Web Site Metadata

The currently established formats for how a Web site can publish metadata about a site's pages, the robots.txt file and sitemaps, focus on how to provide information to crawlers about where to not go and where to go on a site. This is sufficient as input for crawlers, but does not allow Web sites to publish richer metadata about their site's structure, such as the navigational structure. This paper looks at the availability of Web site metadata on today's Web in terms of available information resources and quantitative aspects of their contents. Such an analysis of the available Web site metadata not only makes it easier to understand what data is available today; it also serves as the foundation for investigating what kind of information retrieval processes could be driven by that data, and what additional data could be provided by Web sites if they had richer data formats to publish metadata

dPanther: Benefits and Challenges of Building and Managing Your Own Digital Repository

This article addresses the benefits and challenges associated with building your own digital repository platform and managing content, technical hurdles, and partners. The authors discuss the advantages of building a repository that can evolve as standards in the field do and how to handle the problems that arise when you are both the metadata manager and technical support. The authors also discuss difficulties their partners have experienced with the platform and lessons learned. It is the hope that this information will provide those who may be either managing a digital repository or considering a new digital platform, relevant information that will prove to be helpful in the decision-making process

Visualization of typed links in linked data

The main subject of the work is the visualization of typed links in Linked Data. The academic subjects relevant to the paper in general are the Semantic Web, the Web of Data and information visualization. The Semantic Web, invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 2001, was announced as an extension to the World Wide Web (Web 2.0). The actual area of investigation concerns the connectivity of information on the World Wide Web. To be able to explore such interconnections, visualizations are critical requirements as well as a major part of processing data in themselves. In the context of the Semantic Web, representation of information interrelations can be achieved using graphs. The aim of the article is to primarily describe the arrangement of Linked Data visualization concepts by establishing their principles in a theoretical approach. Putting design restrictions into context leads to practical guidelines. By describing the creation of two alternative visualizations of a commonly used web application representing Linked Data as network visualization, their compatibility was tested. The application-oriented part treats the design phase, its results, and future requirements of the project that can be derived from this test

Zotero for Faith Communities: Encouraging Faith Thinking and Sharing Through an Information Management Tool

Zotero, known as a research tool for students, faculty, and other scholars, has tremendous potential for use in faith communities as a place to store and share nearly any type of digital information encountered in congregational life. This presentation opens with a basic overview of available research managers. It continues with the use of Zotero at Liberation Christian Church, and covers the benefits (including a more fully-integrated intellectual presence in the congregation’s faith life) and potential issues (such as copyright concerns) of using Zotero within faith communities. It concludes with the marketing and educational efforts involved in generating the interest and skills that congregational leadership and members must have in order to obtain full benefits from the use of this resource

A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation

This volume is devoted to the broad topic of distributed digital preservation, a still-emerging field of practice for the cultural memory arena. Replication and distribution hold out the promise of indefinite preservation of materials without degradation, but establishing effective organizational and technical processes to enable this form of digital preservation is daunting. Institutions need practical examples of how this task can be accomplished in manageable, low-cost ways."--P. [4] of cove

The use of robots.txt and sitemaps in the Spanish public administration

Robots.txt and sitemaps files are the main methods to regulate search engine crawler access to its content. This article explain the importance of such files and analyze robots.txt and sitemaps from more than 4,000 web sites belonging to spanish public administration to determine the use of these files as a medium of optimization for crawlers

Assessment of the status of the development of the standards for the Terrestrial Essential Climate Variables - T7 - Permafrost and seasonally frozen ground

Decadal changes in permafrost temperatures and depth of seasonal freezing/thawing are indicators of changes in climate. Warming may result in an increase in active layer thickness, melting of ground ice and subsequent reduction in permafrost thickness and the lateral extent of permafrost. These changes can have an impact on terrain stability leading to ground subsidence or erosion, vegetation, ecosystem function and soil moisture and gas fluxes. Permafrost and seasonally frozen ground also influence surface and subsurface hydrology. Standardized in situ measurements are essential to understanding how permafrost conditions are changing, to improve predictions of future changes, and to calibrate and to verify regional and global climate change models. Long-term monitoring sites are contributing to the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P). These sites exist throughout the permafrost regions and have provided data that have facilitated the characterization of trends in permafrost conditions over the last two to three decades and in a few cases over much longer periods. Under the leadership of the International Permafrost Association a coordinated field campaign is under way during the International Polar Year to obtain a snapshot of global permafrost temperatures and active layer measurements. The main parameters and measurement methods are: Permafrost: sub-surface earth materials that remain continuously at or below 0°C for two or more consecutive years. Parameter is ground temperature (°C) at specified depths. Permafrost temperature measurements are obtained by lowering a calibrated temperature sensor into a borehole, or recording temperature from multi-sensor cables permanently or temporarily installed in the borehole. Measurements may be recorded manually or by data loggers. The depth of boreholes varies from less than 10m to greater than 100m. Data loggers may be utilized for daily measurements of shallow temperatures to reduce the frequency of site visits and provide a continuous record of ground temperatures. Ideally (although not always feasible at all sites), temperatures at shallow depths (upper 10 m to 20 m) should be collected at monthly or more frequent intervals as this allows the annual temperature envelope (i.e. range in temperatures at depth) and mean annual temperatures to be determined. Active layer: the surface layer of ground, subject to annual thawing and freezing in areas underlain by permafrost. Parameters are thickness (cm) and temperatures (°C). Several traditional methods are used to determine the seasonal and long - term changes in thickness of the active layer: mechanical probing annually, frost tubes, and interpolation of soil temperatures. The minimum observation required under the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM ) protocol is a late season mechanical probing of the thickness of the active layer on a gridded plot or transect. Interpolation of soil temperature measurements from a vertical array of sensors can be used to determine active-layer thickness at a point location (see www.udel.edu/Geography/calm/) Seasonally frozen ground: refers to soils without permafrost that are subjected to seasonal freezing and thawing. Parameters are depth (cm) and temperature (°C). Winter frost penetration in regions of seasonal ground freezing is determined by measuring soil temperatures or by use of frost tubes; similar to methods used for active layer measurements. The methods described above are presented in a combined draft manual developed for the International Polar Year Thermal State of Permafrost (IPY/TSP) which is available on the International Permafrost Association (IPA) Web site (www.ipa-permafrost.org/). Deriving ISO standards from this manual should encourage the adoption of these standard methodologies and promote the expansion of the observational networks. Unlike ice and snow covers, properties of permafrost terrain are currently not directly detected from remote sensing platforms. However, many surface features of permafrost terrains and periglacial landforms are observable with a variety of sensors ranging from conventional aerial photography to high-resolution satellite imagery in various wavelengths._

Preserving Our Collections, Preserving Our Missions

A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation is intentionally structured such that every chaptercan stand on its own or be paired with other segments of the book at will, allowing readers topick their own pathway through the guide as best suits their needs. This approach hasnecessitated that the authors and editors include some level of repetition of basic principlesacross chapters, and has also made the Glossary (included at the back of this guide) an essentialreference resource for all readers.This guide is written with a broad audience in mind that includes librarians, curators, archivists,scholars, technologists, lawyers, and administrators. Any resourceful reader should be able to usethis guide to gain both a philosophical and practical understanding of the emerging field ofdistributed digital preservation (DDP), including how to establish or join a Private LOCKSSNetwork (PLN)