection is available, a community center is emerging, and a working version of the library is now in use. Version 1.0, available at <http://www.dlese.org>, was officially released on August 1, 2001. An important long-term goal of DLESE is to be an integral part of the larger National SMETE Digital Library.

A distinguishing mark of DLESE is its grass-roots foundation and its emphasis on participatory design. These demands of library scalability and sustainability will be met by effectively harnessing the energy of the Earth science community while simultaneously exploiting advances in digital library technologies. In the same way that the Earth system approach provides unifying principles for understanding interactions among the many components of the Earth system, we hope that DLESE will facilitate interactions and cultural change that promote the integration of research into education, reflection on and improvements in teaching processes, and ultimately, increased understanding and stewardship of our earth.

Mary Marlino, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Tamara Sumner, The University of Colorado
David Fulker, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Cathryn Manduca, Carleton College
David Mogk, Montana State University

Index to Theses: Electronic Submissions Project

Contributed by:
Caroline Milner
Pilot Project Administrator
Index to Theses
United Kingdom
<contact@theses.com>

Index to Theses is the most comprehensive listing of British theses accepted for higher degrees by UK and Irish Universities. The service is currently available by subscription to the combined print/online versions.

Index to Theses was first published in 1950 as a SCONUL initiative undertaken by Aslib. The publication, issued semi-annually, covered the titles of theses with bibliographic details. In 1986, Expert Information Ltd. acquired Index to Theses from Aslib and developed the publication by including abstracts, doubling the publishing frequency and developing a CD-ROM version (since replaced with the current online version available on the internet at <http://www.theses.com>).

With the help of a development grant awarded by JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee), Index to Theses has successfully completed a web-based submissions pilot project designed to facilitate the flow of theses information to the service and, thus, improve the process for submitting universities, authors and users of theses alike.

The pilot, which ran throughout 2000, was developed to test the feasibility of automating the current manual submissions process so that data may be submitted for publication via the Internet. In the future, being able to submit theses this way would result in a more efficient and richer service by both accelerating the publishing process and increasing the amount of relevant information made available on each thesis. Also, electronically sharing the information with the British Library Thesis Service would streamline the submission procedure currently used.

Currently, information for inclusion in Index to Theses is sent and processed manually by the publisher, Expert Information Ltd, before being published in both the print version and online service. At the time of writing, the pilot project for Internet submission is only at the development phase; therefore, it is important that the pilot project is not confused with, or seen as a substitute for, the current agreed procedures used to notify either the British Library or Index to Theses.

The Internet-based submissions programme -- monitored by UTOG, the University Theses Online Group -- was tested rigorously throughout 2000 with the support of several university test sites.

For the project to develop further, however, Index to Theses requires comprehensive adoption of the electronic submissions procedure and Expert Information is encouraging all UK universities to participate. The JISC Scholarly Communication Group has endorsed the extension of the pilot project as part of JISC's support for access to electronic content in Higher Education and Further Education institutions.

Chichen Itza and other Mayan Ruins Online

Contributed by:
Kristan Runyan
Communications Manager
OhioLink
<kristan@ohiolink.edu>

Visitors to Mexico and other Central American countries often make visits to Mayan ruins a part of their trip. Popular Mayan ruins, including Chichen Itza, Copan, and Tikal, can now be viewed online. Hundreds of images from these and other Mayan sites are available for viewing and downloading in the Social Studies Database, a resource located in the OhioLINK Digital Media Center.

Ballcourt: Corbelled Archway, Coban, Honduras
Copyright Linda T. Grimm, Department of Anthropology, Oberlin College. Used with permission.

Visit <http://worlddmc.ohiolink.edu/SocialStudies/Login> to search for these sites. This online resource provides visitors and researchers, a chance to view important elements of the ruins before their trip, or review these ruins after their return.

The Mayan image collection was contributed by Oberlin College faculty and library staff. Professor Linda Grimm, associate professor of anthropology and project coordinator at Oberlin, explained the educational goals for this online project.

