This is a packed issue - many new and notable websites, a long list of interesting blogs, and more!
The Internet Resources Newsletter is delighted to be a media sponsor of Internet Librarian Internationalhttp://www.internet-librarian.com/ which will be held Oct. 8-9, 2007, at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London, U.K. ILI is the premier library technology conference for librarians and information managers. The conference programme gives full details, and I notice, in particular, Stephen Abram will be giving the Opening Keynote, and Phil Bradley will be giving the Closing Keynote. Both speakers are highly informative and entertaining.
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Random quotes
"We need to rethink: the work, not the physical book, is the centre of the trade publishing universe. The typical author-publisher agreement takes as its starting point the right to publish in print on paper. This is changing. The Web detaches (or, if you prefer, liberates) it from its container. Putting the work, and not the book, as the hub provides the right framework for 21st-century publishing"
Search, find, click, buy. Laurence Kaye, The Bookseller, 11 May, 2007, p.28 More articles by Laurence Kaye are available.
"...the quality of user-generated online information is often an improvement on that from previously well-considered 'official' sources. Sure, there's a load of rubbish out there too, but that's not a good reason to knock the entire new media world"
Take a walk on the Web 2.0 side to see what users want. David Tebbutt, IWR, June 2007, p.9.
See also Tebbutt's slide set on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tebbo/sets/72157600182279344/
"Some 250 education institutions now have some sort of presence in Second Life" THES, June 15, p.19.
Here is this month's selection of news items of interest
German Parliament passes resolution in support of open access http://www.knowledgespeak.com/newsArchieveviewdtl.asp?pickUpID=4157&pickUpBatch=647#4157
Germany’s second parliamentary chamber, The Bundesrat, has agreed a resolution addressing the issue of open access and scientific publishing. At a recent meeting, the chamber took a detailed position on open access.
From: Knowledgespeak
The ASA Digital Library includes technical articles from journals and magazines published by the Acoustical Society of America since its founding in 1929. Papers are available from the highly cited Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and the other publications in ASA's collection including JASA Express Letters, Acoustics Research Letters Online, Noise Control, Sound--Its Uses and Control, and Standards on Acoustics. Abstracts of papers presented at meetings of the Society since 1929 are also included. Papers published in JASA Express Letters and Acoustics Research Letters Online as well as abstracts of meeting papers are open-access and may be read and downloaded without subscription.
“ARCHI-TECH magazine, with a circulation of 28,000 and a readership of nearly 100,000, provides a targeted audience of architects and other specialty designers with cutting-edge information on the latest advances in the technology and building sectors. ARCHI-TECH focuses on integrating emerging technologies and systems into building design and architecture.”
The Online Journal of Nanotechnology is based on a free access publishing model.
The Online Journal of Nanotechnology at AZoNano.com publishes high quality articles and papers on all aspects of nanotechnology and related scientific, social and ethical issues. All the contributions are reviewed by a world class panel of founding editors who are experts in a wide spectrum of nanotechnology science.
"Butterfly" refers to the shape of the map, not to insect distribution. To quote from the precis on the Resource Page:
”B.J.S. Cahill's octahedral Butterfly Map of the World, first published in 1909, is a sadly neglected monument of world map design. This sub-page will gather and present some of Cahill's articles, papers, and map variants…”
Includes the original 1909 article by B.J.S. Cahill introducing the octahedral Butterfly Map of the World, and a comparative gallery of 25 octahedral Butterfly World Maps, 1909-2007, showing Cahill's original and developed versions, and others since then.
Blastfeed is an on-line service that lets you aggregate, remix and filter RSS feeds. And Blastfeed can immediately notify you of any results of such filtering.
“Buildings.com is a product of Stamats Business Media and is affiliated with Buildings magazine, ARCHI-TECH magazine and Buildings and ARCHI-TECH Live Events. Buildings.com is a unique information resource that provides a community for the buildings industry, with the latest news, an articles archive, research and an extensive online Buyers' Guide for facilities professionals.”
Established in 1990, the research of the Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation focuses on the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and East Asia. More recently, CERT's research has expanded to include emerging economies throughout the world.
"The Chemical Structure Association Trust (CSA Trust) is an internationally recognized, registered charity which promotes education, research and development in the field of storage, processing and retrieval of information about chemical structures, reactions and compounds. Many students and researchers world-wide, who work in this area, have benefited from the Trust Awards and Grants programmes to further their research work.”
