Search

In this article a model is described how Open Access definitions can be formed on the basis of objective criteria. The common Open Access definitions such as "gold" and "green" are not exactly defined. This becomes a problem as soon as one begins to measure Open Access, for example if the development of the Open Access share should be monitored. This was discussed in the working group on Open Access Monitoring of the AT2OA project and the present model was developed, which is based on 5 critics with 4 characteristics: location, licence, version, embargo and con-ditions of the Open Access publication are taken into account. In the meantime, the model has also been tested in practice using R scripts, and the initial results are quite promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes two projects that promote interlibrary loan (ILL) in both traditional online public access catalogs and discovery settings to address user frustrations with gaps in the collection. By creating and inserting OpenURL links into bibliographic records for titles held exclusively by external institutions, the authors leveraged the discovery capabilities of their shared catalog and promoted ILL as an alternative means of access. The second project targeted the overwhelming amount of content indexed in the library's discovery layer that was not locally available. To more directly translate discovery into access, the authors worked with EBSCO to create and enable ILL CustomLinks for this content indexed by EBSCO Discovery Service and not available to their users. This paper presents ILL data to investigate whether these projects are changing the ways our users find and access content not held locally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entity linking is one of the problems to be handled in order to process natural language and to enrich the existing unstructured text with metadata. The generation of assignments between knowledge base entities and lexical units is called entity linking. Although a number of systems have been proposed for linking entity mentions in various languages, there is currently no publicly available entity linking system specific to the Turkish language. This paper presents a novel entity linking system—THINKER - for linking Turkish content with entities defined in the Turkish dictionary (tdk.gov.tr) or Turkish Wikipedia (tr.wikipedia.org). Specifically, we first propose a novel machine learning based entity detection algorithm for the Turkish language. Then, we propose a collective disambiguation algorithm which utilizes a set of metrics for the linking task and, which is optimized using a genetic algorithm. The effectiveness of THINKER is validated empirically over generated data sets. The experimental results show that THINKER outperformed the state-of-the-art cross-lingual and multilingual entity linking systems in the literature. High entity linking performance (74.81 percent F1 score) is achieved by extending previous methods with some features specific to Turkish language and by developing a novel method that can learn better representations of entity embeddings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study focuses on robust Tomlinson-Harashima precoding transceiver design for multi-cell multiple-input- multiple-output interference channel with statistical channel state information error. The objective is formulated to minimise the maximum per-user mean square error (MSE) with per-transmitter power constraint. Since the problem is not jointly convex, an approximated method is proposed. The authors optimise the receiver matrix to be minimum MSE form as well as derive the optimisation problems of transmitter matrix and feedback matrix to be second-order cone programming, respectively. By use of the results, the three matrices are updated iteratively. The convergence of the proposed method is also proved. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the robust linear transceiver in both MSE and bit error ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conventional schedule-based wireless transmission system, frequent interactions between devices and access networks lead to significant signalling overhead, and thus limit the development of low-latency applications. Contention-based data transmission (CBDT) is widely used as a promising solution to address the above issues. In this study, the authors propose a detection-based retransmission scheme for CBDT to further reduce the delay-outage probability which cannot be avoided due to collision. In this scheme, each device simultaneously monitors the occupied resource blocks during data transmission. When a collision event is detected, the retransmission for this packet is determined without waiting for the acknowledgment message from the receiver. The reliability performance is significantly improved for low-latency applications, since the possible retransmission times for each packet is increased within the limited transmission period. In addition, the impacts of imperfect detection on extra transmission load and packet loss are analysed in detail. The simulation and analytical results demonstrate that the detection-based scheme significantly improves the reliability of CBDT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metadata search is an important way to access and manage file systems. Many solutions have been proposed to tackle performance issue of metadata search. However, the existing solutions build a separate metadata index at the internal or external file system through the related data structure or database use semantics and event-notification method to construct the index structure, utilize