D-Lib Magazine
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The Magazine of Digital Library Research
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T A B L E   O F   C O N T E N T S
J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y   2 0 1 3
Volume 19, Number 1/2

doi:10.1045/january2013-contents
ISSN: 1082-9873

 

E D I T O R I A L

 

Why Comes Before How
by Laurence Lannom, Corporation for National Research Initiatives

 

A R T I C L E S

Institutional Repositories: Exploration of Costs and Value
Article by C. Sean Burns, Amy Lana and John M. Budd, University of Missouri

Abstract: Little is known about the costs academic libraries incur to implement and manage institutional repositories and the value these institutional repositories offer to their communities. To address this, the authors report the findings of their 29 question survey of academic libraries with institutional repositories. We received 49 usable responses. Thirty-four of these responses completed the entire survey. While meant to be exploratory, results are varied and depend on the context of the institution. This context includes, among other things, the size of the repositories and of the institutions, the software used to operate the repositories, such as open source or proprietary, and whether librarians mediate content archiving, or content producers directly deposit their own material. The highlights of our findings, based on median values, suggest that institutions that mediate submissions incur less expense than institutions that allow self-archiving, institutions that offer additional services incur greater annual operating costs than those who do not, and institutions that use open source applications have lower implementation costs but comparable annual operating costs with institutions that use proprietary solutions. Furthermore, changes in budgeting, from special initiative to absorption into the regular budget, suggest a trend in sustainable support for institutional repositories. Our findings are exploratory but suggest that future inquiry into costs and the value of institutional repositories should be directed at specific types of institutions, such as by Carnegie Classification category.

'Oh, you wanted us to preserve that?!' Statements of Preservation Intent for the National Library of Australia's Digital Collections
Article by Colin Webb, David Pearson and Paul Koerbin, National Library of Australia

Abstract: Clarifying preservation intentions is likely to be a good starting point for preservation planning for diverse digital collections. This applies both in terms of identifying what needs to be kept and what does not warrant the use of limited preservation resources, and in terms of opening up conversations about what is required in order to achieve preservation intentions. This paper describes an approach being explored by the National Library of Australia to negotiate formal and reviewable statements of 'preservation intent' for each of the digital collections in its care with those responsible for those collections. The paper looks at the relationship with the widely discussed concept of 'significant properties', as well as the other benefits that the approach is delivering. The paper also looks at the preservation intent statements for archived web collections at the NLA as an illustrative case.

A Technical Framework for Resource Synchronization
Article by Martin Klein, Robert Sanderson and Herbert Van de Sompel, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Simeon Warner and Bernhard Haslhofer, Cornell University; Carl Lagoze, University of Michigan; Michael L. Nelson, Old Dominion University

Abstract: This is the second paper in D-Lib Magazine about the ResourceSync effort conducted by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the Open Archives Initiative (OAI). The first part provided a perspective on the resource synchronization problem and introduced a template that organized possible components of a resource synchronization framework in a modular manner. This paper details a technical framework devised from that template.

Archiving and Recovering Database-driven Websites
Article by Michael Rumianek, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Deutschland & Global Village GmbH, Voerde, Deutschland

Abstract: An ever increasing amount of information is provided by database-driven websites. Many of these are based on Content Management Systems (CMS). CMS typically separate the textual content from file content and store the textual content within a database while files are stored in a directory structure of a file system. For archiving and preservation of such websites, in many cases several tools are needed to archive the file data and the database data separately in different container formats. The database data may be especially difficult to archive since vendor specific implementations of datatypes constrict restoring the archive on different systems. The author developed and implemented a procedure that enables storing both file and database data in a single XML document based on an XML Schema, where the data in the database are mapped into a standardized form to facilitate recovery on different systems. The mapping of the complete content into only printable characters allows preservation of the archive in multiple ways. Setting up a highly automated cycle of archiving and restoring website content by using a Version Control System (VCS) is also suggested.