The CIC is a consortium of 12 research universities, including the 11 members of the Big Ten Conference and the University of Chicago. With campuses in 8 states, CIC universities enroll more than 300,000 undergraduates and 76,000 graduate students, and employ some 33,000 full-time faculty and 139,000 full-time staff.
The Construction Centre is targeted at consumers and the building industry and acts as an encyclopaedic directory containing over 10,000 UK product manufacturers. Additionally there are over 50,000 contact details for merchants, industry professionals, tradesmen and contractors. Local Authority planning websites, trade publications and jobs can also be directly accessed from The Construction Centre.
May 2007 issue. This is an excellent source of informed comment. The subtitle is: An annotated bibliography of selected articles, books and digital documents on information technology.
UKOLN was asked to undertake a small-scale consultancy for JISC to investigate the relationships between data centres and institutions which may develop data repositories. The resulting direction-setting report will be used to advance the digital repository development agenda within the JISC Capital programme (2006 – 2009), to assist in the co-ordination of research data repositories and to inform an emerging Vision and Roadmap. The study includes a synthesis of some of the lessons learned from the projects within the Digital Repositories programme that were concerned with research data.
The easimap (Engineering Assessment Student Information Mapping And Planning) Project will develop an electronic tool to link the assessment of learning outcomes with students’ PDP records / e-portfolios.
The Facebook Compendium is designed to link you to news and information about Facebook - a popular social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.
Issue 32 is available. MIMAS is a JISC and ESRC-supported national data centre providing the UK higher education, further education and research community with networked access to key data and information resources to support teaching, learning and research across a wide range of disciplines.
Focus On the Digital Age gives an overview of ICT use in the UK, showing the extent to which people, education, business and government have taken up the new technology and how ICT is changing working and business practices. It also looks at how the UK compares with other countries and describes some of the problems associated with the digital age.
A network of concurring genes and proteins extends through the scientific literature touching on phenotypes, pathologies and gene function.
iHOP provides this network as a natural way of accessing millions of PubMed abstracts. By using genes and proteins as hyperlinks between sentences and abstracts, the information in PubMed can be converted into one navigable resource, bringing all advantages of the internet to scientific literature research.
Information for Social Change is an activist organisation that examines issues of censorship, freedom and ethics amongst library and information workers. It is committed to promoting alternatives to the dominant paradigms of library and information work and publishes its own journal, Information for Social Change (freely available online at http://www.libr.org/isc).
A new journal from Inderscience. IJCSM is a quarterly peer-reviewed international journal that publishes high quality original papers and comprehensive survey articles in all areas of computing science and mathematics, with interfaces to physics, engineering, chemistry, biology, statistics, economics and the social sciences.
IJESDF aims to establish dialogue in an ideal and unique setting for researchers and practitioners to have a knowledge resource, report and publish scholarly articles and engage in debate on various security related issues, new developments and latest proven methodologies in the field of electronic security and digital forensics.
“Download data is being logged by every repository as a by-product of the Web requests they receive. This raw data is being and turned into useful download statistics for individual papers and users by a few institutional repositories (e.g. University of Tasmania, Southampton University), thematic repositories (e.g. RePEc) and OAI services (e.g. Citebase). However, there is no consensus over what data needs to be collected, what filtering mechanisms are appropriate, and what analyses are useful for academics in various disciplines. To create effective research statistics services, an interoperable usage statistics service will be created for all OAI-PMH-compliant repositories. This project will investigate the requirements for UK and international stakeholders and build generic collection and distribution software for all IRs.”
IP Insight is a monthly e-newsletter bringing you the latest developments in Intellectual Property (IP) news, views from the UK Intellectual Property Office and IP professionals, IP stories in the media, and details of IP events and exhibitions.
“KWtL is an annual subscription product consisting of an evolving databank of resources, a subscribers-only daily blog, news, premium content in-depth reports and a monthly newsletter covering legal issues for the information stakeholder community: information suppliers, professionals and providers. It will highlight the complex legal issues affecting these communities, flag up legal risks and offer solutions as to how those risks can be managed and minimised.
KWtL aims to raise awareness of the legal issues faced by information professionals in their work.”
“Knowledge Transfer Partnerships is Europe's leading programme helping businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within the UK knowledge base.”
The festival has been brought together to coincide with Magnum's 60th anniversary, and as a cultural contribution to the City of New York. It forms part of a series of events celebrating our continuing work in documentary image-making. Although Magnum's leading role lies in photography, the festival embraces the documentary tradition in its entirety. Film and journalism are therefore an integral part of the programme.