"Over the past 20 years, scholars have developed a new appreciation for the social, economic and political factors that were important in the development and decline of Classic Maya society (200 B.C. to 1000 A.D.). The Maya were organized into roughly fifty independent city-states that were spread over 100,000 square miles of present day Central America. As a resource for the exploration of the various and complex interrelationships within Mayan society, this collection serves as basic image resource which the creators hope will be augmented by other scholars in the field. It comprises over 500 high resolution images of major Mayan archeological sites photographed between 1970-2000," Grimm said.

Professor Grimm utilized her own slide images with generous contributions from the collections of Lawrence Myers, Professor Geoffrey Braswell (SUNY Buffalo), and Amy Greco in the creation of the collection.

Future OhioLINK projects planned for public access are the inclusion of Ohio University's Scripps Archive in the Archival & Historic Collections database, and additional photographs, manuscripts, and other archives with a special emphasis on Ohio collections. Additional projects are being actively solicited.

OhioLINK is an academic library consortium that includes 78 Ohio universities, colleges, community colleges, and the State Library of Ohio. The Ohio Board of Regents determined the need for a network of libraries in 1989, and in 1992, a statewide central catalog went live. Now more than 600,000 students, faculty and staff in 79 institutions have access to OhioLINK's integrated local and central catalogs, an online borrowing system, nearly 100 research databases including full-text resources, a multi-publisher online journal collection, and document delivery services.

New England Technical Services Librarians (NETSL) Award for Excellence in Library Technical Services

Contributed by:
Christina Bellinger
Member-At-Large
NETSL
Durham, New Hampshire, USA
<christina.bellinger@unh.edu>

NETSL (New England Technical Services Librarians) has a long history, beginning with an American Library Association (ALA) conference in 1922, where the idea to promote regional groups for the discussion of cataloging was introduced to the membership. The Boston Regional Group of Cataloguers and Classifiers (BRGCC) was formed in 1923. In 1959, the group voted to change its name to New England Technical Services Librarians. Then, when the New England Library Association (NELA) was formed in 1962, NETSL members voted to become a section of NELA, while still maintaining NETSL's status as a regional group of ALA. NETSL is affiliated with the Association of Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) of ALA, and is part of the Council of Regional Groups.

Today, NETSL's bylaws state our purpose: "to bring together for the exchange of ideas and discussion of problems all persons in the region interested in technical services in libraries and to cooperate with regional and national agencies having related interests." NETSL is known for its lively and provocative Spring Meetings, generally held in April at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and for its programs and discussion groups held as part of NELA's Annual Conferences in October.

The first annual NETSL Award for Excellence in Library Technical Services was awarded to Lynda Kresge of Harvard University in April 2001. The NETSL Award recognizes and honors significant New England-based contributions to the field of library technical services. Such contributions may have been made by librarians from throughout the United States that benefit New England, or may have been contributions made by librarians residing in New England that benefit the nation as a whole. The contributions may have been made through publication, service, or innovation in technical services practice.

Currently, NETSL is seeking nominations for the second annual NETSL Award for Excellence in Library Technical Services. At their February meeting, the NETSL Executive Board members select a recipient based on nominations received. If none of the nominees in a given year are deemed worthy, the Board reserves the right to suspend the Award for that year.

The next NETSL Award will be presented at the annual NETSL spring conference at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts on April 12, 2002.

Eligibility for nomination is as follows:

• Nominees may be NETSL/NELA members, but membership in the association is not a requirement.

• A nomination must be accompanied by a written statement that includes the rationale for nomination and, if a resume of the nominee is not appended, a narrative summary of the nominee's career and achievements. (Provision of a resume, if available, is strongly recommended.)

• Nominations may be made by NETSL members, as well as by non-members.

• Nominations and statement(s) must be postmarked no later than January 10, 2002, and must be received by the NETSL Vice-President no later than January 15.

• Librarians who are current members of the NETSL Executive Board are not eligible for consideration.

• Nominees shall have made contributions to library technical services in one or more of the following areas:
  1. Leadership in professional associations at local, state, regional or national level;
  2. Contributions to the development, application or utilization of new or improved formats, methods, techniques and routines;
  3. Significant contribution to professional literature;
  4. Conduct of studies or research in the technical services.

The award recipient will receive an elegant certificate containing an inscription recognizing his/her special contribution to the field.

