157,792 research outputs found

    Generating collaborative systems for digital libraries: A model-driven approach

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    This is an open access article shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Copyright @ 2010 The Authors.The design and development of a digital library involves different stakeholders, such as: information architects, librarians, and domain experts, who need to agree on a common language to describe, discuss, and negotiate the services the library has to offer. To this end, high-level, language-neutral models have to be devised. Metamodeling techniques favor the definition of domainspecific visual languages through which stakeholders can share their views and directly manipulate representations of the domain entities. This paper describes CRADLE (Cooperative-Relational Approach to Digital Library Environments), a metamodel-based framework and visual language for the definition of notions and services related to the development of digital libraries. A collection of tools allows the automatic generation of several services, defined with the CRADLE visual language, and of the graphical user interfaces providing access to them for the final user. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by presenting digital libraries generated with CRADLE, while the CRADLE environment has been evaluated by using the cognitive dimensions framework

    Managing access to the internet in public libraries in the UK: the findings of the MAIPLE project

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    One of the key purposes of the public library is to provide access to information (UNESCO, 1994). In the UK, information is provided in printed formats and for the last decade via public access Internet workstations installed as part of the People’s Network initiative. Recent figures reveal that UK public libraries provide approximately 40,000 computer terminals offering users around 80,000 hours across more than 4,000 service points (CIPFA, 2012). In addition, increasing numbers of public libraries allow users to connect devices such as tablets or smart phones to the Internet via a wireless network access point (Wi-Fi). How do public library staff manage this? What about users viewing harmful or illegal content? And what are the implications for a profession committed to freedom of access to information and opposition to censorship? MAIPLE, a two-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council has been investigating this issue as little was known about how UK public libraries manage Internet content control including illegal material. MAIPLE has drawn on an extensive review of the literature, an online survey to which all UK public library services were invited to participate (39 per cent response rate) and case studies with five services (two in England, one in Scotland, one in Wales and one in Northern Ireland) to examine the ways these issues are managed and their implications for staff. This presentation will explore the prevalence of tools such as filtering software, Acceptable Use Policies, user authentication, booking software and visual monitoring by staff and consider their efficacy and desirability in the provision of public Internet access. It will consider the professional dilemmas inherent within managing content and access. Finally, it will highlight some of the more important themes emerging from the findings and their implications for practitioners and policy makers

    Critique of Architectures for Long-Term Digital Preservation

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    Evolving technology and fading human memory threaten the long-term intelligibility of many kinds of documents. Furthermore, some records are susceptible to improper alterations that make them untrustworthy. Trusted Digital Repositories (TDRs) and Trustworthy Digital Objects (TDOs) seem to be the only broadly applicable digital preservation methodologies proposed. We argue that the TDR approach has shortfalls as a method for long-term digital preservation of sensitive information. Comparison of TDR and TDO methodologies suggests differentiating near-term preservation measures from what is needed for the long term. TDO methodology addresses these needs, providing for making digital documents durably intelligible. It uses EDP standards for a few file formats and XML structures for text documents. For other information formats, intelligibility is assured by using a virtual computer. To protect sensitive information—content whose inappropriate alteration might mislead its readers, the integrity and authenticity of each TDO is made testable by embedded public-key cryptographic message digests and signatures. Key authenticity is protected recursively in a social hierarchy. The proper focus for long-term preservation technology is signed packages that each combine a record collection with its metadata and that also bind context—Trustworthy Digital Objects.

    Personal digital libraries: Keeping track of academic reading material

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    This paper discusses optionsfor tracking academic reading material and introduces a personal digital library solution. We combined and extended the open source projects Zotero and Greenstone such that material can be easily downloaded and ingested into the combined system. Our prototype system has been explored in a small user study

