Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the disruptive implications of the Espresso Book Machine on library user services, collection development, and special collections.

The approach takes into account various published articles and online statements to help articulate and support the arguments.

Library users can derive immediate benefit from a machine that prints books for them in only a few minutes. The EBM's impact on collection development in libraries may change a decades‐old model of speculative buying to one of buying on demand. The EBM can also help libraries bring high‐quality facsimiles of their unique special collections books to the public, and perhaps even generate a revenue stream that might offset costs.

This is an original article that draws on other published and unpublished research and opinion articles.

Information exchange is of primary importance in any scientific discipline but particularly so in such an information‐rich domain as chemistry. Chemists have developed a language of their own for representing information which is essentially graphical in nature: structure diagrams and reaction equations. Methods of converting this graphical language into a computer representation have been developed and efforts have been made to standardise such representations. This paper reports on these achievements and points out where further work has to be done.

This chapter reviews published studies of the use of pictorial information. Examining image user studies surfaces several research questions often addressed by this body of work, as well as some frequently encountered problems. These questions and problems organize this survey of the literature. Image user studies were included in two valuable reviews of digital image research and development, published by Christie Stephenson and Corinne Jörgensen in 1999 (Jörgensen, 1999; Stephenson, 1999). This overview considers research since that time, focusing on assessment that was not targeted at a single system or service. While attempting to incorporate some interesting research from the information and educational technology communities, this discussion of image delivery as an aspect of digital library development limits coverage of those important literatures.

How academic libraries support the research of their parent institutions has changed as a result of forces such as changing scholarly communication practices, technological developments, reduced purchasing power and changes in academic culture. The purpose of this paper is to examine the professional and educational implications of current and emerging research support environments for academic libraries, particularly with regard to research data management and bibliometrics and discuss how do professionals and educators “make space” as new service demands arise?

The present paper uses data from a recent survey of research support provision by academic libraries in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, (authors 2013), and provides additional in depth analysis of the textual responses to extend the analysis in the light of forces for change in higher education. The original online questionnaire surveyed current and planned research support in academic libraries, and constraints or support needs related to service developments. It was distributed to 219 institutions in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Ireland, and obtained 140 valid responses (response rate of 63.9 percent). Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics with thematic categorization and coding for the textual responses.

Most academic libraries surveyed are already providing or planning services in the focal areas of bibliometrics and data management. There was also increasing demand for other research support services, not the focus of the study, such as eresearch support, journal publishing platforms, and grant writing support. The authors found that while many academic libraries perceive increasing research support services as a “huge opportunity” they were constrained by gaps in staff skills, knowledge, and confidence and resourcing issues. With regard to staff education and training, it was reported they require a broader understanding of the changing research and scholarly landscape, the research cultures of different disciplines, and technological change. There was a near-universal support for development of more comprehensive, specialized, LIS education to prepare professionals for broader research support roles.

This further analysis of the implications of our survey in relation to influences such as economics, academic culture, technology, raises questions for both educators and practitioners about the future direction of the profession and how the authors collectively “make space” as new potential services arise.

Digital repositories offer a great benefit to people in a variety of settings, especially since an ever‐increasing amount of information is being gathered, transmitted, and preserved through various technologies. The purpose of this paper is to underscore trust as a critical element in the infrastructure of digital repositories and to look more closely at trusted digital repositories from the perspective of the user communities for which they are designed.

The paper looks to the literature in reviewing the concept of trust and its role in an online environment. Attention is then paid to trusted digital repositories, with close examination of the user communities’ perceptions of trust and the impact of these perceptions. Special attention is given to users within the academic community.

While digital repositories may be trustworthy because of adherence to technological standards, accepted practices, and mechanisms for authenticating the authorship and accuracy of their content, it is ultimately their respective stakeholders – both those who deposit and use content – whose perceptions play a central role in ensuring a digital repository's trustworthiness.

A future empirical study would be beneficial in order to measure perceptions of trust as contributing factors to the trustworthiness of digital repositories.

This paper provides a useful resource for persons wishing to review the topic of trusted digital repositories or increase their awareness in this area.

This paper offers a focused look at various levels of trust as they relate to the dissemination of scholarly communication in the academic world, particularly through institutional repositories.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal main advantages of digital libraries in comparison with technology of common database for data-oriented fields of modern science. As an example, the subject domain “nanomaterials and nanotechnologies” with new features due to evolution of concepts and objects is presented.

An analysis of the information system ABCD as a basis for science-oriented digital library was fulfilled. Also, a survey of peculiarities of data in fast developing fields of science was prepared.

The results of this paper showed that functional capacities of ABCD satisfy requirements for complex collections and archives of scientific documents. Based on the ABCD tools and this concept, the digital library for storage and systematization of data and documents on nanomaterials and nanotechnologies for the power engineering was constructed. The library combines opportunities of bibliographic, full text and factual information systems.

This paper gives the foundation for creation of a library that combines services of bibliographic, full text and factual (numerical) information systems. Some analyses of ABCD tools were made before elsewhere, but they did not point on data peculiarities of complexly organized domains: semi-structured data, multitude formats (text, image and tables), interconnection of content with external sources located on other servers or in the Web.