D-Lib Magazine
February 2001

Volume 7 Number 2

ISSN 1082-9873

In Brief

Leading Edge Metadata Workshop In Melbourne: An Australasian Perspective on the Critical Metadata Research Issues

Contributed by:
Jane Hunter and Nigel Ward
Senior Research Scientists
Distributed Systems Technology Center Pty Ltd
University of Queensland
Queensland, Australia
<jane@dstc.edu.au>
<nigel@dstc.edu.au>

A two-day advanced metadata workshop for experienced implementers and academic researchers was held at Monash University in Melbourne from December 11-12, 2000. Hosted by the Monash University's Enterprise Information Research Group (EIRG) <http://www.sims.monash.edu.au/research/eirg/>, the Recordkeeping Institute <http://www.recordkeeping.com.au>, and DSTC <http://www.dstc.edu.au>, the workshop was attended by 30 participants from the bibliographic, archival, recordkeeping, government, health, education, geospatial and metadata research communities in Australia and New Zealand.

The objective of the workshop was to get academic researchers and leading edge implementers together to discuss current and emerging metadata technologies, architectures, problems, and strategies in a variety of metadata implementations across Australia and New Zealand.

Speakers at the workshop included:

• Hans Hofman, the Ministry of the Interior of the Netherlands, on the electronic commerce implementations and strategies adopted in the Netherlands;

• Sue McKemmish, EIRG at Monash University, and Barbara Reed, Recordkeeping Systems, on recordkeeping metadata;

• Nigel Ward, DSTC, on the state of the art of metadata management tools and architectures;

• Prue Deacon, Health Insite, <http://www.healthinsite.gov.au/>, on portals and practical implementation issues;

• Barbara Rozmus, the National Library of Australia, <http://www.nla.gov.au/>, on subject gateways;

• Jane Hunter, DSTC, on multimedia metadata initiatives, the MAENAD project and metadata interoperability research within the Harmony project <http://metadata.net/harmony>;

• Andrew Wilson, the National Archives of Australia, on the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) <http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html>;

• Andrew Waugh, CSIRO, on issues of metadata persistence;

• Tony Leviston, researcher from State Records NSW, on metadata registries;

• Jay Kennedy, KPMG, on business uptake and implementation.

The program was facilitated by Dagmar Parer, an initiator of the AGLS initiative and a key participant in the Commonwealth Government metadata initiatives.

The final session on the second day was an open discussion aimed at identifying the critical metadata research issues, from an implementer's perspective, which need to be addressed. Below is a list of the key issues identified as a result of this discussion:

• Unique global persistent identification. Implementers require standardized methods for generating globally unique identifiers for collections, aggregates, atomic resources and parts of resources. They require persistence of links between identifiers and resources even when identifiers change with time or context. Identification of resources through a set of metadata properties rather than a single value requires further investigation.

• Metadata interoperability. Issues of concern to implementers which require further research include:

• The development of a core underlying data model, such as the ABC model developed within the Harmony project which can act as the interlingua between metadata domains;
• Procedures for choosing between XML DTDs, RDF Schema and XML Schema when defining metadata schemas;
• The use of ontologies to facilitate semantic interoperability between domains and the ability of inference rules to determine the semantic relationships between different ontologies or to merge ontologies;
• Schema registries to encourage publishing, sharing and reuse of metadata schemas;
• Maintenance of interoperability when designing "application profiles" i.e., metadata schemas which mix elements from different namespaces for a specific application.

• Distributed querying. Mechanisms and tools are required to enable querying across heterogeneous distributed metadata respositories via a single user interface. Infrastructure such as stable, commercial XML and RDF query languages and databases capable of supporting complex, nested XML and RDF descriptions is urgently required.

• Quantitative proof of the benefits of metadata. Experiments which provide quantitative measurements of the benefits of using metadata are required. The business case for metadata which will accurately predict the quantitative increase in asset value, improvement in services and increase in profitability is needed. An analysis of alternative user-pays models in which the cost of the search service depends on the metadata granularity and quality, would be extremely useful.

