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XML Markup of Taxonomic Literature

December 1, 2002

John Aubry
Database Manager
American Museum of Natural History

Applications based on XML markup offer promising means of making new uses of the information stored in the taxonomic literature. Publications can be linked to specimen collections. Descriptions are being reused to create field guides. Specimen level data might be extracted from the published literature to stand as a surrogate for catalog data. Taxonomic descriptions might be assembled according to geography, habitat, ecological role, or other criteria different than the ones chosen by the original authors. All of these uses can be facilitated by the application of appropriate XML markup to the existing texts.

This session will explore some of the approaches under development by the American Museum of Natural History, and others, to develop tag sets and rules for markup of taxonomic literature that might support such applications.

Web Links:
The American Museum Congo Expedition, 1909-1915

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2002 Project Briefings, E-Science, Metadata
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Approaches to Providing Real-Time Reference for Remote Users

April 22, 2002

Rachel Cheng
Associate University Librarian
Wesleyan University

Denise Troll Covey
Acting Assistant University Librarian, Head of Research & Development Library
Carnegie Mellon University

Librarians at Wesleyan and Carnegie Mellon Universities are experimenting with two innovative ways to meet clients’ needs for reference assistance. One uses staff members available for extended hours online, and the other uses software to mimic reference interviews and provide answers.

Wesleyan University Library, through a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation, is in the first year of a pilot project to test real-time collaborative reference service on the Internet for a group of liberal arts colleges, including Wesleyan, Connecticut, Smith, Wellesley, and Vassar. The two-year project included installation of a local server in the Wesleyan University Library and hiring staff to provide services to more than one institution during extended hours.

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries’ statistics indicate that over 75% of the access to its online resources occurs outside of a library facility. A drawback of this kind of remote access is that users do not have traditional reference librarians to guide them to relevant and reliable material. Carnegie Mellon University Libraries is developing software known as the Automated Reference Assistant (ARA), which will attempt to mimic the reference interview online. It will elicit information about the users’ research needs and guide them to pertinent material without human intervention.
handout (in PDF format) 249K file size
handout (in PPT format) 458K file size

Filed Under: CNI Spring 2002 Project Briefings, Learning Spaces (includes Information/Learning Commons), User Services
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Architectural Innovation: Merging Networks and Physical Spaces in Higher Education

April 22, 2002

Garry Forger
Academic Specialist
University of Arizona

Amy S. Metcalfe
Doctoral Student
University of Arizona

Veronica M. Diaz
Research Associate, Virtual Adaptive Learning Architecture
University of Arizona

A new instructional facility opened in January 2001 at the University of Arizona, combining architectural innovations in both information networks and physical spaces. The Integrated Learning Center (ILC) provides an opportunity for implementing experimental instructional technologies such as the Virtual Adaptive Learning Architecture (VALA) Project. VALA provides a personalized learning environment as well as a repository of reusable learning objects. Both the VALA learning network and the physical space of the ILC are designed to expand and enhance traditional classroom faculty/student contact. This innovation combines the expertise of library information specialists, instructional technologists, tutoring and mentoring services, faculty members, and peer student-to- student support.

Filed Under: CNI Spring 2002 Project Briefings, Learning Spaces (includes Information/Learning Commons)
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ARL Scholars Portal Working Group: An Update

April 22, 2002

Mary E. Jackson
Senior Program Officer for Access Services
Association of Research Libraries

Just over a year ago, ARL established a Scholars Portal Working Group with the goal of defining and promoting tools and services for the academic community that provide a single point of access on the Web to find high-quality information resources and, to the greatest extent possible, to deliver the information and services directly to the user’s desktop. A User Scenario was developed and an environmental scan conducted to determine the availability of software tools and of opportunities for collaboration to pursue the vision of the group. In addition, ARL conducted a survey to determine the state of portal functionality that is currently deployed or being considered by research libraries. This briefing session will bring the audience up to date on ARL’s findings and next steps.

Information on the ARL Scholars Portal initiative is available on the ARL web site <http://www.arl.org/access/scholarsportal/>

Filed Under: CNI Spring 2002 Project Briefings, Information Access & Retrieval
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Building the Glasgow Digital Library and Its Components

April 22, 2002

Dennis Nicholson
Director, Centre for Digital Library Research
Strathclyde University

This briefing will describe the various components and building blocks being produced to create a regional digital library in the Glasgow area and how these fit into the emerging information strategy for Scotland.

Filed Under: CNI Spring 2002 Project Briefings, Digital Libraries
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Building a Heritage Sector on the Internet: Experiences with .museum

April 22, 2002

Cary Karp
President & CEO
Museum Domain Management Association

The recent inclusion of seven new generic top-level domains in the Internet Domain Name System provided a basis for proving a number of concepts. One of the purposes underlying the establishment of the .museum TLD was to determine the viability of providing narrowly defined target communities with dedicated domains. A second purpose was to explore the potential of a controlled namespace for enhancing the value of the DNS for the Internet user community.

