This newsletter issue introduces several new contributors and articles about library technology. It includes articles on pricing trends for personal computers, open source software in libraries, educating users about copyright and fair use, and a case study of library automation at the University of Valencia, Spain. Conference reports are provided from recent library technology conferences. New columns explore e-books and a new SLAC electronic conference proceedings archive. The issue aims to provide timely information on library technology topics to its readers.
This document summarizes an article about new interfaces for electronic journals. It describes several novel technologies that take advantage of the digital format to further facilitate use of electronic collections, including higher-level access options beyond typical search features. These include automatically generating terms and semantic relationships to represent document topics, and visualizing these concepts and relationships to reduce the cognitive load of conventional searching. The visualization allows interactive exploration and filtering of document collections through concept mapping.
This newsletter issue introduces several new contributors and articles about library technology. It includes articles on pricing trends for personal computers, open source software in libraries, educating users about copyright and fair use, and a case study of the University of Valencia library. Conference reports are provided from recent library technology conferences. New columns explore e-books and copyright issues. A new global case studies column debuts with a report on the University of Valencia library.
The document summarizes 5 innovative electronic journals, indexes, or services that go beyond conventional print publications by providing additional features and functionalities in their online offerings. It profiles the Astronomy and Astrophysics index, the Internet Journal of Chemistry, ResearchIndex, TheScientificWorld, and NEC Research Institute ResearchIndex. Each profile describes the purpose, features, and functionalities of the resource, including the ability to search literature, embed interactive content, and customize displays. The resources aim to enhance access and interaction with scientific literature through their online environments.
This document provides summaries of several upcoming conferences, training programs, videoconferences, and workshops related to metadata and digital libraries. It also summarizes two ongoing projects: the development of a MARC 21 XML schema by the Library of Congress to facilitate the communication and conversion of MARC records, and the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) being developed by the Library of Congress as a standard for encoding metadata about digital library objects.
The document summarizes recent events and projects in the fields of digital preservation, metadata, cataloging standards and practices. It describes a forum held by RLG on converging standards for digital preservation, ALCTS regional institutes on metadata and cataloging rules, training courses offered by Rare Book School, an Open Archives workshop in Portugal, and the annual NASIG conference in Virginia. It also provides overviews of the Diffuse Project standards information source and the DLIST digital library for information science and technology.
Alexander Street Press provides online collections in the humanities and social sciences through its website and mobile apps. It offers collections of music scores, recordings, videos and reference materials that can be accessed on smartphones and tablets through its mobile-friendly website and apps for iOS and Android devices. Alexander Street Press partners with major content producers and plans to release an iPhone app.
This document summarizes the CyberStacks prototype, which applies traditional library classification and organization methods to facilitate access to science and technology resources on the World Wide Web. Specifically, it uses the Library of Congress classification system to organize selected Internet resources into categories. This allows users to browse broad subjects and drill down into more specific topics. The goals are to reduce cognitive load for users and provide context among related resources. Key elements include selecting high-quality reference materials, classifying resources based on subject coverage, and presenting descriptive annotations to help users evaluate resources. The document argues this approach can make Internet resources easier to navigate for users familiar with traditional library systems and services.
The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is an online database funded by NASA that provides bibliographic records and full text articles in astronomy, astrophysics, and related fields. It contains over 2.3 million abstracts as of 2001. The ADS includes searchable abstracts from major journals, conference proceedings, technical reports, books, and dissertations. Users can search by author, title, keywords, publication date, and other filters. Search results are ranked by relevance and users can view brief records or full details of publications from the search results. The ADS is a widely used resource with over 100,000 users from 112 countries accessing it monthly in 2001.
This document summarizes an article about new interfaces for electronic journals. It describes several novel technologies that take advantage of the digital format to further facilitate use of electronic collections, including higher-level access options beyond typical search features. These include automatically generating terms and semantic relationships to represent document topics, and visualizing these concepts and relationships to reduce the cognitive load of conventional searching. The visualization allows interactive exploration and filtering of document collections through concept mapping.
This newsletter issue introduces several new contributors and articles about library technology. It includes articles on pricing trends for personal computers, open source software in libraries, educating users about copyright and fair use, and a case study of the University of Valencia library. Conference reports are provided from recent library technology conferences. New columns explore e-books and copyright issues. A new global case studies column debuts with a report on the University of Valencia library.
The document summarizes 5 innovative electronic journals, indexes, or services that go beyond conventional print publications by providing additional features and functionalities in their online offerings. It profiles the Astronomy and Astrophysics index, the Internet Journal of Chemistry, ResearchIndex, TheScientificWorld, and NEC Research Institute ResearchIndex. Each profile describes the purpose, features, and functionalities of the resource, including the ability to search literature, embed interactive content, and customize displays. The resources aim to enhance access and interaction with scientific literature through their online environments.
This document provides summaries of several upcoming conferences, training programs, videoconferences, and workshops related to metadata and digital libraries. It also summarizes two ongoing projects: the development of a MARC 21 XML schema by the Library of Congress to facilitate the communication and conversion of MARC records, and the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) being developed by the Library of Congress as a standard for encoding metadata about digital library objects.
The document summarizes recent events and projects in the fields of digital preservation, metadata, cataloging standards and practices. It describes a forum held by RLG on converging standards for digital preservation, ALCTS regional institutes on metadata and cataloging rules, training courses offered by Rare Book School, an Open Archives workshop in Portugal, and the annual NASIG conference in Virginia. It also provides overviews of the Diffuse Project standards information source and the DLIST digital library for information science and technology.
Alexander Street Press provides online collections in the humanities and social sciences through its website and mobile apps. It offers collections of music scores, recordings, videos and reference materials that can be accessed on smartphones and tablets through its mobile-friendly website and apps for iOS and Android devices. Alexander Street Press partners with major content producers and plans to release an iPhone app.
This document summarizes the CyberStacks prototype, which applies traditional library classification and organization methods to facilitate access to science and technology resources on the World Wide Web. Specifically, it uses the Library of Congress classification system to organize selected Internet resources into categories. This allows users to browse broad subjects and drill down into more specific topics. The goals are to reduce cognitive load for users and provide context among related resources. Key elements include selecting high-quality reference materials, classifying resources based on subject coverage, and presenting descriptive annotations to help users evaluate resources. The document argues this approach can make Internet resources easier to navigate for users familiar with traditional library systems and services.
The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is an online database funded by NASA that provides bibliographic records and full text articles in astronomy, astrophysics, and related fields. It contains over 2.3 million abstracts as of 2001. The ADS includes searchable abstracts from major journals, conference proceedings, technical reports, books, and dissertations. Users can search by author, title, keywords, publication date, and other filters. Search results are ranked by relevance and users can view brief records or full details of publications from the search results. The ADS is a widely used resource with over 100,000 users from 112 countries accessing it monthly in 2001.
The NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service provides comprehensive access to bibliographic information and select full-text articles in astronomy, astrophysics, and related fields. It offers customizable search options, automatic inclusion of synonyms, and links to citing articles and related papers. The service had provided over 1 billion records since 1993. NEC Research Institute's ResearchIndex uses fully automated processes to extract citations from electronic papers and identify relationships between citations. ePrints.org advocates for open access to scholarly articles and preprints through either new open access journals or author self-archiving in publicly accessible websites.
The document discusses the MESUR (Making Use and Sense of Scholarly Usage Data) project which aims to develop new metrics for scholarly impact and prestige based on usage data from digital scholarly resources rather than just citations. The key points are:
1) MESUR analyzes over 1 billion usage events of scholarly articles and develops network-based metrics from usage patterns to map the structure of science.
2) Preliminary results show relevant structure in usage-based network maps that correlate with traditional citation-based metrics.
3) MESUR has produced a variety of usage and citation-based metrics and developed online tools for exploring these metrics.
This document discusses dataset profiling and the LinkedUp data catalog. It describes how LinkedUp profiles 34 educational datasets, including information on their schemas, accessibility, and topic coverage. It also explains the benefits of dataset profiling, such as enabling federated querying and exploratory search over multiple datasets. Finally, it outlines techniques for profiling linked data and applications of the profiles through tools like Cite4Me and the LinkedUp data catalog.