Please send nominations and inquiries to:

Karl Fattig
NETSL Vice-President/President-Elect
Technical Services Manager / Catalog Librarian
Hawthorne-Longfellow Library
Bowdoin College
3000 College Station
Brunswick, ME 04011-8421

Email: <kfattig@bowdoin.edu>
Phone: (207) 725-3027.

To learn more about NETSL, including a list of previous conference titles and access to online conference reports, information about joining NETSL, access to the online membership directory, and information about the NETSL Award, please see <http://www.nelib.org/netsl/indexnew.html>.

Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access (SEPIA)

Contributed by:
Edwin Klijn
Preservation Project Officer
European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
<ecpa@bureau.knaw.nl>

About SEPIA

In 1999 the European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA) [1] initiated a project aimed at the long-term preservation of all kinds of photographic materials and defining the role of new technology in collection management, called SEPIA (Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access) [2]. The project was set up explicitly to bring together representatives from different types of institutions that hold photographs: libraries, archives and museums, as well as from research institutes. SEPIA was funded by the European Union under the Culture 2000 program for one year.

The success of these activities encouraged the partners to formulate a follow-up program for another three years (2000-2003), which was selected as a result of the latest call for proposals of the Culture 2000 program. SEPIA II once more actively promotes exchange of ideas and experiences on a cross-institutional, international level, sharing the same objectives on which the ECPA was originally founded.

The project's main focus will be on organizing training and public awareness events. Annual workshops on management of photographic collections will be held to provide basic education about preservation and digitization of photographic materials. The third one-week workshop, held in Amsterdam last September, brought together digitization as well as preservation professionals to encourage exchange of expertise and ideas between these, often strictly separated, disciplines. SEPIA promotes cross-departmental management, integrating preservation and digitization issues.

To expand the pool of experts who are able to provide adequate training in photographic preservation and/or digital imaging, a two-day seminar to 'train the trainers' is scheduled for the 22nd and 23rd of October. The seminar will focus on the possible contents of courses as well as organizational and didactic issues, providing participants with tools, examples and materials to develop courses and workshops in their own institutions or countries. The aim of the seminar is to come to a European-wide range of national training activities of various types that will take place in the second and third years of the SEPIA project.

Apart from training, SEPIA partners will also do research into four different topics:

• scanning equipment and preservation requirements
• cataloguing and description of photographic materials
• preservation and digitization of photographic materials (2002)
• ethics of digitization (2003)

Several public events will be taking place to convey to the general public the wealth of the photographic heritage and the importance of photography for the documentation of our past. SEPIA partners will contribute photographs from their collections to create a virtual exhibition around the theme of 'Constructing Europe'. In 2003, the Finnish Museum of Photography will host the closing conference on photographic collections.

About the website

The new SEPIA website (http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia) not only contains information about the latest developments in the project, but also serves as an information center to anyone interested in preservation of photographic collections. The 'bibliographic search engine' (http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/linksandlit.html) includes 367 references to online and offline resources, covering a wide range of topics on handling, storage, digitization and conservation of photographic materials. These references have been collected and selected by the SEPIA partners. The 'To Have and To Hold' sub-site (http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/photo) offers short introductions to the history of photography, historical photographic processes, digitization, and preservation of photographic materials. Furthermore, the SEPIA website offers practical information of related organizations, training activities and projects in Europe.

The SEPIA website is meant to serve as a discussion platform, inviting all those working in the field of photographic preservation to exchange experiences and views. To keep up to date, please visit the news section (http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/events.html) regularly or join the SEPIA mailing list (http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/mailing.html).

