Buzz - Blog

• SUNCAT: Ten Years and Beyond

  Celia Jenkins charts the beginnings of SUNCAT, its development over the last ten years and what the future holds for the service.

• Visualising Building Access Data

  Gary Brewerton and Jason Cooper describe how the imposition of visitor access control for safety purposes was developed into a useful management tool to measure library building usage.

• Book Review: Digital Dieting - From Information Obesity to Intellectual Fitness

  Kevin Sanders examines Tara Brabazon’s latest analytical work which investigates the proliferation of low-quality information in the digital realm and the issues of excessive reliance on social tools for learning.

• LinkedUp: Linking Open Data for Education

  Marieke Guy, Mathieu d’Aquin, Stefan Dietze, Hendrik Drachsler, Eelco Herder and Elisabetta Parodi describe the activities carried out by the LinkedUp Project looking at the promotion of open data in education.

• Realising the Potential of Altmetrics within Institutions

  Jean Liu and Euan Adie of Altmetric take a look at the growing presence of altmetrics in universities, and consider some of the potential applications.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 71

  The editor introduces readers to the content of Ariadne Issue 71.

• Hita-Hita: Open Access and Institutional Repositories in Japan Ten Years On

  Ikuko Tsuchide, Yui Nishizono, Masako Suzuki, Shigeki Sugita, Kazuo Yamamoto and Hideki Uchijima introduce a number of ideas and projects that have enhanced the progress of the Open Access movement and institutional repositories in Japan over the last ten years.

• Augmented Reality in Education: The SCARLET+ Experience

  Laura Skilton, Matt Ramirez, Guyda Armstrong, Rose Lock, Jean Vacher and Marie-Therese Gramstadt describe augmented reality in education case studies from the University of Sussex and the University for the Creative Arts.

• Book Review: The Information Society - A Study of Continuity and Change

  Muhammad Rafiq offers us a detailed review of a work, now in its sixth edition, which examines the information society, its origin, development, its associated issues and the current landscape.

• Bring Your Own Policy: Why Accessibility Standards Need to Be Contextually Sensitive

  Brian Kelly, Jonathan Hassell, David Sloan, Dominik Lukeš, E A Draffan and Sarah Lewthwaite argue that rather than having a universal standard for Web accessibility, standardisation of Web accessibility practices and policies needs to be sufficiently flexible to cater for the local context.

• Developing a Prototype Library WebApp for Mobile Devices

  Jason Cooper and Gary Brewerton describe the development of a prototype WebApp to improve access to Library systems at Loughborough University for mobile devices.

• ECLAP 2013: Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment

  Marieke Guy reports on the second international conference held by ECLAP, the e-library for performing arts.

• Engaging Researchers with Social Media Tools: 25 Research Things@Huddersfield

  Graham Stone and Ellen Collins investigate whether 25 Research Things, an innovative online learning programme, could help researchers understand the value of Web 2.0 tools.

• Implementing a Resource or Reading List Management System

  Gary Brewerton takes us step by step through the various stages of implementing a Resource or Reading List Management System for your institution.

• JABES 2013

  Marlène Delhaye reports on the two-day annual conference organised by the French Agence Bibliographique de l’Enseignement Supérieur (ABES) held in Montpellier, France over 14-15 May 2013.

• KAPTUR the Highlights: Exploring Research Data Management in the Visual Arts

  Leigh Garrett, Marie-Therese Gramstadt, Carlos Silva and Anne Spalding describe the exploration of the importance and nature of research data in the visual arts and requirements for their appropriate curation and preservation.

• Making Citation Work: A British Library DataCite Workshop

  Alex Ball reports on a workshop on practical data citation issues for institutions, held at the British Library, London, on 8 March 2013.

• The Wellcome Library, Digital

  Christy Henshaw and Robert Kiley describe how the Wellcome Library has transformed its information systems to support mass digitisation of historic collections.

• eMargin: A Collaborative Textual Annotation Tool

  Andrew Kehoe and Matt Gee describe their Jisc-funded eMargin collaborative textual annotation tool, showing how it has widened its focus through integration with Virtual Learning Environments.

• 'Does He Take Sugar?': The Risks of Standardising Easy-to-read Language

  Brian Kelly, Dominik Lukeš and Alistair McNaught highlight the risks of attempting to standardise easy-to-read language for online resources.

• 21st-century Scholarship and Wikipedia

  Amber Thomas explores the ways in which emerging research practices and Wikipedia illustrate the changing boundaries of academic work.

• 23rd International CODATA Conference

  Alex Ball reports on a conference on ‘Open Data and Information for a Changing Planet’ held by the International Council for Science’s Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan on 28–31 October 2012.

• Book Review: Information 2.0

  Milena Dobreva reviews the newly published book of Martin de Saulles which looks at the new models of information production, distribution and consumption.

• Book Review: The Embedded Librarian

  John Azzolini reviews a comprehensive overview of embedded librarianship, a new model of library service that promises to enhance the strategic value of contemporary knowledge work.

• CURATEcamp iPres 2012

  Mark Jordan, Courtney Mumma, Nick Ruest and the participants of CURATEcamp iPres 2012 report on this unconference for digital curation practitioners and researchers, held on 2 October 2012 in Toronto.

• Case Studies in Web Sustainability

  Scott Turner describes issues around making Web resources sustainable.

• Gold Open Access: Counting the Costs

  Theo Andrew presents new data on the cost of Gold OA publishing at the University of Edinburgh.

• International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL) 2012

  Anna Mastora and Sarantos Kapidakis report on TPDL 2012 held at Paphos, Cyprus, over 23-27 September 2012.

• Mining the Archive: The Development of Electronic Journals

  Martin White looks through the Ariadne archive to trace the development of e-journals as a particular aspect of electronic service delivery and highlights material he considers as significant.

• Online Information 2012

  Marieke Guy reports on the largest gathering of information professionals in Europe.

• Seb Schmoller Replies

  Stepping down from his pivotal role as CEO at ALT, Seb Schmoller kindly answers a few questions from Ariadne on his perspective on online learning.