• Minimizing the cost and effort associated with metadata creation. Software tools and subtle enforcement approaches are required which can automate or streamline the metadata generation process. (Semi-)automated metadata generation tools, the exploitation of existing inherited metadata and the incorporation of metadata input tools into organisational workflows would all contribute to reductions in the effort and cost associated with metadata creation.

• Maximizing the quality of metadata. The availability of built-in schema validators, online thesauri, vocabulary controls and metadata authentication would all contribute to better quality metadata. In addition, research which determines typical client search and browse patterns, prior to metadata schema design, would inevitably lead to more efficient metadata schemas.

The speaker presentations will be available shortly from the EIRG web site at: <http://www.sims.monash.edu.au/research/eirg>.

Towards a Digital Preservation Coalition in the UK

Contributed by:
Neil Beagrie
Assistant Director (Preservation)
JISC DNER Office
London, United Kingdom <Nbeagrie@aol.com>

National institutions and services, and individual local institutions increasingly need to raise awareness of digital preservation, and develop capacity, skills and expertise to administer or manage for the long-term intellectual and cultural assets they have developed in digital form. These institutions have recognised the value of collaboration in addressing digital preservation. Establishment of a Digital Preservation Coalition in the UK was the principal recommendation of the Warwick II digital preservation workshop held in March 1999, which had representation from a wide range of sectors, institutions, and practitioners in digital preservation.

Concrete action towards the establishment of the Coalition is now in progress. In June 2000 the Joint Information Systems Committee established Digital Preservation Focus to help establish and support the Coalition proposed at Warwick. In January 2001 a draft outline of the Coalition and its remit and work was discussed at a digital preservation summit hosted by JISC and the British Library in London. Participants representing a range of national, university and public libraries, archives, data archiving services, publishers, research councils, museums and government bodies unanimously endorsed the need for co-ordinated work on digital preservation and for the establishment of the Coalition. Participants recognised that the subject is bigger than any one institution or sector.

It was agreed that the aim of the Coalition will be to develop a UK digital preservation agenda within an international context.

The Coalition was seen as operating on four levels:

• activities undertaken individually by member institutions and sectors but accomplished and co-ordinated in line with their commitment to the principles of openness and dissemination in the draft manifesto;

• core coalition activities of common interest and benefit to all its members supported by member resources;

• collaborative projects and programmes which would be taken forward with project funding drawn from a variety of sources;

• creation and further development of a national digital archiving infrastructure in the UK.

• awareness raising amongst key funders and stakeholders;

• development of a digital preservation portal incorporating the Preservation Management of Digital Materials Workbook in collaboration with international partners;

• establishing a dialogue with software and hardware manufacturers;

• developing standards to support digital preservation;

• training and addressing the skills and competencies needed for digital preservation;

• applied practical research and development in member institutions and sharing experience;

• archiving of commercial e-journals;

• web archiving

Funding and the most effective organisational model for the Coalition were discussed, and JISC and the BL agreed to continue and widen discussions with potential partners in the Coalition and to co-ordinate its establishment.

Further information and news on the Coalition will be disseminated via the digital- preservation email list on JISCmail (to subscribe to the list or view its message archive see the Web pages at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/digital-preservation.html). Wider discussion and participation on proposals for the Coalition from individuals and institutions are welcomed. Enquiries about the Coalition can be addressed in the first instance to Neil Beagrie email <preservation@jisc.ac.uk>, JISC office, King's College London, Strand Bridge House, 138 -142 Strand, London WC2 1HH.

New Listserv for the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER)

Contributed by:
Alicia Wise
Assistant Director, Collections and Communications
DNER Office
Joint Information Systems Committee
London, United Kingdom
<alicia.wise@kcl.ac.uk>

A new listserv has been created for discussion of the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER). The DNER is a managed environment for accessing quality assured information resources on the Internet that are available from many sources in the UK. These resources include scholarly journals, monographs, textbooks, abstracts, manuscripts, maps, music scores, still images, geospatial images and other kinds of vector and numeric data, as well as moving picture and sound collections. For more information about the DNER, please see <http://www.jisc.ac.uk/dner>. To join the new DNER discussion list, please see <http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/dner.html>.