the sampling-based method to conduct direct metadata search on the namespace, face problems of the high I/O overhead for maintaining consistency between metadata indexes and metadata, have enormous space overhead for metadata indexes storing and low accuracy of results and so on. To address these problems, this paper presents MBFS, a fast, accurate and lightweight metadata search method based on multi-dimensional Bloomfilters. We create a multi-dimensional Bloomfilter structure on the basis of the directory entry that can prune sub-trees to narrow the search scope of namespace. MBFS is capable of producing fast and accurate answers for a class of complex search over a file system after consuming a small number of disk accesses. MBFS residing in the file system does not need additional I/O overhead to maintain consistency. MBFS consists of Bloomfilters which are composed of bits, so it is a lightweight metadata search method that consumes marginal space overhead. Moreover, MBFS employs MapReduce for speeding up search under the environment of multiple metadata servers. Extensive experiments are conducted to prove the effectiveness of MBFS. The experimental results show that MBFS can achieve an excellent performance not only on the search latency, but also on the accuracy of results with low space and time overhead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RIOXX is a metadata application profile developed by EDINA and Chygrove Ltd (with support from Jisc) to assist UK higher education institutions to comply with the Research Councils UK Policy on Open Access. RIOXX is designed to aid the supply of precise metadata describing those scholarly publications which are generated by UK Research Councils funding. The RIOXX metadata application profile, version 2.0, was released on 22 January 2015. This article outlines the application profile and its purpose, and offers a little more detail on some particular metadata properties. It goes on to describe some of the principles behind its development, together with some of the challenges encountered and the solutions (and compromises) made to address these. A particular innovation has been the adoption of some of the practices associated with modern software development, notably the continuous testing regime. The article concludes with a brief account of progress to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article details the outcomes of the 'National Learning and Teaching Resource Audit and Classification' project, commissioned by the Australian Government's Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT). The project used a range of methodologies to reorganise the OLT's Resource Library (http://www.olt.gov.au/resource-library), constructing and selecting an optimal set of metadata elements, along with certain vocabularies for these elements, and then reindexing the content of the Resource Library utilising the new schema and vocabularies. This paper reports on a before-and-after evaluation of the Resource Library's search performance through an information retrieval experiment based on searches logged by the repository's content management system. It was found that the reindexing produced a significant increase in average recall from 25.1 to 37.1% and a significant increase in average precision from 37.6 to 50.4%. The paper also describes the construction of a new controlled vocabulary for the 'resource type' element and confirms the importance of clarity, conciseness, structure and scope in research report summaries for accurate document selection. Further, the paper outlines the audit of the OLT collection based on the frequency of particular Australian Thesaurus of Education Descriptors and Australian Standard Classifications of Education used in the reindexing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

End-to-end modelling is a rapidly developing strategy for modelling in marine systems science and management. However, problems remain in the area of data matching and sub-model compatibility. A mechanism and novel interfacing system (Couplerlib) is presented whereby a physical--biogeochemical model (General Ocean Turbulence Model--European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model, GOTM--ERSEM) that predicts dynamics of the lower trophic level (LTL) organisms in marine ecosystems is coupled to a dynamic ecosystem model (Ecosim), which predicts food-web interactions among higher trophic level (HTL) organisms. Coupling is achieved by means of a bespoke interface, which handles the system incompatibilities between the models and a more generic Couplerlib library, which uses metadata descriptions in extensible mark-up language (XML) to marshal data between groups, paying attention to functional group mappings and compatibility of units between models. In addition, within Couplerlib, models can be coupled across networks by means of socket mechanisms. As a demonstration of this approach, a food-web model (Ecopath with Ecosim, EwE) and a physical--biogeochemical model (GOTM--ERSEM) representing the North Sea ecosystem were joined with Couplerlib. The output from GOTM--ERSEM varies between years, depending on oceanographic and meteorological conditions. Although inter-annual variability was clearly present, there was always the tendency for an annual cycle consisting of a peak of diatoms in spring, followed by (less nutritious) flagellates and dinoflagellates through the summer, resulting in an early summer peak in the mesozooplankton biomass. Pelagic productivity, predicted by the LTL model, was highly seasonal with little winter food for the higher trophic levels. The Ecosim model was originally based on the assumption