McMullen, Susan

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Connections, Fall, 2004; Issue Five

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Roger Williams UniversityDOCS@RWUConnections University Libraries11-1-2004Connections, Fall, 2004; Issue FiveSusan McMullensmcmullen@rwu.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://docs.rwu.edu/libnewsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University Libraries at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Connectionsby an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact mwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationMcMullen, Susan, "Connections, Fall, 2004; Issue Five" (2004). Connections. Paper 5.http://docs.rwu.edu/libnews/5roger williams university LibrariesNOVEMBER, 2004           ISSUE FIVECONNECTIONSFrom the Dean’s DeskPeter V. DeekleDean of University Library ServicesA very busy summer and challenging start to our Fall 2004 semester included several important personnel “firsts.”  Following alengthy national search, and recognizing the career interests of a University colleague, we were fortunate to select Betsy Peck Learned, ourformer Architecture Librarian, as our first Associate Dean of University Library Services.  With nearly nineteen years of University service,Betsy brings to her new role (effective October 1) expertise and experience in planning, digital initiatives, and a reputation for leadership inour Rhode Island consortia.  The funding for two new staff positions resulted in the search for our first Library Technical Assistant and BeverlyDupere’s appointment and the appointment of our first Digital Resources Assistant, James Dickson, from Brown University.  Each of thesepersonnel appointments brings us much-needed added support in administration, operations, and services!The leadership of President Roy J. Nirschel and the advocacy of our provost, Ed Kavanagh, resulted in a major gift to the University(Spring 2004) by Mary Tefft White (Class of 1976).  During the summer a wonderful new reading room and cultural center were created onthe University Library’s main floor, resulting in more effective storage and user space for periodicals and for group study.  The new space – theMary Tefft White Cultural Center – hosts Socrates Café, library-sponsored cultural events, and informal group meetings throughout eachday.  Already, as intended, the Center has attracted many daily users to our Library.Planning and assessment have converged in many ways for the Library this Fall.  Betsy Peck Learned is coordinating a full-scale review of ourcurrent strategic plan in light of University goals and objectives.  John Schlinke is consulting with the University’s Institutional ResearchOffice on the interpretation of the analysis of our Spring 2004 LibQUAL+ patron survey data.  Sue McMullen is engaging librarians in areview of the Library as place (considering the “information commons” model).  Barbara Kenney is articulating the Library’s role in theUniversity’s First Year Experience and assessing our impact on other freshman orientation initiatives.  Veronica Maher is preparing archivalmanagement and policy guidelines.  Christine Fagan, while coordinating plans for a major NEH/ALA-funded event in 2006, is helping toestablish library procedures for future public program management.  John Fobert is taking on a much needed full-scale review of our internaldata collection and reporting procedures.  Mary Wu, having just returned from China and an international conference on database manage-ment will be investigating the characteristics of digital repositories for the Library.OPEN ACCESS E-PRINTS, DSPACE, & OAI:Open Access to ScholarshipBy Susan McMullen              Removing barriers to access is changing the nature of scholarlycommunication. The open access movement, which is at the heart ofthis change, has been quickly gaining momentum over the past few years.By definition open access means barrier-free online access to scholarlyliterature on the public internet at no cost to the reader.  According tothe Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.soros.org/openaccess/),the only constraint on reproduction and distribution should be to giveauthors control over the integrity of their work and the right to beproperly acknowledged and cited.                 In providing greater free access to research and scholarlyworks, new publication models are currently being explored.  The modelproviding the greatest access to users is the full open access journal.  Itspublisher provides free unqualified web access to the journal’s entirecontents immediately upon publication. To link to over 1200 of these“quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals” visit The Directory ofOpen Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/).  Other models of access mayinclude delayed open access or partial open access in which the publisherprovides access to only some articles for free, gives access to only the tableof contents and abstracts, or delays access to full content for several monthsto ensure the sale of their print subscriptions.  Another model that isbecoming more prevalent today is one in which the author or the author’sinstitution pays a fee to support open access publication.  Examples ofthis model include BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science(PLOS).  Although non-profit journals such as PLOS Biology and PLOSMedicine make high quality scientific articles freely available online withno charges for access or restriction on subsequent redistribution, they docharge authors $1500 to cover the necessary administrative and technol-ogy costs.  