Science Library Pad

CISTI bookmarklets

Stephen has released two bookmarklets with source code: Proxify CISTI and Highlight CISTI.
Scroll down on his Firefox Tools page to get them.

The way I use these in Firefox is to turn on the bookmarks toolbar (use menu View->Toolbars->Bookmarks Toolbar) and then just drag the links to the toolbar.  Then you can use them just like a clickable button.

UPDATE 2005-Dec-22: Visit CISTI Lab for the latest bookmarklets.

Cyberinfrastructure Tech Watch Blog operational

www.ctwatch.org/blog/

There are a bunch of feeds but the most up-to-date one seems to be
www.ctwatch.org/blog/feed/rss/
or
www.ctwatch.org/blog/rss/

via Slashdot /.

Previously:
2005-02-18 Cyberinfrastructure Technology Watch

Bruce Sterling on folksonomy in Wired

Wired Magazine April 2005: Order Out of Chaos

There's a revolution going on in the art and science of categorization, and its name is folksonomy, a term term invented by information architect Thomas Vander Wal.
...
A folksonomy... arises spontaneously as Net users encounter information, think about what it means, and tag it with descriptive words. Then software makes the information accessible via a simple keyword search. The results aren't definitive or scientific, but they can be very useful.

combining visualization with text

Jeremy Wagstaff's LOOSE Wire has been doing some neat things with little bar charts, of all things.

Media Coverage as Sparklines

Sparking the Wi-Fi Revolution

Livre sur les Wikis

Visiter le wiki accompagnateur: leswikis.com

par LudoBlog

InterActiveCorp attempts to buy AskJeeves (including Bloglines)

I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this.
Ask Jeeves is bigger than just www.ask.com
In particular, it includes a set of properties: Bloglines, Teoma, and various others - even Excite (remember Excite?).

This is what the InformationWeek blog had to say:

You don’t need to be the top dog to be a winner. Barry Diller understands that as his media company IAC/InterActiveCorp seeks to acquire search engine Ask Jeeves for $1.85 billion.

                   

Today, Google and Yahoo dominate the search market; they account for nearly 70% of all searches, according to comScore. Internet users conduct about one-quarter of Web searches on sites operated by MSN/Microsoft and AOL/Time Warner. Ask Jeeves accounts for only 5% of searches.

But, as Diller points out, searches represent a very small slice of American media, even less so overseas. He compares the search market to other media, such as cable TV, where no one company dominates but scores of businesses are profitable. Despite its rapid growth, the Internet remains a relatively young industry. And search is even younger.

Appearing on CNBC the other day, Diller addressed the search-engine sector: “It’s the very beginning of its growth. … This is going to be a world, just like the media world, where there will be many players, many people providing service.”

Diller plans to grow Ask Jeeves by placing a search bar on Web pages of IAC’s other sites such as the online travel agency Expedia, Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster, CitySearch, and Match.com. Diller said IAC sites attract 44 million unique visitors, and expects many of them to use the Ask Jeeves search bar instead of going to another site to conduct a search, such as Google.

Government of Canada proposes direct electronic document delivery

GOVERNMENT STATEMENT ON PROPOSALS FOR COPYRIGHT REFORM
Interlibrary Loans

The Act currently permits, as part of an inter-library loan, the reproduction of certain copyright material (notably academic articles), provided, among other things, that the requesting patron receives only a paper copy.

Proposed Amendment:

* The electronic desktop delivery of certain copyright material directly to the patron would be permitted, provided that effective safeguards were in place to prevent the misuse of the material or of the inter-library loan service.

from strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/inippd-dppi.nsf/en/ip01217e.html
This is big news in the Canadian document delivery world (of which CISTI is a part).
story from The Distant Librarian

Play "attempt to navigate through the Canadian government websites" at
Industry Canada PR - The Government of Canada Announces Upcoming Amendments to the Copyright Act
Strategis Copyright Reform Process - What's New - The Government of Canada Announces Upcoming Amendments to the Copyright Act
Strategis Intellectual Property Policy Directorate - What's New - The Government of Canada Announces Upcoming Amendments to the Copyright Act
Strategis Intellectual Property Policy Directorate - Government Statement on Proposals for Copyright Reform
Canadian Heritage - Copyright Policy - Government Statement on Proposals for Copyright Reform - March 2005

usability for library web sites

On March 23 [2005], Louise McGillis from the Memorial University of Newfoundland gave a presentation to a group of librarians from eight provinces via a teleconference sponsored by CACUL. This was the first of the series of free teleconferences and it was a total success. In a clear and concise way Louise introduced the audience to the importance and the ABC’s of usability testing and walked us through the whole process of designing a test that helped the University of Newfoundland revamp its library site to match the patrons’ needs.