of constant annual inputs of energy and, consequently, when coupled, pelagic species suffered population losses over the winter months. By contrast, benthic populations were more stable (although the benthic linkage modelled was purely at the detritus level, so this stability reflects the stability of the Ecosim model). The coupled model was used to examine long-term effects of environmental change, and showed the system to be nutrient limited and relatively unaffected by forecast climate change, especially in the benthos. The stability of an Ecosim formulation for large higher tropic level food webs is discussed and it is concluded that this kind of coupled model formulation is better for examining the effects of long-term environmental change than short-term perturbations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about makers is critical to bibliographic research, and special collections cataloging norms provide maker metadata. Still, access to maker metadata is hampered in online library catalogs. This article investigates the betterment of maker metadata in (or alongside) library catalogs using existing content guidelines, encoding schemas, and data models. Discussion finds that libraries have appropriate tools for improving access to maker metadata. This article thus encourages the profession to coordinate access to maker metadata. Cooperative maker description and the merger and/or linking of datasets generated by the research community are suggested areas for future investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the development and automation of quality assurance procedures for locally loading electronic books (ebooks) on the Ontario Council of University Libraries’ Scholars Portal Platform. The authors conducted a two-phase study of MARC record fields indexed on the platform to detect errors and implement workflow changes to the quality control process. The authors report on this process and the costs involved and suggest that the challenges of ebook metadata are not met by MARC and a new metadata standard should be considered in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses its attention on the legal and practical possibilities when utilizing public licenses as a tool in making metadata available to the wider public in a form that is as open as possible, as well as on the obstacles that need to be overcome in doing so, in particular with regard to the rights of third parties. The paper will draw on the experience gained from publishing the database of NRGL metadata and will present generally applicable conclusions based on this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will be of interest to librarians, particularly those in consortia that are evaluating OpenURL link resolvers. This case study contrasts WebBridge (an Innovative Interface product) and LinkSource (EBSCO's product). This study assisted us in the decision-making process of choosing an OpenURL link resolver that was sustainable to maintain and, most importantly, made it easier for users to access the full text of an article. This case study does not propose that one product is superior to another; however, the criteria and methods used to evaluate the products will be of use to those seeking to improve user access. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are several issues with Web-based search interfaces on a Sensor Web data infrastructure. It can be difficult to (1) find the proper keywords for the formulation of queries and (2) explore the information if the user does not have previous knowledge about the particular sensor systems providing the information. We investigate how the visualization of sensor resources on a 3D Web-based Digital Earth globe organized by level-of-detail (LOD) can enhance search and exploration of information by easing the formulation of geospatial queries against the metadata of sensor systems. Our case study provides an approach inspired by geographical mashups in which freely available functionality and data are flexibly combined. We use PostgreSQL, PostGIS, PHP, and X3D-Earth technologies to allow the Web3D standard and its geospatial component to be used for visual exploration and LOD control of a dynamic scene. Our goal is to facilitate the dynamic exploration of the Sensor Web and to allow the user to seamlessly focus in on a particular sensor system from a set of registered sensor networks deployed across the globe. We present a prototype metadata exploration system featuring LOD for a multiscaled Sensor Web as a Digital Earth application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional method for visualization of 3D city models based on a "Layer-Object" does not consider the granularity differences in different data type and in different levels of detail, which results in the low transmission efficiency in the network environment and does not satisfy the need for smooth visualization with multi-user concurrent accesses. This paper analyzes the characteristics of an user experience including roaming over a wide range and focusing on small range, and proposes a method of using an index metadata to coordinate the organization and scheduling of model objects, which delivers instant responses to user requests, and at the same time, by decomposing model objects, decreases invalid data transmission. This paper describes the design of unified object ID structure to implicitly store the relationships of LoD models and decomposed objects to support distributed management. Finally, the validity and feasibility of this method are demonstrated through experiments on the platform of a distributed database MongoDB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the