Continuing development of the DNER is a major strategy of the Joint Information Systems Committee of the UK further and higher education funding councils. DNER builds on the successful outcomes of previous funding programmes including the eLib programme and the JISC/NSF digital libraries programme.

An International Training Programme: STIMULATE: Scientific and Technological Information Management in Universities and Libraries -- an Active Training Environment

Contributed by:
Paul Nieuwenhuysen, Professor
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (V.U.B.)
Brussels, Belgium
<Paul.Nieuwenhuysen@vub.ac.be>

STIMULATE is an international training programme planned for October, November, December 2001, mainly in Brussels, Belgium. The initiative has been approved by the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VL.I.R.) and is sponsored by the Belgian Government. Twelve grants are available for participants from developing countries.

The programme is mainly aimed at academic professionals working in universities and libraries, including, of course, university libraries. This is the fifth in a series of similar international training programmes that have been organized since 1991, named "MIST" 1, 2, 3 and "Know-how". The main aims of the programme are:

• to provide participants with a clearer view of the importance of information in general and for their environment in particular,

• to guide them in retrieving information that is publicly accessible on an international scale, and

• to teach them to organise and manage information resources at personal, departmental, institutional, regional and national levels.

It is our intention to organise the sessions in such a way that:

• the first month is a module at introduction level,

• the second month is a module at intermediate level, and

• the third month is a module at a more advanced level.

Thanks to this modular approach, it may make sense to participate during only one or two of the three months, depending on expertise. However, the available scholarships are granted only to persons who will participate for the full three months.

About half the time, participants will be guided by experts invited to the university, and they will use the remaining time solving problems, completing exercises, using microcomputers and the Internet, preparing discussions, and conducting self study, etc.

The training is mainly organized at the University Library of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (V.U.B.), close to the rich cultural city of Brussels, Belgium. The training will be conducted in the English language.

Besides the formal, guided course activities, participants will have access to several rooms equipped with microcomputers connected to the Internet, and to the university library which offers printed material, CD-ROMs and PCs with Internet access. In addition to the course work that will take place at the university campus, study visits will be organised to libraries and information centers in Belgium and The Netherlands.

Participation will be free of charge for 12 participants from developing countries. These participants will be selected by the organizers and the VL.I.R. They will also receive a grant to cover the costs of accommodation and an airplane return ticket. The long, detailed grant application form is available as a PDF file through the Internet from the web site <http://www.vlir.be>. Applications must be received by VL.I.R. before the end of February 2001. Alternatively, you can ask your local Belgian embassy for a printed version of the grant application form, or you can request more information through email: <scholarships@vlir.be>. An additional eight persons will be able to participate after payment of a small fee. Lodging is available near the campus.

More information can be obtained from:

<http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/itp/>
Other methods of contact:
Paul.Nieuwenhuysen@vub.ac.be
Fax 2-629 26 93 (or 22 82)
Tel. 2-629 24 29 (or 2-629 26 09)
Telex 61051 vubco-b
STIMULATE, University Library
Free University Brussels (Vrije Universiteit) Brussel
Pleinlaan 2, B-1050
Brussels, Belgium.

The 21st-Century Librarian Award

Contributed by:
Kizer Walker Chair, 21st-Century Librarian Award Committee
Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York, USA
<kwalker@syr.edu>

The School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, has announced a new award competition for librarians in all areas of the profession. The 21st-Century Librarian Award will recognize a librarian who has been a leader in the evolution of librarianship in the increasingly digital and global information environment. The award is a project of students in Syracuse's MLS program, who have developed the criteria for the award and will judge the applications and make the final decisions. This is the first annual competition for what the organizers hope will become a major award in the library field. This year's award carries a cash prize of $5,000. The winner will be honored in an award ceremony in Syracuse in the fall of 2001.

