D-Lib Magazine
January 1997
ISSN 1082-9873
Clips and Pointers
Christine L. Borgman, University of
California, Los Angeles
This National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded workshop brought together 32 scholars, researchers,
and practitioners
from the emerging community concerned with social aspects of digital
libraries, plus the 8 UCLA investigators (Marcia J. Bates, Christine L.
Borgman, Michele V. Cloonan, Efthimis N. Efthimiadis, Anne J.
Gilliland-Swetland, Yasmin B. Kafai, Gregory H. Leazer, and Anthony B.
Maddox). Our goals were to assess existing knowledge that might inform
research in this area and to propose a research agenda that would pose new
questions.
We organized the workshop content and selected the participants around two
social aspects of digital libraries: information needs, and end-user
searching and filtering. In their position papers and in on-site
discussions, workshop participants quickly expanded the topical boundaries
in several directions. Rather than focusing solely on the individual user
who interacts with a digital library, we considered also the group,
organization, and community activities and concerns which give rise to
information-related behavior. We expanded our interest in information
storage and retrieval to include preceding and succeeding phases,
incorporating the processes of creating, using, and disposing of
information.
Based on the wide-ranging discussions in the workshop, the final report
proposes a definition of digital libraries that encompasses two
complementary ideas, one emphasizing that they extend and enhance existing
information storage and retrieval systems, incorporating digital data and
metadata in any form; the other emphasizing that design, policy, and
practice should reflect the social context in which they exist. We propose
an information life cycle model to illustrate the flow of human activities
in creating, searching, and using information and the stages through which
information artifacts may pass: activity, inactivity, and disposal.
Research issues raised in the workshop were organized into three foci:
human-centered, artifact-centered, and systems-centered. We recommend that
research be conducted on these themes, that scholars from multiple
disciplines be encouraged to develop joint projects, that scholars and
practitioners work together, and that digital libraries be developed and
evaluated in operational, as well as experimental, work environments. Only
in this way can we build digital libraries to support diverse communities
of users in their professional, educational, and recreational activities.
The UCLA-NSF Social Aspects of Digital Libraries
Workshop web page includes the final report,
the list of attendees, position papers, the UCLA background paper, and
links to other sites and materials.
- The Library of Congress has released an
experimental web interface to its on-line public access
catalog (OPAC). The system accesses about one-fourth of the records contained in the Library's digitized
catalog to its print and image collections. Some of the major collections within the Library are not included
in this catalog (e.g., Manuscripts) and thus remain inaccessible via the web. Records are displayed in
hypertext format with links to related resources and may be sorted by date, title, or call number (which
provides shelf-list access to material and thus mimics browsing for related information by wandering
through the stacks).
- The Library and the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, have announced
the
California Heritage Digital Image demonstration
database. This digital archive contains photographs, pictures, and manuscripts from the Bancroft
Library and is the principal product of the California Heritage Digital Image Access Project, funded by the
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Existing finding aids have been digitized and can be
browsed and searched. Results include identification and description of the requisite collections,
thumbnails, and medium- and high-resolution digitized images.
-
Index Morganagus covers 37 on-
line serials related to library and information science and technologies (including both D-Lib
Magazine and Ariadne). It is based on Harvest and Glimpse indexing technologies. Users are
encouraged to evaluate the system via an on-line form and to participate in an on-going discussion.
- Research and Development in the
Libraries sector of the Telematics
Programme of the European Commission (DGIII) addresses issues that facilitate access to knowledge
held in libraries throughout the European Union, including reducing disparities among national systems and
practices. Topics covered by the program include networking, cataloguing, resource discovery, imaging,
multimedia, remote learning, public libraries, music information, standards and intellectual property. This
site provides access to general information, available reports and studies, calls for proposals, and related
and external resources.
-
The University Of California Digital Library: A
Framework For Planning And Strategic Initiatives (October 1996) sets forth "a framework and set of
potential strategies to deal with the human, technical, organizational and financial issues which are critical
to the development" of a digital library program for the nine campuses comprising the University of
California system. The study calls for an "organic", or incremental approach, and to that end has articulated
a series of 12 broad recommendations designed to focus but not prescribe future planning. Two findings
are particularly noteworthy: (1) organizational, policy, and financial issues are "more challenging" than
technical ones; and (2) while a proposed University of California Digital Library (UCDL) may potentially
reduce the rate at which information costs increase and may amortize the increase across a broader base,
overall library costs are not likely to decrease in the near term and "substantial new capital investment" is
required.
-
A Framework for Global Electronic
Commerce, a draft report issued by seven executive agencies led by the Executive Office of the
President, is available for public comment until January 23, 1997. The full text of the report, the executive
summary, and public comments are accessible on-line. The draft document outlines basic strategies and
policies of the Administration on key issues and identifies the roles of government agencies that will be
involved.
- Eighth International ACM Hypertext Conference, April 6-11, 1997, Southampton, UK.
