Friday, May 30, 2008

Developing the Capability and Skills to Support eResearch

Margaret Henty

The growing capacity of ICT to contribute to research of all kinds has excited researchers the world over as they invent new ways of conducting research and enjoy the benefits of bigger and more sophisticated computers and communications systems to support measurement, analysis, collaboration and publishing. The expanding rate of ICT development is matched by the numbers of people wanting to join in this funfest, by growth in the amount of data being generated, and by demands for new and improved hardware, software, networks, and data storage. Governments and research funders, too, are keen to exploit the potential for new discoveries which may bring societal benefits and a return on their financial investment.

Go to source: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue55/henty/

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

IATUL Library Twinning Initiative

To meet the requirements of patrons, modern libraries have created an international information network. By sharing knowledge and experience, and cooperating in complex projects to meet new challenges, librarianship can help considerably to constantly improve our knowledge infrastructure, and find new ways to efficiently navigate the global information highway.

To support the international community of scientific and technological university libraries in creating urgently required synergies, the International Association of Scientific and Technological University Libraries (IATUL) has established the IATUL Library Twinning Initiative.

Within the framework of the IATUL Library Twinning Initiative, member libraries are encouraged to form close and long term bonds of mutual cooperation and support, by joint ventures and by setting up an efficient communication infrastructure for the exchange of experience through electronic means and personal meetings.

Go to source: IATUL Twinning Initiative

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Stirling research goes global with repository first

http://www.proffice.stir.ac.uk/news/news_stories/index.php#one

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Learners 2.0? IT and 21st Century Learnners in Higher Education

by Anne H Moore et al

This research bulletin examines what the literature refers to as “new learners” or “critically engaged learners.” It explores the responsibilities our institutions have to create opportunities for these learners to actively engage in creative discovery, problem definition, and appropriate use of information technologies. It is based on a literature review and accompanying conceptualizations that begin to answer important questions about institutional development for a technologically sophisticated age.

Go to source: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/ECAR/Learners20ITand21stCentury/46519

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

RepoMMan: Delivering Private Repository Space for Day-to-Day Use

by Richard Green and Chris Awre

In the spring of 2005, the University of Hull embarked on the RepoMMan Project a two-year JISC-funded endeavour to investigate a number of aspects of user interaction with an institutional repository. The vision at Hull was, and is, of a repository placed at the heart of Web services architecture: a key component of a university's information management. In this vision the institutional repository provides not only a showcase for finished digital output, but also a workspace in which members of the University can, if they wish, develop those same materials.

The RepoMMan Project set out to consider how a range of Web services could be brought together to allow a user to interact easily with private workspace in an institutional repository and how the Web services might ease the transition from a private work-in-progress to a formally exposed object in the repository complete with metadata. Three key decisions had been taken before the project proposal was submitted and will not be further discussed here: that open source software should be employed for the project, that the Web services should be orchestrated by an...

Read more
Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Using Open Source Social Software as Digital Library Interface

by Erik Mitchell and Kevin Gilbertson, Wake Forest University

This article investigates the use of social software applications in digital library environments. It examines the use of blogging software as an interface to digital library content stored in a separate repository. The article begins with a definition of digital library approaches and features, examines ways in which open source and social software applications can serve to fill digital library roles, and presents a case study of the use of blogging software as a public interface to a project called Digital Forsyth, a grant-funded project involving three institutions in Forsyth County, NC. The article concludes with a review of positive and negative outcomes from this approach and makes recommendations for further research.

Go to source: http://www.dlib.org/

Pages