This article discusses how e-journals are evolving to incorporate more innovative features by transcending limitations of print. It examines how e-journals are integrating a variety of electronic content like multimedia and being customized. It explores enhancements like interactive features and new formats of scholarly communication. The article also analyzes how e-journals offer personalized alerting services, tables of contents, and ability to select topics of interest to reduce information overload for readers.
Keynote presentation delivered at ELAG 2013 in Gent, Belgium, on May 29 2013. Discusses Research Objects and the relationship to work my team has been involved in during the past couple of years: OAI-ORE, Open Annotation, Memento.
ContentMining for France and Europe; Lessons from 2 years in UKpetermurrayrust
This document summarizes Peter Murray-Rust's presentation on two years of content mining in the UK and lessons for France and Europe. Some key points discussed include:
- Content mining can save lives by enabling researchers to search literature and find past warnings, as in the case of Ebola.
- However, publishers like Elsevier and Wiley have stopped researchers' content mining efforts, hampering their work.
- France, Europe and the UK must actively support content mining through funding, tools, training and protecting researchers from restrictive publishers.
- Examples are given of ContentMine fellows' projects mining literature on topics like weevil-plant associations, cell migration and depression in animals.
20130805 Activating Linked Open Data in Libraries Archives and Museumsandrea huang
This document summarizes the LODLAM 2013 conference. It discusses how linked open data can activate libraries, archives, and museums by (1) bringing library data outside library walls and linking to external web data, (2) helping different actors create and aggregate data about the same objects, and (3) adding value to metadata by linking to external knowledge bases. The conference had over 100 participants from 16 countries and included sessions on topics like curation, vocabularies, tools, and case studies. Several projects and tools were presented, including LODLAM patterns, Karma, and Pundit. The document argues that linking library metadata to the web of data presents opportunities but also challenges of metadata interoperability and vocabulary
The document summarizes the arXiv.org e-print archive, which is hosted by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It originated in 1991 as a way for physicists to share preprints electronically. It has since expanded to include the fields of mathematics, non-linear sciences, and computer science. The archive allows authors to submit preprints and replace versions. Users can search and retrieve full-text preprints and subscribe to receive new submissions. It has become a primary means of communicating ongoing research within certain scientific communities more quickly than traditional journals.
Building Collections in IRs from External Data SourcesSusan Matveyeva
The document discusses building collections in institutional repositories from external data sources such as PubMed, including mapping data fields from PubMed to Dublin Core, transforming the PubMed XML file to a DCXML file, and curating the extracted metadata by standardizing names, checking for copyright compliance, and dividing records into departmental collections for the IR.
Semantic Web, Linked Data and Education: A Perfect Fit?Mathieu d'Aquin
This document discusses how semantic web technologies like linked data are a perfect fit for education. It provides examples of how the Open University has applied linked data to connect educational resources and data from across the university. Linked data allows for flexibility, accessibility, and the ability to combine and interpret different sources of knowledge. However, challenges remain around representing rich metadata about educational purpose and interpreting resources in an educational context.
The document discusses using the Semantic Web as a knowledge base for artificial intelligence applications. It describes how the Semantic Web publishes data on the web in a standardized, linked format. This vast amount of distributed knowledge could be mined by AI in various ways, such as linking data mining to find patterns, using reasoning to analyze and understand raw data, and assessing agreement between ontologies. The Semantic Web represents a large, collaborative base of formally represented knowledge that provides many opportunities for future AI research and applications.
The document describes the SFX framework for context-sensitive reference linking, which allows a user accessing a citation to be redirected to an appropriate full text or service based on their context. The framework uses an OpenURL standard to pass citation metadata from a link source to a parsing server, which then sends the metadata to a linking server to determine the most relevant services and create dynamic links to them based on the user's access and the available library collections and resources. The goal is to provide context-sensitive services to users based on their access and the cited item metadata rather than relying on pre-computed static links.
This document discusses linked data and semantic web technologies. It describes Mathieu d'Aquin, a research fellow at the Knowledge Media Institute of the Open University who works on semantic web, linked data, and knowledge technologies. It then provides an overview of key concepts in the semantic web and linked data, including using URIs to identify entities on the web, representing data as graphs using RDF, and linking data across the web. Examples are given of how linked data can be queried and used in applications.
Text and data mining in UK and France (ADBU - 13 Dec 16)Rob Johnson
Slides from my presentation in Paris on 13 Dec 2016, summarising the findings of our study on text and data mining in public research for the ADBU. Full report available at http://adbu.fr/etude-tdm/.
ABSTRACT. There is an emergent and global trend that integrates bibliometrics and text-mining practices and tools within academic library new services. In this poster, we
present three recent local initiatives, targets and first results, which are order to support the scientific research activities at universities. The cases of three University Libraries in South America are presented, namely, Universidade de São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, and two in Colombia, Universidad Nacional in Medellín and Universidad Santo Tomás in Bucaramanga. According to the data collected through a survey, there is evidence of a growth, after libraries training programs, in the use of databases structured electronic information. This is
especially so in sources indexed in citation databases, such as Scopus and Web of Science and in the volume of records downloaded. There is also evidence of a mutually beneficial engagement of researchers and librarians in the development of technology state of the art and research trends reports. Finally is early to know the extension and impact of these new activities in redefining the role of libraries in the knowledge transfer processes of academic communities.
Poster presented at 4th Global Tech Mining Conference (GTM 2014), Leiden, The Netherlands, Sept. 2, 2014. www.gtmconference.org/
1. The document presents a framework for a semantic network dictionary system to integrate data from various disciplines like meteorology, agriculture, and remote sensing for global observation.
2. The system collects and manages ontological information like terms and definitions from existing data dictionaries and thesauri. It registers this information and allows users to browse, modify and visualize the semantic network.
3. The system is meant to help with tasks like metadata design, data integration and knowledge discovery by providing a shared understanding of terms across technical fields. It aims to grow the semantic network over time through continuous registration and editing by experts.
The document discusses RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and other web feed formats. It provides an overview of what RSS is, where feeds can be found on websites, and how users can subscribe to feeds using different feed reader programs. The document also gives examples of the types of content that are often distributed via feeds, such as news, journal articles, book listings, and library announcements.
This document summarizes several mobile applications related to accessing digital content on Apple devices. It discusses the Kindle app which allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to read Kindle ebooks and periodicals. It also describes the Questia Library app which provides access to Questia's collection of books, journals and articles. Finally, it mentions the arXiview app which enables browsing recent submissions to the arXiv preprint repository. All three apps help expand the capabilities of Apple mobile devices for accessing digital reading materials and scholarly resources.
This document summarizes the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) e-print archive (arXiv.org), which revolutionized scholarly communication in scientific communities by allowing electronic sharing of preprints. Started in 1991 by Paul Ginsparg, it began as an email-based system for physicists to share preprints but grew significantly. It now hosts over 500,000 e-prints across physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Authors can submit and retrieve preprints through a centralized server. The archive helped advance open scholarly communication before conventional journals embraced electronic formats.
This document profiles two lesser-known data sources for ecological and environmental data: CEED and Ecological Archives. CEED is a data repository containing peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed data primarily related to southern California organisms and environments. Users can search and browse metadata and download data files through FTP after registering. Ecological Archives is a public archive publishing supplemental materials to articles in Ecological Society of America journals, including data papers which are peer-reviewed compilations of datasets. It provides long-term access to these materials.
The NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service provides comprehensive access to bibliographic information and select full-text articles in astronomy, astrophysics, and related fields. It offers customizable search options, automatic inclusion of synonyms, and links to citing articles and related papers. The service had provided over 1 billion records since 1993. NEC Research Institute's ResearchIndex uses fully automated processes to extract citations from electronic papers and identify relationships between citations. ePrints.org advocates for open access to scholarly articles and preprints through either new open access journals or author self-archiving in publicly accessible websites.
The document discusses the MESUR (Making Use and Sense of Scholarly Usage Data) project which aims to develop new metrics for scholarly impact and prestige based on usage data from digital scholarly resources rather than just citations. The key points are:
1) MESUR analyzes over 1 billion usage events of scholarly articles and develops network-based metrics from usage patterns to map the structure of science.