• The ARK Project: Analysing Raptor at Kent

  Leo Lyons describes how University of Kent librarians are benefitting from Raptor's ability to produce e-resource usage statistics and charts.

• euroCRIS Membership Meeting, Madrid

  Rosemary Russell and Brigitte Jörg report on the bi-annual euroCRIS membership and Task Groups meetings which took place in Madrid on 5-6 November 2012.

• Book Review: Managing Research Data

  Sally Rumsey reviews a book which describes and explains the topics of interest central to practitioners involved with research data management.

• Book Review: Mob Rule Learning

  Fiona MacLellan reviews a book which discusses the current unconference phenomenon and highlights the learning opportunities that these environments offer.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 69

  The editor introduces readers to the content of Ariadne Issue 69.

• Eduserv Symposium 2012: Big Data, Big Deal?

  Marieke Guy attended the annual Eduserv Symposium on 10 May 2012 at the Royal College of Physicians, London to find out what are the implications of big data for Higher Education Institutions.

• Enhancing Collaboration and Interaction in a Post-graduate Research Programme

  Tertia Coetsee describes a community of practice for post-graduate students where RefShare is deployed for digital storage and retrieval, alongside Blackboard for the purposes of communication. She also describes the role of the information specialist in the programme.

• Evaluation of Assessment Diaries and GradeMark at the University of Glamorgan

  Karen Fitzgibbon and Alice Lau describe a JISC-funded project in evaluating the pedagogical and workload impact that two assessment- and feedback-related innovations have on students and staff and report on lessons for the sector.

• JISC Research Information Management: CERIF Workshop

  Rosemary Russell reports on a two-day workshop on research information management and CERIF held in Bristol over 27-28 June 2012.

• Making the Most of a Conference

  Stephanie Taylor writes about how she made the most of a conference to promote and inform the work of a project.

• Redeveloping the Loughborough Online Reading List System

  Jon Knight, Jason Cooper and Gary Brewerton describe the redevelopment of Loughborough University’s open source reading list system.

• Collaborations Workshop 2012: Software, Sharing and Collaboration in Oxford

  Simon Choppin reports on a two-day software workshop held at The Queen’s College, Oxford over 21 - 22 March 2012.

• Delivering Open Educational Resources for Engineering Design

  Mansur Darlington describes two methods for presenting online OERs for engineering design that were developed and explored as part of the Higher Education Academy/JISC-funded DelOREs (Delivering Open Educational Resources for Engineering Design) Project.

• Has Second Life Lived up to Expectations?

  Paul Gorman examines to what degree Second Life has justified the claims made for it by its evangelists with particular regard to education.

• Kultivating Kultur: Increasing Arts Research Deposit

  Marie-Therese Gramstadt discusses how the JISC-funded Kultivate Project is encouraging arts research deposit in UK institutional repositories.

• Welsh Libraries and Social Media: A Survey

  Alyson Tyler outlines the results of a survey of Welsh libraries, their access to, and use of, social media, and offers a sample business case.

• Book Review: The Future of Archives and Recordkeeping

  John Azzolini reviews an anthology of perceptive essays on the challenges presented to archival thought and practice by Web 2.0, postmodern perspectives, and cross-disciplinary interchanges.

• Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) Project Launch Conference

  Ray Harper reports on a one-day conference which launched the DREaM Project, held by the Library and Information Science Research Coalition in London on 19 July 2011.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 68

  The editor introduces readers to the content of Ariadne issue 68.

• IMPACT Final Conference 2011

  Marieke Guy reports on the two-day conference looking at the results of the IMPACT Project in making digitisation and OCR better, faster and cheaper.

• The Future of the Past of the Web

  Matthew Brack reports on the one-day international workshop 'The Future of the Past of the Web' held at the British Library Conference Centre, London on 7 October, 2011.

• The Third Annual edUi Conference 2011

  Danielle Cooley reports on the third annual edUi Conference, held over 13-14 October 2011, in Richmond, Virginia, USA, an opportunity for Web professionals in colleges, universities, libraries, museums, etc to discuss the latest developments in Web trends and technologies.

• The Informatics Transform: Re-engineering Libraries for the Data Decade

  Liz Lyon proposes that libraries re-position, re-profile and ramp up their engagement with research data management, scholarly communications and citizen science.

• A Double-edged Sword: What Are the Implications of Freedom of Information for the HE Sector?

  Amy Gibbons reports on the second in a series of workshops organised by the Research Information Network to explore the impact of the Freedom of Information Act on the Higher Education sector, held at University College London on 1 April 2011.

• Book Review: Envisioning Future Academic Library Services

  John Azzolini reviews a timely collection of essays that highlights the values of institutional leadership and resourcefulness in academic librarianship's engagements with Web 2.0.

• Connecting Researchers at the University of Bath

  Jez Cope and Geraldine Jones describe a recent series of events introducing social media to research students at the University of Bath.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 67: Changes Afoot

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 67.

• Institutional Challenges in the Data Decade

  Marion Tattersall, Carmen O'Dell and John Lewis report on Institutional Challenges in the Data Decade, organised by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) in partnership with the White Rose University Consortium and held 1-3 March 2011 at the University of Sheffield.

• Looking for the Link Between Library Usage and Student Attainment

  Graham Stone, Bryony Ramsden and Dave Pattern introduce the JISC-funded Library Impact Data Project (LIDP).

• MyMobileBristol

  Mike Jones, Simon Price, Nikki Rogers and Damian Steer describe the rationale, aims and progress of MyMobileBristol, highlighting some of the challenges and opportunities that have arisen during the project.

• Open Educational Resources Hack Day

  Kirsty Pitkin reports on a two-day practical hack event focusing on Open Educational Resources (OER), held by DevCSI and JISC CETIS in Manchester on 31 March - 1 April 2011.

• Piloting Web Conferencing Software: Experiences and Challenges

  Julian Prior and Marie Salter report on their experiences piloting Elluminate Live! at the University of Bath.

• UK Reading Experience Database

  Bethan Ruddock reports from the launch event for the UK Reading Experience Database, held at the Betty Boothroyd Library, the Open University, Milton Keynes, on 24 February 2011.