The award committee is seeking applicants who have distinguished themselves in the field by actively adapting the established principles and practices of librarianship to the changing information environment, through ongoing or completed projects, services, programs, or events. Applicants should be active in shaping the organizational, social, and technological transition to the increasingly digital library with respect to one or more of the following areas:

• Social commitment, including services to minority communities, populations with special needs, outreach services, etc.;

• Ethic of service, including a focus on the needs and concerns of the library user;

• Free access to information, issues of privacy, intellectual property and censorship;

• Creative implementation of technology, including equipment, services and training;

• Redefinition of scholarly communication and information dissemination.

Other innovative approaches to dealing with the evolution of the information environment are also of interest.

Candidates for the award may be nominated by others or may submit applications on their own behalf. The deadline for applications is March 30, 2001; third-party nominations must be submitted by February 28, 2001. The Award winner will be announced on May 1, 2001. Details about the 21st-Century Librarian Award are available at <http://istweb.syr.edu/librarianaward>.

Classification Web: Pilot Test Offers Library of Congress Classification on the World Wide Web (Press Release)

Contributed by:
Peter Seligman
Senior Promotion Specialist
Cataloging Distribution Service
Library of Congress
Washington, DC, USA
<psel@loc.gov>

Washington, DC, USA January 8, 2001 - Access to all authorized Library of Congress Classification schedules will be available on the World Wide Web as a pilot project by the Library’s Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) from January 8 - March 30, 2001. "Classification Web provides instant access to up-to-the-minute LC Classification data wherever a user has a Web connection," said Peter Young, chief of CDS. "Pending the results of the pilot project, Classification Web may be offered as a subscription-based service." It is powered by a customized classification version of Minaret®, a MARC record-based database management program developed by Cactus Software, Inc. It is the same product that is used by Library of Congress cataloging staff in their daily classification activities.

"Classification Web will be of keen interest to any library that classifies its collections according to the Library of Congress Classification system," said Beacher Wiggins, director for cataloging at LC, who emphasized, "Its importance to the cataloging community cannot be minimized." Classification Web speeds the process of verifying and assigning Library of Congress classification numbers to library materials. Tom Yee, acting chief of LC’s Cataloging Policy and Support Office, also hinted at the far-reaching reference implications of this potential product: "One powerful advantage Classification Web hands to the user is the ability to search multiple class schedules simultaneously."

Once online with Classification Web, the user can view a full-text class schedule display of the data and hypertext links within and between classes and subclasses. Search and navigation tools enable a user to perform keyword and phrase searches across all classes, or narrow a search to a single subclass or caption. MARC classification records, personal notes and related Library of Congress Subject Headings are accessible online, and automatic calculation of table numbers is also included. "With Classification Web, you can keep the overall scheme of the LC Class schedules in mind without sacrificing access to more detailed information," said Cheryl C. Cook, coordinator of the pilot project in CDS, "and what's more," she continued, "the feedback from the three months of open access will give us the information we need to decide on its potential as a subscription service."

Classification Web is available by visiting the web site at <http://www.lccweb.net> between January 8 and March 30, 2001. The latest information on the pilot test will be posted on the CDS home page at <http://www.loc.gov/cds>. CDS publishes the complete range of LC's cataloging publications and services for the library community. For additional information visit the CDS web site or contact: Library of Congress, Cataloging Distribution Service, Customer Services Section, 101 Independence Avenue, S.E., Washington, DC 20541-4912. Telephone: 1-800-255-3666 (toll-free in U.S.), outside U.S.: (202) 707-6100. Fax: (202) 707-1334. Email: <cdsinfo@loc.gov>.

$148 Million in Federal Grants for Essential Library Services

Contributed by:
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Washington, DC, USA
<info@imls.gov>

Washington, DC, USA, January 31, 2001 - Beverly Sheppard, Acting Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), announced the award of grants totaling $148,939,000 to library agencies in the fifty States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories. These grants, which promote access to learning and information resources in all types of libraries, are awarded under the Library Services and Technology Act. Awards are made to each State according to a population-based formula; the State's Library Administrative Agency administers the funds.