2) Preliminary results show relevant structure in usage-based network maps that correlate with traditional citation-based metrics.
3) MESUR has produced a variety of usage and citation-based metrics and developed online tools for exploring these metrics.
This document discusses dataset profiling and the LinkedUp data catalog. It describes how LinkedUp profiles 34 educational datasets, including information on their schemas, accessibility, and topic coverage. It also explains the benefits of dataset profiling, such as enabling federated querying and exploratory search over multiple datasets. Finally, it outlines techniques for profiling linked data and applications of the profiles through tools like Cite4Me and the LinkedUp data catalog.
This article discusses how e-journals are evolving to incorporate more innovative features by transcending limitations of print. It examines how e-journals are integrating a variety of electronic content like multimedia and being customized. It explores enhancements like interactive features and new formats of scholarly communication. The article also analyzes how e-journals offer personalized alerting services, tables of contents, and ability to select topics of interest to reduce information overload for readers.
Keynote presentation delivered at ELAG 2013 in Gent, Belgium, on May 29 2013. Discusses Research Objects and the relationship to work my team has been involved in during the past couple of years: OAI-ORE, Open Annotation, Memento.
ContentMining for France and Europe; Lessons from 2 years in UKpetermurrayrust
This document summarizes Peter Murray-Rust's presentation on two years of content mining in the UK and lessons for France and Europe. Some key points discussed include:
- Content mining can save lives by enabling researchers to search literature and find past warnings, as in the case of Ebola.
- However, publishers like Elsevier and Wiley have stopped researchers' content mining efforts, hampering their work.
- France, Europe and the UK must actively support content mining through funding, tools, training and protecting researchers from restrictive publishers.
- Examples are given of ContentMine fellows' projects mining literature on topics like weevil-plant associations, cell migration and depression in animals.
20130805 Activating Linked Open Data in Libraries Archives and Museumsandrea huang
This document summarizes the LODLAM 2013 conference. It discusses how linked open data can activate libraries, archives, and museums by (1) bringing library data outside library walls and linking to external web data, (2) helping different actors create and aggregate data about the same objects, and (3) adding value to metadata by linking to external knowledge bases. The conference had over 100 participants from 16 countries and included sessions on topics like curation, vocabularies, tools, and case studies. Several projects and tools were presented, including LODLAM patterns, Karma, and Pundit. The document argues that linking library metadata to the web of data presents opportunities but also challenges of metadata interoperability and vocabulary
The document summarizes the arXiv.org e-print archive, which is hosted by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It originated in 1991 as a way for physicists to share preprints electronically. It has since expanded to include the fields of mathematics, non-linear sciences, and computer science. The archive allows authors to submit preprints and replace versions. Users can search and retrieve full-text preprints and subscribe to receive new submissions. It has become a primary means of communicating ongoing research within certain scientific communities more quickly than traditional journals.
Building Collections in IRs from External Data SourcesSusan Matveyeva
The document discusses building collections in institutional repositories from external data sources such as PubMed, including mapping data fields from PubMed to Dublin Core, transforming the PubMed XML file to a DCXML file, and curating the extracted metadata by standardizing names, checking for copyright compliance, and dividing records into departmental collections for the IR.
Semantic Web, Linked Data and Education: A Perfect Fit?Mathieu d'Aquin
This document discusses how semantic web technologies like linked data are a perfect fit for education. It provides examples of how the Open University has applied linked data to connect educational resources and data from across the university. Linked data allows for flexibility, accessibility, and the ability to combine and interpret different sources of knowledge. However, challenges remain around representing rich metadata about educational purpose and interpreting resources in an educational context.
The document discusses using the Semantic Web as a knowledge base for artificial intelligence applications. It describes how the Semantic Web publishes data on the web in a standardized, linked format. This vast amount of distributed knowledge could be mined by AI in various ways, such as linking data mining to find patterns, using reasoning to analyze and understand raw data, and assessing agreement between ontologies. The Semantic Web represents a large, collaborative base of formally represented knowledge that provides many opportunities for future AI research and applications.
The document describes the SFX framework for context-sensitive reference linking, which allows a user accessing a citation to be redirected to an appropriate full text or service based on their context. The framework uses an OpenURL standard to pass citation metadata from a link source to a parsing server, which then sends the metadata to a linking server to determine the most relevant services and create dynamic links to them based on the user's access and the available library collections and resources. The goal is to provide context-sensitive services to users based on their access and the cited item metadata rather than relying on pre-computed static links.
This document discusses linked data and semantic web technologies. It describes Mathieu d'Aquin, a research fellow at the Knowledge Media Institute of the Open University who works on semantic web, linked data, and knowledge technologies. It then provides an overview of key concepts in the semantic web and linked data, including using URIs to identify entities on the web, representing data as graphs using RDF, and linking data across the web. Examples are given of how linked data can be queried and used in applications.
Text and data mining in UK and France (ADBU - 13 Dec 16)Rob Johnson
Slides from my presentation in Paris on 13 Dec 2016, summarising the findings of our study on text and data mining in public research for the ADBU. Full report available at http://adbu.fr/etude-tdm/.
ABSTRACT. There is an emergent and global trend that integrates bibliometrics and text-mining practices and tools within academic library new services. In this poster, we
present three recent local initiatives, targets and first results, which are order to support the scientific research activities at universities. The cases of three University Libraries in South America are presented, namely, Universidade de São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, and two in Colombia, Universidad Nacional in Medellín and Universidad Santo Tomás in Bucaramanga. According to the data collected through a survey, there is evidence of a growth, after libraries training programs, in the use of databases structured electronic information. This is
especially so in sources indexed in citation databases, such as Scopus and Web of Science and in the volume of records downloaded. There is also evidence of a mutually beneficial engagement of researchers and librarians in the development of technology state of the art and research trends reports. Finally is early to know the extension and impact of these new activities in redefining the role of libraries in the knowledge transfer processes of academic communities.
Poster presented at 4th Global Tech Mining Conference (GTM 2014), Leiden, The Netherlands, Sept. 2, 2014. www.gtmconference.org/
1. The document presents a framework for a semantic network dictionary system to integrate data from various disciplines like meteorology, agriculture, and remote sensing for global observation.
2. The system collects and manages ontological information like terms and definitions from existing data dictionaries and thesauri. It registers this information and allows users to browse, modify and visualize the semantic network.
3. The system is meant to help with tasks like metadata design, data integration and knowledge discovery by providing a shared understanding of terms across technical fields. It aims to grow the semantic network over time through continuous registration and editing by experts.
The document discusses RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and other web feed formats. It provides an overview of what RSS is, where feeds can be found on websites, and how users can subscribe to feeds using different feed reader programs. The document also gives examples of the types of content that are often distributed via feeds, such as news, journal articles, book listings, and library announcements.
This document summarizes several mobile applications related to accessing digital content on Apple devices. It discusses the Kindle app which allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to read Kindle ebooks and periodicals. It also describes the Questia Library app which provides access to Questia's collection of books, journals and articles. Finally, it mentions the arXiview app which enables browsing recent submissions to the arXiv preprint repository. All three apps help expand the capabilities of Apple mobile devices for accessing digital reading materials and scholarly resources.
This document summarizes the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) e-print archive (arXiv.org), which revolutionized scholarly communication in scientific communities by allowing electronic sharing of preprints. Started in 1991 by Paul Ginsparg, it began as an email-based system for physicists to share preprints but grew significantly. It now hosts over 500,000 e-prints across physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Authors can submit and retrieve preprints through a centralized server. The archive helped advance open scholarly communication before conventional journals embraced electronic formats.
This document profiles two lesser-known data sources for ecological and environmental data: CEED and Ecological Archives. CEED is a data repository containing peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed data primarily related to southern California organisms and environments. Users can search and browse metadata and download data files through FTP after registering. Ecological Archives is a public archive publishing supplemental materials to articles in Ecological Society of America journals, including data papers which are peer-reviewed compilations of datasets. It provides long-term access to these materials.
This document summarizes five e-print servers across different academic disciplines:
1) The Chemistry Preprint Server (CPS) is a freely available archive for rapid distribution of chemistry research. Authors can submit manuscripts and works-in-progress.