• 10 Cheap and Easy Ways to Amplify Your Event

  Marieke Guy describes new tools and services that can help you get your event heard.

• Beyond the PDF

  Jodi Schneider reports on a three-day workshop about the future of scientific communication, held in San Diego CA, USA, in January 2011.

• Book Review: Blogging and RSS - A Librarian's Guide, 2nd Edition

  Elly Cope reviews the second edition of this book in which the author explains how RSS and blogging can be used by librarians and libraries.

• Characterising and Preserving Digital Repositories: File Format Profiles

  Steve Hitchcock and David Tarrant show how file format profiles, the starting point for preservation plans and actions, can also be used to reveal the fingerprints of emerging types of institutional repositories.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 66: Sanity Check

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 66.

• International Digital Curation Conference 2010

  Alex Ball reports on the 6th International Digital Curation Conference, held on 7-8 December 2010 in Chicago.

• Never Waste a Good Crisis: Innovation and Technology in Institutions

  Tore Hoel reports on the CETIS 2010 Conference, 15 - 16 November 2010 at the National College for Leadership of Schools and Childrens' Services Conference Centre, Nottingham.

• Reading Van Gogh Online?

  Peter Boot shows how log analysis can be employed to assess a site's usability, usage, and users, using the Van Gogh letter edition as an example.

• Academic Liaison Librarianship: Curatorial Pedagogy or Pedagogical Curation?

  Allan Parsons presents a strategic view of the need to develop the academic liaison librarianship role.

• Book Review: Learning with Online and Mobile Technologies

  Brian Whalley looks at a student survival aid in the information age that should also be valuable for tutors.

• CIG Conference 2010: Changes in Cataloguing in 'Interesting Times'

  Rhiannon McLoughlin reports on a three-day conference on cataloguing in a time of financial stringency, held by the CILIP Cataloguing and Indexing Group at Exeter University, from 13-15 September 2010.

• Europeana Open Culture 2010

  David Fuegi and Monika Segbert-Elbert report on the annual Europeana Conference, held at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam in October 2010.

• From Passive to Active Preservation of Electronic Records

  Heather Briston and Karen Estlund provide a narrative of the process adopted by the University of Oregon in order to integrate electronic records management into its staff's workflow.

• Internet Librarian International Conference 2010

  Claire Tylee, Katrin Flemming and Elly Cope report on the two-day Internet Librarian International Conference focusing on innovation and technology in the information profession, held in London on 14-15 October 2010.

• Locating Image Presentation Technology Within Pedagogic Practice

  Marie-Therese Gramstadt contextualises image presentation technology and methods within a pedagogic framework for the visual arts.

• Repository Fringe 2010

  Martin Donnelly (and friends) report on the Repository Fringe "unconference" held at the National e-Science Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland, over 2-3 September 2010.

• Survive or Thrive

  Ed Fay reports on a two-day conference organised by UKOLN on behalf of JISC to consider growth and use of digital content on the Web, which was held in Manchester in June 2010.

• Trust Me, I'm an Archivist

  Christopher Hilton, Dave Thompson and Natalie Walters describe some of the issues of engaging with donors when it comes to transferring born-digital material to the Library.

• Why UK Further and Higher Education Needs Local Software Developers

  Mahendra Mahey and Paul Walk discuss the work of the Developer Community Supporting Innovation (DevCSI) Project which focuses on building capacity for software developers in UK Further and Higher Education to support innovation in the sector.

• 23 Things in Public Libraries

  Helen Leech describes a collaborative project to increase front-line staff's understanding and use of Web 2.0 in public libraries.

• Blue Ribbon Task Force Symposium on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access

  Marieke Guy reports on a symposium which provided an opportunity for stakeholders to respond to the recent Blue Ribbon Task Force report on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 64: Supporting the Power of Research Data

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 64.

• Eduserv Symposium 2010: The Mobile University

  Shailey Minocha reflects on the one-day symposium organised by Eduserv in May 2010. The aim of the event was to discuss whether and how mobile technology will play a significant role in the delivery of UK Higher Education in the future.

• Emerging Technologies in Academic Libraries (emtacl10)

  Andrew Walsh reports on a new international conference on emerging technologies within academic libraries organised by the library of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and held in Trondheim, Norway in April 2010.

• Evidence, Value and Impact: The LIS Research Landscape in 2010

  Stephanie Kenna reports on the Library and Information Science Research Coalition conference, held at the British Library on 28 June 2010.

• Institutional Web Management Workshop 2010

  Keith Doyle provides a personal perspective on a conference organised by UKOLN for those involved in the provision of institutional Web services.

• Intute Reflections at the End of an Era

  Angela Joyce, Linda Kerr, Tim Machin, Paul Meehan and Caroline Williams look back at the history and achievements of Intute, and reflect on lessons learned as the service enters its final year.

• Learning How to Play Nicely: Repositories and CRIS

  Nick Sheppard reports on the event examining integrated, systemic approaches to research information management organised by the Welsh Repository Network and supported by JISC and ARMA at Leeds Metropolitan University, in May 2010.

• Making Datasets Visible and Accessible: DataCite's First Summer Meeting

  Tom J Pollard and J Max Wilkinson report on DataCite's First Summer Meeting, a two-day event focused on making datasets visible and accessible, held in Hannover, Germany, in June 2010.

• Open Repositories 2010

  Philip Hunter and Robin Taylor report on the Open Repositories Conference held in Madrid between 6 -9 July 2010 at the Palacio de Congresos.

• Public Library 2.0: Culture Change?

  Sarah Hammond explores UK public libraries' growing participation in social media to reach their audiences online, with a focus on blogging.

• Repository Software Comparison: Building Digital Library Infrastructure at LSE

  Ed Fay presents a comparison of repository software that was carried out at LSE in support of digital library infrastructure development.

• Retooling Libraries for the Data Challenge

  Dorothea Salo examines how library systems and procedures need to change to accommodate research data.

