UKOLN

This paper provides an overview of the KRDS Benefit Analysis Toolkit. The Toolkit has been developed to assist curation activities by assessing the benefits associated with the long-term preservation of research data. It builds on the outputs of the Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) research projects and consists of two tools: the KRDS Benefits Framework, and the Value-chain and Benefits Impact tool. Each tool consists of a more detailed guide and worksheet(s). Both tools have drawn on partner case studies and previous work on benefits and impact for digital curation and preservation. This experience has provided a series of common examples of generic benefits that are employed in both tools for users to modify or add to as required.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is twofold: to investigate whether it is meaningful to use the Engineering Index (Ei) classification scheme for browsing, and then, if proven useful, to investigate the performance of an automated classification algorithm based on the Ei classification scheme.Design/methodology/approachA user study was conducted in which users solved four controlled searching tasks. The users browsed the Ei classification scheme in order to examine the suitability of the classification systems for browsing. The classification algorithm was evaluated by the users who judged the correctness of the automatically assigned classes.FindingsThe study showed that the Ei classification scheme is suited for browsing. Automatically assigned classes were on average partly correct, with some classes working better than others. Success of browsing showed to be correlated and dependent on classification correctness.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research should address problems of disparate evaluations of one and the same web page. Additional reasons behind browsing failures in the Ei classification scheme also need further investigation.Practical implicationsImprovements for browsing were identified: describing class captions and/or listing their subclasses from start; allowing for searching for words from class captions with synonym search (easily provided for Ei since the classes are mapped to thesauri terms); when searching for class captions, returning the hierarchical tree expanded around the class in which caption the search term is found. The need for improvements of classification schemes was also indicated.Originality/valueA user‐based evaluation of automated subject classification in the context of browsing has not been conducted before; hence the study also presents new findings concerning methodology.

This article considers resource discovery from the viewpoint of visually impaired people. Starting with the tasks of find, identify, select, and obtain, it examines how catalogs can be enhanced to assist visually impaired users. It then looks at the inclusion of specific data within catalog records and how they help the user. This is followed by some reflections on display issues and a reference to the need for accessibility in catalog systems. It concludes that improvements for visually impaired people provide features that sighted people will appreciate as well.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication/RDF Site Summary) is a simple lightweight format that was originally used for news alerts and content syndication. It is now being used in a wide range of applications. This paper describes the background to RSS and describes the various ways in which RSS can be used. Examples are provided of the ways in which RSS can be viewed and the variety of approaches for creating RSS. The paper argues that, although there is still confusion over the different types of RSS standards, the format is an essential for use in digital library services.

The Subject Portals Project is a two-year project ending August 2003 that is developing portal services for the Internet subject hubs of the Resource Discovery Network, a service offered to the UK Further and Higher Education (post-16) community. The portal development is notable for two reasons: first because it is being conducted by developers from five sites across the UK; and second because it has a modular design producing “portlets” of functionality that plug into a core framework (currently Jetspeed, although the project is also considering uPortal as an alternative portal framework). The portal services include a single sign-on access management system; a cross-searching tool; a user profiling system; and other “additional services.” The project is funded by the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).

Renardus was developed under the EU’s User‐friendly Information Society programme by partners from national libraries, university research and technology centres and subject information gateways Europe‐wide. Since January 2000, those partners have been working towards realisation of their aim to build a single Web‐based “broker service” providing cross‐search/cross‐browse access to existing Internet‐accessible scientific and cultural resource collections distributed across Europe. This paper describes Renardus’ key concepts and highlights some of the collaborative frameworks and tools developed and deployed during the project, and the existing technical and information standards used, particularly in support of metadata modelling, mapping and sharing and the information architecture. Issues, implications and benefits for end users and information professionals are presented through illustrations of the interface design. We conclude with an outline of organisational arrangements and strategies, outstanding issues and next steps in encouraging future collaboration with other services.

The UK Office for Library and Information Networking are engaged in a wide range of work in the area of metadata, in cooperation with various partners. Projects on metadata for Internet resource discovery, interoperability and digital preservation all point to the continuing need for something like traditional library services to organise, access and preserve networked information.

Various measures exist to determine the quality, however defined, of records in a database or catalogue but there has been less work in developing quality measures for catalogues or databases. UKOLN has carried out work on record quality and catalogue/database performance measurement since 1980. Recently UKOLN has extended its work on the currency of records in the BNB files on the British Library database to a number of other sources of bibliographic records. The results of the Multi‐Source Currency survey presented here have highlighted a number of issues relating to the bibliographic record coverage of the UK imprint.

The MODELS (MOving to Distributed Environments for Library Services) project is based around a series of five workshops. The third of these, “Organising access to printed scholarly material”, proposed a co‐ordinated approach to providing access to a managed, distributed bibliographic resource. This article has two main ambitions: firstly it explores the influential outcomes of the third workshop, and secondly, it places this discussion in the wider MODELS context.