Libraries, scholars, and the scientific community are hopefulLearning to Bridge the Worldthat this flip-flopping of fees will become a sustainable business modelthat can off-set the high costs of journal subscriptions.E-Print repositories represent one of the earliest and mostsuccessful open access initiatives. Their purpose is to provide a   means tocommunicate ongoing scholarly research to colleagues prior to its publi-cation in peer-reviewed journals.  Best known of these is the arXiv EprintService (http://arXiv.org/) for high energy physics which began over adecade ago at Los Alamos and is now located at Cornell University.Today, many disciplines and institutions operate e-print servers whichenable authors to self-archive their publications.  The metadata providedin the archiving process  allows the content to be harvested into a virtualarchive which is then easily navigated by the user.  For a listing ofavailable e-print servers, see http://archives.eprints.org/Digital Institutional Repositories     Digital Institutional Repositories, such as MIT’s DSpace(http://dspace.org) and the University of California’s eScholarshipRepository (http://repositories.cdlib.org)  are being enthusiasticallydeveloped by major research institutions around the world.  An institu-tional repository is a searchable digital archive that manages and dissemi-nates the scholarly output of the university, consequently offering greatervisibility and accessibility to the research community.  Examples of workthat can be captured, stored, indexed, preserved, and disseminatedinclude articles and pre-prints, audio and video files, technical reports,images, computer programs, data sets, conference papers, visual models,and working papers.         Experts in collecting, organizing, and preserving documents,librarians are taking leadership roles in developing these repositories.Perhaps the most successful and well-known of these projects is DSpace.In collaboration with Hewlett Packard, MIT Libraries developed DSpaceas an open source system that is both standards-based and interoperable.The DSpace software is freely available to universities for use and adapta-tion in developing their own institutional repositories.  Growing fromthe MIT project is the DSpace Federation – “a gathering of institutionsworking to find solutions to the challenges of digital preservation ofscholarly materials.”  Institutions participating in the DSpace Federationinclude Cornell University, Columbia University, University ofRochester, Ohio State University, University of Washington, CambridgeUniversity, University of Toronto, and MIT.Like the e-print archives discussed above, members of the schol-arly community need to be keenly aware of initiatives like DSpacebecause they are becoming increasingly valuable sources of information.They provide access to a new kind of primary research literature andenhance the communication of scholarly research.Open Archives Initiative (OAI)Growing out of the open access movement is the Open Ar-chives  Initiative (http://www.openarchives.org).  According to its website, “OAI is an initiative to develop and promote interoperabilitystandards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content.”Its roots lie in the e-print repositories that were established to communi-cate ongoing scholarly research to colleagues.  Whereas various e-printservers each had their own interfaces, standards for submission, and searchcapabilities, their increasing number has quickly made evident the needfor interoperability for searching across these various repositories.  Usersare much better served if they only have to learn and search a few central-ized web-based databases when seeking this type of information.Today, tools are being developed that will uncover e-prints andother academic digital resources previously “hidden” from users becausethey are usually out of the range of popular search engines.  These toolsutilize the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) which isa mechanism for harvesting records containing metadata within eachrepository or digital archive.  OAIster (http://oister.umdl.umich.edu/oaister), a project of the University of Michigan Digital Library Produc-tion  Services, is one of the new tools making it easier for users to uncovervaluable scholarly work.  Funded through a Mellon grant, OAIster’s goalis to “create a collection of freely available, difficult to access, academi-cally oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone.”OAIster’s current database of nearly 3.5 million records from 351institutions is growing monthly.  OAIster has recently teamed up withYahoo!’s Content Acquisition Program (CAP) to provide greater accessto scholarly resources through Yahoo! Search.  In similar fashion, Googlehas announced that it is partnering with 17 universities using DSpace inan effort to mainstream access to institutional archives.As the nature of scholarly publication and dissemination ischanging, it is important to be informed about these new initiatives andhow they are impacting higher education.  Take some time to explorethese new tools for finding academic digital resources by visiting theInvisible Web: Tools for Scholarly Research web page found under WebSearch Tools from the University Libraries’ web site: (http://library.rwu.edu/webresources/invisible.html).Learning to Bridge the WorldENHANCING TEACHING WITH IMAGESBy Betsy Learned             This past year the library has begun to build a digital imagecollection towards the goal of supporting classroom instruction in thearts and enhancing instruction in all other subject fields.  Students todayare visually sophisticated and respond positively to the use of images inthe classroom.  New students entering RWU are anticipating a high levelof digital image use and access.            