from Inforumed

Montréal, World Book Capital

The title of World Book Capital has been awarded annually by UNESCO for the past five years, and credit goes to the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres (ANEL), the French Canadian book publishers' association, for its successful initiative in nominating Montréal, which succeeds Antwerp as World Book Capital on April 23, on the occasion of World Book and Copyright Day.

from Canada NewsWire
reported on CBC Radio

There is an upcoming festival: Blue Metropolis.

The 7th Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival will take place March 30--April 3, 2005 at the Hyatt Regency Montréal.

Fedora 2.0 repository software

Fedora Version 2.0 Open-Source Repository Supports XML and Web Services, Cover Pages, March 18, 2005. A very extensive (unsigned) article profiling the software, diving into some technical detail on its three open API's, listing the 23 institutions using the software, and offering a slew of links to related tools and literature.

from Open Access News

these are the people in your repository neighbourhood

Carol Hixson has posted the results of her informal survey on institutional repositories. The survey focuses on the people implementing IR's, how many are involved at each responding institution and what backgrounds they have. Institutions that would like to respond after the fact may send their responses directly to Carol.

from Open Access News

JISC report on institutional repositories

Rachel Heery and Sheila Anderson, Digital Repositories Review, JISC, February 19, 2005. Excerpt: 'The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Digital Repositories Programme is initiating a programme of work to assist deployment of digital repositories within the learning and research communities. ...Scholars need to share their research results (and the data these are based upon) more quickly and easily than is available to them through the usual publishing route and are therefore arguing that their publications should be deposited in e-print repositories, and the underlying data in either institutional or subject repositories for sharing with others.

...

Also see the report's Annex 1  (Focus Group Report), Annex 2 (Software Developers Survey), and Annex 3 (Teaching and Learning Perspective).

from Open Access News

Yahoo Creative Commons search

You may have noticed, if you have a recent version of Firefox, that Creative Commons is one of the default search plugins.  If you don't have it, you can go to the Mycroft download page and search for creative commons.  It searches on

search.creativecommons.org

Yahoo has also just added a CC search.

search.yahoo.com/cc

As well they have updated their Web Services API so that you can query the CC search.
Yahoo Developer blog: Creative Commons Search API

Tyrannioware MARC Z39.50 database Python thing

dchud reports on pycon

Aaron Lav promised to give me a tour of his Tyrannioware, for which he'd put together ZOOM and z39.50 support.

What is this thing?

Tyrannioware (written in Python) retrieves MARC data via Z39.50 from a host (I've tested against the Library of Congress, and the National Library of Canada/Bibliothèque Nationale du Canada), parses it, stores it in a PostGreSQL database, and makes it available via the Lucien front end, a set of CGIs (tested with Apache).  (MARC is a standard for bibliographic data, with additional information not usually available in online displays.  This information varies in utility from indicating leading articles in titles, to enable correct sorting without language-dependent tables, to indicating whether a work is a festschrift.  There's the usual metadata tradeoff of richness against speed of description and accuracy.)  Tyrannio uses my PyZ3950 toolkit, which you'll need to install first.  You can download the latest Tyrannio tarball (currently 0.8) here.

SLA News Division blogging SLA2005

Newsliblog: News Division Activities during the SLA 2005 Annual Conference

Consultation Report on "Library and Archives Canada" Available

The Canadian GOVINFO listserv drew attention today to the publication of the wrap-up report [PDF, dated January 2005] that came out of the stakeholders consultation on the new directions for Library and Archives Canada, the institution formed last year from the merger of the National Library of Canada and the National Archives.

Over the past few months, government document and law librarians have been particularly concerned with the distribution of government publications and they have been pushing for better access to government material over the Internet through such things as persistent URLs as well as advocating for reform and expansion of the current Depository Services Program which has problems in getting many departments to comply and contribute material.

from Library Boy

I'm reading the report right now.  In my marketing role, here's a quote from it:

Several respondents urged LAC to pursue stronger ties and complementarity with the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI).