States provide at least $1.00 for every $2.00 of federal support. The federal grants advance two primary goals: to provide technology and support for networking and resource sharing, and to provide service to people in rural and urban areas who have difficulty using a library, with a special emphasis on children in poverty.

Acting Director Beverly Sheppard noted, "This is the premier federal grant program for libraries. The hallmark of this program is the flexibility it gives each State to address its unique and high priority needs. This flexibility has been a catalyst for innovation and comprehensiveness at libraries across the country, for the broadest possible public. The range of programs and services supported by these grants is a wonderful testament to the creativity, ingenuity, and dedication to public service library professionals bring to their jobs."

Highlights of how state libraries use federal funds include:

• Reaching Out to At-Risk Youth: The Big Sandy Regional Children's Cooperative in Louisa, Kentucky trained librarians in adolescent development to enable them to work with at-risk teens living in public housing. Librarians developed special learning kits and programming for this target audience, often taking the materials and presentations to the housing complexes to reach more children. The participating librarians learned about the needs of this population, who they had not specifically worked with before, and found this to be a very rewarding project. Over 600 children benefited from this targeted program.

• More Power Libraries: The highly acclaimed 1999 "Second Colorado Study", funded in part by the federal IMLS, determined that trained school media specialists help children achieve state standards. The More Power Libraries project, a direct result of that study, will continue to invest federal IMLS funds to support library leadership in ten designated "High Performance" school libraries, plus select and promote ten additional schools. School libraries will work to expand the use of their resources in standards-based curriculum studies.

• InFoPeople: Federal funds are being used to provide free Internet access at every public library in the state of California. So far, the California State Library project, InFoPeople, has connected 90 libraries throughout the state including 40 in urban areas and 42 in rural ones. Over 130 training sessions to 2,000 library staff have been conducted. There are now 510 federally funded public library sites providing Internet access to over 1.8 million Californians. A total of 1,422,552 hours of Internet access were made available through this program last year helping California close the "digital divide."

• Serving Children with Special Needs: The Milwaukee County Library System, Wisconsin developed a project to improve library service to the state's 20,000 children with disabilities. Children's librarians from 28 area libraries and branches participated in a workshop to learn about common disabilities. Each library received funds and guidance to purchase materials for and about special needs children. Finally, the County Library worked with area human service organizations to publicize the new materials.

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) - IMLS is an independent Federal agency that fosters leadership, innovation, and a lifetime of learning by supporting the nation's museums and libraries. Created by the Museum and Library Services Act of 1996, P.L. 104-208, IMLS administers the Library Services and Technology Act and the Museum Services Act. IMLS has an annual budget of approximately $230 million. The Institute receives policy advice from two Presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed entities: the National Commission for Libraries and Information Science and the National Museum Services Board. For more information, including grant applications, contact IMLS at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C., phone: 202-606-8536, or <http://www.imls.gov>.

ARNO Project Launched

Contributed by:
Kurt De Belder
Chief, Division of Electronic Services
University Library, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Overview

The ARNO project (Academic Research in the Netherlands Online) aims to develop and implement university document servers to make available the scientific output of participating institutions. The ARNO project is funded by IWI (Innovation in Scientific Information Supply). Project participants are the University of Amsterdam, the University of Tilburg and the University of Twente.

The project continues to build on earlier IWI projects in the area of electronic publishing and on international initiatives such as "The Open Archives Initiative".

Goals

Goals include coupling the document servers to international distributed digital archives and to the Dutch national information infrastructure. The infrastructure that will be developed needs to accommodate a coupling to the production processes of scientific publishers and offer a good basis for the organisation of peer review, practised by scientists independently or outsourced to existing publishers. The scientific output from the universities needs to connect seamlessly to digital learning environments.

Project partners

The Library of the University of Amsterdam continues to build on a number of innovative projects that have been completed in the past few years through the "EDUBA programme" and the activities recently taken up by its Digital Production Centre. Among others: the Beta Preprint and Publication Server, an electronic archive that supports research and communication in the natural sciences; the Digital Student Library, a digital learning environment; and the publication of electronic journals such as Contributions to Zoology.