• Archives in Web 2.0: New Opportunities

  Marta Nogueira describes how three Web 2.0 applications (Facebook, Flickr, YouTube) can work as a virtual extension for archives and other cultural organisations, by identifying benefits obtained from the use of Web 2.0 applications.

• Book Review: Information Science in Transition

  Michael Day reviews an edited volume published to commemorate the founding of the Institute of Information Scientists in 1958.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 63: Consider the Users in the Field

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 63.

• Mobilising the Internet Detective

  Diana Massam, Andrew Priest and Caroline Williams describe a recent project to adapt the online Internet Detective tutorial, to deliver a user-friendly mobile site which reflects their market research into user preferences for mobile content.

• A Research Revolution: The Impact of Digital Technologies

  Dicky Maidment-Otlet and Judy Redfearn describe a new JISC activity to highlight how digital technologies are changing research.

• An Attack on Professionalism and Scholarship? Democratising Archives and the Production of Knowledge

  Andrew Flinn describes some recent developments in democratising the archive and asks whether these developments really deserve to be viewed as a threat to professional and academic standards.

• Book Review: Copyright - Interpreting the Law for Libraries, Archives and Information Services

  Charles Oppenheim sees much to like in the new edition of this work by a well-known authority but identifies one potentially major drawback.

• Intranet Management: Divine Comedy or Strategic Imperative?

  Martin White suggests that a failure to recognise the value of intranets is a symptom of a failure to recognise information as a strategic asset.

• Moving Targets: Web Preservation and Reference Management

  Richard Davis discusses the role of Web preservation in reference management. This article is based on a presentation given at the Innovations in Reference Management workshop, January 2010.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• The Future of Interoperability and Standards in Education: A JISC CETIS Event

  Sarah Currier reports on an international working meeting involving a range of educational interoperability standards bodies and communities, organised by JISC CETIS.

• Towards a Toolkit for Implementing Application Profiles

  Talat Chaudhri, Julian Cheal, Richard Jones, Mahendra Mahey and Emma Tonkin propose a user-driven methodology for the iterative development, testing and implementation of Dublin Core Application Profiles in diverse repository software environments.

• Uncovering User Perceptions of Research Activity Data

  Cecilia Loureiro-Koechlin discusses the outcomes and lessons learned from user tests performed on the Oxford Blue Pages, a tool designed to display information about researchers and their activities at the University of Oxford.

• eBooks: Tipping or Vanishing Point?

  Emma Tonkin investigates ebooks and takes a look at recent technological and business developments in this area.

• Book Review: Information Tomorrow

  Lina Coelho is delighted by this pick-and-mix collection of reflections on the technological future of libraries.

• Cautionary Tales: Archives 2.0 and the Diplomatic Historian

  Michael Kennedy discusses the value of Archives 2.0 to the online version of Ireland's 'Documents on Irish Foreign Policy' series.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 61: The Double-edged Web

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 61.

• Internet Librarian International 2009

  Katherine Allen reports on Internet Librarian International 2009 which took place in London on 15 and 16 October 2009.

• Live Blogging @ IWMW 2009

  Kirsty McGill provides a live blogger perspective on the three-day Institutional Web Managers Workshop, held by UKOLN at the University of Essex, Colchester, in July 2009.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• Search Engines: Real-time Search

  Phil Bradley looks at the concept of real-time search and points to some of the functionality that users can and should expect to find when exploring these engines.

• Share. Collaborate. Innovate. Building an Organisational Approach to Web 2.0

  Paul Bevan outlines the National Library of Wales' development of a strategic approach to meeting user needs in a post-Web 2.0 world.

• Why Are Users So Useful? User Engagement and the Experience of the JISC Digitisation Programme

  Paola Marchionni discusses the importance of user engagement in the creation of digitised scholarly resources with case studies from the JISC Digitisation Programme.

• Archives 2.0: If We Build It, Will They Come?

  Joy Palmer discusses some of the opportunities and tensions emerging around Archives 2.0, crowd-sourcing, and archival authority.

• Collecting Evidence in a Web 2.0 Context

  Ann Chapman and Rosemary Russell describe the challenge of collecting evidence for a study of how Web 2.0 is being used in the UK HE sector.

• Editorial: Passing of a Seasoned Campaigner

  Richard Waller does not introduce Ariadne Issue 60.

• Eduserv Symposium 2009: Evolution Or Revolution: The Future of Identity and Access Management for Research

  Shirley Williams reports on the Eduserv Foundation Symposium which took as its theme investigate the intersection between identity management, access management and scholarly research collaboration across institutional and geographic boundaries.

• Institutional Repositories for Creative and Applied Arts Research: The Kultur Project

  Andrew Gray discusses institutional repositories and the creative and applied arts specifically in relation to the JISC-funded Kultur Project.

• JISC Digital Content Conference 2009

  Michelle Pauli reports on a two-day conference on digital content held by JISC in South Cerney over 30 June - 1 July 2009.

• Missing Links: The Enduring Web

  Alexandra Eveleigh reports on a workshop on Web archiving, organised by the DPC, JISC and UKWAC at the British Library on 21 July 2009.

• Open Repositories 2009

  Adrian Stevenson reports on the four-day annual Open Repositories conference held at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA, USA over 18 - 21 May 2009.

• Overlay Journals and Data Publishing in the Meteorological Sciences

  Sarah Callaghan, Fiona Hewer, Sam Pepler, Paul Hardaker and Alan Gadian introduce the OJIMS Project and discuss the impact of overlay and data journals in the meteorological sciences.

• The Norwegian National Digital Library

  Marianne Takle describes the National Library of Norway's digitisation strategy and how the National Library is taking on a key role in the country's digital library service.

• The Second International M-Libraries Conference

  Keren Mills reports on a two-day conference exploring and sharing delivery of services and resources to users 'on the move,' via mobile and hand-held devices.

• A Support Framework for Remote Workers

  Marieke Guy follows up on her two previous articles for Ariadne with an overview of an evolving structure to provide consistent support to UKOLN colleagues who work remotely.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 59: The Loneliness of the Long-distance Worker

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 59.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• The Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC) 2009

  Rosie Jones reports on a three-day conference about Information Literacy held by CILIP CSG Information Literacy Group at Cardiff University over 30 March - 1 April 2009.

• To VRE Or Not to VRE?: Do South African Malaria Researchers Need a Virtual Research Environment?

  Heila Pienaar and Martie van Deventer identify the requirements of a Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for malaria researchers in South Africa.

• An Awfully Big Adventure: Strathclyde's Digital Library Plan

  Derek Law describes how the University of Strathclyde is choosing to give priority to e-content and services instead of a new building.

• Book Review: Presentation Zen - Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery

  Marieke Guy gets in touch with her inner PowerPoint Zen.

• The MrCute Repository: The Next Phase

  Helen Brady describes the MrCute repository project and its potential impact on the digital learning object-sharing community.

• dev8D: JISC Developer Happiness Days

  Julian Cheal reports on the 5-day JISC's Developer Happiness Days event held at Birckbeck College, London over 16 - 21 February 2009.

• A Bug's Life?: How Metaphors from Ecology Can Articulate the Messy Details of Repository Interactions

  R. John Robertson, Mahendra Mahey and Phil Barker introduce work investigating an alternative model of repository and service interaction.

• A Selection of Social Media Search Engines

  Phil Bradley takes a look at how social media output is being indexed, sorted and made available for searching by looking at some representative samples.

• Book Review: Against the Machine

  Mahendra Mahey reviews a book which examines popular Internet culture and how it may be having negative effects on many of us.

• Book Review: Managing the Crowd - Rethinking Records Management for the Web 2.0 World

  Marieke Guy reviews a text that could offer the blueprint for moving records management into the 21st century.

• Book Review: Pro Web 2.0 Mashups

  Ralph LeVan looks at a comprehensive work on how to consume and repurpose Web services.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 57:Achieving the Balance

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 57.

• Embedding Web Preservation Strategies Within Your Institution

  Christopher Eddie reports on the third one-day workshop of the JISC-PoWR (Preservation of Web Resources) Project held at the University of Manchester on 12 September 2008.

• Get Tooled Up: SeeAlso: A Simple Linkserver Protocol

  Jakob Voss combines OpenSearch and unAPI to enrich catalogues.

• Get Tooled Up: Staying Connected: Technologies Supporting Remote Workers

  Having considered organisational issues in her previous article, Marieke Guy takes a look at the many technologies that support remote working, from broadband to Web 2.0 social networking tools.

• iPRES 2008

  Frances Boyle and Adam Farquhar report on the two-day international conference which was the fifth in the series on digital preservation of digital objects held at the British Library, on 29 - 30 September 2008.

• A DRY CRIG Event for the IE Demonstrator

  Paul Walk reports on an 'unconference' for developers working in and around the JISC Information Environment and institutional systems, hosted by UKOLN at the University of Bath in June 2008.

• A Desk Too Far?: The Case for Remote Working

  Marieke Guy examines both the benefits and the pitfalls of working remotely from the standpoint of both employees and their organisation.

• Being Wired Or Being Tired: 10 Ways to Cope With Information Overload

  Sarah Houghton-Jan explores different strategies for managing and coping with various types of informational overload.

• Blended Learning and Online Tutoring: Planning Learner Support and Activity Design

  Lyn Parker does not consider that the second edition has changed considerably from the first edition despite the publishers' blurb to the contrary. Nonetheless, she feels there is much of value.

• Book Review: Copyright Compliance

  Stuart Hannabuss argues that the book's online big sister, Keeping Within the Law (KWtL), launched at the same time, is really the place to go and the source to buy.

• Book Review: Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0

  Emma Delaney considers the effects of Web 2.0 on delivering information literacy to library students and end-users.

• Institutional Web Management Workshop 2008: The Great Debate

  Adrian Tribe reports on a three-day conference designed for professionals involved in the provision of institutional Web services, organised by UKOLN and held at King's College, University of Aberdeen in July 2008.

• Lost in the JISC Information Environment

  Tony Ross gives a personal reflection on his intellectual struggle to comprehend the JISC Information Environment.

• New Schemas for Mapping Pedagogies and Technologies

  Grainne Conole reflects on the implications of Web 2.0 for education and offers two new schemas for thinking about harnessing the potential of technologies.

• Open Repositories 2008

  Mahendra Mahey reports on the third international Open Repositories 2008 Conference, held at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton in April 2008.

• Persistent Identifiers: Considering the Options

  Emma Tonkin looks at the current landscape of persistent identifiers, describes several current services, and examines the theoretical background behind their structure and use.

• Search Engines: Google Still Growing

  Phil Bradley finds it difficult to ignore some of the latest developments from Google - particularly the ones that are actually quite good.

• Sun Preservation and Archive Special Interest Group: May 2008 Meeting

  Vicky Mays and Ian Dolphin review the Sun Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG) meeting held in San Francisco in May 2008.

• The 2008 Mashed Museum Day and UK Museums on the Web Conference

  Mia Ridge reports on the Mashed Museum day and the Museums Computer Group UK Museums on the Web Conference, held at the University of Leicester in June 2008.

• The Networked Library Service Layer: Sharing Data for More Effective Management and Cooperation

  Janifer Gatenby identifies criteria for determining which data in various library systems could be more beneficially shared and managed at a network level.

• Book Review: Digital Information Culture

  Stuart Hannabuss analyses a very useful addition to the realm of information, knowledge and library studies.

• Book Review: The Thriving Library

  Lina Coelho takes a look at this collection of winning strategies for success in public libraries during challenging times.

• Custom-built Search Engines

  Phil Bradley reviews a means of enhancing the relevance of search results through the use of custom-built search engines.

• Digital Lives: Report of Interviews With the Creators of Personal Digital Collections

  Pete Williams, Ian Rowlands, Katrina Dean and Jeremy Leighton John describe initial findings of the AHRC-funded Digital Lives Research Project studying personal digital collections and their relationship with research repositories such as the British Library.

• Intute Integration

  Angela Joyce, Jackie Wickham, Phil Cross and Chris Stephens describe Intute's ongoing Integration Project, which is promoting and developing integration of Intute content in the UK academic library community.