OpenURL presentation and blog

Cindi Trainor not only did a presentation on OpenURL at CIL2005
but she also has an entire blog about OpenURL: openurl.blogspot.com

via scitech library question

Vers un accès libre aux résultats de la recherche

Vers un accès libre aux résultats de la recherche…Le CNRS, l'Inserm, l'INRA et l'INRIA créent des archives institutionnelles pour les chercheurs

L'accès à l'information scientifique est un enjeu vital pour le chercheur et pour la société dans son ensemble

La publication d'un article et, plus largement, toute communication faite par les chercheurs lors de colloques, correspond généralement à une avancée significative de travaux de recherche.

...

Southampton : Quatre établissements publics de recherche Français présentent leur politique en faveur du libre accès

Les quatre organismes ont choisi de se concerter pour mettre en place plus rapidement une politique commune, pour développer des archives ouvertes.

...

L'ouverture de ces archives institutionnelles CNRS, Inserm, INRA et INRIA dans l'esprit du mouvement du Libre Accès tel que défini dans la Déclaration de Berlin, ainsi que l'interopérabilité technique entre toutes ces banques de dépôts, assureront une plus grande visibilité des travaux des chercheurs en les rendant consultables gratuitement, notamment via les grands portails thématiques internationaux.

aussi: Le CNRS et les archives institutionnelles

SLA2005 event blogging (and wireless)

With apologies to Library Boy for copying an entire posting

According to messages on the listservs of SLA Toronto and TALL (Toronto Association of Law Libraries), SLA is thinking about doing something similar to what happened at the recent Computers in Library conference at the upcoming Toronto SLA conference in June, i.e. "blogging the conference".

Jane Dysart, of Dysart and Jones Associates, is asking "if there are any bloggers out there who are planning on attending the conference and blogging the event".

Any interested bloggers are invited to get in touch with her.

Hmm, if only someone had been thinking about blogging SLA2005 earlier.
Say, in January.

Please, please tell me that we can blog SLA with tags (the tag is SLA2005) and without this core/noncore debate.

UPDATE: I hear some good news from Jane Dysart on SLA2005 wireless - I'm told SLA is trying to find a sponsor to cover the costs (the conference centre has extensive wireless infrastructure, but they charge a hefty price to make it available).  If YOU would like to sponsor, I'd be happy to pass that info along.  Regular SLP readers may recall that I suggested the idea of wireless sponsorship a while ago.

Lessig's Code wiki arrives

codebook.jot.com

via wikiSquared

previously:
2004-12-30  Lessig to rebuild Code using Wiki

IM presentation from CIL2005

IM: Breaking Down Boundaries - Instant Messaging in Libraries (PDF)

I think I am going to have to try to IM some people to get my questions about IM reference answered.

IMing about IMing.  Almost, but not quite, as hip as podcasting about podcasting.

FindArticles relaunched, with direct Furl integration

Everyone uses Google but what about narrowing down your search, or looking for something that may not be on the open Web?

One option is FindArticles, owned and just re-launched by LookSmart.com, which last July acquired Furl, the social bookmarking service. According to a press release issued today, improvements mean that FindArticles' features include the ability to search by topic, or view only "Free Articles," making it easier for Web searchers to find what they want without having to scroll through pages and pages of search results. Once searchers find what they're after, they can save the entire page with Furl -- LookSmart's personalized, online bookmarking service.

from Jeremy Wagstaff's LOOSE Wire

service-oriented modeling

I liked the approach presented in this IBM article

Service-oriented modeling and architecture 09 Nov 2004

Here are the layers proposed:

Layer 1: Operational systems layer. This consists of existing custom built applications, otherwise called legacy systems, including existing CRM and ERP packaged applications, and older object-oriented system implementations, as well as business intelligence applications. The composite layered architecture of an SOA can leverage existing systems and integrate them using service-oriented integration techniques.

Layer 2: Enterprise components layer. This is the layer of enterprise components that are responsible for realizing functionality and maintaining the QoS of the exposed services. These special components are a managed, governed set of enterprise assets that are funded at the enterprise or the business unit level. As enterprise-scale assets, they are responsible for ensuring conformance to SLAs through the application of architectural best practices. This layer typically uses container-based technologies such as application servers to implement the components, workload management, high-availability, and load balancing.

