New & noteworthy

Citation

(2003), "New & noteworthy", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 20 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2003.23920hab.001

New & noteworthy

Shibboleth 1.0 SoftwareNow Available

Internet2 has announced the availability of Shibboleth 1.0, a production version of privacy-preserving Web authorization software. Shibboleth, a project of Internet2/MACE, is developing architectures, policy structures, practical technologies, and an open source implementation to support inter-institutional sharing of Web resources subject to access controls.

In addition, Shibboleth will develop a policy framework that will allow inter-operation within the higher education community. Key concepts within Shibboleth include:

• •

  Federated Administration; Access Control Based on Attributes;

• •

  Active Management of Privacy;

• •

  Standards Based;

• •

  a Framework for Multiple, Scalable Trust and Policy Sets (Clubs); and

• •

  a Standard (yet extensible) Attribute Value Vocabulary.

Shibboleth has been tested by more than 20 companies and universities. Shibboleth is standards-based and open source. Blackboard, WebCT and WebAssign, course management software providers, and EBSCO, JSTOR and SFX, online information companies, have already begun to incorporate Shibboleth technology into their products and services. Development of this software was supported with funding from Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, The Ohio State University, Internet2 and the NSF Middleware Initiative (Cooperative Agreement No. ANI-0123937).

http://shibboleth.internet2.edu

First Location-aware LibraryNavigation System Deployed

Ekahau, Inc. has announced that it has enabled the first location-aware library navigation system deployed by the Oulu University Main Library, Finland. The wireless PDA-based system called SmartLibrary helps users to find books and other material from the library collections. The help is provided in the form of map-based guidance to the target bookshelf on a PDA. The Ekahau Positioning Engine™ software is used by the SmartLibrary system to pinpoint the accurate mobile client location.

The guidance is integrated with the online catalog of the library, so that books retrieved from the catalog can be located. Wireless connectivity is provided through a Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.1 1b) network. The guidance is based on dynamic Wi-Fi positioning of the user and static location information of books. The service is a completely software-based solution, which can be provided atop a Wi-Fi installed for wireless Internet access, without any additional hardware.

http://www.ekahau.com

OpenURLStandard Trial Implementation Launched

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has released The OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services standard (version 1.0) for a trial use period ending November 1, 2003. The OpenURL standard allows a user who has retrieved an information resource citation to obtain immediate access to the most "appropriate" copy of the full resource through the implementation of extended linking services. The selection of the best source for the full resource is based on the user's and the organization's preferences related to location cost, contractual or license agreements in place with information suppliers, etc. – all done transparently to the user. The transparency is accomplished by storing context-sensitive metadata with the "OpenURL" link from the source citation, and linking it to a "resolver" server where the preference information and links to the source material are stored.

The initial development of OpenURL was targeted at the electronic delivery of scholarly journal articles. In version 1.0 of the Standard the framework is generalized to enable communities beyond the original audience of scholarly information users to adopt extended linking services to lower the entry barrier for new implementers.

An international group of trial users, including data providers constructing OpenURL metadata, providers of OpenURL resolvers, and libraries providing end user services using OpenURL resolution, are testing the standard. The goal of the trial period is to test the standard's framework using a variety of data sources and resolver services to ensure that users can seamlessly receive and process OpenURLs to solicit feedback on the proposed standard.

Participating in the trial as data providers are: CABI Publishing (UK), Edinburgh University Data Library (UK), Informatics India Ltd (India), Grupo Stela (Brazil), MIMAS, University of Manchester (UK), MuseGlobal, Inc. (USA), ProQuest Information and Learning (USA), RLG-Eureka (USA).

Participating resolver services include: ArXiv.org (USA), Edinburgh University Data Library (UK), Endeavor Information Systems (USA), Ex Libris USA, Inc. (USA), Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (USA), OhioLINK (USA), Potiron Tecnologia para Bibliotecas (Brazil), ProQuest Information and Learning (USA), Sirsi Corporation (USA), MuseGlobal, Inc. (USA), Openly Informatics (USA), RLG-Eureka (USA), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium).