“Mahalo is the world's first human-powered search engine powered by an enthusiastic and energetic group of Guides. Our Guides spend their days searching, filtering out spam, and hand-crafting the best search results possible. If they haven't yet built a search result, you can request that search result. You can also suggest links for any of our search results.”
Mondialogo seeks to promote intercultural dialogue, understanding and exchange among young people. It was launched jointly by UNESCO and DaimlerChrysler.
The Nature Reports sites highlight topical science issues by providing thorough investigative reporting based on peer-reviewed, primary research. The sites will report “the science behind the news, the news behind the science” and explore the social, political and economic implications of the highlighted topic.
The Nature Reports sites highlight topical science issues by providing thorough investigative reporting based on peer-reviewed, primary research. The sites will report “the science behind the news, the news behind the science” and explore the social, political and economic implications of the highlighted topic.
Technology Job Search Engine. “Odin collects jobs from job boards, corporate websites, groups etc. At last count Odin is collecting over 20,000 jobs from 1000 of sources every day.”
ODVA is an international association comprising members from the world's leading automation companies. Collectively, ODVA and its members support network technologies based on the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP™). These currently include DeviceNet™, EtherNet/IP™, CompoNet™, and the major extensions to CIP — CIP Safety™, CIP Sync™, and CIP Motion™. ODVA manages the development of these open technologies, and assists manufacturers and users of CIP networks through tools, training and marketing activities.
“OMII-UK aims to provide software and support to enable a sustained future for the UK e-Science community and its international collaborators. Through our website we provide mechanisms for you to share information about the software you have found useful to support your e-Science work, and share the software that you have produced during your e-Science activities.”
Find open educational resources. The OCW Finder currently shows results from: MIT OCW, Utah State University OCW, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health OCW, Tufts University OCW, Foothill De-Anza SOFIA, and Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative.
The Association was established September 1983. Its objectives are to discover the interests, needs, opinions, and goals of the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries (PTDLs), and to advise the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in these matters for the benefit of PTDLs and their users, and to assist the USPTO in planning and implementing appropriate services for the PTDL's, their staffs and patrons.
Personal wikis allow people to richly link information on their desktop or mobile computing devices the same way a community wiki links information across the internet. Thus people who like the wiki philosophy of organizing information may find personal wikis useful.
“We provide an intuitively designed, real-time, web based community platform that facilitates mass collaboration and democratizes content for global distribution among academics with the ability to archive and search that content.”
”What can you do with Pronetos? Publish your life’s work. Share an idea with colleagues, and get real time feedback. Post messages. Start a blog. Upload podcasts of your lectures. Post your curriculum materials. Use Pronetos as a repository for papers in your field – they’ll be indexed, searchable, publicly available and secure. You create, edit, and moderate the community and the content and we provide the technology – free. This site is by scholars, of scholars, and for scholars.”
“Prospect was launched in October 1995 by its present editor David Goodhart, a senior correspondent for the Financial Times, and chairman Derek Coombs. The aim was to launch a monthly that was "more readable than the Economist, more relevant than the Spectator, more romantic than the New Statesman," as Sir Jeremy Isaacs subsequently described Prospect.
Prospect has acquired a reputation as the most intelligent magazine of current affairs and cultural debate in Britain. Both challenging and entertaining, the magazine seeks to make complex ideas accessible and enjoyable by commissioning the best writers, editing them vigorously and packaging their work in a well designed and illustrated monthly.”
The RIDIR project (Resourcing IDentifier Interoperability for Repositories) is a project funded under the auspices of the Joint Information Systems Committee 'Repositories and Preservation' Programme. It is investigating the requirements for, and benefits of, the clear use of persistent identifiers in order to facilitate interoperability between digital repositories of different types.
Science Learning Centres are a national network for professional development in science teaching. The Centres support teachers in enhancing their professional skills by learning more about contemporary scientific ideas and in experimenting with effective teaching approaches and gaining experience of modern scientific techniques.
The aim is to improve science teaching, raise morale in the teaching profession and to inspire pupils by providing them with a more exciting, intellectually stimulating and relevant science education, enabling them to gain the knowledge and the understanding they need - both as the citizens and as the scientists of the future.
SPECTRa is an eighteen month project which will develop a set of customized software tools to enable chemists to routinely deposit experimental data, much of which is currently lost, in Open Access digital repositories.