2) Clinical Medicine & Health Research NetPrints is a repository for non-peer reviewed medical and health research. It contains 45 e-prints as of July 2001.
3) CogPrints is an e-print server for research in cognitive sciences like psychology and neuroscience containing over 4,000 e-prints as of July 2001.
The document discusses several free international web-based patent sites, including those run by the USPTO, European Patent Office, China Patent Database, DEPATISnet, and the Industrial Property Digital Library. It describes the types of patent information available on each site, such as bibliographic data, abstracts, and in some cases full-text patent documents. It also summarizes the different search interfaces provided, including basic, advanced, and Boolean searching options available to users.
The document describes an upcoming American Chemical Society conference to be held from April 6-10, 2008 in New Orleans. It provides details on a presentation that will take place on April 7th from 8:30-11:55 AM titled "Using Social Networking to Teach Chemistry". The presentation will discuss using social networking services like Facebook for engaged library instruction. It then outlines the topics that will be covered in the presentation including an overview of Facebook, how to create a librarian and library presence on Facebook, Facebook groups and applications, and examples of outreach projects using Facebook at Iowa State University.
The document discusses the history and future of digital textbooks. It notes that over a decade ago, educators and publishers envisioned the "Future Textbook" as being more than just a printed book, incorporating interactive elements. Since then, ebooks and digital textbooks have grown significantly in popularity. The document outlines the stages of development for digital textbooks, from early experimentation to future standards. It also discusses increasing ebook and digital textbook sales, as well as activities in the academic community around adopting more digital content options.
The document provides an overview of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and web feeds. It begins with an introduction to RSS and what it allows websites to do. It then covers the different types of RSS formats that exist and how users can subscribe to feeds using various feed readers or browsers. Examples are given of organizations, libraries, and sites that provide content via RSS feeds. The last part discusses how RSS can be used for things like announcements, databases, instruction, new books/journals, and more.
The document discusses the history and future of digital textbooks. It notes that over a decade ago, educators and publishers envisioned the "Future Textbook" as being more than just a printed book, incorporating interactive elements. Since then, ebooks and digital textbooks have grown significantly in popularity. The document outlines the stages of development for digital textbooks, from early experimentation to future standards. It also discusses increasing ebook and digital textbook sales, as well as activities in the academic community around adopting more digital content options.
Looking at Libraries, collections & technologylisld
**Important note - notes visible in downloaded presentation. **
An overview of research library collection trends. Presented in the context of changing demands of research and learning in a network environment. Behaviors shape technology; technology shapes behaviors. There is also some analysis of the RLUK collective collections study and a quick look at some characertistics of The Bodleian Libraries' collections.
Open Access to Science: a practical Institutional Repository perspectivecalsi
1. The document discusses open access to scientific research and the role of institutional repositories in curating and providing access to scholarly works.
2. It highlights several initiatives aimed at expanding open access, including projects at the University of Southampton and across Europe.
3. The author argues that open access is vital for speeding up scientific progress and that institutional repositories will continue growing to include more multimedia works and joined-up resources across disciplines.
Scientific databases and repositories play an important role in the scientific community by organizing and providing access to scientific information. There are several types of scientific databases that focus on different subject areas or provide different types of access, including Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, and others. Repositories store and provide access to research outputs, teaching materials, theses/dissertations, and other content. They benefit researchers through increased visibility and impact of publications, and benefit institutions by increasing prestige and supporting teaching/learning. Aggregators facilitate access to content from multiple publishers and databases through hosting, gateway, and full-text services, helping libraries provide access.
The document provides an overview of how to find information in transportation through scientific methods and information retrieval processes. It discusses the similarities between the scientific method and information retrieval, including knowing the subject, requiring new knowledge, devising search strategies, revising strategies based on findings, and examining final results. It also describes various transportation information resources like journals, conference proceedings, magazines, books, databases, and the NJIT library catalog and services.
1) Institutional repositories centralize, preserve, and make accessible the intellectual output of academic institutions like scholarly articles, theses, and books. They are often established and managed by academic libraries.
2) There are four primary mechanisms for enabling open access: open access publishing, digital repositories, author rights policies, and open access policies at institutions. Libraries play an important role in supporting open access through repositories and expertise.
3) Issues for establishing institutional repositories include intellectual property, existing collections, administration, long-term preservation, funding, and software options. Benefits include wider dissemination, access for students and faculty, and showcasing the institution.
Library as Place, Place as Library: Duality and the Power of CooperationKaren S Calhoun
This talk, delivered at the February 2010 OCLC Regional Council Seminar in Auckland NZ, explores the turbulent conditions in which libraries are evolving as both places and virtual spaces on the Web. How are these conditions driving change in library collections, catalogues, and cooperative systems? What are OCLC's strategies for helping today's libraries gain visibility and impact through cooperation and data sharing? If we were building a system for library cooperation today, what would it look like?
1. Open access movement aims to provide unrestricted online access to scholarly research through various mechanisms like open access publishing and institutional repositories.
2. Institutional repositories are digital collections of a university's intellectual output that are managed and maintained by academic libraries to centralize, preserve and provide open access to research created by the university community.
3. There are challenges to establishing institutional repositories like intellectual property rights, existing digital collections, organization, administration, preservation, and funding models. When addressed properly, institutional repositories provide benefits like wider dissemination and impact of research.
Theory and practice of online archives sponsored by universities for dissemination of faculty and university research, with special emphasis on University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The document provides a list of resources for science education, including websites that provide materials for teaching science aligned with standards. It describes websites that offer lesson plans, activities, videos and other materials for teaching science topics. The document encourages teachers to utilize these free online resources to support literacy in science classes.
Calhoun future of metadata japanese librarians4Karen S Calhoun
Reports on the future of metadata in academic libraries and national research information infrastructures. A shorter version of this presentation was given at a September 8 post-conference of the OCLC Asia Pacific Regional Conference, Sept. 6-6, 2010, at Waseda University.
Presented at Industry Symposium, IFLA, 14 August 2008. Describes a new environment of global information services using metadata, taxonomies, and knowledge organization. Makes the case that these changes will permanently affect what it means "to catalog" materials for the purpose of connecting citizens, students and scholars to the information they need, when and where they need it.
The document summarizes developments in Cambridge University Library's transition to more digital resources and services. It discusses how the library has shifted significant portions of its materials budget to online journals and databases. It also describes the library's implementation of a new "resource discovery" platform to help users more easily search and access the library's diverse digital collections, which had previously been scattered across different systems. Additionally, the document outlines the library's "COMET" project to publish a large portion of its metadata as open linked data on the semantic web.
This presentation considers the changing nature of the scholarly record and applies the findings of NMC Horizons Report Library Edition 2014 to the Claremont Colleges Library's institutional repository.
The document discusses services available through MIMAS, a UK data center, that can aid various stages of research. It outlines MIMAS's role in providing data, computing resources, and training. It then summarizes several databases and tools hosted by MIMAS, including Archives Hub, COPAC, Web of Science, Journal Citation Reports, Derwent Innovations Index, ZETOC, JSTOR, CasWeb, Crossfire, and Landmap. Contact information is provided for each service.
Master SPaCE provides information on researching topics and managing references. The lesson plan covers information seeking strategies and improving reference management with Zotero. It discusses primary and secondary sources in sciences and information types needed. It provides tips on using keywords, subject headings, Boolean operators, truncation and wildcards for precise searches. Databases covered include Web of Science, ScienceDirect and Springer. Open access resources and search engines like Google Scholar are also discussed. The document concludes by explaining what reference management software is and the features of Zotero.
The document discusses various topics related to library and information science (LIS) research including focus areas, literature search tools, importance of research design, and citations patterns. It provides examples of pioneering LIS researchers in India and their contributions. It outlines potential areas for theoretical and applied LIS research and lists several online resources and gateways relevant to LIS research.