The Standard has been issued in two parts and is available as a free download at http://library.caltech.edu/openurl/Public_Comments.htm The activities of the OpenURL standards committee and its trial implementers can be followed on the committee's Web site at http://library.caltech.edu/openurl/default.htm or by subscribing to the committee's listserv by sending an e-mail message to majordomo@caltech.edu with "subscribe openurl" (without quotation marks) in the body of the message. The trial use period is being coordinated and managed by the California Digital Library. To sign on as a trial implementor contact Karen Coyle (e-mail: karen.coyle@ucop.edu).

http://www.niso.org

NISOElects New Board Members

The voting members of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) have elected Carl Grant Vice Chair/Chair-Elect and have elected Daniel Greenstein, Oliver Pesch, and Ed Ramsey to the NISO Board of Directors, NISO's governing body. Carl Grant will serve as Vice Chair/Chair-Elect from July 1, 2003 until June 30, 2005 and will be NISO Chair from July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2007. Greenstein, Pesch and Ramsey will each serve three-year terms beginning July 1, 2003. Jan Peterson, Vice President of Content Development at Infotrieve, became NISO Chairperson on July 1.

Carl Grant is President and COO of VTLS, Inc. Grant has worked in libraries, or companies automating libraries, for almost three decades. Grant has been a NISO Board member since 2000.

Daniel Greenstein is University Librarian for System-wide Library Planning and Scholarly Information at the University of California Office of the President and Executive Director of the California Digital Library. Greenstein has published numerous books and articles about the development and delivery of networked information resources, digital preservation, and digital libraries and has been active in the development of information standards since the early 1990s.

Oliver Pesch is Chief Architect and Senior Vice President of EBSCO Publishing and has been designing and developing products for the library market for more than 20 years. Pesch has been active on NISO standards committees since 2001 and now co-chairs NISO's Metasearch Initiative planning committee.

Ed Ramsey is Director, Corporate Applications at Random House Inc. and is responsible for all the corporate Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems. Ramsey is a member of the US delegation to the International Standards Organization (ISO) Working Group revising the International Standard Book Number (ISBN).

http://www.niso.org

Second OCLC/RLG Working GroupOn Preservation Metadata Formed

OCLC and RLG have announced the formation of PREMIS (PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies), a working group that will address practical aspects of implementing preservation metadata in digital preservation systems.

Preservation metadata are the information necessary to carry out, document, and evaluate the processes that support the long-term retention and accessibility of digital materials. They are an essential component of most digital archiving strategies. This is the second OCLC/RLG working group focused on issues related to preservation metadata.

Over the next year the 20-member working group will develop a broadly applicable and implementable set of "core" preservation metadata elements, and a data dictionary to support them. It also will evaluate strategies for managing preservation within a digital preservation system, and for the exchange of preservation metadata between systems; establish pilot programs for testing the group's recommendations and best practices in a variety of systems settings; and explore opportunities for the cooperative creation and sharing of preservation metadata. The results of the group's activities will be made available for public review and comment.

www.oclc.orgwww.rlg.org www.oclc.org/research/pmwg/

Digital Preservation TestbedIssues Recommendations on Preserving E-mail

The Digital Preservation Testbed (Testbed Digitale Bewaring) has announced the release of its final recommendations on preserving e-mails over the long term. The publication, entitled "From digital volatility to digital permanence: preserving e-mail", is a translation of the Dutch paper, "Van digitale vluchtheid naar digitale houdvast: bewaren van e-mail", published on the DigitaleDuurzaamheid Web site in April 2003. The Digital Preservation Testbed is an initiative of the Dutch National Archives and the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. It is a research program set up to test the practical applicability of various ways of preserving government and other digital information and keeping it accessible for the future.