For more information contact the ECPA secretariat:
Email: <ecpa@bureau.knaw.nl> Tel: +31 20 551 08 39
Fax: +31 20 620 49 41

[1] ECPA website: http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/

[2] SEPIA website: http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia. Partners are:
The British Library (London, United Kingdom)
European Commission on Preservation and Access (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Finnish Museum of Photography (Helsinki, Finland)
National Photographic Conservation Studios (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
National Library of Spain (Madrid, Spain)
Public Record Office (Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom)
Royal Library of Denmark (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Stockholm City Museum (Stockholm, Sweden)

Associate partners are:
Centre de Recherches sur la Conservation des Documents Graphiques (Paris, France)
International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Technische Universität Dresden, Institüt für Angewandte Photophysik (Dresden, Germany)
Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Norwegian Museum Authority, Secretariat for Historical Photography (Oslo, Norway)
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Sächsische Landesbibliothek -Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, Deutsche Fotothek (Dresden, Germany)
University College Dublin, Department of Archaeology (Dublin, Ireland)

In the News

Recent Press Releases and Announcements

NISO Standards Committee to revise Library Statistics Standard

"Bethesda, Md., USA – (October 12, 2001) NISO, the National Information Standards Organization, has announced the formation of a committee to revise ANSI/NISO Z39.7-1995, the Library Statistics Standard. The committee will recommend incorporating improvements based on the existing survey instruments in use by nationally recognized U.S. library data collection programs. They are also charged to review the revised base standard in light of evolving methods of measuring electronic network performance, vendor and publisher-based use statistics, reporting methods, and service quality measures; and to advise NISO on how best to integrate new measures into Z39.7 and/or suggest other appropriate approaches (such as nationally supported best practices or guidelines) that over time might lead to the development of national consensus standards."

The Library Statistics Standard was first released in 1968, and revised in 1983 and 1995. With each revision the standard has grown and changed. When the 1995 edition of the Library Statistics Standard was released, the committee that developed it acknowledged that the standard did not address two important emerging areas: measurement of electronic resources and performance measures. It was recommended that these issues be examined at the next five-year review point."

"The Committee is chaired by Denise Davis, Director, Statistics & Surveys US National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS). Committee members are: Brian Auger (Howard County Public Library), John Carlo Bertot (Florida State University, SIS), Dianne Carty (Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners), Oliver Pesch (EBSCO Publishing), Sue Phillips (University of Texas at Austin), Sherrie Smith (Arizona State University Libraries), Patricia Stevens (OCLC, Inc.), Maurice Travillian (Maryland State Dept. of Education), Ann Carlson Weeks (University of Maryland), and Peter Young (Library of Congress)."

NISO press releases may be found at <http://www.niso.org/nisonews.html>.

The DOI Promise Delivered

Three DOI Registration Agencies demonstrate how to commercially implement the DOI to trade and sell digital intellectual property and protect copyright
(Deutsche Version: <http://www.doi.org/news/011009-Frank-Deutsch.html>.

"Frankfurt, October 10, 2001 - The Digital Object Identifier [DOI] presentation (9:30 - 12:00 PM Europa Room, Hall 4.0) demonstrated how publishers can use a DOI to control, trade and sell their content electronically while protecting copyright. This year's event marks the delivery of commercial implementations and the unveiling of demonstrations from the three initial DOI Registration Agencies -- CrossRef (USA), Content Directions (USA) and Enpia Systems (Korea). This event marked a milestone for the trading of electronic intellectual property for all the content industries, initiated by publishers."

"Ed Pentz, Executive Director of CrossRef, the source for online citation linking in the scholarly community and the first DOI Registration Agency, has already registered over 3.4 million DOIs for journal articles, conference proceedings and scholarly books. A demonstration of citation linking in conference proceedings and multiple resolution in journal articles was presented. The latter showed how a single DOI located within an article simultaneously leads to associated information about the author, the journal homepage, table of contents, metadata in XML format, an erratum, and rights information for online reprint permission."

"David Sidman, CEO of Content Directions and technical head of the official DOI for eBooks working group, unveiled how primary publishers and service vendors can use a DOI throughout the entire supply chain to control, trade and sell content electronically and profitably. Particularly highlighted was how to make every hyper-link a sales opportunity, to make purchases for the customer easier, to use DOIs to combine text, images and audio to make ebooks, and how to cross-link content on the Internet or between ebooks and PDFs...."

"Edward Ju, Executive Vice President of Enpia Systems, the first official DOI Registration Agency in Asia appointed in May 2001, demonstrated how the DOI can be applied to Digital Rights Management (DRM). At the Europa event, Ju showed specifically how DRM is built upon DOIs from the point of DOI number issuance...."

