A policy context - eLib and the emergence of the subject gateways

This brief paper outlines some of the features of the policy environment which led to the setting up of the influential 'subject gateways' as part of the Electronic Libraries Programme. It has the modest and partial ambition of putting some of the discussions of the time on record. It should be read as a companion piece to two other articles. The first, Law 1994, develops the historical context for the emergence of the data centres, a central component of JISC information infrastructure, and collaterally discusses the broad thrust of JISC's developing informational activity. The second, Dempsey 2000, upon which this piece is partly based, provides a broad discussion of the emergence of the subject gateways and the historical trajectory which led to the setting up of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN), which now provides an umbrella for JISC-funded subject-gateway activity. This article has a particular focus: it looks at some aspects of the policy background which led to the funding of the subject gateways. It does not discuss emerging services and approaches that also influenced developments

Opening Keynote: Workflow is the New Content

The digital environment makes workflow support more important, as activities, content, and communications are tied together on the network in various combinations. Think of the interesting mix of social and functional capacities in an application like Strava, used by athletes to track activity and connect with others. In a library or research environment this trend is also clear. Research practices, and the support provided by libraries, publishers and others, provide an intriguing example, as workflows produce, manage and consume content, enable collaboration, and tie devices together to get things done. We are familiar with the historic role of the Institutional Repository, and libraries are now potentially working with colleagues to provide research information management systems and research data management capacity. This presentation will consider some of these issues, in the context of changing research behaviors, metrics, the move to open, and other factors

What Collaboration Means to Me: Library collaboration is hard; effective collaboration is harder

In this short piece I argue that library collaboration is very important, so important that it needs to be a more deliberate strategic focus for libraries and the organizations that support them. This is especially so in a network environment, where scale is important in creating efficiencies and impact. Despite this importance, effective collaboration is hard and current arrangements are suboptimal. I discuss various reasons why this is so, and offer some suggestions for how matters might be improved

The inside out library : libraries in the age of Amazoogle

Intervention à la pré-conférence "converging and dissolving the University Library" du 34e congrès LIBER (2005) qui s\u27est tenue à le Bibliothèque universitaire de Groningue aux Pays-Bas. Amazon et Google sont devenus des acteurs incontournables qui ont su imposer leurs « hubs » dans le secteur de l’information à l’image des « hubs » d’aéroport, qui permettent de gagner tout point du globe à partir d’immenses plates-formes de correspondances. Pour Lorcan Dempsey, les bibliothèques ne sont pas assez présentes sur le web. Les bibliothèques ne manquent pas de contenu mais ne parviennent pas à l’intégrer dans un flux suffisamment visible avec des interfaces aussi conviviales que celles de leurs concurrents commerciaux

[Library roles]

Conclusions of the report of the panel discussion about the future of the scholarly communication "Library roles

Operationalizing the BIG Collective Collection: A Case Study of Consolidation vs Autonomy

This is a discussion paper prepared in collaboration with the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Library Initiatives. It presents a framework for operationalizing the BTAA collective collection. A collective collection is a collection managed collaboratively across a network of libraries. We have a very specific focus in this paper on the ”purchased” or print collection, acknowledging that other areas of library collections are sometimes managed collectively, digitized collections for example. The BTAA justifiably claims to be the premier academic collaboration in the US. Once described as “the world\u27s greatest common market in education3,” it leverages the combined research and teaching capacity of major research universities to scale innovation, impact, and economies across its 14 members. Together, the BTAA members have a profound social and economic impact throughout a large part of the US. Libraries are a central part of the BTAA research, learning, and teaching endeavor. They collectively mobilize major expertise and resources. In fact, the BTAA collection represents more than a fifth of all titles in the North American print book collection. The BTAA libraries align with BTAA goals by collaborating at scale to increase both impact and efficiency. The character of library spaces, services, and collections is evolving with changing learning and research behaviors. It is widely recognized that continued autonomous development of large standalone collections does not meet needs and is not efficient. A library cannot collect all that its members would like to see, and much of what it does collect does not get used. At the same time, library space is being configured around engagement rather than around collections, the long-term stewardship costs of print materials are being recognized, and the role of books in research and learning is changing. Libraries are re-evaluating traditional approaches to building, managing, and sharing collections, and are increasingly looking to do this cooperatively. In this paper, we define and explore key attributes of collective collections and present a series of recommendations designed to advance the BTAA libraries toward a more purposeful coordination of their collections. Doing all that we propose would involve an extensive multi-year program. The approach we recommend here is broadly applicable in other consortium settings as well, which is why we characterize the paper as a case study

Specification for resource description methods, Part 1. A review of metadata: a survey of current resource description formats

This study provides background information to the DESIRE project to enable the implications of using particular metadata formats to be assessed. Part I is a brief introductory review of issues including consideration of the environment of use and the characteristics of metadata formats. A broad typology of metadata is introduced to provide a framework for analysis. Part II consists of an outline of resource description formats in directory style. This includes generic formats, but also, to give an indication of the range of development, domain-specific formats. The focus is on metadata for 'information resources' broadly understood rather than on the variety of other approaches which exist within particular scientific, engineering and other areas