The protypal impetus that .museum might have towards the future creation of similar TLDs in adjacent communities, for example, .library and .archive, will be discussed from strategic, political and infrastructural perspectives. This will include a review of the activity needed to establish .museum and possible modes for extrapolating from it to enable a less strenuous expansion of the heritage management community’s named presence on the Internet. A second discussion will address problems inherent in the conceptualization of a mnemonic device such as the DNS in terms of semantic potential.

Filed Under: CNI Spring 2002 Project Briefings, Special Collections, Standards
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Building an Information Environment: New Challenges for the Education Community in the UK

April 22, 2002

Catherine Grout
Programme Director
Joint Information Systems Committee

This session will provide an overview of the programs funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) on behalf of the education community in the UK. The discussion will focus on how funded activities — both planned and already underway — will contribute to transforming the processes of learning, teaching and research by providing solutions to issues of resource discovery, access, delivery, and re-use of digital resources. The cross-searching of distributed resources, integration of digital resources within learning, and institutional environments will be discussed. The session will be illustrated with examples of funded projects active in the area to give an idea of the depth and breadth of development activity underway.

Filed Under: CNI Spring 2002 Project Briefings, Information Access & Retrieval, Teaching & Learning
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Building a Large Digital Collection for Remote Use

April 22, 2002

Barbara Taranto
Director, Digital Library Program
The New York Public Library Research Libraries

The New York Public Library Research Libraries are currently engaged in a major initiative to digitize 600,000 graphic and pictorial items from their collections. The scope and depth of the project has required a substantial investment in selection processes, user interface development and iterative development. This session will review some of the history and major policy issues facing the program.

Filed Under: CNI Spring 2002 Project Briefings, Digital Libraries
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Building Sustainable Models for Electronic Scholarly Publishing

April 22, 2002

Maria S. Bonn
Director of the Scholarly Publishing Program
University of Michigan

Catherine Candee
Director, Scholarly Communication Initiatives
University of California, Office of the President

The University of Michigan Library’s Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO) exists to provide an institutional venue for the electronic publication and distribution of scholarly content. This presentation will outline the policy issues that led to the creation of SPO, and then describe SPO’s organization and methods for building sustainable models and methods that bridge the gap between academic self-publishing and large-scale, aggregated commercial publishing. The presentation will conclude by suggesting several areas for cooperation and collaboration in building alternative venues for scholarly publishing. Among the issues addressed in the talk will be:

  • Support for the traditional constructs of journal and monographic publication in an online environment.
  • Publishing scholarly work expressly designed for electronic delivery.
  • Developing services that are responsive to the needs of both producers and users.
  • Fostering a better economic model for campus publishing.
  • Supporting local control of intellectual assets.
  • Creating highly functional scholarly resources.

The California Digital Library (CDL) has taken a different approach to scholarly communication initiative and these will be described and contrasted with the Michigan Strategy.

Filed Under: CNI Spring 2002 Project Briefings, E-Journals, Economic Models, Publishing, Scholarly Communication
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Creating Digital Libraries through Multi-Institution Collaborations

April 22, 2002

Alan Cornish
Systems Librarian
Washington State University

Robert H. McDonald
Information Technology & Digital Projects Librarian
Auburn University

Catherine M. Jannik
Digital Projects Working Group Coordinator
Auburn University

Gathering the resources and people needed to create complex digital libraries often requires intimate collaboration between two or more institutions. This session offers briefings on two such collaborations: one creating a digital library of historical maps in Washington state and another developing a research portal for Civil Rights documents in Alabama.

The Early Washington Maps online collection (http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/holland/masc/xmaps.html) was built jointly by the Washington State University Libraries and the University of Washington Libraries. The core software package used to support this project, CONTENTdm, enables institutions to develop image, sound, and video collections in a collaborative manner. This session will present additional tools employed to build this digital library and some of the challenges faced by project participants.

The Transforming America Project (http://www.transformingamerica.org/) is a subject specific primary source research portal of Civil Rights collections in the state of Alabama. The project provides a one stop search for primary source Civil Rights documentation by creating a virtual repository of distributed archival finding aids and museum collection guides using hypermedia, XML, and Dublin Core-based descriptive metadata. The collaborative effort includes libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state. Participants include Auburn University Libraries, University of South Alabama, Trenholm State Technical College, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, University of Alabama Libraries, Troy State University-Dothan, Rosa Parks Library and Museum, and the Birmingham Public Library.

Filed Under: CNI Spring 2002 Project Briefings, Digital Libraries, Metadata
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