Layer 3: Services layer. The services the business chooses to fund and expose reside in this layer. They can be discovered or be statically bound and then invoked, or possibly, choreographed into a composite service. This service exposure layer also provides for the mechanism to take enterprise scale components, business unit specific components, and in some cases, project-specific components, and externalizes a subset of their interfaces in the form of service descriptions. Thus, the enterprise components provide service realization at runtime using the functionality provided by their interfaces. The interfaces get exported out as service descriptions in this layer, where they are exposed for use. They can exist in isolation or as a composite service.

Level 4: Business process composition or choreography layer. Compositions and choreographies of services exposed in Layer 3 are defined in this layer. Services are bundled into a flow through orchestration or choreography, and thus act together as a single application. These applications support specific use cases and business processes. Here, visual flow composition tools, such as IBM® WebSphere® Business Integration Modeler or Websphere Application Developer Integration Edition, can be used for the design of application flow.

Layer 5: Access or presentation layer. Although this layer is usually out of scope for discussions around a SOA, it is gradually becoming more relevant. I depict it here because there is an increasing convergence of standards, such as Web Services for Remote Portlets Version 2.0 and other technologies, that seek to leverage Web services at the application interface or presentation level. You can think of it as a future layer that you need to take into account for future solutions. It is also important to note that SOA decouples the user interface from the components, and that you ultimately need to provide an end-to-end solution from an access channel to a service or composition of services.

Level 6: Integration (ESB). This layer enables the integration of services through the introduction of a reliable set of capabilities, such as intelligent routing, protocol mediation, and other transformation mechanisms, often described as the ESB (see Resources). Web Services Description Language (WSDL) specifies a binding, which implies a location where the service is provided. On the other hand, an ESB provides a location independent mechanism for integration.

Level 7: QoS. This layer provides the capabilities required to monitor, manage, and maintain QoS such as security, performance, and availability. This is a background process through sense-and-respond mechanisms and tools that monitor the health of SOA applications, including the all important standards implementations of WS-Management and other relevant protocols and standards that implement quality of service for a SOA.

UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) and Wellcome Trust

Funding the Way to Open Access, in PLOS Biology, Vol 3 No 3, March 2005 by Robert Terry, Senior Policy Adviser at the Wellcome Trust.

Imagine this scenario. You're the director of one of the world's largest medical research charities, and you receive notification from one of your funded investigators in Africa reporting some exciting progress toward the development of a vaccine for malaria. The work has just been published, so you log onto the Web to do a quick keyword search, and a link to the article is brought up on your screen.

Then imagine the frustration when you click on the link to read the message, “Access Denied—access to this journal is restricted to registered institutional and individual subscribers.”

And there's the rub: this actually happened to the Director of the Wellcome Trust.

...

the Trust has been in discussion with the US National Library of Medicine about the possibility of creating a UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) as a publicly accessible repository for Trust-funded research. 

UK PubMed Central

The proposal is that a UKPMC will be run as a proper electronic library: it will collect, collate, and archive whole journals and be developed to receive single articles as well. Submission will be as straightforward as attaching a document to an email. UKPMC will be able to accept manuscripts in any format, including Microsoft Word, and it will be the responsibility of UKPMC to convert the files it receives into extensible markup language (XML) to enable the appropriate document type definition (DTD) to be assigned. UKPMC will also correct the structural, content, and consistency errors that occur when converting text for digital preservation, and provide the conversion process to print a “clear” PDF version of included articles to those users who download them. This is a process well used by the National Library of Medicine, and the one most suited for the long-term, digital preservation of articles.

And once articles are in a digital format they can be searched and used in different ways. For example, genome sequence data, chemical compounds, or protein structures embedded within an article can be searched for in other articles and linked directly to genome or structural databases uncovering new genetic markers, drug uses, or protein functions. The articles themselves become live research material greatly improving the efficacy of the research itself.

via Slashdot Wellcome Trust to Require Open-Access Publishing /.
That title is a bit misleading, they're actually requiring articles to go into UKPMC within 6 months of publication.  They're not requiring that they must be published in OA journals.

the Trust will be making it a requirement of its grant conditions that Trust-funded researchers deposit an electronic version of their manuscripts in UKPMC to be made available for free via the Internet within 6 months of publication.

make your sites for users

Incidentally, I was also interested to see that OSU Libraries place a search box to their metasearch service square in the middle of the library home page. This is alongside a list of library services. The library user does not have to spend time looking for things. It is nice just to see the list, each with an explanatory phrase. This seems much more helpful than a list of services clustered under headings which may or may not make a lot of sense to the user who has not been initiated into the inner workings of the library.

from Lorcan Dempsey - Oregon State University