"Norman Paskin, Director of the International DOI Foundation said, 'The DOI is a key event in the creation of content management for digital networks, built on sound foundations and Internet technology developed by one of the original inventors of the Internet and TCP/IP protocol, Robert Kahn. Launched in 1997 in Frankfurt, by and for publishers, the DOI System was developed to deliver useful tools for digital commerce. At this year's Frankfurt [Book Fair], we have now delivered on that promise. The DOI Registration Agency demonstrations showed how a publisher can facilitate the sale of digital intellectual property while enabling the management and protection of copyright. This year's event marks a milestone for the publishing industry and the unveiling of proven commercial implementations that can be applied to text, images, audio, and audio visual content.'"

"The DOI was launched in response to a series of calls from the publishing community for consistent and useful tools for digital commerce. The International DOI Foundation has now provided a well-respected and proven capability, with the potential for ubiquitous use in digital commerce of content. The DOI provides the basis of a key aim of publishers: to facilitate the use of their material in a legal, controllable, and easy to manage way. Unveiling the power of the DOI System at Frankfurt communicates to the content world at large that the publishing community is ready to facilitate the sale of digital intellectual property while enabling the management and protection of copyright."

The full press release is at <http://www.doi.org/news/011009-Frank-English.html>.

CrossRef Steps Up Pace of Linking Developments

"Burlington, MA, October 10, 2001 - CrossRef, a publisher collaborative that enables researchers to navigate online journals via DOI-based citation links, is stepping up its cross-publisher linking initiatives."

"According to Amy Brand, Director of Business Development, 'CrossRef is committed to providing the scholarly community with an increasing number of linked journals, a wider selection of connected information sources beyond journals and STM content, and a vehicle for greater collaboration amongst publishers, librarians, and vendors.' Brand has been instrumental in CrossRef's membership growth since joining in April 2001."

"Embracing internal system improvements as well as member and affiliate outreach, CrossRef has implemented the following developments:

• A prototype solution to the 'appropriate copy' problem combining OpenURL, CrossRef, and Ex Libris' SFX localized linking technologies to redirect DOI links to a library's local holdings

• Partnering with Atypon Systems -- a Santa Clara, CA-based software and business services company for the STM information arena -- in a comprehensive upgrade to CrossRef's linking capabilities.

• Extending its services to books and conference proceedings, using an XML schema developed for CrossRef by Inera, an SGML and XML consulting and software services company specializing in STM publishing, based in Newton, MA."

"CrossRef now has 83 members and 23 affiliates from the library and information communities. Among recent publishers to join are the Massachusetts Medical Society, which publishes The New England Journal of Medicine, BioMed Central, an independent publisher providing biomedical researchers with free access to more than 50 peer-reviewed online journals; S. Karger AG, medical and scientific publishers since 1890; and Sage Publications, extending CrossRef's journal coverage well into the humanities and social sciences. This brings the total number of CrossRef journals to 5,100, encompassing over 3.5 million article records."

The full press release is at <http://www.crossref.org/press1010.htm>.

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set Approved

"Bethesda, Md., USA – (October 5, 2001) NISO, the National Information Standards Organization and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) announce the approval by ANSI of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (Z39.85-2001). DCMI began in 1995 with an invitational workshop in Dublin, Ohio that brought together librarians, digital library researchers, content providers, and text-markup experts to improve discovery standards for information resources. The original Dublin Core emerged as a small set of descriptors that quickly drew global interest from a wide variety of information providers in the arts, sciences, education, business, and government sectors."

"Metadata is structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use or manage an information resource. The Dublin Core was originally developed to be simple and concise, and to describe Web-based documents. The current standard defines fifteen metadata elements for resource description in a cross-disciplinary information environment. These elements are: title, subject, description, source, language, relation, coverage, creator, publisher, contributor, rights, date, type, format, and identifier."

"Commenting on the approval, Stuart Weibel, Executive Director of DCMI, said: "The approval of Z39.85 formalizes a long period of consensus building representing the efforts of hundreds of people, and all participants can take pride in what this community has built." The NISO committee was chaired by John Kunze (University of California/National Library of Medicine) and included Rebecca Guenther (Library of Congress), Marjorie Hlava (Access Innovations, Inc.), Clifford Morgan (John Wiley & Sons Ltd.) and John Perkins (CIMI Consortium)."