NAND flash memory is widely used as the storage medium in modern sensor systems, the aggressive shrinking of process geometry and an increase in the number of bits stored in each memory cell will inevitably degrade the reliability of NAND flash memory. In particular, it's critical to enhance metadata reliability, which occupies only a small portion of the storage space, but maintains the critical information of the file system and the address translations of the storage system. Metadata damage will cause the system to crash or a large amount of data to be lost. This paper presents Asymmetric Programming, a highly reliable metadata allocation strategy for MLC NAND flash memory storage systems. Our technique exploits for the first time the property of the multi-page architecture of MLC NAND flash memory to improve the reliability of metadata. The basic idea is to keep metadata in most significant bit (MSB) pages which are more reliable than least significant bit (LSB) pages. Thus, we can achieve relatively low bit error rates for metadata. Based on this idea, we propose two strategies to optimize address mapping and garbage collection. We have implemented Asymmetric Programming on a real hardware platform. The experimental results show that Asymmetric Programming can achieve a reduction in the number of page errors of up to 99.05% with the baseline error correction scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: OpenID is an open standard providing a decentralized authentication mechanism to end users. It is based on a unique URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or XRI (Extensible Resource Identifier) as identifier of the user. This fact of using a single identifier confers this approach an interesting added-value when users want to get access to different services in the Internet, since users do not need to create a new account on every website they are visiting. However, OpenID providers are normally used as a point to store certain personal attributes of the end users too, which might be of interest for any service provider willing to make profit from collecting that personal information. The definition of a reputation management solution integrated as part of the OpenID protocol can help users to determine whether a given service provider is more or less reliable before interacting with it and transferring their private information. This paper is providing the definition of a reputation framework that can be applied to the OpenID SSO (Single Sign-On) standard solution. It also defines how the protocol itself can be enhanced so OpenID providers can collect (and provide) recommendations from (to) users regarding different service providers and thus enhancing the users' experience when using OpenID. Besides the definition, a set of tests has been performed validating the feasibility of the framework. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Visualization of geospatial data provenance aims to provide a user-friendly way for easy navigation and increased understanding of the derivation history of geoscientific results. Most existing work focuses on provenance modeling and management. This paper proposes to interleave map and faceted metadata for geospatial data provenance visualization and navigation. It shows how provenance in Web-geoprocessing workflows can be visualized at four levels: feature, dataset, service, and knowledge. A prototypical system, named GeoPWProv, is developed to demonstrate the applicability of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the proliferation of electronic publishing, libraries are increasingly relying on publisher-supplied metadata to meet user needs for discovery in library systems. However, many publisher/content provider staff creating metadata are unaware of the end-user environment and how libraries use their metadata. This article provides an overview of the three primary discovery systems that are used by academic libraries, with examples illustrating how publisher-supplied metadata directly feeds into these systems and is used to support end-user discovery and access. Commonly seen metadata problems are discussed, with recommendations suggested. Based on a series of presentations given in Autumn 2012 to the staff of a large publisher, this article uses the University of Washington Libraries systems and services as illustrative examples. Judging by the feedback received from these presentations, publishers (specifically staff not familiar with the big picture of metadata standards work) would benefit from a better understanding of the systems and services libraries provide using the data that is created and managed by publishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing number and significance of urban meteorological networks (UMNs) across the world, it is becoming critical to establish a standard metadata protocol. Indeed, a review of existing UMNs indicate large variations in the quality, quantity, and availability of metadata containing technical information (i.e., equipment, communication methods) and network practices (i.e., quality assurance/quality control and data management procedures). Without such metadata, the utility of UMNs is greatly compromised. There is a need to bring together the currently disparate sets of guidelines to ensure informed and well-documented future deployments. This should significantly improve the quality, and therefore the applicability, of the high-resolution data available from such networks. Here, the first metadata protocol for UMNs is proposed, drawing on current recommendations for urban climate stations and identified best practice in existing networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper's purpose is to describe an investigation of whether the addition of an interlibrary loan link as an option in the OpenURL link resolver menu has an effect on interlibrary loan requests for articles. Design/methodology/approach – Four years of link resolver clickthrough data were analyzed in conjunction with ten years of interlibrary loan article request data. Findings – The data showed that requests to ILL increased at first, then fell, and then rose again. There is a correlation between link resolver clickthroughs and ILL requests. Research limitations/implications – This paper employed data gathered over a longer time period than previous research on this topic and thus provides a broader exploration of the effect of providing links to ILL through a link resolver. While most OpenURL clickthrough data employed in research are gathered from the SFX OpenURL resolver, here the authors used WebBridge. Originality/value – This paper offers an example of how non-SFX institutions can employ clickthrough data to explore issues such as user behavior with regard to ILL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: This study analyzes more than 400 SFX broken-link reports sent by users of an academic library. It raises technical issues regarding OpenURL linking in the handling of special journal volume and issue numbers, journal supplemental issues, embargo release dates, book reviews, DOIs, and other areas. It reports on full-text resources with the most broken links, causes of broken links, and the library''s responses to users. It also explores how journal publishers, database vendors, and OpenURL vendors can improve the quality of their products and how librarians can better serve users. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article reports on a project at the Bibliothek des Deutschen Bundestages (Library of the German Federal Parliament) in Berlin, Germany, to provide direct links from catalog entries and references of scholarly literature to the full text in the relevant licensed databases. It provides details on cataloging procedures for electronic journals, using Open Uniform Resource Locators (OpenURL) for context-sensitive linking through link resolvers, and integration into the online library catalog.

This article summarizes the findings of a study on e-resource knowledge bases and OpenURL-based link resolvers sponsored by the National Library of Sweden. The project involved soliciting detailed information from each of the providers of the major products in this genre, reviewing product information available on the web and in published articles, and conducting a survey addressed to libraries using these products. The report identified and presented comparative information on a top tier of products that includes KnowledgeWorks and 360 Link from Serials Solutions; SFX Global KnowledgeBase and the SFX link resolver from Ex Libris; LinkSource and the EBSCO Integrated Knowledge Base from EBSCO and the WorldCat knowledge base from OCLC. A second tier included TOUResolver from TDNet, Gold Rush from the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries and GODOT from Simon Fraser University. Innovative Interfaces, Inc offers the WebBridge link resolver but does not produce a knowledge base. The library survey revealed relatively narrow differences in the statistical results. Serial Solutions emerged as more favorable in most categories except for end-user functionality where Ex Libris received higher ratings. The Global Open Knowledgebase project (GOKb) is noteworthy as a nascent community-based effort to produce a knowledge base. Key trends noted include less emphasis on knowledge bases and link resolvers as stand-alone products as they become integral components of comprehensive discovery and automation products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to support and promote the use of geospatial data and available collections has grown at Ontario Universities in recent years. These data, along with numeric data collections, are used to enhance research and expand the skill set of students graduating from a broad array of disciplines. Providing access to these types of data collections has proven challenging, and access points available to large groups of people inside academia, in government and public domains have been made possible through online portal implementations. The defined need for a geospatial portal at Ontario Universities is outlined in the first part of this paper, followed by components of the Geospatial Portal Project vision and specific requirements and technical aspects of the project. How metadata is handled is also discussed, as is the implementation of the portal's web application. Additional project components include health data collections that are available to researchers and which could be used in conjunction with the portal. Finally, project governance and future growth beyond the Ontario user base are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights three industry initiatives currently working on ways to improve access to licensed electronic content. The three initiatives are KBART, IOTA, and PIE-J. Background information on OpenURL, link resolvers, and knowledge bases, as well as detailed descriptions of the access problems the initiatives were developed to solve, is provided. Understanding these initiatives can help those involved in the electronic serials supply chain improve their own work, communicate effectively with others, and advocate for adoption of best practices. Together, these initiatives hold great promise for a future with fewer broken links and improved access for users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reviewed link resolver success comparing 360 Link and a local implementation of WebBridge. Two methods were used: (1) comparing article-level access and (2) examining technical issues for 384 randomly sampled OpenURLs. Google Analytics was used to collect user-generated OpenURLs. For both methods, 360 Link out-performed the local implementation of WebBridge. 