The NISO/DLF workshops on reference linking from citations to journal literature revealed the Harvard problem or appropriate copy problem. When linking from a citation to the article represented by the citation, one needs to take into account the fact that multiple instances of that article may exist. Delivery of the appropriate instance depends on the context of the user. But -- as pointed out at the very beginning of the SFX research effort -- this problem is not limited to linking from citations to full-text. It is equally relevant for other types of so-called extended services that link a record from whichever scholarly information resource to related information. For instance, when an institution subscribes to an abstracting and indexing database run by an intermediate, its users should be able to link from records in that A&I database to corresponding records in the version of the citation databases to which the institution subscribes. Or, the link-to-holdings feature, pointing at the user's OPAC system, that is very commonly used for A&I databases, should also be available for citations in journal articles. All kinds of linkages between electronic scholarly information resources should take into account the context of the user. In general, this is not the case for actual linking solutions. Therefore those can be named "closed". The SFX research has looked into ways to enable context- sensitive delivery of extended linking services. The project briefing will give an overview of the main and generic findings. It will also show how the SFX framework can "open" closed linking frameworks, such as CrossRef, in a straightforward way. It will touch on the capabilities of the specific SFX server that dynamically delivers context-sensitive services.

The W3C (Web Consortium) was established in 1994 to develop common protocols for the web, promote its evolution, and improve interoperability. There are about 400 members worldwide, and though most share interests in common with the library and information community, very few members have strong ties to the library world.

The W3C is therefore somewhat of an enigma to our community, but most W3C activities are at least of general interest to libraries and some are of compelling interest: W3C is developing specifications in certain domains where the library community has much at stake, as well as decades of experience -- perhaps substantially more experience than the W3C at large -- and where we could provide significant contribution. These domains include character sets, identifiers, and metadata. Other W3C activities (proposed and/or former activities) include HTTP, HTML, XML, style sheets, graphics, digital signatures, privacy, intellectual property rights, and web accessibility (web-usability for people with disabilities).

This session will first provide a short briefing on the W3C and its activities; then, panelists from organizations with strong ties to the library community and which are W3C members will describe their interests in the W3C, and what, from their perspective, is the library and information community's interest in the W3C. We hope that the session will provoke thought and discussion of whether the library community's interests are properly represented in the W3C, and how our community might better influence W3C's direction and decision-making process.

The Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC) is an Internet-based, distributed system for quality agricultural information and resources managed by an alliance of collaborating institutions. Currently, there are more than 34 partners, with the potential for an additional 10 by the end of the year. Each AgNIC partner offers expert informational coverage of a "narrow slice" of agriculture (e.g., cranberries, maple syrup, turf grass, animal welfare, etc.). From its beginning in late 1995 until the spring of 1997, the initial five partners concentrated on discovering how to work together and building the alliance while relying upon a very simple technical architecture to serve their needs. In the spring of 1999, the growing alliance (21 members) voted to move to an architecture that allowed structured access to the distributed resources using an appropriate software and metadata. ROADS, an open source software package, was accepted as the testbed application for this next phase.

ROADS, developed under the auspices of the British Electronic Library Programme, is using a "subject- specific gateways" concept to investigate methods for cross-searching and interoperability. The alliance members, working collaboratively, began in mid-1999 to create a system that would result in the advanced functionality it desired. The National Agricultural Library and Cornell University's Mann Library are working to implement a ROADS system with searching, browsing, thesaurus support, Dublin Core input, and query routing between servers (Whois++ protocol). The technical application of these functions is of equal importance with the logistical and administrative requirements that will be necessary to make this distributed system operational. The development of an applied thesaurus and the application of the Dublin Core metadata standards for resource management and discovery are as much technical issues as administrative ones which require a great deal of community consensus. The AgNIC community, with its many agriculturally focused members, is an ideal environment for the practical development of this innovative distributed information system. This presentation will include a brief summary of the organizational development of AgNIC, an overview of the basic structure and business model, and an update on creating the distributed architecture.

The Research Libraries Group has made electronic access to cultural materials a priority in the opening years of the 21st century. In a collaborative, international effort, RLG will be working with an alliance of its member institutions to build an extensive integrated information resource containing digital representations and textual descriptions of cultural materials drawn from the collections of its members. Participants in RLG's initiative will develop best practices and conditions for creating electronic surrogates of cultural materials, address institutional intellectual property mandates, contribute to a substantial collective resource of unique or rare cultural materials, and ensure that the resulting service is international, representative, and self-sustaining. This session will describe the factors that gave rise to this initiative and describe how RLG is planning to address the technical, organizational, rights-management and economic challenges.

This non-technical session will provide an overview of national trends in PKI 9Public Key Infrastructure for authentication and access management) as it relates to higher education. National-level projects by EDUCAUSE, Internet2 and others will be discussed, as well as recent developments among Federal agencies.

ETDs have been a part of the graduate student experience at Virginia Tech since 1997 and over 2000 ETDs have been submitted. WVU has required ETDs since 1998 and has over 400 ETDs in its archive. In addition over 80 Universities around the world have joined NDLTD to work together to advance the ETD project. Recent joiners include Cal Tech, MIT and the University of Texas. Two workshops have been held to allow NDLTD members and other to exchange information about starting ETDs projects and a third ETD workshop will be held March 16-18 at the University of South Florida. Journal publishers have also begun to set policies more friendly to ETDs. Still, some faculty and students, particularly those who are highly entrepreneurial, continue to express their concerns about sharing research done by their graduate students through ETDs.