This review demonstrates that using these websites can provide researchers with valuable sources of data and research, facilitating access to current literature and specialized scientific content. For optimal results, diversifying sources of research and using multiple search engines based on need and specialization is recommended
This document summarizes the CyberStacks prototype, which applies traditional library classification and organization methods to facilitate access to science and technology resources on the World Wide Web. The prototype uses the Library of Congress classification system to organize selected Internet resources and provides browsable access through broad subject categories. It aims to enhance discovery and use of relevant resources by applying established selection criteria and presenting descriptive annotations. The document outlines the philosophy, organization, selection process, and access features of the CyberStacks prototype, arguing that familiar library structures and conventions can help users navigate Internet resources more effectively.
This document summarizes five innovative electronic journals, indexes, or services that go beyond conventional online publications by providing novel features and functionalities. It profiles the Astronomy and Astrophysics index from the Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory, which uses a self-organizing map to organize journal articles into a clickable graphical interface. It also summarizes the Internet Journal of Chemistry, an electronic-only journal that encourages authors to incorporate interactive elements like animations and molecular structures to enhance reader comprehension. The document discusses how these resources aim to fully utilize the digital environment and empower readers through customization options.
This document summarizes five innovative electronic journals, indexes, or services that go beyond conventional online publications by providing novel features and functionalities. It profiles the Astronomy and Astrophysics index from the Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory, which uses a self-organizing map to organize journal articles into a clickable graphical interface. It also summarizes the Internet Journal of Chemistry, an electronic-only journal that encourages authors to incorporate interactive elements like animations and molecular structures to enhance reader comprehension. The document discusses how these resources aim to fully utilize the digital environment and empower readers through customization options.
Gerry McKiernan is a popular science and technology librarian blogger from Iowa State University. He runs several blogs focused on emerging technologies and their applications for libraries. McKiernan has been blogging since 2003 and his blogs regularly rank in the top 1% worldwide according to Technorati. He gains professional benefits from blogging through opportunities to present at conferences and staying up to date on new developments relevant to his work.
Roddy MacLeod is an award-winning information professional at the cutting edge of the industry. He has been blogging since 2005 and runs multiple blogs, including the Heriot-Watt Library blog Spineless and the JISC-funded TicTocs project blog. Blogging helps Roddy market the library, build interest in projects, and stay on top of trends in the field. It also expands his network and improves his writing skills.
This document summarizes several free international web-based patent sites:
- The USPTO and European Patent Office websites provide free access to patent information as well as other intellectual property resources. Other non-Western nations also offer free patent databases.
- Key free patent database services highlighted include DEPATISnet, the Industrial Property Digital Library (Japan), and the Intellectual Property Digital Library hosted by WIPO. Each provides search access to large collections of patent documents and bibliographic information.
1. The document discusses how MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) could disrupt higher education through innovative business models and flexible learning approaches.
2. It analyzes MOOCs using the theory of disruptive innovation, finding that MOOCs initially target non-consumers of higher education but may eventually compete with traditional universities by improving performance over time.
3. While MOOCs have potential to disrupt higher education, the education sector is complex with many players and regulations, so the impacts are difficult to predict and universities may not be displaced in the same way as other disrupted industries.
Gerry McKiernan is a popular science and technology librarian blogger from Iowa State University. He runs several blogs on topics like online social networks, bioenergy, geothermal energy, and wind energy that receive thousands of subscribers. McKiernan has been blogging since 2003 and credits it with helping him stay on top of developments in his fields and getting invitations to present at conferences. He enjoys the feedback from colleagues who find his blogs professionally valuable.
The document discusses several free international web-based patent sites, including those run by the USPTO, European Patent Office, China Patent Database, DEPATISnet, and Industrial Property Digital Library. It describes the types of patent information available on each site, such as bibliographic data, abstracts, and in some cases full-text patent documents. It also summarizes the search interfaces and capabilities of each site.
This document summarizes several free international web-based patent sites:
- The USPTO and European Patent Office websites provide free access to patent information as well as other intellectual property resources. Other non-Western nations also offer free patent databases.
- Key free patent database services described include DEPATISnet, the Industrial Property Digital Library (Japan), and the Intellectual Property Digital Library hosted by WIPO. Each provides search access to large collections of patent documents and bibliographic information.
This document provides details about the Energy Citations Database (ECD) produced by the U.S. Department of Energy. It describes the content, search features, and record format of the ECD. Key points include:
- The ECD contains over 2 million bibliographic records related to energy and energy-related research funded by the DOE.
- Records include fields for title, authors, publication date, report numbers, subject terms, and abstracts. Links to fulltext are provided for some newer publications.
- Searches can be done through a basic search box searching specific fields, or through an advanced search interface. Searching supports boolean operators and wildcard characters.
- Results can be sorted
The document discusses free web-based patent databases available through esp@cenet. Esp@cenet provides access to over 45 million patent documents from the European Patent Office and other patent offices around the world. It allows users to perform basic and advanced searches. The presentation also reviews other international patent databases from countries and regions like China, Germany, Japan, and WIPO.
The document summarizes esp@cenet®, a free web-based patent search service provided by the European Patent Office. Esp@cenet® provides access to over 42.5 million patent documents from over 70 countries. It allows users to search for patent information via three gateways - the EPO gateway, national patent office gateways of EPO member states, or the European Commission gateway. Basic "Quick Searches" can be done on title/abstract or by patent number. Search results provide bibliographic data and English abstracts when available.
The document discusses social networking services and Facebook. It provides an overview of Facebook, describing its features such as profiles, friends, groups, pages, and privacy settings. It also discusses the growth of Facebook at Iowa State University and outlines plans to create an organizational social network called ESC-Net for the Engineering Staff Council at ISU. The presentation aims to educate about using social media to facilitate collaboration.
EnergyFiles is a virtual library of energy-related scientific and technical information created by the US Department of Energy. It provides access to various collections including journal articles, technical reports, electronic preprints, and bibliographic databases containing over 2 million records. The Energy Citations Database within EnergyFiles contains citations and abstracts of literature from fields related to the work of the Department of Energy. Users can search individual databases or search across multiple collections simultaneously through the EnergyFiles portal.
This document discusses the increasing use of multimedia in electronic journals (e-journals) as the capabilities of digital technologies have advanced. It notes that while early e-journals were limited to text and basic images, the development of technologies like PDF, HTML, and the World Wide Web enabled incorporation of multimedia like audio, video, animations and more. The document reviews common types of multimedia being used in e-journals, such as animated GIFs, MIDI files, MPEG videos, and VRML. It also provides examples of e-journals across various academic fields that employ multimedia.
This newsletter issue introduces several new contributors and articles about library technology. It includes articles on pricing trends for personal computers, open source software in libraries, educating users about copyright and fair use, and a case study of library automation at the University of Valencia, Spain. Conference reports are provided from SITE, ACRL, E-Books 2001, ETD2001, and TechEd. New columns explore e-books and the SLAC e-conference proceedings archive. The issue also launches a new global case studies column.
This document discusses the potential for electronic journals to go beyond traditional text-based formats by embedding multimedia content like audio, video, and 3D models. It presents several examples of e-journals that have begun incorporating multimedia and proposes categories for an "EJI" registry to track innovative e-journals. The document advocates for a vision of online information that provides more freedom by allowing any information to be connected to any other information.
1. This issue introduces several new
authors and contributors and follows
our theme of bringing you some inter-
esting reading content about library
technology. The nature of a Newsletter
begs timeliness, accuracy, interest and
news and we hope that you find that the
information contained herein meets
those expectations.
We introduce you to Tom Wilson,
who wrote an opinion piece that tests
our sense of reality when we examine
how much personal computers and
workstations have really dropped in
price over the last decade and whether
our assumptions are accurate or if our
expectations are just that much greater.
Enjoy reading “Pricing Trends for
Personal Computers: Moore’s Law,
Wilson’s Corollary, and Reality.”
David Bretthauer offers an introduction
to Open Source Software and explores
its application to libraries.
This begins the active conference
season around the world. We have con-
ference reports from the Society for
Information Technology and Teacher
Education (SITE) conference in
Orlando, Association of College &
Research Libraries 10th National
Conference in Denver; the E-Books
2001 meeting in London; the 4th
International Conference on Electronic
Theses and Dissertations (ETD2001) in
Pasadena; Technology in Education
conference in Southern California.