360 Link provided more direct article access and demonstrated fewer technical issues for theOpenURLs tested. 360 Link also provided management of target syntaxes, which created time savings. The assessment outcome for a local instance of WebBridge may not translate to other WebBridge implementations. The methods employed could be used to compare any link resolvers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Twenty-one volunteers tested the usability of revisions to the Texas A&M University Libraries' SFX® OpenURL link resolver menus, including the addition of Ex Libris' new bX™ recommendation service and a plug-in which pulls additional information about the journal into the menu. The volunteers also evaluated the quality and desirability of the bX recommendations and discussed their preferences for help options and full-text format. Results of the usability testing are reported along with the resultant menu changes. This study will be of interest to librarians implementing or redesigning OpenURL menus as well as those interested in the user experience. Serials Review 2011; 37:162-170. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OpenURL links provide access to full-text articles from citation databases; however, end users who have found citations outside of library databases must find the full text of their journal articles another way. Many OpenURL link resolvers offer a citation finder service which allows the end user to search for specific known items at the article level. This paper studies the usability of the "citation linker" search from Ex Libris' SFX®. Twenty-one volunteers tested finding known journal articles using both a standard A-to-Z list and SFX' citation linker search. The researchers compare results from the two search interfaces, document the problems found, recommend which interface makes the best default search interface, and suggest improvements to the citation linker interface. Serials Review 2011; 37:93-98. (c) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we describe the results of an experiment designed to understand the effects of background information and social interaction on image tagging. The participants in the experiment were asked to tag 12 preselected images of Jewish cultural heritage. The users were partitioned into three groups: the first group saw only the images with no additional information whatsoever, the second group saw the images plus a short, descriptive title, and the third group saw the images, the titles, and the URL of the page in which the image appeared. In the first stage of the experiment, each user tagged the images without seeing the tags provided by the other users. In the second stage, the users saw the tags assigned by others and were encouraged to interact. Results show that after the social interaction phase, the tag sets converged and the popular tags became even more popular. Although in all cases the total number of assigned tags increased after the social interaction phase, the number of distinct tags decreased in most cases. When viewing the image only, in some cases the users were not able to correctly identify what they saw in some of the pictures, but they overcame the initial difficulties after interaction. We conclude from this experiment that social interaction may lead to convergence in tagging and that the “wisdom of the crowds” helps overcome the difficulties due to the lack of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data integration and mediation have become central concerns of information technology over the past few decades. With the advent of the Web and the rapid increases in the amount of data and the number of Web documents and users, researchers have focused on enhancing the interoperability of data through the development of metadata schemes. Other researchers have looked to the wealth of metadata generated by bookmarking sites on the Social Web. While several existing ontologies have capitalized on the semantics of metadata created by tagging activities, the Upper Tag Ontology (UTO) emphasizes the structure of tagging activities to facilitate modeling of tagging data and the integration of data from different bookmarking sites as well as the alignment of tagging ontologies. UTO is described and its utility in modeling, harvesting, integrating, searching, and analyzing data is demonstrated with metadata harvested from three major social tagging systems (Delicious, Flickr, and YouTube). