The Convergence of the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering
(web.mit.edu): This report defines convergence as "the merging of distinct technologies, processing disciplines, or devices into a unified whole that creates a host of new pathways and opportunities" by combining life sciences, physical sciences, and engineering. Convergence is the "third revolution" in biomedical research, one that will be needed to… Read More
E-Journal Archiving for UK HE Libraries: White Paper Consultation
(ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk): Libraries are facing increasing space pressures and funding constraints. There is a growing interest in wherever possible moving more rapidly to e-only provision to help alleviate these pressures as well as to provide new electronic services to users. One of the most cited barriers and concerns both from library… Read More
Podcasts in the Archives: Archiving Podcasting Content at the University of Michigan
(archivists.org): Podcasts in the Archives: Archiving Podcasting Content at the University of Michigan is one of the Campus Case Studies published on the SAA portal. This case study examines the challenges involved in developing best practices and workflows for archiving and preserving podcasting content created by the University of Michigan.… Read More
Handheld E-Book Readers and Scholarship: Report and Reader Survey
(humanitiesebook.org): This report describes a conversion experiment and subsequent reader survey conducted by ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) in late 2009 and early 2010 to assess the viability of using scholarly monographs with handheld e-readers. Scholarly content generally involves extensive networking and cross-referencing between individual works through various channels, including bibliographical… Read More
The value of Academic libraries
(ala.org): The following review and report is intended to provide Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) leaders and the academic community with a clear view of the current state of the literature on value of libraries within an institutional context; suggestions for immediate “Next Steps” in the demonstration of… Read More
Open Bibliography for Science, Technology, and Medicine
(dspace.cam.ac.uk): The concept of Open Bibliography in science, technology and medicine (STM) is introduced as a combination of Open Source tools, Open specifications and Open bibliographic data. An Openly searchable and navigable network of bibliographic information and associated knowledge representations, a Bibliographic Knowledge Network, across all branches of Science, Technology… Read More
Multimedia Search and Retrieval
(icsti.org): Video, audio, images, and other types of multimedia have the potential to greatly enhance the usefulness and communicative abilities of traditional text-based information collections. These new forms of scientific information, including multimedia, numeric data, and social media, are emerging rapidly, with a significant increase observed just over the past… Read More
Funding for Sustainability: How Funders’ Practices Influence the Future of Digital Resources
(ithaka.org): Over the past decade, government agencies and philanthropic organisations have made significant investments in the creation of digital content in the not-for-profit sector. The grants have facilitated major digitisation efforts, helped to spur development of significant new digital collections and encouraged innovative work. And yet, all too often, digital… Read More
Orphan Works: Definitional Issues
(papers.ssrn.com): This paper outlines responses to two definitional questions that arise in the context of orphan works: (1) exactly what is the “orphan works” problem?, and (2) what is the size of this problem? The answers to these two questions are central to understanding how proposed solutions work to remedy… Read More
STM eBooks: Librarian Perspectives on the First 5 years
(springer.com): eBooks have evolved considerably over the last five years, beyond the more mature, but less dynamic eJournals space. They are now poised at an intersection of library, technology and research trends that afford great opportunities and challenges, for both the library and publisher communities. Similar to the formative years… Read More