We want to encourage coverage and
submissions from Europe, South and
Central America, Canada and the Asia
Pacific. Please let us know where you
are going, what you are doing that is
relevant to library technology and
automation. Our scope of coverage is
liberal and we invite your participation.
Please consult the Diary and let us
know if you choose to write such a
report or can recommend a colleague
you know who will be attending a con-
ference.
We recognize that you cannot cover
everything, but we want to share what
is happening out there and promote
cultural understanding and professional
development. Sometimes, as can be
seen from the reports in this issue, shar-
ing the responsibilities with some col-
leagues offers readers varied view-
points and observations.
Of our contributing editors, Howard
Falk explores lots of new issues and
products in his column, “E-Book
Currents: A Pulse,” and Gerry
McKiernan dissects the e-Conf:
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Proceedings Archive in his e-Profile
column.
Another first-time contributor is
Mark Bay, who responded to our notice
on License-L for copyright related con-
tent, and explores “Libraries and the
Need to Educate Users about
Copyright and Fair Use.” Emma Pearse
is our eyes and ears about what is hap-
pening in the profession and informa-
tion industry.
This issue also is the launch for a
new column that will take us around
the globe, “Case Studies in Library
Technology and Automation,” and the
first stop is the University of Valencia
in Spain with a write-up by Maria
Carmen Cárcel Más.
We hope that you will share the
responsibilities of updating each other
CONTENTS
Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
FEATURES
Pricing Trends for Personal
Computers: Moore’s Law,
Wilson’s Corollary, and
Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
E-Book Currents: A Pulse . . . . . . . . 5
Open Source Software in
Libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Libraries and the Need to Educate
Users about Copyright and
Fair Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Around the Globe: Case Studies
in Library Automation . . . . . . . 13
REVIEWS
E-profile
eConf: The SLAC Electronic
Conference Proceedings
Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
CONFERENCE REPORTS
Infusing Education with
Technology: Society for
Information Technology and
Teacher Education (SITE)
Annual Conference. . . . . . . . . . 24
Association of College and
Research Libraries 10th
National Conference. . . . . . . . . 29
E-Books 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
ETD 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
TechEd 2001: Technology in
Education International
Conference and Exposition. . . . 36
NEW & NOTEWORTHY . . . . . . 38
CALENDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
CALL FOR PAPERS . . . . . . . . . 43
VOLUME 18 NUMBER 5 2001
JUNE
AN MCB UNIVERSITY PRESS PUBLICATION
LIBRARYHITECHNEWSNUMBER52001183
EDITORIAL
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2. 16 Number 5 2001 LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS
SLAC: The Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center
The Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center (SLAC) is a national research
laboratory operated by Stanford
University under contract with the
US Department of Energy (DOE).
Personnel affiliated with SLAC are
involved with experimental and theo-
retical research in elementary particle
physics using electron beams. They
also pursue research in atomic and
solid state physics, chemistry, biology,
and medicine, using synchrotron radia-
tion. The two-mile linear accelerator at
SLAC – the longest in the world – is
located on a 426-acre campus in Menlo
Park, California, three miles west of the
main Stanford University facilities.
Astrophysical research at SLAC is
focused on space-based measurement
of phenomena that originate in regions
of very-high field relativistic gravity
and on the physics of matter under
ultra-extreme temperature, pressure,
and density. SLAC has a combined
staff of approximately 1,300 (FTE). In
addition, every year 800 scientists from
universities and laboratories from
around the world participate in the
SLAC high-energy physics program
and an equal number are involved in its
synchrotron radiation program. SLAC
is also actively involved in the devel-
opment of accelerators, detectors, and
instrumentation to support high-energy
and synchrotron radiation programs
worldwide (About SLAC, 1998).
The SLAC Library
The mission of the Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center Library (SLAC
Library) is to provide essential infor-
mation services to support SLAC
research programs in high-energy and
particle physics, particle accelerator
theory, design and construction, and
synchrotron radiation-based accelera-
tor theory, design and instrumentation.
The SLAC Library also provides a
variety of onsite and offsite resources
that support the information needs of
SLAC staff in the fields of science edu-
cation, applied mathematics, engineer-
ing, computer science, condensed mat-
ter physics, structural molecular biolo-
gy, and areas of environmental health
and safety, law, business information,
and other subjects that complement the
laboratory’s primary scientific and
technical mission (Welcome to the
SLAC Library, 2001). The SLAC
Library is a unit of the Technical
Information Services (TIS) department.
Among the other units and functions
coordinated by this department are the
Archives and History Office, manage-
ment of the SPIRES-HEP database, and
the printing and distribution of the
SLAC technical publications. The
department itself is a group within the
Research Division of SLAC. (http://
www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/rd/rd.html).
Many of the databases and docu-
ments offered by the SLAC Library
are maintained within SPIRES, the
Stanford University-developed data-
base management system used by uni-
versities, colleges and research institu-
tions throughout the world for a variety
of academic, administrative and scien-
tific applications. A current Unix-based
implementation of SPIRES includes a
Web-based interface and provides
faster distributed computing and signif-
icant improvements in interoperability,
flexibility and speed.
Among the library databases and
documents accessible from the SLAC-
SPIRES information retrieval system
are an online catalog of books held by
the library, a list of serials holdings, a
list of electronic journals, the SPIRES-
HEP (high-energy physics) database,
e-prints from the Los Alamos National
Laboratory server (arXiv.org) and the
SLAC collection, and a database of
conferences, meetings and workshops,
related to particle physics and the gen-
eral interests of the high-energy
research community (SLAC Library
mission statement, 2000).
SLAC Library Book Catalog and
Serial Holdings Lists
Books held at the SLAC Library
may be searched by author, title, key
words, or browsed by assigned subject
heading in a SPIRES-based online cat-
alog (http://www-spires.slac.stanford.
edu/find/books). The book collection is
housed on open shelves and classified
using a modified version of the Library
of Congress classification scheme
(SLAC Library mission statement,
2000). The journals and other serial
publications held by the SLAC Library
are made available as a Serial Holdings
List (http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
library/serialhold.html). A separate list
of online serial publications is also
maintained (http://www.slac.stanford.
edu/library/ejournals.html).
SPIRES-HEP
In addition to managing and provid-
ing bibliographic access to traditional
library materials, the SLAC Library
maintains the SPIRES-HEP catalog, an
online database of preprints, journal
articles, conference papers, technical
reports, theses and dissertations, and
other materials of potential value to
the worldwide high-energy physics
community. The catalog provides
timely, accurate and comprehensive
bibliographic coverage of the world’s
high-energy physics preprints and is
currently a joint collaboration between
the SLAC Library and the libraries of
E-PROFILE
ECONF: THE SLAC ELECTRONIC CONFERENCE
PROCEEDINGS ARCHIVE
Gerry McKiernan
LHTN 18_5.qxd 10/6/03 7:53 am Page 16
3. several other major high-energy
research libraries. Among the libraries
cooperating with the SLAC Library are
those associated with the European
Organization for Nuclear Research
(CERN), the Fermi National
Accelerator National Laboratory
(Fermilab), Deutsches Elektronen
Synchrotron (DESY); the High Energy
Accelerator Research Organization,
Tsukuba, Japan (KEK); and the
Yukawa Institute of Kyoto University
(KYOTO), among others (About
SPIRES-HEP, 1999).
As of April 2001, the SPIRES-HEP
(http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/
hep/) database provides access to more
than 415,000 high-energy related pub-
lications received by the SLAC and the
DESY libraries. The SPIRES-HEP cat-
alog may be searched in a command
mode using a variety of SPIRES search
options (SPIRES Help, undated) (see
Figure 1) or searched by individual
record fields (e.g. author, title, report
number, keywords, e-print sub-collec-
tion, selected journal titles, date, etc.)
or field combinations (see Figure 2). In
addition, the catalog can be browsed
from several key fields (e.g. author,
title-word, experiment, journal or
coden, report number, etc.).
e-Prints
The SLAC Library also provides
access to e-prints in relevant categories
that are made available daily on the
arXiv.org server. Astrophysics, general
relativity, high-energy theory, general
physics, and quantum physics are
among the linked arXiv.org e-print sub-
collections (McKiernan, 2000). The
library’s gateway also allows users to
browse the brief records of relevant
e-prints that have been added to a sep-
arate SLAC-SPIRES e-print database.