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) is a project concerned with the optimal implementation of the OpenURL specification. As a collaborative effort between the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and co-chaired by presenter Peter McCracken, its goal is to establish best practices to be used by content providers, aggregators, electronic resource management (ERM) system vendors, and libraries. Their concerted efforts are ultimately there to improve access to electronic resources for the end user, that is, the library patron. The KBART working group is identifying and pointing out problems in the use of OpenURL to those who provide the data and is further engaged in education and advocacy to assist the involved parties in finding solutions to those problems. A report is in progress that includes best practice recommendations on what type of data to provide and how to deliver the data. There are also topics under discussion related to error reporting, the methods of educating the involved parties, and how to incorporate the specific needs of individual libraries. The report to be delivered by the KBART working group is well under way but remains at the same time open for discussion and future input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We introduce a statistical, process-oriented metadata model to describe the process of medical research data collection, management, results analysis and dissemination. Our approach explicitly provides a structure for pieces of information used in Clinical Study Data Management Systems, enabling a more active role for any associated metadata. Using the object-oriented paradigm, we describe the classes of our model that participate during the design of a clinical trial and the subsequent collection and management of the relevant data. The advantage of our approach is that we focus on presenting the structural inter-relation of these classes when used during datasets manipulation by proposing certain transformations that model the simultaneous processing of both data and metadata. Our solution reduces the possibility of human errors and allows for the tracking of all changes made during datasets lifecycle. The explicit modeling of processing steps improves data quality and assists in the problem of handling data collected in different clinical trials. The case study illustrates the applicability of the proposed framework demonstrating conceptually the simultaneous handling of datasets collected during two randomized clinical studies. Finally, we provide the main considerations for implementing the proposed framework into a modern Metadata-enabled Information System. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article reports on a survey of U.S. academic libraries that was conducted in the spring of 2008 to determine if and how academic libraries were actively cataloging e-journals in the age of the OpenURL, A-Z journal lists, and the batch loading of purchased MARC records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Linking together the data of interest to biodiversity researchers (including specimen records, images, taxonomic names, and DNA sequences) requires services that can mint, resolve, and discover globally unique identifiers (including, but not limited to, DOIs, HTTP URIs, and LSIDs). Results: bioGUID implements a range of services, the core ones being an OpenURL resolver for bibliographic resources, and a LSID resolver. The LSID resolver supports Linked Data-friendly resolution using HTTP 303 redirects and content negotiation. Additional services include journal ISSN look-up, author name matching, and a tool to monitor the status of biodiversity data providers. Conclusion: bioGUID is available at http://bioguid.info/. Source code is available from http://code. google.com/p/bioguid/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) is a joint project between the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the UK Serials Group (UKSG) that is now underway with a focus on improving the functioning of OpenURL by providing standards for the quality and timeliness of data provided by publishers to knowledgebases. In this presentation Peter McCracken, Co-founder of Serials Solutions, provided an overview of KBART and discussed the future plans of this new initiative. A major goal of KBART is to develop a best practices guide that can be used by content providers as they focus on quality control as it relates to the data they provide to the knowledgebase. By bringing together librarians, publishers, aggregators, and e-resource and access management services (ERAMS) vendors the hope is that the real beneficiaries will be library patrons. Several problems that impact the ability of users to get to full-text content include OpenURL data errors and syntax errors. Peter provided an overview of the problems facing library patrons, the various factors that can lead to errors in the knowledgebase and what the KBART project may be able to do to contribute to better data for everyone. The various groups are meeting monthly and presentations are planned at several national-level conferences. KBART will be successful if it results in better data for everyone including those who provide it, those who process it, those who present it, and those who use it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation and widespread adoption of the OpenURL standard has improved the visibility, and therefore the usage, of libraries' online holdings, although there are some times when OpenURLs fail to resolve. To better understand why problems occur and encourage network-level solutions, librarians at Cornell University have begun working on a study of OpenURL metadata quality. Their goal is to create a systematic approach to assessing and validating metadata quality so that libraries and content providers may collaborate on solutions for metadata problems. One member of this project team, Glen Wiley, shared details about the types of problems this approach seeks to remedy and the status of the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OpenURL is a valuable tool within library communities because it offers a gateway to the rapidly growing online information sources otherwise disconnected. However, the access it provides is not, as it is often billed, seamless. Reference librarians at Adelphi University were concerned that students were having difficulty retrieving full text articles via our link resolver and that distinctions between the various resources included in the OpenURL process was unclear. To examine these and other issues we designed a usability study with four objectives: (1) to measure the relative success of student use of OpenURL to link to full text; (2) to evaluate, edit, and improve an existing OpenURL instructional guide; (3) to explore additional ways of promoting effective use of the link resolver; and (4) to seek new methods of advancing information literacy skills. Within the investigative process, the researcher concluded that student difficulties might well be addressed by building scaffolding into the OpenURL results page. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In all fields of geochemical and environmental sample analysis, reference materials play an increasingly important role. Although the provider of an analytical result must document the measurement process used to establish traceability links, most publications do not contain data of reference materials. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to clarify the role and use of reference materials and certified reference materials, to discuss the importance of reference materials for geoanalytical work and to present the GeoReM database for reference materials of geological and environmental interest. The GeoReM database contains published analytical data, compiled data and metadata for about 1800 geochemical and environmental reference materials, provides geoanalysts with details of those samples of particular relevance to applications. Preferred values and their uncertainties are also provided in this database. Although most of the GeoReM preferred values are not ISO compliant, they have a high level of confidence and are therefore useful for calibration purposes and quality control. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In early 2006, information industry association UKSG commissioned a research report 'to identify the new relationships and information exchange requirements... [necessary] to maximize the benefit of OpenURL linking'. Central to the efficient operation of the OpenURL is the knowledge base, which consists of data supplied by content providers including publishers. The report found that a lack of awareness on the part of many publishers of the OpenURL's capabilities and requirements is impacting the quality and timeliness of the data they provide to populate knowledge bases, and thus undermining the potential of this sophisticated technology. A programme of education and advocacy, particularly among smaller publishers, will be key to improving the efficacy with which OpenURL is currently implemented. The study's findings and suggestions will be taken forward by the KBART (Knowledge Bases And Related Tools) working group co-chaired by UKSG and NISO; this article reviews the initial report and summarizes the planned remit and expected outcomes of the working group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The College of the Holy Cross implemented a pilot project to test the feasibility of using MilMedia and Metadata Builder (Innovative Interfaces, Inc.) to store and catalog images created by Holy Cross faculty. Five personal collections have been added: original artwork, stained glass images, vascular plant images, Chinese cultural images, and American classical architecture images. A workflow involving the faculty, Educational Technology staff, Cataloging staff and student workers has been established. Over 1,000 images have been added to the online catalog. Each set of images may be retrieved by collection name. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author addresses how electronic resources acquisition and management processes fit into the library's larger information technology (IT) landscape from development in and outside the library domain. He believes that an OpenURL-enabled application would be immeasurable to libraries and even more useful to its users. He argues that the vastness of content available freely on the Web and unavailable to the systems cannot and should not be ignored.

The article explores electronic-resource librarianship in current library and information science education. Over the past 10 years, electronic resource management tools such as OpenURL resolves and electronic resource management systems have emerged to help practicing librarians make voluminous numbers of electronic resources as visible as possible in a landscape of multiple access points and simultaneously manage all the technology, tasks, and data necessary to facilitate such ubiquitous access.

LibX (http://libx.org/) is an open source Firefox extension that provides direct access to library resources in multiple ways: through a toolbar, a context menu, and via cues that LibX places into web sites a user visits. A LibX edition integrates support for the resources to which a particular user community has access, including the library OPAC, databases, and their OpenURL link resolver. As one of its features, LibX supports the fast (one-click) retrieval of known items. such as research articles. This frequent task is automated by exploiting Google's Scholar service as a hidden backend that is used for searches. In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of LibX in retrieving known items that were listed as references in a sample of articles in four widely read journals. We conclude that LibX's matching algorithm can lead the user to an accessible copy of an item on average in 81% of cases with a negligible number of irrelevant items retrieved. As a result, LibX can dramatically reduce the time spent on known item searches [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]