The Library of the University of Tilburg continues to build on the DEGREE project (Dutch Electronic Grey Files on Economics); the Tilburg Internet Law Library, which includes a republishing component; the publication of the Electronic Journal of Comparative Law and the DECOMATE project that offers access in an integrated way to heterogenous, distributed sources in the area of economics.

The Library of the University of Twente continues to build on the WebDOC project that offers 50 percent of the university's output of dissertations and the electronic material within the digital learning environment Campus+.

The ARNO project site is located at <http://www.uba.uva.nl/en/projects/arno>.

For more information, please contact the ARNO project manager:

Hans Roes
University of Tilburg
<H.Roes@kub.nl>

Digital Production Centre Established at the University of Amsterdam

Contributed by:
Kurt De Belder
Chief, Division of Electronic Services
University Library, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The Digital Production Centre (DPC) offers scientists support to create, to make available and to archive electronic publications and databases. Scientists and organizations -- whether or not affiliated with the University of Amsterdam -- considering electronic publication projects are invited to contact the Digital Production Centre.

Digital scholarly publications and research databases have an important added value to research and teaching; they offer immediate and world-wide access to publications and research materials, search possibilities that give deep access to content and links to reference and source materials.

Scientists want to use these new possibilities to share the results of their scientific work with colleagues internationally. In this way, authors will be in a position to take on a more autonomous role in the area of scholarly communication independent from large commercial publishing houses.

In order to support these developments, the Digital Production Centre was recently established at the University of Amsterdam. The DPC works closely with authors, offers technical support to create electronic publications and supports an infrastructure to make this material available to others. The Centre also offers consultancy and can assist authors in the formulation of projects and the writing of grant proposals. The Centre endeavours to support the development of alternative publication models that will benefit research and education.

The DPC continues to build on a number of innovative content projects that have been completed in the past few years by the University Library of Amsterdam through the 'EDUBA programme'. Among other accomplishments, a technical infrastructure has been realised and a number of production processes for digital publications were developed.

The DPC is part of the University Library of Amsterdam. The Centre works closely with other organizations including the Digital Library Production Service of the University of Michigan and the Amsterdam University Press.

URL for the Digital Production Centre: <http://www.uba.uva.nl/en/dpc>
Email: <dpc@uba.uva.nl>

For more information, please contact:

Kurt De Belder
Chief, Division of Electronic Services
University Library, University of Amsterdam
Singel 425
1012 WP Amsterdam
Tel: + 31 20 525 3672
Email: <kurt.de.belder@uba.uva.nl>.

Also in the News

Excerpts from Recent Press Releases

OpenURL Submitted to NISO to Start Process to Become an Accredited Standard

Contributed by:
Oren Beit Arie
Vice President
Ex Libris (USA), Inc.
Chicago, Illinois USA
<oren@exlibris-usa.com>

January 11, 2001 - Chicago, Illinois, USA - The OpenURL is now on the way to becoming an accredited standard. Herbert Van de Sompel, Visiting Assistant Professor at Cornell University, and Oren Beit-Arie, VP Research and Development at Ex Libris (USA) Inc. submitted the OpenURL proposal to NISO, where it was approved as a fast-track Work Item during a December 2000 meeting. The OpenURL is an interoperability specification that will initially have a major impact as an enabling technology for open or context-sensitive reference linking.

A growing number of Information Providers have already developed or announced the ability to generate and output OpenURLs in their information services, as such allowing libraries to overlay contextualized services for their users. A full list of these Information Providers is available at <http://www.sfxit.com/sources.html>. The specification of the OpenURL as is currently being implemented by these Information Providers, and other relevant material relating to the OpenURL can be found at: <http://www.sfxit.com/OpenURL.html>.

