Innovation, Language, and the Web

Language and innovation are inseparable. Language conveys ideas which are essential in innovation, establishes the most immediate connections with our conceptualisation of the outside world, and provides the building blocks for communication. Every linguistic choice is necessarily meaningful, and it involves the parallel construction of form and meaning. From this perspective, language is a dynamic knowledge construction process. Emphasis is laid on investigating how words are used to describe innovation, and how innovation topics can influence word usage and collocational behaviour. The lexical representation of innovative knowledge in a context-based approach is closely related to the representation of knowledge itself, and gives the opportunity to reduce the gap between knowledge representation and knowledge understanding. This will bring into focus the dynamic interplay between lexical creativity and innovative pragmatic contexts, and the necessity for a dynamic semantic shift from context-driven vagueness to domain-driven specialisation. Methodology and experimental evidence - Method and materials: the challenge of identifying changes in word sense has only recently been considered in Computational Linguistics. To investigate the themes discussed in the previous sections genre-oriented and stylistically heterogeneous English texts are analysed, with the support of SKETCH ENGINE (Kilgarriff et al., 2004), which is a corpus query tool, based on a distributed infrastructure, that generates word sketches and thesauri which specify similarities and differences between near-synonyms. By selecting a collocate of interest in a sketched word, the user is taken to a concordance of the corpus evidence giving rise to that collocate. Ambiguous and polysemous words have been selected with particular reference to innovative domains, and their collocations are analysed. In particular, we considered the domain of brain sciences and new technologies of brain functional imaging, the domain of knowledge management processes, and the field of information technologies, by mainly focusing on the following test words: IMAGING, RETENTION, STORAGE, CORPUS, NETWORK, GRID. The selected words present a potentially high degree of semantic ambiguity or polysemy and different degrees of semantic specialisation, which can be analysed objectively by studying their context collocations. For a terminology exploration, both domain-specific and general-purpose texts materials are selected by using generic search web engine queries (www.google.com by using seed words), domain-specific databases and type coherent multidisciplinary large corpora (e.g. www.opengrey.eu, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed by selecting the domain). Collocations and concordances are then compared with large balanced corpora (e.g. the British National Corpus, British Academic Written English, New Model Corpus, and the like, whose size ranges between 8 M and 12 G tokens)

Sharing Grey Literature by using OA-x

As part of the Dutch DARE (Digital Academic REpositories) programme, NIWI-KNAW is participating in various projects to enlarge open access to Dutch scientific output (including Grey Literature). The Open Source web technology that will be used for harvesting is based on i-Tor, Tools and technology for Open Repositories, developed by NIWI (the Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services). The subject of this lecture is the initiative that NIWI-KNAW has taken for developing the OA-x protocol, a modular extension of the OAI protocol, OAI-PMH (Protocol for Metadata Harvesting). We shall discuss the advantages of OA-x and for what projects it will be used. In the protocols of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) currently in use, information is shared by providing metadata of digital files (data providing) that can be read in by someone else (data harvesting). A URL is used to refer to an object in an external site (often a repository). In certain cases, one needs to go further than just sharing metadata. Certainly in the case of so called collaboratories, it should be possible to transfer the objects themselves from an external website (or repository) to one's own site. And conversely, it should be possible to upload objects to an external site. Even if only the browsing of objects is required, it is necessary to get to the original document in order to be able to index it. The OA-x project has been set up to enable researchers and administrators of (digital) archives to be able to unlock, edit, supplement, combine and archive metadata and data (objects) in digital repositories. A protocol for harvesting and uploading objects has been developed in this project. There are also several implementations available: OA-x within a CMS, OA-x as extendable OAI data and server provider, and OA-x as repository filler. We have opted for similar names of verbs as are used in OAI-PMH. The advantages for authors and administrators of (digital) archives are great. It is possible to place articles or other publications on one's own website as full text and easily export them to a repository such as an institute repository. It is also possible to use OA-x to upload publications to electronic journals (e.g. Studies in Mycology) or to a central address where a grey publication will be produced. With the aid of the i-Tor technology, it was already possible to index PDFs on one's own website as full text and make them searchable via Google. Thanks to OA-x, it is now possible to index PDFs (or other text files) on external sites as full text too. In collaboratories, it is not uncommon to use collections of images that are split over various sites. With an OA-x implementation, it is possible to make a collection of thumbnails of the images in these distributed collections in one place (as if the images were collected on one site only). An example of a collaboratory is E-laborate, a virtual joint venture in the alpha and gamma disciplines. OA-x is used by E-laborate to upload datasets to subject-based repositories. OA-x can also be used to make a (national) electronic depot. Objects can be sent to such a depot or archive from institutional repositories. OA-x makes it possible to not only send the object but also multiple datasets. It is even more important that information about the technical data (e.g. in what version of PDF the object was created) can be sent along with it. These data are of essential importance to a depot because they can be used to see whether an object (and the format of the object) has remained unchanged.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa

A Multi-Institutional Approach to Technical Report Literature: Development of the Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL)

While availability and access to more recent technical report literature has greatly improved through electronic delivery, older technical report literature still remains elusive to users. The challenges posed by these collections are two-fold: 1) the diverse nature of distribution and collection building practices across institutions; and, 2) the variability in the selection and acquisition methods used, resulting in incomplete series, confusion in depository and non-depository status, lack of awareness and definition of a "complete collection", and a host of other inconsistencies. Through a national dialogue among academic librarians led by University of Arizona Libraries (UAL) beginning in 2005, common discoveries were made about the various barriers libraries were experiencing in managing and making accessible legacy technical report collections, and the urgent need to address these issues. The positive response to these dialogues and preliminary assessment results led to an extraordinary opportunity to resolve a difficult challenge in academic and special libraries. These problems created a strong case for establishing the Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) collectively maintained by the library community. The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) aims to identify, digitize, archive, and provide persistent and unrestricted access to federal technical reports issued prior to 1975. TRAIL is a Greater Western Library Alliance initiative led by the University of Arizona in collaboration with the Center for Research Libraries. TRAIL is funded by the member institutions of the Greater Western Library Alliance with an estimated annual budget of $128,000. To date, TRAIL has scanned nearly one million pages of technical reports issued by the US federal government agencies and has involved participation and contribution from more than twenty universities. This paper will describe TRAIL, including the need for its development, current structure, and future directions. TRAIL Project Info - http://trail.gwla.orgIncludes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa

Grey Literature: Taxonomies and Structures for Collection Development

Libraries worldwide have not picked up the pace of addressing where Grey Literature fits in collection policies. This remains rather curious due to the skyrocketing prices of traditional books, journals, databases, and other information resources, and trends to serialize and promote access in perpetuity. Most collection development policies only address resources for which payment has been made, where formal acquisitions or licensing practices are observed. Due to more interest and a commitment to Open Access initiatives and electronic publishing, Grey Literature does not appear to have a more stable and comfortable home in libraries, although it has demonstrated increasingly how it is being cited more seriously and frequently. Often, content that is openly available on the Internet and for which there is no required payment finds no bibliographic control or metadata associated with it that begs for description and order. Thus, this paper will examine what kind of alternatives there are for discovering, cataloging and processing the immense grey literature so that additional value and access is guaranteed giving it credibility in a collection development policy. Building on the celebrated works of Edward Tufte's, Envisioning Information (1990), Davenport and Prusak's, Information Ecology: Mastering the Information and Knowledge Environment (1997), and the pioneering work of Bloom and Krathwohl's, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956), the core component of information architecture suggests how taxonomies are a foundation for visual design of information navigation and structurally define relationships of different elements in a cohesive package. Several key examples of Grey Literature in the Social Sciences, Arts and Scientific disciplines and in Digital Libraries will be used to demonstrate how a taxonomy contributes to the outline of most Collection Development policies and establishes relationships by format, organization, finding tools, and access points. Policies are what drive and determine what libraries acquire and license, point to and promote in their catalogs by an increasingly important web presence. Grey Literature needs to share more equal billing in terms of discovery and retention and unless it is included in the formal collection development policies the added value of incorporation is weakened. If information usage patterns are indeed more reflective of information architecture, then the taxonomy structure should encourage collection development policies to entertain more Grey Literature content. This paper will consider how libraries would benefit by such recommendations and become more relevant to its users. Illustrated comparisons of what new roles a library would experience with more Grey Literature referenced and alluded to in its collection policy will enhance the role of bibliographers and invite more widespread global content with less financial demand than other information products.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa

JICST's acquisition of grey literature published in Japan

JICST collects materials concerning all areas of science and technology from about 60 countries in the world, carries out database construction (abstracting and indexing) of each literature and supplies the information on-line. With respect to the materials published in Japan, JICST makes efforts to collect not only those to be obtained through conventional distribution routes of commercial publication but also grey literature which is said to be difficult to obtain, and contributes to the promotion of distribution of information in Japan. In many cases, grey literature is published for specific users, has a small number of published copies, has extremely limited distribution destinations, is very often published not-for-sale and is hardly available through conventional distribution routes. As the materials of this sort of literature, there are public reports made and published by public agencies including the central government, local governments, etc., technological reports of private firms (mainly introductions of products),collections of preprints of academic societies and associations, etc. We have analyzed the tendency of collection of Japanese grey literature collected by JICST in terms of material contents, publishing organizations, etc. As a result, with respect to public reports which account for one fourth of Japanese materials collected by JICST, it is found that about three fourth of them is research reports and the remaining one fourth is reports of activities. As for publishing organizations, the Science and Technology Agency (STA) and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), etc., are found in public agencies and the Tokyo Metropolis is often observed in local governments. We have also conducted analysis of monographs which are collected at an annual rate of about 3,000, centering on research and investigation reports. JICST's acquisition of grey literature published in Japan is made almost entirely through the receipt of the above as gifts. Although the National Diet Library receives new publications from the publishers in accordance with the legal deposit, JICST very often asks for such gift by sending a letter to the publisher. As for public reports published by public agencies, which are difficult to acquire by ordinary methods, JICST makes aggressive efforts to collect them, for example, by obtaining cooperation of STA for this purpose and by sending a person in charge of collecting them to the central agency concerned. For promoting overseas distribution of Japan's scientific and technological information, JICST supplies English abstracts of Japanese literature including the above-mentioned grey literature through STN International as JICST-E PLUS. Furthermore, it has started recently to supply titles, etc.(Japanese version) of public reports stored by JICST through INTERNET, and these data can be retrieved according to the names of agencies which have made the reports and the agencies which have commissioned the research or preparation of the reports. This effort will contribute to maintain a stable cooperative relationship with agencies publishing public reports to which JICST asks for provision of such publication and facilitate expansion of their collection.Includes: Conference preprintXAInternationa

Open academic community : New scholarly communication models during the transformation period

Digital revolution has contributed to fundamental changes in the way research is conducted and its results are distributed. The emergence of Open Science paradigms has reflected the very essence of those processes. Ideas of Open Science gain popularity and become ever more accepted as a model for conducting research in the 21st century. Its acceptance at all stages of research process and scholarly communication gets ever stronger in international institutions, OECD and, European Commission, in particular. There are many new initiatives constituting awareness on those processes, good practices of implementing the ideas of Open Science are widely promoted, too. The recent recommendation position statement of the European Commission of July 17, 2012 sets a new landscape for future presentation of research results and their sharing. Member countries of EU have been requested there to define an agenda of the related implementation process.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notesXAInternationa

Grey Literature Based Surveys of Information Industry Development in Central and Eastern Europe

During transformation and accession period in Central and East European countries, specially after dissemination of Bangemann Report, many various surveys, reports, studies etc. appeared in form of publications, on WWW pages and as internal documents. They are prepared by external bodies as EU, OECD or international financial organizations. Some studies have been conducted by foreign and Polish experts affiliated to universities, research units or consultancy agencies. In Poland the crucial are those prepared by State Committee for European Integration, State Committee for Scientific Research and Ministry of Telecommunication. Relevant associations, foundations, chambers of commerce and industry, research and professional journals usually prepare yearly reports, surveys and rankings. There is still growing number of units dedicated to information society affiliated to government bodies, regional structures of administration, nongovernmental organizations and universities. Research organizations are involved in many European projects, devoted, among others, to promote, monitor and report information technologies development in CEEC. Most important are: MISAC - Monitoring EU-CEEC Information Society Pilot Actions. GIP - Global Inventory Project. TEN-34 - Trans European Research Networks. Many PHARE projects and actions are fully or partially devoted to information and telecommunication technologies. Special attempt is given to harmonization of the law before accession to EU, privatization of telecommunication structures, TV digitalization, electronic commerce development. Appropriate data for surveys are accessible from governmental and research reports, Polish Press Agency, professional and scientific journals, WWW information services, specialized services as State Statistical Office, relevant databases and information services on national, regional, sectoral or on European level. The Information Processing Centre is responsible for monitoring and reporting of the information industry development in Poland as a participant of ESIS project and is going to utilize its experience in grey literature oriented information services to prepare surveys of information society development.Includes : Conference preprint, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa

J-STAGE: System for Publishing and Linking Electronic Journals

Since 1999 Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) has been operating J-STAGE (Japan Science and Technology Information Aggregator, Electronic), a system helping academic societies in Japan to create and publish their own electronic journals. J-STAGE supports the entire process of online publishing: submission / reception of research papers, peer review, judgment, editing, and loading articles on the web site. Users can search and retrieve articles by keywords or their bibliographic data, and they can view their abstracts and references, and can also download the full texts in PDF format. Access policy of each journal is decided by its publisher society. Most of the journals on JSTAGE are now freely accessible, but some journals require authentication to read full text. As of the end of March 2005, about 200 journals and 80 proceedings are currently published and about 130 thousand articles are loaded on J-STAGE. Number of accesses to top page in a year is about 2,900,000, and more than 250,000 PDF are downloaded per month. In 2002, JST launched JST Link Center, which links electronic articles each other by accumulating linking data of electronic journals in cooperation with overseas linking organizations. Using JST Link Center, research papers released on J-STAGE are linked to articles on various worldwide electronic journal sites and bibliographic databases via CrossRef, PubMed link, ChemPort, and JOISLink. Links to the citing articles from the original cited articles have been now available among the articles on J-STAGE and the participating publishers in CrossRef's Forward Linking. JST has released new services like My J-STAGE, advance publication, HTML full text publication, and pay-per-view system. JST plans to collect more academic journals published in Japan on J-STAGE. The immediate target is more than 500 titles by the end of fiscal year 2006. JST also plans cooperation with Google to lead more users to J-STAGE.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa

Grey Literature as a segment of the market of scientific and technical Information services in Latvia

The Concept of Provision of Scientific and Technical Information has been elaborated for Latvia as a component of the originated National Information Programme. The Concept imagines grey literature as one of the most operative and important kinds of information for Latvia exactly in current transit period. Realization of virtual library strategy, provision of global information search, development of on-line and document delivery services are envisaged to ensure wide access to international sources of grey information for Latvian researchers and specialists. A lot of printed and electronic grey information sources are worked out at present in Latvia, they contain information on results of fundamental and applied researches, on development of advanced technologies. Worldwide distribution of this information is exceptionally important for all Latvian researchers to integrate in European Union and global research programmes, to establish wide partnership with Western colleagues, to obtain innovations for further investigations. These functions of grey literature is much more vital for our country (and for other associated with EU countries too) than for Western countries in connection with hampered at present presentation of the results of Latvian research in the international scientific literature. To realize both tasks several interrelated projects are implemented nowadays in line with the Concept. Activities and the first experience of Latvian Academic Library as a representative of Latvia in the EAGLE are described.Includes : Conference preprintXAInternationa

"Knock, Knock:" Are Institutional Repositories a Home for Grey Literature?

Academic and special libraries are eagerly as well as reluctantly joining the bandwagon to participate in institutional repositories. The young and growing collection of the University of California Institutional Repository hosted by the California Digital Library (CDL) contains nearly 5300 documents (see http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship/). This paper will analyze the contents of that collection in terms of levels of greyness. Content comes from 9 different campuses composing the University of California's Research Units, Centers, and Departments and includes working papers, research content, journals and peer reviewed series. This author has developed a five-point scale that identifies and describes the range of content to conclude the extent that this example of an institutional repository is grey. Institutional Repositories have different collection and review policies and this will be noted. Capturing this content institutionally adds prestige and visibility to resources that without this institutional affiliation may not have peer review, be available digitally and thus remotely, and have perpetual access. A conclusion will be made whether this model of institutional repository supports a new publishing method for renewed life in grey literature.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa