The ABES (Agence bibliographique de l’enseignement supérieur / French Higher Education Bibliographic Agency) now offers on its website a specific section containing practical information sheets describing each data set available as well as technical information on recovery tools and formats.
OCLC is working with seven leading libraries in a pilot program designed to learn more about how linked data will influence library workflows in the future. The Person Entity Lookup pilot will help library professionals reduce redundant data by linking related sets of person identifiers and authorities.
IFLA has created a Risk Register for documentary heritage in order to raise awareness for the preservation, conservation, and safeguarding of documentary heritage (in any format) world-wide. The association aims to gather data on documentary heritage collections in order to be able to respond adequately if confronted with natural or man-made disasters.
The aim of this work is to build broad international consensus around vocabulary items for open access repositories. The Editorial Board has reviewed existing regional and topical metadata schemas including info:eu-repo (and OpenAIRE Guidelines), NISO Access and License Indicators, RIOXX, CERIF Semantic Vocabulary, CASRAI Dictionary and others. For each vocabulary element, a definition is provided, and the item has been translated into several languages that will be connected via linked data principles.
ICSTI 2015 General Assembly & Workshops took place on 4th July in Hannover, Germany. The workshops organized by the Information Trends and Opportunities Committee (ITOC) and the Technical Activities Coordinating Committee (TACC) gathered a panel of international experts addressing the themes of Open Science and Open Data from the political point of view. Innovation was the second red thread, with keynotes and experiences about making collections discoverable and open and the ways to facilitate access to research data.
ALA Annual Conference (June 25th – 30th 2015) programs, updates, conversations, and other events cover key issues such as innovation and transformation, ebook lending and usability, digital content, community engagement, leadership, the impact and potential of new technologies, books and awards, development, teaching and learning, and best practices on a range of library-related concerns.
The presentations are now available online as well as the highlights.
24-26 June 2015 saw the 44th LIBER Annual Conference take place in London, organised by Imperial College London, the University of London, UCL and the London School of Economics and Political Science. LIBER is the Association of European Research Libraries with over 400 library members across Europe. The theme of the Conference was Towards Open Science – a global movement which sees openness and sharing as crucial themes in the processes involved in research and education.
The presentations are now available online.
IATUL, the International Association of Technological University Libraries held its annual conference in Hannover, Germany (5 – 9 July 2015) at the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB). From the red thread “Strategic Partnerships for Access and Discovery”, the conference enabled librarians from 42 countries to exchange on current and future developments in the area of strategy, management and practice in libraries. Making access to scientific information easier and faster for the benefits of users was at stake, with a strong focus on digital preservation programmes and experiences, as well as management of research data. The presentations are now available online.
Peter Burnhill / EDINA made a presentation about the ways to ensure continuity of access to the scholarly record.
There is a growing rift between those who believe the library’s most fundamental purpose is to support and advance the goals of its host institution and those who believe the library’s most important role is as an agent of progress and reform in the larger world of scholarly communication. Although these two areas of endeavor are not mutually exclusive, they are in competition for scarce resources and the choices made between them have serious implications.
In the absence of a market for academic publishing, the concept of average publication fees cannot be used for this purpose. A number of attempts are being made to create such a market, but new contracts for hybrid journals may thwart these initiatives. Libraries are at a crossroads. Will they continue in their current role of money collectors for publishers or revert to their original profession: independent quality control?