Users may browse this SLAC-SPIRES
database for records added within a
current two-week period or search the
entire database by e-print number,
abstract text, author or title. In most
cases, the full-text of the e-print is
made available as a link to arXiv.org or
other e-print servers. Records retrieved
from a SPIRES command or field
search may be displayed in an array of
styles (e.g. HTML, BibTeX, LaTeX,
etc.), or formats (e.g. bibliographic
citation, citation summary, citation
LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 5 2001 17
Figure 1.
First Page of SPIRES-HEP Search Screen
Figure 2.
Second Page of SPIRES-HEP Search Screen
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4. 18 Number 5 2001 LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS
indexed, etc.), and may be sorted by
date, first author, title or first author/
title.
SPIRES Conferences
For researchers in physics and other
fields, conference proceedings and
papers are as significant as print and
electronic journals and articles.
Recognizing the importance of the con-
ference literature to its staff and associ-
ates, SLAC, in association with its sis-
ter research institutions, maintains a
conference database that provides
information about relevant past and
forthcoming conferences, meetings and
workshops, in particle physics and
other areas of potential interest to the
high-energy research community
(http://www.slac.stanford.edu/library/
pdg/conferences.html). A significant
number of records in this database –
but not all – include a link to the full-
text of select conference papers from
the SPIRS-HEP database. The database
covers conferences from the early
1970s, although selected meetings and
conferences from the 1960s are also
included. If available, a link is provid-
ed from a SPIRES Conferences record
to the conference Web page. As of
April 2001, there were records for
10,000 conferences in the SPIRES
Conferences database[1]. The confer-
ences database can be searched by key-
word title, conference acronym or con-
ference location, and limited by date.
Users may also search the database
using SPIRES commands (SPIRES
command searching, 2000). Search
results for either search type may be
sorted in chronological or reverse
chronological order. A “Quick Searches”
option allows users access to display of
conferences added to the database
within the current week or the current
month, as well as those scheduled to be
held in 2001 and 2002. Users may nom-
inate new conferences for inclusion in
the database by using a standard Web
form (http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
spires/conferences/add_conference.
html).
eConf: SLAC Electronic Conference
Proceedings Archive
To promote the publication and
expedite the availability of conference
Figure 3.
eConf Main Page
Figure 4.
SPIRES Conference Database Entries for eConf Proceedings
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5. LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 5 2001 19
proceedings, an experimental archive
titled eConf (http://www.slac.stanford.
edu/econf/) has been established under
the auspices of the SLAC Technical
Information Services department
(eConf: Committee, 2000) (see Figure
3). At this time, the eConf archive is
limited to proceedings in high-energy
physics and related fields. The archive
presently contains the conference
papers of two proceedings: the 19th
International Symposium on Lepton
and Photon Interactions at High
Energies (LP 99) and 20th International
Linac Conference (Linac 2000) (http://
www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/conf/
www?kw=econf) (see Figure 4).
Searching
Within the eConf Web page, users
may search the eConf proceedings col-
lection (“Search all eConf Content”),
search the SPIRES Conferences data-
base for an eConf proceedings (“Search
SPIRES-CONF for Conferences”), or
search the SPIRES-HEP database for
individual papers in eConf. The eConf
content search utilizes the Inktomi®
search software to search for the occur-
rence of a term, acronym or phrase in
proceedings citations and abstracts and
all eConf Web pages; the direct full-
text searching of conference proceed-
ings is not presently available in the
current eConf content search configu-
ration (see Figure 5). The SPIRES-
CONF search option allows users to
search the eConf collection by confer-
ence title, conference acronym (e.g.
“LP 99”), conference title keyword or
phrase (e.g. “Lepton and Photon
Interactions”), or location (e.g.
“Stanford”), or combination of title
word, phrase or acronym and location
(see Figure 6). However, unlike the
search options available in the main
SPIRES-Conferences search page, the
eConf search interface does not permit
users to specify a date range, display
style, format, nor pre-sort the results in
chronological or reverse chronological
order.
The “Search SPIRES-HEP” option
within the eConf search page allows
users to search for individual papers by
author or title keyword, or limit the
search by the arXiv.org sub-collection,
in which a given eConf paper has been
archived (e.g. “astro-ph”, “hep-ex”,
Figure 5.
Sample “Search All eConf Content” Search Results
Figure 6.
eConf SPIRES-CONF Search Results
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6. 20 Number 5 2001 LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS
“physics”, etc.) In addition, users may
search all eConf conference proceed-
ings concurrently or limit the search to
a specific proceedings. However,
unlike the features in the main
SPIRES-HEP database, users cannot
specify the citation, title, keyword,
journal, or other specific fields, nor
limit by date or specify the display
style and format. While the e-Conf
search interface does not offer exten-
sive search, display or sort options, it
does permit a user to display the
records for all the conferences in the
eConf collection and to link to the com-
plete contents of a selected proceedings
(see Figure 7).
Record Format
Records retrieved from a search of
the entire eConf content are listed in
order by relevance percentage, with
those receiving the highest relevance
rating listed before those with lower rat-
ings. Entries are brief and contain the
Web page title or the Web address as the
main entry, followed by the first 30-odd
characters of the Web page or document
text. The Web address and file size for
the source item are listed beneath this
string of characters (see Figure 5).
Results from a SPIRES-CONF search
within eConf provides a detailed record
that includes the conference name, date,
location, contact information, confer-
ence and proceedings Web address, and
a SPIRES conference number. The
record also includes a link to a listing of
papers and their associated records cat-
aloged and indexed in the SPIRES-HEP
database (see Figure 6).
Records retrieved from an eConf
page SPIRES-HEP search will include
a standardized citation; a hotlink to a
paper’s references; relevant notes,
including conference publication infor-
mation and an arXiv.org e-print identi-
fier for the paper; links to bibliograph-
ic citation for the paper in LaTeX
(USA), LaTeX (EU), and BibTeX for-
mats; a hotlink to the keywords
assigned to the paper; and a hotlink to
the papers that are recorded as citing
the paper. This record also includes
a link to an abstract for the paper, a
link to a PostScript version of the
full text of the paper, links to several
mirror sites from which a user may
obtain the paper in other document for-
mats (e.g. PDF), the Web address for
the proceedings in which the paper was
published, and the conference Web
address. In addition, selected SPIRES-
HEP records include a link to the cata-
log record for the paper on the CERN
Document Server, the SLAC Document
Server, and other servers from which
the full-text of a paper has been
archived. For papers that discuss a par-
ticular experiment in particle physics, a
link is also provided to the relevant
record in the SLAC-SPIRES Experi-
ments database of current experiments
in particle physics (http://www.slac.
stanford.edu/spires/experiments/online
_ exp.html).
Viewing or Printing
eConf proceedings can be viewed or
printed in one of two formats: full-text
proceedings or e-print proceedings.
The option to print in the full-text for-
mat provides a link to the complete text
of the proceedings as well as links to
the PostScript and PDF versions of
individual papers; the option to print
using the e-print option requires that
the user identify each conference paper
from the conference proceedings Web
page and retrieve each individually
from the arXiv.org server, if available.
There are two methods by which
users can print the full-text proceed-
ings. In either case, the copy is
consecutively paginated. To retrieve
the entire contents of a proceedings in
one operation, users select the “Com-
plete Proceedings” link from the pro-
ceedings Web page (e.g. http://www.
slac.stanford.edu/econf/C990809/
proceedings.html) (see Figure 7).
Selection of the link will present the
user with the option of downloading
the proceedings text in the compressed
PostScript format (.tar). To view or
print the proceedings, the file must be
uncompressed using an appropriate
utility and viewer (e.g. Ghostview).