• Libraries of the Future

  Michelle Pauli reports on the National e-textbook Debate and Libraries of the Future panel sessions held by JISC in Birmingham over 14-15 April 2008.

• Metadata for Learning Resources: An Update on Standards Activity for 2008

  Sarah Currier gives an overview of current initiatives in standards for educational metadata.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• Research Libraries and the Power of the Co-operative

  John MacColl considers the 'co-operative imperative' upon research libraries, and describes the work which the former Research Libraries Group is undertaking as part of OCLC.

• The Librarian's Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC) 2008

  Keir Hopwood reports on three-day conference about current and future trends in the practice of information literacy teaching in Higher Education and beyond.

• Ancient Cultures Inside Modern Universes

  Edgardo Civallero writes on preservation and dissemination of intangible South American indigenous heritage and updating information using Web-based tools.

• Book Review: Blended Learning

  Brian Whalley reviews Barbara Allan's book on blended learning for Information and Library Science staff and educational developers.

• Book Review: Digital Copyright

  Stuart Hannabuss looks at an interesting Nile cruise of a book about intellectual property.

• Book Review: Programming Collective Intelligence

  Pete Cliff tries to remember A-level mathematics as he dives into the fascinating world of machine learning and statistics and how to apply these techniques to Web-accessible datasets.

• Collaborative and Social Tagging Networks

  Emma Tonkin, Edward M. Corrado, Heather Lea Moulaison, Margaret E. I. Kipp, Andrea Resmini, Heather D. Pfeiffer and Qiping Zhang gather a series of international perspectives on the practice of social tagging of documents within a community context.

• Exploiting the Potential of Blogs and Social Networks

  Gill Ferrell reports on a one-day workshop about Blogs and Social Networks, held in Birmingham in November 2007.

• Global Research Library 2020

  Jessie Hey and David Pearson report on a series of strategic workshops on the Global Research Library 2020 - the first of which, the Willows Lodge Workshop, was held in the Pacific North West of the US in the Autumn of 2007.

• MCN 2007: Building Content, Building Community - 40 Years of Museum Information and Technology

  Guenter Waibel and Jean Godby report on the Museum Computer Network annual meeting, held 7-10 November, 2007 in Chicago, Illinois.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• SWORD: Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit

  Julie Allinson, Sebastien Francois and Stuart Lewis describe the JISC-funded SWORD Project which has produced a lightweight protocol for repository deposit.

• Saving Energy in the Workplace

  Eddie Young outlines some of the issues faced by a Systems Administrator when trying to save energy in the workplace.

• Web 2.0 in U.S. LIS Schools: Are They Missing the Boat?

  Noa Aharony asks whether library and information science schools in the United States are underestimating the opportunities offered by Web 2.0 applications.

• Book Review: Listen Up! Podcasting for Schools and Libraries

  Elizabeth McHugh looks at how podcasting has the potential to take library services and activities to new audiences.

• Book Review: The Cult of the Amateur

  Stephanie Taylor tries to curb her enthusiasm for Web 2.0 by investigating the dark side of social networking.

• Googlepository and the University Library

  Sue Manuel and Charles Oppenheim discuss the concept of Google as a repository within the wider context of resource management and provision in Further and Higher Education.

• Newsline

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• The National Centre for Text Mining: A Vision for the Future

  Sophia Ananiadou describes NaCTeM and the main scientific challenges it helps to solve together with issues related to deployment, use and uptake of NaCTeM's text mining tools and services.

• ALPSP Conference

  Kara Jones reports on the ALPSP 'Publishing and the Library of the Future' one-day seminar held at St Anthony's College, Oxford, in July 2007.

• Blogging from the Backroom

  Ann Chapman reports on a seminar on blogging, designed for those working in the traditional 'backroom' professions such as cataloguing and indexing, held by the CILIP Cataloguing and Indexing Group in London, on 8 June 2007.

• EThOSnet: Building a UK E-Theses Community

  Jill Russell outlines progress towards an e-theses service for the UK.

• IWMW 2007: Next Steps for the Web Management Community

  Shirley Keane reports on the wide range of presentations given at this year's Institutional Web Management Workshop.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• Book Review: Blogging and RSS - A Librarian's Guide

  Kara Jones reviews a practical guide to blogs and RSS written for librarians, packed with library-specific examples.

• Book Review: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web

  Keith Doyle reviews the 3rd edition of the primary reference book for practising in-house staff and consultants responsible for the development of institutional information architecture.

• Citeulike: A Researcher's Social Bookmarking Service

  Kevin Emamy and Richard Cameron describe a tool that helps researchers gather, collect and share papers.

• Developing a Virtual Research Environment in a Portal Framework: The EVIE Project

  Tracey Stanley provides an overview of the EVIE Project at the University of Leeds which was funded under the JISC Virtual Research Environments Programme.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 51: Democratising Cultural Heritage

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne 51.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• OpenID: Decentralised Single Sign-on for the Web

  Andy Powell and David Recordon take a brief look at OpenID and ask what relevance it has to e-learning.

• Search Engines: Why Ask Me, and Does 'X' Mark the Spot?

  Phil Bradley takes a look at different versions of Ask to see how it is developing and looks at how it is emerging from its servant roots.

• Towards Virtualisation: A New Approach in Server Management

  Eddie Young provides an account of trials and implementations carried out here after Matt Thrower gives us the background and benefits of employing virtualisation.

• Using Blogs for Formative Assessment and Interactive Teaching

  Lisa Foggo provides a case-study of using a blog for formative assessment. Its interactivity engaged participants and permitted measurement of student expectations and satisfaction with library sessions.

• What Is an Open Repository?

  Julie Allinson, Jessie Hey, Chris Awre and Mahendra Mahey report on the Open Repositories 2007 conference, held in San Antonio, Texas between 23-26 January 2007.

• 2nd International DCC Conference 2006: Digital Data Curation in Practice

  Alexander Ball and Manjula Patel provide an overview of the second annual conference of the Digital Curation Centre.

