D-Lib Magazine

May/June 2014
Volume 20, Number 5/6

Editorial

The Current Issue

Laurence Lannom
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
llannom@cnri.reston.va.us

doi:10.1045/may2014-editorial

We have four articles on offer this month, covering four separate topics, along with our usual collection of briefer items. The lead article, by Bergamaschi et al., describes the Odysci Academic Search System in considerable detail. This system was made available for use in 2011. It will exist in competition with other approaches to organizing and finding academic output from journals and conferences and has started with a focus on computer science, electronics, bioinformatics, and other math-related areas. The authors describe its architecture, workflow, retrieval and ranking, entity de-duplication, and interface, along with its current size and status.

Our second article, by Wickett et al., looks at the representation of collections in digital library systems covering cultural heritage data. The work reported on here resulted from a collaboration between members of the IMLS Digital Collections and Content project, hosted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the developers of the Europeana Data Model. The results of that collaboration are an analysis of the ways in which collection information can be used to enhance cultural heritage aggregation and exchange environments and recommendations on how to represent and apply that information. The work, which is covered more fully in the complete technical report from the study group, should be of general interest to those looking at adding collection-level information to their systems, but will be most useful to those projects using the Europeana Data Model.

The third article, by d'Aquin, et al., describes the EU-funded LinkedUp project's focus on sharing the results from open data competitions, allowing others to build upon them. The primary aim of the LinkedUp project is to proselytize the use of open data in education. By gathering and making available the results from the series of competitions to build tools and applications to find or integrate open web data for education, known as the LinkedUp Challenge, the project offers lessons learned and guidelines to others running open data competition. The project, which ends this year, will leave as a legacy an open data competition toolbox.

Our fourth and final article by Cooper & Knight looks at the use of Raspberry PIs, the small inexpensive single-board computer, in a library environment. Two potential applications are explored. The first is use as an OPAC in library kiosks and the second for digital signage. While the tiny computer was able to perform the needed OPAC functions, its performance was inadequate in some specific situations. On the other hand, when used as a basis for digital signage, e.g., for broadcasting availability of study rooms and campus PCs, it was a success. The authors conclude that this device, sometimes regarded as suitable only for hobbyists, is quite useful and fully capable of replacing more expensive devices in library environments.

About the Editor

Laurence Lannom is Director of Information Services and Vice President at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), where he works with organizations in both the public and private sectors to develop experimental and pilot applications of advanced networking and information management technologies.