Users also have the option of printing
the proceedings by section: the front
matter (title page, table of contents,
program, attendees, etc.), the body of
the proceedings, and the back matter
(appendices, author and subject index-
es). Using this approach, users must
retrieve and print each paper as well as
the front matter and back matter sepa-
rately. For each paper listed on the con-
ference page, a hotlink to the SPIRES-
HEP record is provided, allowing the
user to view the bibliographic data for
the paper in one of three bibliographic
formats (i.e. LaTeX (USA), LaTeX
(EU), or BibTeX). A direct link to cata-
loging data in the LaTeX (USA) format
is also provided (“Citation”) (see bot-
tom of Figure 7).
To print the entire proceedings using
the e-print option, the front matter (e.g.
Figure 7.
Web Page for a Full-Text Proceedings in eConf
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7. LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 5 2001 21
title page, table of contents, committee
members, attendees, acknowledge-
ments, etc.) and the back matter (e.g.
appendices, indexes) are printed from
the conference proceeding site as with
the full-text option. To print all the
papers from a given conference, users
are required to systematically select
either the associated arXiv.org link for
each paper (“LANL”) in the Linac 2000
proceedings (http://www.slac.stanford.
edu/econf/C000821/proceedings.html)
or select the SPIRES-HEP entry
(“SPIRES Entry”) for each listed paper
in the Lepton-Photon 99 proceedings
(http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/
C990809/proceedings.html). The user
is then required to retrieve the
arXiv.org record for each from the
main arXiv.org site (“aps”) or one of
the international mirrors, if available
(see Figure 7). From within the
arXiv.org record, the user may then
print a paper in one of the available text
formats (e.g. PostScript, PDF, DVI).
Conference papers must be printed
individually and collated to create the
proceedings volume.
Submissions
Editors who wish to publish relevant
proceedings in the eConf collection
may submit content as full-text pro-
ceedings or as e-print proceedings. To
submit full-text proceedings, editors
are requested to provide PostScript or
PDF files containing the various chap-
ters of the proceedings, a set of files
from which the entire book may be
assembled, and an HTML file that pro-
vides the title page and table of con-
tents page for the proceedings.
Templates with instructions are avail-
able to facilitate the submission of the
full-text (http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
econf/editors/fulltext-template/instruc-
tions.html: http://www.slac.stanford.
edu/econf/editors/fulltext-template/
instructions.html) (see Figures 8 and
9). Presently, only templates using
LaTeX, the document preparation sys-
tem for scientific and technical publica-
tions, are available. For submission of
e-print proceedings, individual confer-
ence papers are submitted as e-prints to
the arXiv.org e-print service. As with
the full-text proceedings, the confer-
ence editor is required to submit an
HTML file that provides the title page
and table of contents page for the
proceedings. Templates are available
Figure 8.
First Page Instructions for Preparation of Full-Text Proceedings
Figure 9.
First Page of Template for Full-Text eConf Proceedings Page
LHTN 18_5.qxd 10/6/03 7:53 am Page 21
8. for the submission of papers and for the
preparation of the title page and table
of contents (http://www.slac.stanford.
edu/econf/editors/eprint-template/
instructions.html). After a proceedings
has been assembled, it is submitted
using a Web submission form (http://
www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/editors/
submit.html).
eConf Proceedings Citation and
Metadata
Instructions for citing eConf pro-
ceedings and eConf papers is available
(eConf: How to cite, 2000), as is cata-
loging metadata for one of the two con-
ferences (http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
econf/librarians.html).
Implications
In recent years, an increasing num-
ber of conference proceedings have
become available free-of-charge (e.g.
USENIX Proceedings (http://www.
usenix.org/publications/library/pro-
ceedings/) or made available by sub-
scription or pay-per-view in digital
libraries (e.g. ACM Digital Library
(http://www.acm.org/dl/) or IEEE
Xplore™ (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/
lpdocs/epic03/). While a significant
number of physics conferences have
been published in scholarly journals
(Allen, 2000), many are not widely
available due to limited publication and
distribution. In addition, the increasing
cost of proceedings may discourage
libraries from acquiring them.
The eConf service provides a mecha-
nism by which conference organizers
and proceedings editors can publish pro-
ceedings at low cost and with limited
delay. Links to existing databases and
directories within the SLAC-SPIRES
information system and arXiv.org and
other e-print servers can facilitate the
identification and availability of high-
energy conference proceedings and
papers (see Figures 10 and 11). By pro-
viding appropriate templates, the overall
electronic publication process is expe-
dited. The eConf archive is a service that
enables conference organizers to publish
and distribute conference proceedings
more efficiently than by conventional
means and offers access to time-sensi-
tive scholarship at no direct cost to the
reader. Although originally developed
for the field of high-energy physics,
eConf can also serve as a model for
conference publication and distribution
in non-scientific and other scientific dis-
ciplines.
NOTE
1. E-mail correspondence with Heath
O’Connell, April 1, 2001.
REFERENCES
“About SLAC” (1998), available at: http://
www.slac.stanford.edu/welcome/aboutslac.
html [April 3, 2001].
“About SPIRES-HEP” (1999), available at:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/about_
spireshep.html [April 3, 2001].
22 Number 5 2001 LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS
Figure 10.
Schematic of Full-Text Edition Features and Relationships to SPIRES and
arXiv.org Electronic Databases
Figure 11.
Schematic of E-print Edition Features and Relationships to SPIRES and
arXiv-org Electronic Databases
LHTN 18_5.qxd 10/6/03 7:53 am Page 22
9. Allen, R.S. (2000), “The magnitude of con-
ference proceedings published in physics
journals”, Special Libraries, Vol. 86 No. 2,
pp. 136-44.
“eConf: Committee” (2000), available at:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/
committee.html [April 3, 2001].
“eConf: How to cite” (2000), available at:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/cite.html
[April 3, 2001].
McKiernan, G. (2000), “arXiv.org: the Los
Alamos National Laboratory e-print
server”, International Journal on Grey
Literature, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 127-38.
“SLAC Library mission statement” (2000),
available at: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
library/mission.html [April 3, 2001].
“SPIRES command searching” (2000),
available at: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
spires/conferences/help.html#command
[April 3, 2001].
“SPIRES help” (undated), available at:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/hep/
help.shtml [3 April 2001].
“Welcome to the SLAC Library”, (2001),
available at: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
library/ [April 3, 2001].
FURTHER READING
The following Web-accessible presenta-
tions provide an overview about eConf and
its intended benefits:
• eConf by Pat Kreitz, Director of
Technical Information Services and
Chief Librarian at SLAC, November
2000. [http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
econf/pr/pkeconfkymgrs.html].
• eConf: An Archive for Conference
Proceedings in High-Energy Physics –
www.slac.stanford.edu/econf by M.E.
Peskin, theoretical high-energy physicist
at SLAC and member of the SLAC
eConf Committee, October 2000.
[http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/co
mmittee.html].
• eConf: Electronic Conference Pro-
ceedings – www.slac.stanford.edu/
econf by Heath O’Connell. February
2000 [i.e. 2001] [http://www.slac.
stanford.edu/~hoc/eConf.ppt].
• LINAC2000 and eConf by Heath
O’Connell, March 2001. [http://www.
slac.stanford.edu/~hoc/Jacow/jacow.
ppt].
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to thank Pat Kreitz,
Director of Technical Information Services
department and Chief Librarian at SLAC,
and Dr Heath O’Connell, SPIRES Database
Manager, for their assistance in preparing
this review. He is particularly grateful to Pat
Kreitz for permission to use the eConf
screen images used in this review and to
Heath O’Connell for his prompt response to
his various technical queries. He also wish-
es to thank Professor Michael E. Peskin,
theoretical high-energy physicist at SLAC,
for his permission to reproduce schematics
of the eConf system.
DISCLAIMER
The screen images and associated text are
published by the Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center, a national research laboratory oper-
ated by Stanford University for the US
Department of Energy. All rights are
reserved. This text may be used and shared
in accordance with the fair-use provisions
of US copyright law, and it may be archived
and redistributed in electronic form, provid-
ed that this entire notice, including copy-
right information, is carried and provided
that the http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/
is notified and no fee is charged for access.
Archiving, redistribution or republication of
this text on other terms, in any medium,
requires the consent of the Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center.
Gerry McKiernan (gerrymck@
iastate.edu) is Science and Technology
Librarian and Bibliographer, Iowa
State University Library, Ames, Iowa.
LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 5 2001 23
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