This publication describes an approach to the long-term preservation of e-mail messages and covers various subjects related to their preservation, from cultural and legal issues, to technical and practical aspects. It contains sections specifically targeted towards managers, record keepers, and end users, all of whom play a critical role in ensuring that digital records can be preserved.

Also on the Testbed Web site is a Flash animation on preserving e-mail using the Testbed e-mail/xml demo.

www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/bibliotheek/docs/volatility-permanence-email-en.pdfwww.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/home.cfmFlash demo: www.digital eduurzaamheid.nl/index.cfm?paginakeuze=206&categorie=2

New GaleOffering Provides E-Reference Around the Clock

Planned for release in November 2003, the Gale Virtual Reference Library will offer more than 85 reference sources including encyclopedias, almanacs, series and more, allowing libraries to provide respected authoritative essays on varied topics from numerous subject areas. Gale's new reference option will make it possible for libraries to offer users 24/7 remote access to reference sources, and allow users to search across a single eBook or an entire eBook collection.

Gale Virtual Reference Library will be delivered using standard browsers, monitors and plug-in software (Adobe Acrobat Reader). It also includes standard Gale features such as results lists; mark lists; help pages; list of sources; dictionary; InfoMarks; search histories; and e-mail capability. The database is accessible to Z39.50-compliant third-party software applications, and citation formatting allows researchers to have a choice of using citation standards (MLA, APA, Harvard or Z39.80 format). Content is delivered in HTML for use with standard PCs, laptops and Macs, maximizing speed of accessing entries. For users "on the go", entries are stored in open eBook format allowing users to download entries to portable devices, such as Tablet PCs.

www.gale.com/pdf/facts/VirtualRefLib.pdf

Two Enhancements

To the Endeavor ENCompass Digital Library System Announced

Endeavor Information Systems has announced two enhancements to complement its ENCompass digital library system: the Course Content Integrator and an exclusive partnership with Luna Imaging, Inc.

The Course Content Integrator is available for use with the Blackboard™ Learning System 6.0 Enterprise Edition and with WebCT™ Vista System. It is designed with persistent methods of searching, so instructors can insert links with confidence. ENCompass will ensure content is available for long periods, reducing the probability of broken links. With WebCT PowerLinks™ a framework is provided for institutions to customize their learning environment, integrate key campus technologies, and extend the WebCT platform with innovative applications to meet specific needs.

The product will enable course creators to easily integrate the libraries' quality resources into their institution's chosen course management system where today's instructors and students interact daily. Libraries benefit with increased use of their investment in electronic database content and with increased recognition for the role the library plays in the daily education of the student. Institutions benefit with a way to further leverage their investment in course management systems.

The alliance between Luna Imaging, Inc and Endeavor creates a premium content gateway between the ENCompass™ system for managing, searching and linking collections and Luna's Insight software for working with high resolution images, data, video and audio materials.

Libraries that choose the federated search of ENCompass to access content can now incorporate Insight for their users. When ENCompass users conduct a search it will return results from information contained in Insight collections together with data from other resources. Users who select Insight-enabled results activate Insight's tools for viewing, comparing and organizing full-quality visual resources that are used by leading institutions world-wide for research and classroom use.

http://www.lunaimaging.comhttp://endinfosys.com

MSU College of Natural ScienceHonored for Visionary Use of IT

Michigan State University, College of Natural Science has received the twenty-first century Achievement Award from the Computerworld Honors Program for visionary use of information technology in the category of Education & Academia. The college received the award for its LearningOnline Network with a Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach (LON-CAPA) project. LON-CAPA is an integrated system for online learning and assessment, which provides for new and existing instructional content to be used flexibly, a course management system and individualized homework and automatic grading system.

Cross-institutional resource sharing is at the heart of LON-CAPA's system design: identical servers on multiple campuses, content in same format, and good tools to assemble a course out of learning objects. Learning objects could be simple paragraphs of text, movies, applets, homework problems, etc. In addition to providing a distributed digital library with mechanisms to store and catalog these resources, LON-CAPA enables faculty to combine and sequence the resources to design their own curricula from existing and newly created resources.

The LON-CAPA software is freely available and free (GNU General Public License), and may be modified and adapted.

www.lon-capa.org/

University of Utah LibraryAdds Z39.50 Compatibility to CONTENTdm Software

The University of Utah Marriott Library has developed software that adds Z39.50 compatibility to any CONTENTdm digital collections server. The purpose of this software is to provide access to digital collections on CONTENTdm servers from library portals and local catalogs. Zcontent is a Perl script and module that provide a Z39.50 target for the CONTENTdm server. Zcontent will process incoming Z39.50 requests, convert them to appropriate CONTENTdm requests, and return the results in either USMARC or XML format.

An information sheet with instructions on how to access a working prototype of the software is available at www.lib.utah.edu/digital/ The Zcontent software is available at SourceForge. At this site you can find a description and the full source code for downloading. Zcontent is available under GNU General Public License (GPL).

http://sourceforge.net/projects/zcontent

Two NevadaDigital Exhibitions Launched

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) has announced the relaunching of its revised "Early Las Vegas" digital exhibition. This exhibition uses historical photographs, video and audio clips, and research collections contained in the Special Collections Department of the UNLV Libraries.

Based on best practices exemplified by the Denver Public Library, and incorporating the CONTENTdm digital content management software system, "Early Las Vegas" is divided into six photographic galleries. Each item in the gallery has been cataloged in CONTENTdm in the Dublin Core (DC) metadata standard. Suitable commentary and research related to the photographs, and the video and audio clips, are included in each exhibit. The video and audio clips can be viewed by downloading the free RealPlayer software.

Exhibition: www.library.unlv.edu/early_las_vegas/index.html

The University of Nevada, Reno Libraries have announced the release of their Images of Lake Tahoe digital library collection. This is the first of several public collections that are planned. The photographs in the collection were selected from images in the historical photograph archive in the Libraries Special Collections Department. The collection was created using the CONTENTdm digital media management software.

Collection: www.library.unr.edu/specoll/photoweb/tahoe/

Site information: www.library.unr.edu/specoll/photoweb/tahoe/techinfo.html

Greenstone v2.40Open Source Digital Library Software Released

Greenstone is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on the Internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with Unesco and the Human Info NGO. It is open-source, multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

The aim of the software is to empower users, particularly in universities, libraries, and other public service institutions, to build their own digital libraries. Digital libraries are radically reforming how information is disseminated and acquired in UNESCO's partner communities and institutions in the fields of education, science and culture around the world, and particularly in developing countries.

www.greenstone.org/english/home.html

New Multimedia Browser PackageAnnodex™

The Annodex open-source technology, from the Australian research organization CSIRO, extends the World Wide Web's surfing and searching to time-continuous data like audio and video. It allows the user to make hyperlinks between fragments of audio and video files, and search for fragments of audio and video files using ordinary text queries in Web search engines. The user can easily format, annotate and index audio and video files in a standard way and publish them on the Internet. This creates a Continuous Media Web – a massively multi-user hypermedia environment that works in both streaming and disk contexts.

www.annodex.net/

GreyNetNow Fully Operational

The Grey Literature Network Service, widely known as GreyNet, has been re-launched. GreyNet again seeks to facilitate dialog and communication between persons and organizations in the field of grey literature. GreyNet further seeks to identify and distribute information on and about grey literature in networked environments. GreyNet's main activities include the International Conference Series on Grey Literature and the establishment of a moderated listserv.

GreyNet's Listserv is moderated. This ensures that postings are relevant to the field of grey literature, i.e. "networked information produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in electronic or print formats not controlled by commercial publishing". The moderator organizes the contributions and posts them to the listserv subscribers. A selection of postings is placed on GreyNet's Reference Base and is archived.

www.greynet.org/

To subscribe to the listserv: send an email to info@greynet.org with "subscribe" in the body of the message.