"The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (http://dublincore.org) is an organization dedicated to promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards and developing specialized metadata vocabularies for describing resources that enable more intelligent information discovery systems. DCMI will act as the maintenance agency for the Dublin Core Metadata Element set standard."

"This standard is available for free downloading or hardcopy purchase at: <http://www.techstreet.com/>" [Editor's note: in a later message from NISO, the following link to the standard was given: <http://www.techstreet.com/cgi-bin/detail?product_id=926135>.]

NISO press releases may be found at <http://www.niso.org/nisonews.html>.

California Digital Library and Berkeley Electronic Press Announce Partnership for Scholarly Communication Initiatives

"The California Digital Library and Berkeley Electronic Press today (Thursday, Oct. 4) announced a partnership to advance innovations in scholarly communication."

"Through the partnership, the California Digital Library (CDL) will make a suite of electronic publishing tools from the Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) available to University of California researchers. The tools enable rapid and low-cost creation, management and online publication of electronic journals, discussion papers series and other electronic forms of scholarship."

"The partnership is an important development for the library's eScholarship program supporting scholar-led innovations in online dissemination of research from the University of California and beyond."

"The eScholarship program (escholarship.cdlib.org) is actively supporting new electronic publications and services for tobacco control research, environmental science, international and area studies, and dermatology research, among others. The newly forged partnership will extend new capabilities to those and additional fields."

"The bepress technology will allow, for example, multiple 'eprint' repositories in the social sciences to be created and integrated, thus supporting the emergence of a primary source of information for students and researchers in either a specific or a broad-based academic discipline."

New models in scholarly communication

"The California Digital Library and The Berkeley Electronic Press have similar motivations and visions for improving scholarly communication. Creative use of technology to quickly, efficiently, and cheaply distribute research results is chief among them. Access to research will be enhanced by rapid dissemination, by nearly unlimited additional materials such as images, animations and original datasets, and by automating much of the editing and peer review process."

"A practical example of this shared vision is eNvironment, a new online peer-reviewed journal in development for support by the CDL and enabled by bepress software. Overseen by a multidisciplinary editorial board from UCLA, eNvironment will provide cutting-edge research, supported by integrated multimedia files, executable files and similar materials, on environmental topics."

"Creating alternatives to traditional publishing that overcome its inefficiencies is another part of the shared vision. Researchers often wait many months to have their work published, with delays at every stage. Among the major sources of frustration are long lag times during peer-review, revisions, and the wait for articles until an entire issue of a journal is filled."

"The Berkeley Electronic Press system reduces such bottlenecks and their costs, while providing online tools for quality control and peer review that are appropriate for various forms and stages of scholarship."

"The California Digital Library established its eScholarship program to support scholars ready to address these issues and experiment with alternatives. 'CDL is committed to the concept of scholar-led innovations in the communication of research,' says Catherine Candee, director of CDL's Scholarly Communication Initiatives."

"'Providing bepress editorial tools to our faculty partners and hosting their content online is a great way to further this aim,' she says. 'Now, a research institute at UCLA or a lab at UC Berkeley can use an eScholarship hosted eprint server or electronic journal to release their work. There is no reason these new publications could not be extended to other members of their disciplines, fostering broad-based change.'"

"The Berkeley Electronic Press system is a comprehensive and easy-to-use tool for scholarly publishing. University of California researchers interested in establishing a new electronic journal, preprint (i.e., non-refereed) series or other form of scholarly communication will be able to customize their product's presentation, policies and functionality."

"For example, some researchers may wish to use The Authors & Reviewers' Bank, a component that allows editors to track scholars' contributions as writers and referees. Others might wish to employ the bepress journal family concept, whereby multiple unique journals concentrating on a single subject area share editorial boards and peer evaluation mechanisms."

"Like many of the features within the bepress system, these elements are modular; as a result, each journal or preprint series will have its own unique look and feel."