    Striking a Balance Between Physical and Digital Resources

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    In various configurations—be they academic, archival, county, juvenile, monastic, national, personal, public, reference, or research, the library has been a fixture in human affairs for a long time. Digital — meaning, content or communication that is delivered through the internet, is 20 years old (but younger in parts). Basically, both approaches to organizing serve to structure information for access. However, digital is multiplying very fast and libraries all-round contemplate an existential crisis; the more hopeful librarians fret about physical and digital space. Yet, the crux of the matter is not about physical vs. digital: without doubt, the digital space of content or communication transmogrifies all walks of life and cannot be wished away; but, the physical space of libraries is time-tested, extremely valuable, and can surely offer more than currently meets the eye. Except for entirely virtual libraries, the symbiotic relationship between the physical and the digital is innately powerful: for superior outcomes, it must be recognized, nurtured, and leveraged; striking a balance between physical and digital resources can be accomplished. This paper examines the subject of delivering digital from macro, meso, and micro perspectives: it looks into complexity theory, digital strategy, and digitization

    Building Bridges with Boats: Preserving Community History through Intra- and Inter-Institutional Collaboration

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    This chapter discusses Launching through the Surf: The Dory Fleet of Pacific City, a project which documents the historical and contemporary role of dory fishers in the life of the coastal village of Pacific City, Oregon, U.S. Linfield College’s Department of Theatre and Communication Arts, its Jereld R. Nicholson Library, the Pacific City Arts Association, the Pacific City Dorymen\u27s Association, and the Linfield Center for the Northwest joined forces to engage in a collaborative college and community venture to preserve this important facet of Oregon’s history. Using ethnography as a theoretical grounding and oral history as a method, the project utilized artifacts from the dory fleet to augment interview data, and faculty/student teams created a searchable digital archive available via open access. The chapter draws on the authors’ experiences to identify a philosophy of strategic collaboration. Topics include project development and management, assessment, and the role of serendipity. In an era of value-added services where libraries need to continue to prove their worth, partnering with internal and external entities to create content is one way for academic libraries to remain relevant to agencies that do not have direct connections to higher education. This project not only developed a positive “town and gown” relationship with a regional community, it also benefited partner organizations as they sought to fulfill their missions. The project also serves as a potential model for intra- and inter-agency collaboration for all types of libraries

    Curating E-Mails; A life-cycle approach to the management and preservation of e-mail messages

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    E-mail forms the backbone of communications in many modern institutions and organisations and is a valuable type of organisational, cultural, and historical record. Successful management and preservation of valuable e-mail messages and collections is therefore vital if organisational accountability is to be achieved and historical or cultural memory retained for the future. This requires attention by all stakeholders across the entire life-cycle of the e-mail records. This instalment of the Digital Curation Manual reports on the several issues involved in managing and curating e-mail messages for both current and future use. Although there is no 'one-size-fits-all' solution, this instalment outlines a generic framework for e-mail curation and preservation, provides a summary of current approaches, and addresses the technical, organisational and cultural challenges to successful e-mail management and longer-term curation.

    Imagined, prescribed and actual text trajectories: the ‘problem’ with case notes in contemporary social work

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    Drawing on a text-oriented action research ethnography of the writing practices of UK-based social workers, this paper focuses on a key but problematic aspect of everyday, professional textual practice – the production of “case notes.” Using data drawn from interviews, workshops, texts and observation, the paper locates case notes within social work everyday practice and explores the entextualization of three distinct case notes. The heuristic of imagined, prescribed and actual trajectories is used to track specific instances of entextualization and to illustrate why the production of case notes is a particularly complex activity. A key argument is that in the institutional imaginary, and reflected in the institutionally prescribed trajectory, case notes are construed as a comprehensive record of all actions, events and interactions, prior to and providing warrants for all other documentation. However, they are in actual practice produced as parts of clusters of a range of different text types which, together, provide accounts of, and for, actions and decisions. This finding explains why case notes are often viewed as incomplete and raises fundamental questions about how they should be evaluated. The complexity of case notes as an everyday professional practice is underscored in relation to professional voice, addressivity and textual temporality

    JISC Preservation of Web Resources (PoWR) Handbook

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    Handbook of Web Preservation produced by the JISC-PoWR project which ran from April to November 2008. The handbook specifically addresses digital preservation issues that are relevant to the UK HE/FE web management community”. The project was undertaken jointly by UKOLN at the University of Bath and ULCC Digital Archives department
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