The Statistics Commission is an independent public body. It was set up in June 2000 to 'help ensure that official statistics are trustworthy and responsive to public needs', to 'give independent, reliable and relevant advice' and by so doing to 'provide an additional safeguard on the quality and integrity' of official statistics. It operates openly and independently, with all its papers normally available publicly.
Global Building and Construction: Systems, Technologies, Products and Services. 12th International Conference 29th-30th October 2007 Farnham Castle International Briefing and Conference Centre Farnham, Surrey, UK.
This two day conference is open to all executives and information professionals across libraries, local authorities and educational institutions. With the umbrella theme “Inspiration for Change”.
TecTrends Reporter provides you with highlights of current and emerging technologies trends, their impact, and identification of the companies shaping industry both today and tomorrow. Some free samples are available.
Turtilla is an online service which allows you to search and filter content related to your interests. This content is captured from a large variety of sources. The generated results can be converted to an RSS feed containing a number of items, with each item representing a channel of interest.
"Unlike other product review sites, URateStuff is a democracy in that it allows its users to choose which reviews to promote and which to bury. The user can submit their own review of any product they can think of and have their review evaluated by URateStuff's growing userbase. The most popular reviews stay in the sites database longer where it has a chance to reach the right audience. The creative team behind URateStuff believe that consumer opinions are what shape industry trends.”
Founded in 1995, the Viewing Facilities Association (VFA) is a trade association which exists to promote best practice amongst viewing facilities in the UK.
An excellent report by Tom Franklin and Mark van Harmelen. This report is the result of a study into the use of Web 2.0 technologies for content creation for learning and teaching in Higher Education, funded by the JISC, and carried out between March and May 2007.
22nd-27th July 2007, Wadham College, Oxford University. The XML Summer School is a unique event for everyone using, designing or implementing XML-based and related technology solutions.
In the course of finding sites of interest for this Newsletter, we sometimes come across Web sites which we feel deserve slightly more than a passing mention. Each month we will pick out one or more such sites, and give them a short review. The sites will normally be UK based, may be small or large, and be of interest or potential interest to academics. After lengthy discussions we have decided, with incredible creativity :-), to call these: Nice Web Sites. Details of previous Nice Web Sites are available in the Nice Web Site Archive.
The Internet Resources Newsletter has an RSS feed (essentially the Table of Contents for each issue): http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.rss
To add this RSS feed to any feedreader, go to: http://tinyurl.com/39sg5j
Phil Bradley's RSS: Creating feeds, RSS readers, news aggregators, submitting feeds, tags, tagging. Web 2.0 resources and utilities to help - page http://www.philb.com/iwantto/rss
AlternativeEnergyBlogs http://alternativeenergyblogs.blogspot.com/
A gateway to Gerry McKiernan's alternative energy blogs. Each blog is was created to profile key publications relating to their respective scopes.
My Library World http://inthedeargreenplace.blogspot.com/ My Library World charts the dubious progress of a UK librarian applying to become a Chartered Librarian. Occasionally veers off-course.
Repositories Research Team Newsletter http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/newsletter/rss.xml
The purpose of this newsletter is to provide specialised information to all those interested in Digital Repositories Research.
**** LRRT announces winner of 2007 Ingenta Research Award****
The Library Research Round Table (LRRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) have announced that the team of Aaron Shrimplin, John Fink, Susan Hurst, and Kevin Messner is the winner of the 2007 Ingenta Research Award.
This year's award will support the group's study, User Attitudes Toward E-books: A Q Methodology Study.
How to use Web 2.0 in your library
by Phil Bradley Facet Publishing, 2007.
ISBN: 978-85604-607-7 £39.95
Web 2.0 is a ubiquitous term - but what is it and how can it be used? This new book from Phil Bradley provides a library view on a subject which is reaching into many activities - not only into social interaction but into academic practice, teaching, learning & research [1]. Librarians and information professionals in any sector (especially those with little or no knowledge of Web 2.0) will benefit from this insight into how Web 2.0 technologies might facilitate work practices and provision of services.
Analysis and definition of Web 2.0 are kept to a minimum as the bulk of the book is given over to some practical ideas on how Web 2.0 can be used in service improvement, internal networking and professional development.
On definitions, the author prefers to point out a key paper and equip the reader with some key questions – letting the reader draw his own conclusions.