"'We have created a range of tools that are ideally suited for this type of partnership,' says Robert Cooter, co-CEO of The Berkeley Electronic Press. 'The primary goal of our company is to place the publishing power in the hands of the individual researcher. Our relationship with the California Digital Library ensures that cutting-edge research will be more readily available, with lower barriers of access. We are quite pleased to have the insight of CDL and its member communities to help shape our future efforts.'"

The full press release with details of this partnership may be found at either <http://www.cdlib.org/about/publications/BepressPressRelease10-4-01.pdf> or <http://www.bepress.com/press.html>."

OCLC Researchers Find Slowdown in Web Growth

"DUBLIN, Ohio, Oct. 4, 2001 -- In its annual survey of the World Wide Web, the OCLC Office of Research has determined that the number of public web sites continues to expand but at a slower rate, the distribution of public web sites over countries and languages has been stable over the last several years, and that information and professional consulting industries operate the largest proportion of web sites."

"'We may be witnessing the cresting of the first wave of new web site providers,' said Ed O'Neill, OCLC consulting research scientist and manager of the OCLC Web Characterization Project. 'The recent string of dot-com failures may also be a factor in the slowdown, as well as the increased use of virtual hosting technologies, which permit the clustering of multiple "virtual sites" at a single Internet location.'"

"The Web Characterization Project, conducted by the OCLC Office of Research, has collected a random sample of web sites annually since 1997. The OCLC Office of Research is one of the world's leading centers devoted exclusively to the challenges facing libraries in a rapidly changing information technology environment. OCLC is a nonprofit organization that provides computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing and preservation services to 40,000 libraries in 76 countries and territories."

"According to statistics compiled for the year ending June 30, the public web includes more than 3.1 million sites, a 6 percent increase over the previous year's total. A public web site is defined as a distinct location on the Internet offering unrestricted public access to content via web protocols. The rate of growth of the public web has been slowing over the last few years, a trend which was especially pronounced over the last 12 months. From 1997 to 2000, the public web increased by about 700,000 sites each year, but increased by only 200,000 sites between 2000 and 2001."

"Public web sites constitute 36 percent of the web as a whole; the remainder includes sites that are duplicates of other public sites, sites that offer content intended for a restricted audience (e.g., those sites which require prior authorization for access, or are a web interface to hardware such as routers or printers), and sites that are 'under construction.' Over the past year, the web as a whole grew by 18 percent, reaching an estimated total of nearly 9 million sites. Although more than 1.3 million new sites were added to the web during this period, growth over the past year is substantially slower than that observed between 1998 and 1999 (71 percent) or 1999 and 2000 (52 percent). Overall, however, the number of web sites has increased almost six-fold since OCLC's first survey in 1997."

"Analysis of public web sites suggests that the international character of the web -- as measured by the country of origin and languages of public web site content -- has changed little in the last several years. About half of the sampled public web sites in 2001 were provided by organizations or individuals located in the United States, 5 percent by German organizations, and 4 percent each by Canadian and Japanese organizations. These results are similar to statistics compiled in 1999. The distribution of languages across web content has changed very little since 1999: about 75 percent of all public sites in 2001 contained some content in English; 7 percent in German; and 5 percent in Japanese."

"Analysis of the organizations providing content on public web sites indicated that the largest proportion -- about 16 percent -- is associated with information industries, including Internet service providers, commercial publishers, software companies and online information services. Professional and technical consultants -- ranging from web site and software designers to lawyers and accountants -- comprised the second largest proportion at 14 percent. Retailers were also widely represented in the sample at 12 percent."

"'Characterizing the economic activities of web site providers is a new addition to our survey,' Dr. O'Neill said. 'This analysis gives a fresh perspective on the question of what's on the web?'"

"Adult sites -- those containing sexually explicit material -- constitute approximately 2 percent of the public web, or about 74,000 sites. The proportion of the public web occupied by adult sites has remained steady since 1998."

"More information about the OCLC Web Characterization Project is available at the project web site <http://wcp.oclc.org>."

The full press release is at <http://www.oclc.org/oclc/press/20011004a.shtm>.

Cambridge Information Group Acquires R.R. Bowker

"BETHESDA, Maryland (31 August 2001) - Cambridge Information Group (CIG) has acquired the R.R. Bowker publishing operations from Reed Elsevier Inc. Product responsibility for most titles will split between divisions within CIG. Additionally CIG has sold several of the Bowker directories to Information Today, Inc."

"'This is a very important acquisition for us,' said Jim McGinty, president of CIG. 'We are acquiring a publishing group with some of the most recognized, widely-held and widely-respected titles in the industry, such as Books In Print, Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, and LISA. Moreover, this acquisition provides tremendous synergy with a number of our existing products produced by CSA. All of this means growth for the company and its employees.'"

"...CIG has established a new subsidiary, R.R. Bowker LLC, to operate Books In Print, Ulrich's Guide to Periodicals and the ISBN agency. Michael Cairns, formerly the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Reed's Bowker unit, will head the new company. R.R. Bowker LLC will continue to be based in New Providence, New Jersey and maintain its current offices in Tampa, Florida, East Grinstead, U.K., and Melbourne, Australia."

"LISA: Library and Information Science Abstracts, ANTE: Abstracts in New Technologies and Engineering, BHI: British Humanities Index, and ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts will now be published and distributed by CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts), which will make electronic versions of the databases available through its Internet Database Service. CSA will also publish eleven primary journals from Bowker including Business Information Review and the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science."

"Several directories not fitting into the CIG publishing strategy have been sold to Information Today, Inc. (ITI), publisher of Information Today; these include Literary Market Place and the American Library Directory. ITI and CIG, although independent companies, have previously collaborated on information-related products. The ITI databases, Internet & Personal Computing Abstracts and Biology Digest, are available through CSA's Internet Database Service."

The full press release is at <http://www.csa.com/csa/news/csa-pressrelease.shtml>.

ALPSP Awards 2001

Announcing the Winners of the ALPSP and ALPSP/Charlesworth Awards 2001

"At the Annual Dinner of The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers in London on 12 September, the winners of the prestigious ALPSP and ALPSP/Charlesworth Awards were presented. There were six award categories, five of them new this year, and each recognising significant achievement in the field of learned and professional publishing."

"The following awards were selected by a panel of independent experts from over 100 international entries:"

"The ALPSP/Charlesworth Award for Learned Journals was won by Nature Publishing Group for the Nature Reviews journals, which were considered outstanding for elegance of typography and well-considered, clever design. Taylor and Francis were highly commended for their journal Performance Research, as were Academic Press for The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (published for the Nautical Archaeological Society) and W B Saunders for Paediatric Respiratory Reviews."

"The ALPSP/Charlesworth Award for House/Membership Journals went to Plantlife -- The Wild-Plant Conservation Charity for its magazine Plantlife, which was notable for its very high quality design and production. The Society of Freelance Editors and Proofreaders was highly commended for Copyright, and the Society for General Microbiology for Microbiology Today."

"The winner of the ALPSP Award for Publishing Innovation was CAB International for its Crop Protection Compendium; the panel were impressed by the novelty and sophistication of this product. The Journal of High Energy Physics (International School for Advanced Studies) and Clinical Evidence (BMJ Publishing Group) were both highly commended."

"The ALPSP Award for Service to Not-for-Profit Publishing was won by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), whose various initiatives have prompted re-examination of traditional approaches to publishing and generated worthwhile debate and experimentation."

"The winner of the ALPSP Award for Service to Publisher/Library Relations was Karen Hunter from Elsevier Science. Her depth of knowledge of the needs of librarians and publishers is unrivalled, and she has championed the dialogue between publishers and their librarian customers. Sally Morris, Secretary-General of ALPSP, was highly commended."

"The ALPSP Award for Service to ALPSP went to Michele Benjamin, the Editor of ALPSP's journal Learned Publishing. The award recognises all Michele's diverse activities for ALPSP, ranging from serving as a key member of ALPSP Council and as Chair from 1994-6 to editing Learned Publishing. Pippa Smart, Blackwell Publishing, was highly commended."

The full press release is at <http://www.alpsp.org/awards2001.htm>.

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DOI: 10.1045/october2001-inbrief