For at least the last twenty-five years, futurists have been predicting the advent of the "e-book." Finally, the right technologies and consumer acceptance of the Internet have converged to make e-books a reality. To ensure interoperability and wide availability of e-book titles, it is critical that the nascent e-book industry be based upon open standards. This session describes the status of some of the efforts to create standards for e-book publishers, booksellers, libraries, and consumer reading software and devices.

Libraries are subscribing to an increasing number of web-based information resources. Most of these resources limit access based on lists of authorized IP addresses. This article explains how the University of Manitoba Libraries system uses a proxy server to provide eligible library patrons with location- independent access to such resources.

The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council has completed a study on what people need to know about information technology in order to be able to use it effectively now and in the future. Based in part on a wide range of input from the community at large (including CNI), the report concludes that basic skills (e.g., the use of word processors, e-mail, and Web browsers) is necessary but not sufficient for what the authoring committee calls "fluency with information technology." Equally necessary for the effective use of technology are an understanding of certain fundamental concepts about information technology and a facility with certain intellectual capabilities.

Last Fall the Internet Scout Project released a call for collaborators for a new research initiative, the Isaac Network, which is co-sponsored by CNI. The Call resulted in a show of interest from over two dozen libraries and information providers, some of which now have become Content Providers within the Isaac Network. In this session the progress made on both the technical and content sides of the project will be detailed, and the cross searching of the distributed collections will be demonstrated. The Isaac Network links together human- mediated, highly authoritative collections of Internet resources from content providers who have developed metadata for the resources. Using the latest directory protocols and the Dublin Core metadata set, the Isaac Network provides a search interface to the distributed collections of metadata. The overall goal is to allow users to submit a single query to search geographically distributed and independently maintained metadata collections and to return the combined results to the user. Also during the session the Issac architecture will be briefly described, the Content Provider criteria will be discussed, and the software and content support provided to Content Providers by the Internet Scout Project will be detailed, and time will be allowed for questions. Therefore all providers of high-quality content are encouraged to join the discussion as potential collaborators in the network's development. See the full call for collaborators and Isaac Network papers and documentation at the address provided.  <http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/research/>

As increasingly more information is published in digital form (only) there is a growing need to preserve this information over time, for future access. Project NEDLIB - Networked European Deposit Library - was launched on January 1st, 1998 with funding from the European Commission's Telematics Application Programme, to address this need. During this session on NEDLIB, the functional design of a digital deposit system within the digital library, as envisioned by the project, will be presented. Different issues will be raised such as preservation strategies (migration, emulation), metadata for preservation, and long-term identification.

The project will build an on-line collection of newly published Oxford University Press monographs in all fields of history. Over a period of 5 years, we plan to provide Web access to 1500-2000 titles with full-text and graphics using the PDF format. The project seeks to combine and modify existing tools to achieve an economic, timely and scaleable digital library. It will include a formal study, with the assistance of an external consultant, of the impact of electronic versions on learning, teaching and research, on the sale of paper books and on the economics of publishing. The full collection will be restricted to the Penn community but there will be a demonstration site available to the Internet audience.

This presentation will explore a common set of circumstances in higher education information technology (IT), namely the distributed computing environment often found in research universities. A recent IT site visit team to campus corrected our claim that the university of Utah "...was the most distributed computing environment in the country." Members of this team noted that every campus makes this claim, particularly large research universities.

This presentation will examine the source of the distributed computing environment and why a certain level of change is needed if forward progress is to be achieved. We will also discuss mechanisms for changing the IT environment in a setting with very limited funding and policy resources. Particular attention will be given to the experiences at the University of Utah including what elements are effective and why, what is not working and why, and the challenges being faced as the institution moves forward.