The OpenURL framework provides a standardized approach for describing and transporting bibliographic metadata about information objects, between systems. It focuses on transportation of metadata upon request of a user, who -- by initiating the transportation, i.e., clicking the OpenURL -- requests services related to the information object from a system of their choice. The OpenURL can be used to identify and describe the object, the system where the user initiated the request for services (i.e., where they clicked), and the type of service that is being requested. The OpenURL originates in research regarding open or context-sensitive reference linking undertaken by Herbert Van de Sompel while at Ghent University in Belgium.

For the full press release, see <http://www.exlibris-usa.com/>, and select "News and Events" to see the list of ExLibris press releases.

DMDsecure becomes a member of the International DOI Foundation

Contributed by:
Robbertjan Kalff VP Business Development
DMDsecure.com
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
<Robbertjan@DMDsecure.com>

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 29 January 2001 - Today, during the conference "The future of electronic publishing" DMDsecure, a European Digital Rights Management (DRM) Service Provider, announced its membership of the International DOI Foundation. The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is an interoperable identifier system for items of intellectual property in the digital environment.

DMDsecure services enable players in the media industry to profit from the opportunities offered by Digital Rights Management (DRM). By expanding the reach of secure distribution whilst at the same time lowering the purchasing barrier, both content owners and distributors are empowered to respond more effectively to increasingly demanding user requirements.

The DOI was developed as a persistent and actionable identifier for content (rather than locations), building on existing Internet infrastructure to enable the management of intellectual property. The DOI system brings together structured information and an Internet routing system to enable the transparent and persistent translation of a unique identifier to locations or other services.

For the full press release, see <http://www.dmdsecure.com/>, click on "DMDsecure in the press," then click on the link for press releases.

Oxford University Press Chooses ingenta

Contributed by:
Kristen Chase
Rainier Corporation
Princeton, Massachusetts, USA
<kchase@rainierco.com>

Cambridge, Massachusetts USA, January 12, 2001 -- ingenta, the global research gateway, today was selected by Oxford University Press (OUP) to host the full text of an additional 60 OUP humanities and social science journals on the web -- adding to the 90 OUP titles currently available at <http://www.ingenta.com/>. In addition, ingenta will create home pages for each journal, containing supplementary articles, printed issues and marketing information through their e-communities program.

Launched over a three-month period, from early January 2001, each homepage will link to free full text articles for subscribers and article pay-per-view options for non-subscribers.

For the full press release, see <http://www.ingenta.com/home/fs_forpublishers.htm> and click on the link to press releases.

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Offers New BiblioAlerts.com Service

January 2001, Press Release from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts

BETHESDA, MD -- Through a worldwide network of publishing partners, CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts) has launched its new BiblioAlerts.com service (http://www.biblioalerts.com) allowing individual researchers to acquire scientific and technical reports -- all at a fraction of the cost required for researching massive amounts of scientific data. Users can choose from more than 1,500 bibliographic and technical reports dynamically updated with new data from journals, books, reports, patents, conference proceedings, and the Web. BiblioAlerts.com’s reports cover "hot topics" in aquatic science, biological science and biotechnology, engineering, environmental science, information technology, linguistics, materials science and technology, neuroscience, and sociology.

The British Library and 18 other publishing partners will market the reports through their respective Web sites. Among the partners are: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, NERAC, Institute of Materials Communications, Idea Group Publishing, American Technical Publishers, CERAM Research, The Welding Institute (TWI), DA Information Services (Australia), Librarie Lavoisier Technique et Documentation (France), PrioInfo (Sweden), Stockman-Academic Bookstore (Finland), Suweco Online (Czech Republic), Franklins International (Israel), ACML (Egypt), UBS Services (Singapore), CNPIEC Info Tech (China), Informatics (India), and BookNet (Southeast Asia).

All reports are researched by subject-matter experts from the CSA Editorial staff in cooperation with its publishing partners. Each report summarizes the contents of up to 250 current references, including peer-reviewed literature and relevant Web resources. CSA also plans to add Customized Search services to BiblioAlerts.com in the near future.

For the full press release, see <http://www.csa.com/csa/news/csa-pressrelease.shtml>.

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DOI: 10.1045/february2001-inbrief