The Global Registries Initiative: Progress Report and Software Demonstration

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : Conference PresentationsDate: 2009-06-04 08:30 AM – 10:00 AMOver the last two years, key stakeholders in the U.S., UK, and Australia have held a series of meetings to address the need for a global network of digital library collection and service registries (http://globalregistries.org/meetings.html). These meetings brought together different communities to explore what steps would need to be taken to link registry and repository technologies and implementations together in an interoperable fashion. The architecture and standards used for the global network of registries have yet to be finalized, but there is growing awareness of the potential of such a service and there are software systems available that demonstrate its benefits. The speakers will showcase and discuss two such software systems: (1) A combined collections and services registry run by the Australian National Data Service that aggregates metadata records from Australia, UK, and USA (https://devel.apsr.edu.au/cosi/orca/search.php) using the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting; and (2) The LibraryFind Global Pilot, a discovery service that queries registries distributed over three continents. LibraryFind supports distributed search (or meta-search) protocols such as z39.50, SRU/SRW, and Open Search, as well as OAI-PMH aggregation (http://apollo.library.oregonstate.edu:3001/record/search) The presentation will be of particular interest to repository developers and managers who are interested in providing access to scholarly collections as part of broad disciplinary or institutional 'federations'. It will also provide an overview of registry technolgies and standards and how these relate to repository development in the context of an emerging global cyberinfrastructure. More information about the Global Registries Initiative can be found at the web site (http://www.globalregistries.org)

Rebranding the Library: Generating Visibility in the Virtual Age

Academic libraries (and libraries in general) need to relate and reflect the value they provide back to their users and their overarching institutions. When libraries provision access to digital information resources, there is very little visibility to the user of the library’s role in providing access to that resource, especially if the user initially discovers the resource via Google Scholar, Bing Academic, or other discovery tools that are not provided by the library itself. We propose a new approach to help libraries increase their visibility when they broker access to resources—a library branding service. This service brands information resources that are provided by a library, including licensed resources. In this paper, we describe the branding concept, as well as an initial pilot of the concept

Creating a Subject Portal for Sustainable Business: A Collaborative Project Between the Valley Library and Oregon State University’s College of Business

A presentation at the 2006 Online Northwest Conference in Corvallis, Oregon.Oregon State University librarians used the Internet Scout Project’s Collection Work Integration System (CWIS) software to create a portal on the topic of sustainable business. The CWIS software is an elegant open-source solution for non-programmers who want to create subject portals. It has a great deal of flexibility, yet non-technical people can install, populate and maintain the portal. We will discuss the implementation of portals with CWIS, its features and benefits, and the collaborative process we used to create our own portal. Anyone thinking of building a subject portal who lacks extensive programming support should look at this exciting tool.Keywords: subject portal, open source software, business, collaboratio

Introducing unAPI

Several of us describe unAPI, a tiny HTTP API for serving information objects in next-generation web applications.http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/48/chudnov-et-al/Keywords: Protocol, OAI-PMH, COinS, Information objects, HTTP API, UnAPI, Microformats, OpenUR

Guidelines for Modeling and Reporting Health Effects of Climate Change Mitigation Actions.

BACKGROUND: Modeling suggests that climate change mitigation actions can have substantial human health benefits that accrue quickly and locally. Documenting the benefits can help drive more ambitious and health-protective climate change mitigation actions; however, documenting the adverse health effects can help to avoid them. Estimating the health effects of mitigation (HEM) actions can help policy makers prioritize investments based not only on mitigation potential but also on expected health benefits. To date, however, the wide range of incompatible approaches taken to developing and reporting HEM estimates has limited their comparability and usefulness to policymakers. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this effort was to generate guidance for modeling studies on scoping, estimating, and reporting population health effects from climate change mitigation actions. METHODS: An expert panel of HEM researchers was recruited to participate in developing guidance for conducting HEM studies. The primary literature and a synthesis of HEM studies were provided to the panel. Panel members then participated in a modified Delphi exercise to identify areas of consensus regarding HEM estimation. Finally, the panel met to review and discuss consensus findings, resolve remaining differences, and generate guidance regarding conducting HEM studies. RESULTS: The panel generated a checklist of recommendations regarding stakeholder engagement: HEM modeling, including model structure, scope and scale, demographics, time horizons, counterfactuals, health response functions, and metrics; parameterization and reporting; approaches to uncertainty and sensitivity analysis; accounting for policy uptake; and discounting. DISCUSSION: This checklist provides guidance for conducting and reporting HEM estimates to make them more comparable and useful for policymakers. Harmonization of HEM estimates has the potential to lead to advances in and improved synthesis of policy-relevant research that can inform evidence-based decision making and practice. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP6745

Screening ethnically diverse human embryonic stem cells identifies a chromosome 20 minimal amplicon conferring growth advantage

The International Stem Cell Initiative analyzed 125 human embryonic stem (ES) cell lines and 11 induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines, from 38 laboratories worldwide, for genetic changes occurring during culture. Most lines were analyzed at an early and late passage. Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis revealed that they included representatives of most major ethnic groups. Most lines remained karyotypically normal, but there was a progressive tendency to acquire changes on prolonged culture, commonly affecting chromosomes 1, 12, 17 and 20. DNA methylation patterns changed haphazardly with no link to time in culture. Structural variants, determined from the SNP arrays, also appeared sporadically. No common variants related to culture were observed on chromosomes 1, 12 and 17, but a minimal amplicon in chromosome 20q11.21, including three genes expressed in human ES cells, ID1, BCL2L1 and HM13, occurred in >20% of the lines. Of these genes, BCL2L1 is a strong candidate for driving culture adaptation of ES cells