(This isn’t part of my essay, but I like to state my biases: I work in an engineering and science library, and the journal costs are debilitating. I also signed away rights to papers I wrote as an engineer and regret it.) Changes in scholarly communication–particularly in scholarly publishing–are challenging…
Q: Historically, librarians have served as custodians of recorded knowledge and gatekeepers to information resources. To what extent has the rise of networked information services begun to change the roles that librarians play? What other factors, if any, are contributing to changes in the roles of librarians? A1: Before the…
Any readers who follow New Basement Tapes will have already seen this, or at least the headline. I think it’s important to spread this information far and wide, though, so I hope people will forgive me for the repeat: A UN agency is drafting a “trackback” standard, to remove anonymity…
I am a cynic and a skeptic and a pessimist, and I’m aware of it. So it’s no surprise to me–and if you’ve been reading for long, probably not to you, either–that I have very little hope for the URN or DOI idea ever really working out. (That is, the…
I probably have nothing deep or thought-provoking to say today. It’s lovely out here, on the Mall or the Cut–whatever CMU calls the area between the UC and Purnell–and the drama students are providing me with immense entertainment. I like this almost autumn-like weather; my energy level is highest at…
Overall themes: interoperability, modularity. A Framework for Building Open Digital Libraries has me totally sold on the ODL concept and on the extension of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI_PMH) to build every future Digital Library ever. I think it’s a great idea; interoperability is a desirable…
Now that I’ve been to all of my classes once–and work a few times–I have some thoughts to post. First off, let me just say, for the sake of any engineers who come to this blog wanting to find out about switching into Library Science, it is wonderful to know,…