Art and architectural images have been licensed from severalmajor vendors including AMICO (the Art Museum Image Consortium),Saskia Ltd., and Davis Art Images.  This past semester the library servedas test-site for a Mellon-funded project called ARTstor, a database ofover 300,000 images of art, architecture and archaeology. AMICOimages are available from the Libraries’ home page and be used foreducational use only.  The Library has plans to subscribe to ARTstor thiscoming year.The library also plans to provide digital imaging presentationsoftware called MDID (Madison Digital Image Database) next semesterto enable faculty to teach with images in the classroom.  We will pilot anart and architectural history survey course as our first effort to serve ourfaculty and students with digital images.  The software also allows a  digitalpresentation to be saved for student study purposes and allows forintegration of a faculty member’s personal image collection.In the future, the library hopes to expand our digital collec-tions in all subject areas including the humanities and the sciences.  Anyfaculty member interested in using digital images in the classroom shouldcontact Betsy Peck Learned, Associate Dean of Library Services or JohnChristine Presenting Her Book to the Queen of France. 1410-15. Tempera and gold onvellum, 14 x 17 cm.  The British Library, London.  © Stokstad, Art History, 2002.READ IT ONLINE:E-BOOKS COME TO RWU LIBRARIESBy Christine FaganThe e-book has arrived at Roger Williams University Librar-ies!  Actually, it has been here for some time, but is now becoming a moresignificant feature of the library collections.  Initially, the library partici-pated in a collaborative purchase via HELIN of an 8,000-volumegeneral e-book collection from NetLibrary.  However, the real impetusfor this medium came with the purchase of Safari in January 2004 andebrary in July 2004.  These two collections have substantially increasedaccess to monographic information in an electronic format.Safari is a 200-volume e-book collection devoted to computerand information technology.  Publishers include O’Reilly, Adobe, Cisco,Peachpit, Que, Sams and others.  Essentially, Safari is designed toprovide the best information technology books in the form of an online,searchable database.  It offers easy access to reliable code examples andcurrent technical information.Ebrary is a growing online academic collection of over 14,000full-text e-books as well as over 1,000 maps.  More than 150 publishersare included in this database including Elsivier Science, Island Press,John Wiley & Sons, Laurence Erlbaum, Maps.com, Palgrave Macmillanand many prominent university presses.  The goal of ebrary is to providea wide range of high quality content in a fully searchable format.  Whileit is necessary to download an ebrary reader in order to access thisinformation, it is a simple procedure which enables the reader to usefeatures such as personalized bookshelves, highlighting and annotating.It is not expected that students and faculty will read e-booksfrom cover to cover, but will utilize them as a convenient source forreading chapters or locating specific information.  A key feature of thee-book format is that it provides full-text indexing of all titles and offersa level of access to content that was previously unavailable in the printedformat.  Also, e-books are fully accessible 24/7 from any location.All of the e-books offered through the services mentioned aboveare accessible through the HELIN online catalog as well as through thee-book link on the RWU Libraries home page. Consider taking a lookat this new information resource provided by the RWU Libraries.Schlinke, Interim Architecture Librarian.  We hope to offer workshopssoon for any faculty member interested in using the MDID software.Announcement of the workshops will be forthcoming.Learning to Bridge the WorldOne Old Ferry RoadBristol, RI 02809-2921401-254-3375 or 401-254-3031http://library.rwu.eduEditorSusan McMullenInformation Resources LibrarianFRBR: The Future of the Online CatalogBy Mary Wu                Upon entering the title search “The Lord of the Rings” into the HELIN catalog, 36 hits are retrieved.  Which of the following interfacesthat display the results would you prefer?  The current one - shown in Figure 1, or the hypothetical one - shown in Figure 2?             The search results that the HELIN catalog displays are not in any obvious order.  One would have to browse the entire list in order to findthe movie “The Two Towers” on DVD.  (Imagine if the Catalog returned 100 or more hits.)          The hypothetical display is based on a new cataloging model called FRBR (the Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records).  Theparadigm change of a FRBR- based catalog is the structured display that highlights the categories among library resources and presents them in ameaningful order. Instead of browsing 36 records, the user only needs to go through 7 records by clicking Projected Material to find the movie onDVD.            The FRBR model is still under development.  But it shows the potential to transfer the conventional catalog into a powerful search tool thatcan help library users navigate effectively in increasingly complex information space.  Please stay tuned for updates on the development of a FRBRbased catalog.Figure 1 Figure 2HELIN Catalog search: The lord of the ringsResults:             36Author:             Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel),                         1892-1973Title:                 The lord of the ringsMaterial type:   Language material & non musical sound recording (22)                         Screenplay (1                         Projected material (7)                         Musical sound recording (6)

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