• Book Review: Digital Libraries - Integrating Content and Systems

  Chris Awre finds a useful toolset to guide librarians and LIS students on the future use of IT to deliver their services.

• JISC CETIS Conference, 2006

  Paul Walk reports on the third annual CETIS conference held in Salford, Manchester, over 14 -15 November 2006.

• New Search Engines in 2006

  Phil Bradley takes a look at some of the search engines that he noticed in 2006 and provides quick assessments.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• What Happens When We Mash the Library?

  Paul Miller looks at recent attempts to make library resources more appealing, including the Talis competition to build library 'mashups'.

• Wikido: Exploiting the Potential of Wikis

  Marieke Guy reports on a one-day workshop, held in Birmingham in November 2006, which took a closer look at the potential of Wikis for educational institutions.

• Book Review: Ambient Findability

  Emma Tonkin reviews a book with interesting content despite a few rough edges.

• Book Review: Teach Beyond Your Reach

  Lina Coelho looks at this Instructor's guide to developing and running successful distance learning classes, workshops, training sessions and more.

• DC 2006: Metadata for Knowledge and Learning

  Julie Allinson, Rachel Heery, Pete Johnston and Rosemary Russell report on DC 2006, the sixth international conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, held 3 - 6 October 2006.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• Search Engines: Is Google Building on Shaky Foundations?

  Phil Bradley takes an in-depth look at Google and its competition and wonders if things are looking slightly worrying for the search giant.

• Wiki Or Won't He? A Tale of Public Sector Wikis

  Marieke Guy revisits a topic receiving considerable attention these days and reflects on wiki use by public organisations.

• e-Books for the Future: Here but Hiding?

  Brian Whalley outlines some developments in e-book technologies and links them to existing ways of presenting textbook information.

• Book Review: Blended Learning and Online Tutoring

  Lyn Parker considers that this book meets its aim of providing practical advice for tutors and staff developers engaged in online activities and blended learning.

• Book Review: The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide, 2nd Edition

  Re-visiting this work in its new and second edition for Ariadne, Lina Coelho finds it amply repays the effort.

• IWMW 2006: Quality Matters

  Adrian Stevenson reports on the 10th Institutional Web Management Workshop held at the University of Bath over 14-16 June 2006.

• Introducing UnAPI

  Dan Chudnov and a team of colleagues describe unAPI, a tiny HTTP API for serving information objects in next-generation Web applications.

• Intute: The New Best of the Web

  Caroline Williams describes Intute in the context of the online information environment and outlines aspirations for the future.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• The Library Catalogue in the New Discovery Environment: Some Thoughts

  Lorcan Dempsey explores how the library catalogue will develop alongside evolving network discovery systems.

• Code4lib 2006

  Jeremy Frumkin and Dan Chudnov report on the inaugural conference of the Code4lib community of programmers, hackers, and techies working in or with libraries and information systems.

• Folksonomies: The Fall and Rise of Plain-text Tagging

  Emma Tonkin suggests that rising new ideas are often on their second circuit - and none the worse for that.

• Search Engines: Where We Were, Are Now, and Will Ever Be

  Phil Bradley takes a look at the development of search engines over the lifetime of Ariadne and points to what we might anticipate in the years to come.

• The Rustle of Digital Curation: The JISC Annual Conference

  Julie Allinson, Marieke Guy and Maureen Pennock find themselves contemplating e-frameworks, digital curation and repositories at the JISC Annual Conference.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 46: Ten Years of Pathfinding

  John MacColl, Lorcan Dempsey and John Kirriemuir reflect in turn on the rationale and history of the founding of Ariadne.

• Google Challenges for Academic Libraries

  John MacColl analyses the reactions many academic libraries may be having to the range of tools Google is currently rolling out and outlines a strategy for institutions in the face of such potentially radical developments.

• Research Libraries Engage the Digital World: A US-UK Comparative Examination of Recent History and Future Prospects

  Clifford Lynch looks at how the emergence of e-research has changed our thinking about the future of research libraries on both sides of the Atlantic.

• The (Digital) Library Environment: Ten Years After

  Lorcan Dempsey considers how the digital library environment has changed in the ten years since Ariadne was first published.

• A Recipe for Cream of Science: Special Content Recruitment for Dutch Institutional Repositories

  Martin Feijen and Annemiek van der Kuil describe the Cream of Science Project, part of the DARE Programme, which generated a Web site offering open access to almost 25,000 publications by 207 prominent scholars across the Netherlands.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 45: Smaller Might Be Beautiful

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 45.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• Planet-SOSIG

  Flora Watson introduces a new podcasting service from Biz/ed and Angela Joyce reports on the latest developments in the Eurostudies section of SOSIG.

• Web 2.0: Building the New Library

  Paul Miller explores some of the recent buzz around the concept of 'Web 2.0' and asks what it means for libraries and related organisations.

• Web Focus: Must Email Die?

  Brian Kelly recently gave a talk on this subject at the Internet Librarian International 2005 conference. In this article he expands on the talk and revisits the question as to whether email really should disappear.

• Book Review: Content and Workflow Management for Library Web Sites

  Martin White welcomes the detail but is concerned at the impact that the publishing process has had on the currency and utility of the content.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 44: One Day We All Learn the Hard Way

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 44.

• IWMW 2005

  Miles Banbery reports on the 9th Institutional Web Management Workshop held at the University of Manchester, UK, over 6-8 July 2005.

• Mobile Blogs, Personal Reflections and Learning Environments: The RAMBLE Project

  Paul Trafford describes how mobile blogs for personal reflection may be related to institutional learning environments, drawing on experiences from the RAMBLE Project.

• Planet-SOSIG

  Emma Place assesses the recent SOSIG Social Science Online seminars, Jacky Clake reports on the ESRC Social Science Week and Debra Hiom updates us on the virtual seminar run by SOSIG as part of Social Science Week.

• Supporting Local Data Users in the UK Academic Community

  Luis Martinez and Stuart Macdonald discuss the differing areas of expertise within the UK data libraries with particular reference to their relationship with National Data Centres, the role of the Data Information Specialists Committee - UK (DISC-UK) and other information specialists.