The practical nature of the book is signalled from the start. Rather than worry over theoretical definitions, the author defines Web 2.0 by example – explaining the main applications found under the Web 2.0 umbrella and describing them in action. Given that there is already talk of Web 3.0, the author tackles the fast evolving nature of Web 2.0 with a supporting website. This offers a portal/wikizene to which all readers of the book are invited to contribute to and participate in (http://www.zimbio.com/How+to+use+Web+2.0+in+your+library)
The book’s content is divided into twelve chapters. Ten tackle a particular application or set of applications including: RSS; weblogs; podcasts; start pages; social bookmarking; build-your-own search engines; wikis / lenses / portals; instant messaging; photo-sharing; and miscellaneous resources such as mashups, webpage annotation, etc. The remaining two chapters give an introduction to Web 2.0 (Chapter 1) and a very sensible final chapter (Chapter 12) on implementing Web 2.0.
While there are some case studies in the book, there is no formal survey of library practice underpinning the content. The author acknowledges that the book reflects his personal interpretation - based on his knowledge and experience. This lends itself to a very informal writing style which succeeds in making the author (and subject) feel familiar and accessible. Indeed, the author offers himself as an instant messaging contact if readers want to try out this particular Web 2.0 application.
This informality is extended into the approach to Web 2.0 advocated in the book. The author suggests there is no right or wrong way to use Web 2.0 in a library context, and that familiarisation is best done using the “try it and see” method. Web 2.0, the author suggests, is a world of experimentation and constant change. Waiting for perfected, stable products and retaining control over them are futile and out-dated ways of working when it comes to Web 2.0. While this experimentation works on a personal level, the author recognises that it presents problems when implementing Web 2.0 at organisational level. On this issue, there is useful advice on barriers to implementation including resistance to change and lack of perceived validity in beta products constantly under development.
However, in addition to this, it would have been helpful to discuss the role of a Web 2.0 strategy with regard to implementation. While the “just do it” idea advocated for individuals in the book is good, it could lead to confusion unless co-ordinated. Discussion around policy formulation and the role of a steering group to develop and monitor implementation, for example, would have been useful.
The book might also have benefited from:-
Coverage of intellectual property rights and ownership of content.
More detail on considerations when choosing an application for institutional use, e.g.
local installation versus hosted services and awareness of any institutional policy on downloading Web 2.0 applications (some academic institutions, for example, have blocked the use of some technologies over security or bandwidth issues).
clearer demarcation between free and fee-based services.
Role of Web 2.0 applications relative to other institutional systems such as virtual learning environments (VLEs).
Privacy and preservation issues of content added to Web 2.0 applications.
That said, the book generally succeeds in giving some very practical and relevant applications for Web 2.0 technologies, written in an unthreatening way. However, it sometimes suffers from problems inherent in giving concise textual explanations for quite complex technologies – i.e. occasionally it doesn’t get the point across. This coupled with unnecessary and obvious statements such as “typing speed may well improve with increased use of a keyboard, or a typing course can be arranged” (p141) make for a slight imbalance in the content.
At times the book has a ‘steam of consciousness’ feel to it - some areas of which are not subsequently developed. Statements such as “ I can see a lot of ways in which a library might want to use these resources” (p107) and “there are times when it might be appropriate” (p177) are not followed up by any examples of what these are.
The book does a good job of giving an introduction to a wide-ranging, rapidly changing subject. The idea of building a community around the book using an actual Web 2.0 application is also a neat way to get readers using Web 2.0.
It provides a lot of ideas on how to apply Web 2.0 in a library setting – from the more cosmetic uses to those which rethink the way people work.
For those approaching the book with a bit of knowledge about Web 2.0 and having reflected on how existing work might be improved using Web 2.0, this book may feel slightly insubstantial and lacking any major revelations. However, on the plus side, it will confirm (or challenge) your ideas as well as give further food for thought. For these readers (and others with no knowledge of Web 2.0) the book offers a way in to Web 2.0, providing practical ideas, and numerous links out to further resources tackling some issues not covered in the book. In this sense, it is probably best used as a stepping stone to more reading and experimentation with Web 2.0 applications.
Equally, for those battling to define and justify their role in an evolving information profession – this book will help you keep up-to-date and give you novel ways of engaging with users and raising the profile of your work.
Big Things on the Beach http://www.bigthingsonthebeach.org.uk/index.php
Big Things on the Beach is a local arts trust in Portobello, Edinburgh. It was formed by a group of residents in 2003 to explore the potential of the Beach in Portobello as a site for the creation and display of public art works by established and emerging artists in Scotland.
Reopen the South Sub http://www.reopenthesouthsub.org.uk/
This is the website for the campaign to reopen the Edinburgh South Suburban Railway ('South Sub') to passenger rail services.