Planting the Green Seeds for a Golden Harvest: Comments and Clarifications on "Going for Gold"
Article by John Houghton, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia and Alma Swan, Key Perspectives, Truro, United Kingdom

Abstract: The economic modelling work we have carried out over the past few years has been referred to and cited a number of times in the discussions of the Finch Report and subsequent policy developments in the UK. We are concerned that there may be some misinterpretation of this work. This short paper sets out the main conclusions of our work, which was designed to explore the overall costs and benefits of Open Access (OA), as well as identify the most cost-effective policy basis for transitioning to OA at national and institutional levels. The main findings are that disseminating research results via OA would be more cost-effective than subscription publishing. If OA were adopted worldwide, the net benefits of Gold OA would exceed those of Green OA. However, we are not yet anywhere near having reached an OA world. At the institutional level, during a transitional period when subscriptions are maintained, the cost of unilaterally adopting Green OA is much lower than the cost of unilaterally adopting Gold OA — with Green OA self-archiving costing average institutions sampled around one-fifth the amount that Gold OA might cost, and as little as one-tenth as much for the most research intensive university. Hence, we conclude that the most affordable and cost-effective means of moving towards OA is through Green OA, which can be adopted unilaterally at the funder, institutional, sectoral and national levels at relatively little cost.

 

C O N F E R E N C E   R E P O R T

2012 CNI Fall Membership Meeting: Scholarship for the Future
Conference Report by Carol Minton Morris, DuraSpace

Abstract: The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Fall Member Meeting held on December 10-11, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia included presentations that explored how to manage, maintain, share, identify, preserve, make use of and build global communities around all types of digital content with a focus on research data.

 

N E W S   &   E V E N T S

 

In Brief: Short Items of Current Awareness

In the News: Recent Press Releases and Announcements

Clips & Pointers: Documents, Deadlines, Calls for Participation

Meetings, Conferences, Workshops: Calendar of Activities Associated with Digital Libraries Research and Technologies

F E A T U R E D   D I G I T A L
C O L L E C T I O N

 

The Yale Center for British Art

 

Digital Rendering of a Painting
[Norwich Cathedral: Interior of the North Aisle of the Choir, Looking East, John Sell Cotman, 1782-1842. British; Miles Edmund Cotman, 1810-1858. Public domain. Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Used with permission.]

Digital Rendering of a Painting
[Sunset on the Beach at Sark, unknown artist, 19th century. British; Formerly attributed to Francis Danby, 1793-1861, British. Public domain. Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Used with permission.]

Digital Rendering of a Painting
[Blue and Green Bottles and Oranges, Spencer Frederick Gore, 1878-1914. British. Public domain. Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Used with permission.]

 

The Yale Center for British Art houses the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom, comprising approximately 2,000 paintings; 200 sculptures; 20,000 drawings and watercolors; and 31,000 prints. In addition, the Center houses 35,000 rare books and manuscripts and an Archive and Reference Library with more than 40,000 volumes. The vast majority of the institution's holdings were the gift of Paul Mellon, who was the greatest single collector of British art of the twentieth century.

The Center's website includes basic tombstone information for the complete art collection. Most of the holdings in the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts and the Center's Reference Library are available through Orbis, Yale's online library catalogue system. In addition, the Center has begun adding its historic frame collection to the online catalogue. Over the coming years, full provenance, bibliography, and exhibition history will be added. Ultimately, the Center plans to marry its online holdings with those of institutions beyond Yale University, enabling users to engage in searches across the topic of British art internationally.

"The website provides the foundation for the Center's ongoing commitment to the development of an online research environment for the history of British art, and offers broad, international public access to our magnificent collections for study and pleasure in the most open of ways," says Amy Meyers, director of the Yale Center for British Art.

In addition to the online catalogue, the website features a user-friendly online calendar, practical resources for planning a visit, and the ability to use sharing features such as RSS feeds, email subscriptions, Facebook, and calendar notifications. The website will continue to be amplifi d; future developments include an expanded conservation section showing before-and-after treatments of artworks and highlights in technical art history. Additionally, the site will feature a program of online publications and educator resources.

 
 

D - L I B   E D I T O R I A L   S T A F F

Laurence Lannom, Editor-in-Chief
Allison Powell, Associate Editor
Catherine Rey, Managing Editor
Bonita Wilson, Contributing Editor

 
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