The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content. The OAI has its roots in an effort to enhance access to e-print archives as a means of increasing the availability of scholarly communication. Continued support of this work remains a cornerstone of the OAI program. The fundamental technological framework and standards that are developing to support this work are, however, independent of both the type of content and the economic mechanisms surrounding that content, and promise to have much broader relevance in opening up access to a range of digital materials.

Under the auspices of CNI and the Digital Library Federation participants in the OAI have been defining and experimenting with an interoperability architecture based on metadata harvesting. The goal is to provide an easy way for data providers to expose their metadata and for service providers to access that metadata and use it as input to value-added services. As the current phase of the project approaches completion, this session will provide an update -- including information about Version 2 of the metadata harvesting protocol.

The Open Knowledge Initiative is defining an open architectural specification to be used for the development of educational related software. As a framework for applications development, the project was motivated by the desire to have a modular and extensible development platform for building both traditional and innovative educational applications. The initial specifications of the first layer of the Common Services architecture for OKI is now being shared with not just the core development partners (see http://web.mit.edu/oki/comm/) but also the general public via the OKI website, (http://web.mit.edu/oki/dsgn/specs.html). This session will provide an update on the project's progress and activities.

The government¼s response to the terrorist acts of September 11th presents several difficult challenges for the academic community. Information is being removed from web sites and library collections in an effort to enhance our nation¼s security. A presidential directive is encouraging institutions to identify and stop offering sensitive courses. The USA PATRIOT Act broadly expands government surveillance authority and affects standards for both domestic criminal investigations and foreign intelligence surveillance powers. Questions for the academic community include:

• What is the likely impact on open access and the future of networked information?
• What are the implications for colleges and universities, especially as service providers?
• How should the higher education and the library community respond?

This session will review developments following September 11th and invite discussion of campus experiences, concerns, and strategies.

In the planning stages for the past two years, the Digital Library @ Duke has moved into an initial implementation phase, including the establishment of a core organizational structure and initial programmatic focus. The DL @ Duke is a good example of focused digital library development. The program at Duke is characterized by top-to-bottom vertical integration with the university planning infrastructure. The university's budgetary commitment distinguishes clearly between ongoing support for baseline capabilities versus dependence on outside funding for research and development. Digital library programs focus on web- mediated library services, on the characteristics of the physical infrastructure supporting those services, and on a user-centered support model that breaks down the distinctions between academic computing support provided by central IT resources and capabilities provided by the digital library program. The library also handles the university's course management system and is exploring ways to integrate the online catalog and course reserve systems. The session will provide participants an opportunity to discuss and debate some of the operating assumptions of digital libraries by engaging the Digital Library @ Duke as a point of departure.

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.

The University of Maryland Libraries have begun using two digital media servers to distribute audio and video programming within the Libraries and on campus. In September 2000, the University acquired a MediaHawk Video Server to replace a VHS videotape distribution system. MediaHawk is a high quality interactive video-on-demand system designed to deliver full screen, television-like quality video to a desktop computer. In May 2001, we completed negotiations with Films for the Humanities and Sciences for digital video distribution rights that will ultimately permit us to offer nearly 1,000 titles to the University community in a fully interactive environment. We are also using the IBM VideoCharger media streamer to distribute high fidelity audio programming to students enrolled in a Rock & Roll Music course on campus. VideoCharger will also be used for video serving on campus. Recently, the Libraries entered into a Premier Partner Agreement with Ex Libris (USA) of Chicago to further the development of their DigiTool digital asset management software as a potential vehicle for the integration of digital initiatives of the 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/>

This session will present the preliminary results of a workshop on Research Issues in Digital Archiving, sponsored by the NSF Digital Government Program, the NSF Information and Intelligent Systems Division, and the Library of Congress. The workshop, held immediately preceding the CNI Spring Task Force Meeting, included 50 participants from government agencies, universities and industry who discussed research issues and developed priorities for research on digital archiving and long-term preservation. This session will present preliminary results and recommendations from the workshop.