• Web Focus: The WWW 2005 Conference

  Brian Kelly provides his impressions including reports of areas of doubt and uncertainty - but also of an exciting new development.

• Opening Up OpenURLs with Autodiscovery

  Daniel Chudnov, Richard Cameron, Jeremy Frumkin, Ross Singer and Raymond Yee demonstrate a 'gather locally, share globally' approach to OpenURLs and metadata autodiscovery in scholarly and non-scholarly environments.

• Planet-SOSIG

  Paul Ayres examines how the SOSIG Subject News blog is keeping users up to date and providing reusable site content at the same time.

• United Kingdom Serials Group Conference 2005

  Sarah Pearson reports on the annual 3-day UK Serials Group (UKSG) conference recently held at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

• Web Focus: Using Collaborative Technologies When on the Road

  Brian Kelly argues that since conference delegates now expect to be able to read email on the road, there are additional technologies which might enhance our effectiveness when away from the office.

• Beyond Email: Wikis, Blogs and Other Strange Beasts

  Robert Bristow reports on a one-day workshop 'Beyond Email: Strategies for Collaborative Working and Learning in the 21st Century'.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 42: Less Could Mean More

  Richard Waller provides an editorial introduction to Ariadne issue 42.

• Making the Case for a Wiki

  Emma Tonkin examines wikis and considers the feasibility of their deployment - and the danger of the 'tumbleweed' syndrome.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• Planet-SOSIG

  Humphrey Southall looks at a new Web site's Vision of Britain while Emma Place examines new changes to the RDN Virtual Training Suite.

• Search Engines: No Longer about Search

  Phil Bradley asks 'Is your choice of search engine based on how good it is, or on what else you use?'

• Web Focus: Experiences of Using a Wiki for Note-taking at a Workshop

  Brian Kelly describes how the Wikalong Wiki tool was used to support note-taking at a workshop.

• Book Review: Libraries Without Walls 5

  David Parkes reviews the fifth compilation of the biennial Library Without Walls Conference. He finds how far we have come and how far we have to go in delivering services to distributed learners.

• Book Review: The Web Library

  Lina Coelho looks at a book she feels is destined to repay its purchase price even if you never manage to read it all.

• Search Engines: New and Developing Search Engines

  Phil Bradley looks at some existing search engines and also some new ones to bring you up to date on what is happening in the world of Internet search engines.

• The Institutional Web Management Workshop 2004

  Tracey Stanley reports on the 8th Institutional Web Management Workshop at the University of Birmingham over 27-29 July. The theme of this year's workshop was Transforming the Organisation.

• Book Review: Managing Your Internet & Intranet Services

  David Hook sees this edition as a useful overview but finds unfortunate omissions as well as beneficial inclusions.

• Book Review: Net Effects

  Grant Young reviews a compilation of articles showcasing librarians' efforts to wrest control of new technologies and reassert some traditional values.

• ERPANET Seminar on Persistent Identifiers

  Monica Duke reports on a two-day training seminar on persistent identifiers held by ERPANET in Cork, Ireland over 17-18 June 2004.

• Editorial Introduction to Issue 40: Horses for Courses

  Richard Waller introduces Ariadne issue 40.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• Public Libraries: Weblogs: Do They Belong in Libraries?

  Penny Garrod takes a look at weblogs and weblogging activities in libraries and considers some of the ways they can be used to support public library users.

• Towards Library Groupware With Personalised Link Routing

  Daniel Chudnov, Jeremy Frumkin, Jennifer Weintraub, Matthew Wilcox and Raymond Yee describe a potential groupware framework for integrating access to diverse information resources and distributed personal collection development.

• Web Focus: The Web on Your TV

  Brian Kelly takes a look at a digital TV box which provides Web and email access in your living room.

• World Wide Web Conference 2004

  Dave Beckett reports on the international WWW2004 conference held in New York, 19-21 May 2004.

• Towards the Digital Aquifer: Introducing the Common Information Environment

  Paul Miller discusses current efforts by UK agencies to collaborate on a Common Information Environment that meets the diverse needs of current and future consumers of digital content and services.

• Herding Tigers, Part II

  Sophie Clarke describes an event designed to share ideas on accessibility, evaluation and the use of learning technology standards.

• News and Events

  Ariadne presents a brief summary of news and events.

• Reaching Out to Your Community: Policies and Practice for Public Library Service

  Fiona Leslie gives an overview of this seminar which covered a variety of topics of interest to public library professionals.

• Search Engines: The Year 2003 in Perspective

  Phil Bradley takes us through the major trends and highlights in the world of search engines over the course of the past year.

• Web Focus: Improving the Quality of Your HTML

  Brian Kelly outlines a strategy for fixing the most important HTML resources on a Web site.

• ECDL-2003 Conference Notes

  Lesly Huxley shares her notes on the European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries.

• Search Engines: Weblog Search Engines

  Phil Bradley looks at the developments occurring with weblogs and how you can go about searching on or for them.

• Creating Websites for e-Citizens: the Public Library Web Managers Workshop 2002

  In the first of a series of articles, Penny Garrod takes us through some of the choices confronting UK public libraries, and begins by looking at the ramifications of the DCMS report "Framework for the future".

• Search Engines: Many Movements in Mere Months

  Phil Bradley looks at various developments that have occurred recently in the ever-shifting scene of the search engine.

• WWW2002 Here

  Libby Miller sends notes from the WW2002 conference in Hawaii.

• Web Focus: Report On The Sixth Institutional Web Management Workshop

  Brian Kelly with a report on the Sixth Institutional International Web Management Workshop held this year at the University of Strathclyde.

• Web Focus: Reflections On WWW9

  Brian Kelly reports on the WWW9 conference, held in Amsterdam, in May 2000.

• An Investigation Into World Wide Web Search Engine Use from within the UK: Preliminary Findings

  Simon Stobart and Susan Kerridge give some of the preliminary results of a JISC- funded investigation into the use of Search Engines such as Alta Vista and Lycos within the UK.