Penn State StudyFinds Web Searchers Impatient, Picky

Web users are picky and impatient, typically visiting only the first three results from a query, with one in five searchers spending 60 seconds or fewer on a linked Web document, according to Penn State researchers. "People make instantaneous judgments about whether to stay on a site and, if a site doesn't the give the right impression, users will bypass it," said Dr Jim Jansen, assistant professor in Penn State's School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST). "A page has to be well-designed, easy to load and relevant to a searcher's needs."

Otherwise, by the time three minutes have elapsed, 40 percent of searchers will have moved on. While some may have found what they wanted, others may simply have given up and moved to a different site, said Jansen.

Jansen's conclusions are based on research that he and co-author Amanda Spink, Penn State associate professor of IST, conducted in February 2001. The two researchers analyzed more than 450,000 Web queries submitted to AlltheWeb.com in a 24-hour period, reviewing users' actions in chronological order. The length of sessions, number of pages visited and relevance of results were studied. He presented the research in a paper titled, "An analysis of Web documents retrieved and viewed" at the 2003 International Conference on Internet Computing in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Several patterns emerged. Half of all users entered only one query with 54 percent viewing just one page of results in each session (a session was a query or series of queries submitted by a user during one interaction with a Web search engine). Only an additional 19 percent went on to the second page in sessions, and fewer than 10 percent of users bothered with the third page of results. A similar drop-off in numbers occurred when the researchers considered how many results searchers viewed per query. About 55 percent of users checked one result only. More than 80 percent stopped after looking at three results.

The researchers also report that searchers have a valid reason to be frustrated sometimes with Web searches: one out of every two results is not relevant to what the searcher was looking for. "Good as search engines are, there is room for improvement," Jansen said. "Niche search engines that focus on a narrow topic or search engines that cluster results by finding similarities and grouping them may be consumers' best bet for improving relevancy."

http://ist.psu.edu/faculty_pages/jjansen/academic/pubs/pages_viewed.pdf

New StudyReports on Consumer Reaction to Learning the Truth About How Search Engines Work

A recent survey by Consumer WebWatch, a grant-funded project of Consumers Union, used an ethnographic approach, allowing anthropologist researchers to observe experienced Web searchers in their natural computer surroundings (home, work or school) to assess the searchers' understanding of how some of the most-trafficked search and navigation sites in the USA work. Some of the researchers' major findings:

• •

  Most participants had little understanding of how search engines retrieve information from the Web or how they rank or prioritize links on a results page.

• •

  The majority of participants never clicked beyond the first page of search results, as they had blind trust in search engines to present only the best or most accurate unbiased results on the first page. As a result, two in five links (or 41 percent) selected by our participants during the assigned search sessions were paid results.

• •

  Once enlightened about pay-for-placement, each participant expressed surprise about this search engine marketing practice. Some had negative, emotional reactions.

• •

  All participants said paid search links on search and navigation sites were often too difficult to recognize or find on many sites, and the disclosure information available was clearly written for the advertiser, not the consumer. Search engine sites that were perceived to be less transparent about these related disclosures lost credibility amongst this group of online consumers.

www.consumerwebwatch.org/news/searchengines/index.html

Report ReleasedOn the Shifting Role of Information Professionals

A strategic shift is occurring in the information professional market as individuals are challenged with providing more value to their organizations and aligning themselves closer to profit centers, reports a new survey sponsored by LexisNexis US, a leading global provider of legal, business and news information.

Three significant trends were found:

1. 1.

   Information professionals are being charged with developing a stronger mastery of the technology and tools available in the market.

2. 2.

   Information professionals are being challenged to understand their business more deeply and to deliver more relevant results – adding value back to the organization to meet its business goals and illustrating the information professionals' worth.

3. 3.

   Many information professionals perceive that they are under-utilized in their organizations.

A total of 91 percent of respondents agree that their roles have shifted from information gatherer to information consultant.

www.lexis-nexis.com/about/whitepaper/InfoProWebSurvey.pdf