Proposals for short papers, posters, and demonstrations will continue to be accepted for this conference as
late as January 17, 1997. The
conference's web page contains updated information
on submission requirements and program and registration information.
-
The Asia Pacific Networking Group (APNG) will hold its next meeting and seminars on January 26-28,
1997 in Hong Kong. AGNG addresses concerns related primarily to networking in the Pacific and Asia.
However, several events in the pre-meeting and general meeting pertain to issues that arise from
multilinguality and transliteration. For more information on the program, organizers, and registration, see
the
conference's web page.
-
The First International Conference on Autonomous Agents will be held at Marina del Rey,
California, on February 5-8, 1997. The primary sponsor is the ACM Special Interest Group on Artificial
Intelligence (ACM SIGART) with co-sponsorship from the American Association for Artificial
Intelligence, ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics, British Telecommunications, Microsoft
Corporation, Intel, MERL, European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence, and IEEE
Computer Society. The conference program and information on registration and attendance is available at
the
conference's web page.
-
The National Library of Australia, the Distributed Systems Technology Centre of Australia,
and the OCLC Online Computer Library Center have announced the next Dublin Core Metadata
Workshop to be held at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, March 3-5, 1997. Participation is
by invitation; for further information, see the
conference web page.
-
DRH '97. The British Library, the Office for Humanities Communication, the Arts and Humanities
Data Service, the Centre for Computing in the Humanities of Kings College London, the International
Institute for Electronic Library Research of de Montfort University, the Library of University College
London, and the Humanities Computing Unit of Oxford University are jointly sponsoring a three-day
conference (September 14-17, 1997) on the application of digital techniques and resources in the
humanities to be held at St. Annes College, Oxford. Proposals for academic papers, panel sessions, and
reports of work in progress are due by April 7, 1997. For further information on submission requirements,
the program, and registration, see the conference page at
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~drh97.
-
ICCC/IFIP Conference on Electronic Publishing '97 will take place at the University of Kent at
Canterbury, April 14-16, 1997. The advance program, registration and related travel information have been
posted to the conference's
web site. Registrations after February 1,
1997 cannot be guaranteed on-campus accommodations.
-
The Australian World Wide Web (WWW) Technical Conference will be held May 7-9, 1997 in
Brisbane.
The schedule is tight: proposals were due on February 14, 1997 and notification of acceptance will be
made on April 14, 1997. Announcement of registration and other organizational details will be via the
conference's
web page.
Asia Pacific Networking Group (APNG)
Meeting and seminars
Hong Kong
January 26-28, 1997
|
http://www.polyu.edu.hk/apng/
|
Australian World Wide Web (WWW) Technical Conference
Brisbane
May 7-9, 1997
|
http://www.dstc.edu.au/aw3tc/
|
California Heritage Digital Image
demonstration database
|
http://sunsite.Berkeley.EDU/CalHeritage/
|
DELOS Working Group
(ERCIM)
|
http://www.area.pi.cnr.it/ErcimDL/delos.html
|
DRH '97
St. Annes College, Oxford
September 14-17, 1997
|
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~drh97
|
Eighth International ACM Hypertext Conference
Southampton, UK
April 6-11, 1997
|
http://www.pac.soton.ac.uk/ht97/
|
First International Conference on Autonomous Agents
Marina del Rey, California
February 5-8, 1997
|
http://www.isi.edu/isd/AA97/info.html
|
Fourth Dublin Core Metadata
Workshop
National Library of Australia, Canberra
March 3-5, 1997
|
http://www.dstc.edu.au/DC4/
|
A Framework for Global Electronic
Commerce
(draft)
|
http://www.iitf.nist.gov/electronic_commerce.htm
|
ICCC/IFIP Conference on Electronic Publishing '97
University of Kent, Canterbury
April 14-16, 1997
|
http://www.ukc.ac.uk/library/ICCC/index.htm
|
Index Morganagus
|
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/~emorgan/morganagus/
|
International Infrastructure Standards Program (IISP)
Identified Standards Needed to Implement the Global Information Infrastructure
|
http://www.ansi.org/iisp/needcat.html
|
International Infrastructure Standards Programs (IISP)
Standards Needs Response Report
(November 4, 1996)
|
http://www.ansi.org/iisp/resprept.html
|
Internet Public Library Reading Room
Public Online Texts Collection
|
http://www.ipl.org/reading/books
|
Library of Congress experimental web interface
|
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/catalog/
|
R&D in the Libraries sector of the Telematics
Programme of the European Commission (DGIII)
|
http://www2.echo.lu/libraries/en/libraries.html
|
UCLA-NSF Social Aspects of Digital Libraries
Workshop web page |
http://www-lis.gseis.ucla.edu/DL
|
University of California Digital Library:
A Framework For Planning And Strategic Initiatives
(October 1996)
|
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/UCDL
|
hdl:cnri.dlib/january97-clips