From the Section Chair
Dear Colleagues,
This year ends my term as member and as Chair in the Information Technology Section Standing Committee. I joined the IT Section because I believe the information technology is crucial for the operations and development of libraries. But information technology by itself cannot do a lot unless it is combined with librarians' experience and users' expectations. Only the three of them integrated can contribute to better services and library working environment.
Before becoming Chair, I was Secretary of the section. In the last 6 years, together with other officers and members of the Standing Committee, we tried to follow the needs of libraries from underdeveloped to developed environments. Since information technology is present in almost every process in libraries and the IT development is getting faster and faster, it was necessary to focus on the fields that affect most varied libraries. Among them are open source solutions, the transfer of library services to mobile technologies and different cases of interoperability between library systems. We also have promoted the urgency of digital preservation technologies development which is important as the infrastructure for preserving the digital heritage. RFID technologies are being spread very quickly and the last few years linking open data is gaining high importance. All these topics have been included in our Strategy. In addition, supported by our section, two special interest groups were created, the Semantic Web Special Interest Group and the Special Interest Group for RFID.
I am aware that there are many topics that we did not manage to cover, like web archiving, IT terminology in libraries, evolving mash-ups, geo-apps, implementation of responsive web design or augmented reality and other concepts that have significant potential to library communities. Technology offers plenty of possibilities and solutions in libraries and it is impossible to cover all of them. At least I have the feeling that we have dedicated to the fields that concern the less developed as well as the developed world. In cooperation with other sections we have also stimulated the discussion and dissemination on different aspects and impact of technologies in libraries.
In this place I would like to thank to all the members of the IT Section Standing Committee that contributed with new ideas, their experience and their voluntary involvements. Specially I would like to thank to Dr. Edmund Balnaves, Information Officer of the IT Section, for his strong support and positive energy that was the stimulator of many successful events and results.
To the next IT Section officers team I wish a lot of success in their work.
Alenka Kavčič-Čolić
Editorial: Vale ISO ILL?
by
Edmund Balnaves,
IT Section Information Coordinator and Editor
Welcome to the third issue of TILT, and the first for 2013. In this issue you will find articles in the area of open source communities and inter-library loans standards.
Library systems have moved forward dramatically in the last 10 years. The confluence of widespread access to good metadatda, digital libraries, and open source systems have made this an existing time to be involved with library software. Systems such as the library management system, the digitial library system, and the federated search have been transformed , and excitingly libraries themselves are re-asserting ownership of their own systems. As David Cook's contribution illustrates, community-based software development for libraries is thriving.
In contrast, ISO ILL has had slow uptake outside the largest library institutions, and while there have been a number of open source efforts, some (such as OpenILL) appear to be defunct. Projects such as GODOT have some ISO ILL capability but not a large take-up. This is perhaps due to issues of complexity in stateful protocol and of messaging design and lack of architectural flexibility. The protocol is, in a nutshell, difficult and expensive to implement. For those software vendors that do implmenent, it presents a nice barrier to entry to competitors rather than delivering the benefits of open interaction. Alternative approaches have emerged to do the work of ISO ILL "piecemeal" and many ILL networks operate completely independently of ISO ILL integration, especially among special libraries.
The slow adoption of ISO/ILL is in the context of a world where inter-library loans is rapidly changing. The move to digital content presents significant new barries to the sharing of some content due to new licensing and contract restrictions that can over-ride copyright norms of fair use and in some cases the presence of Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions.
The move to digital content also presents economic questions regarding the long-term practice of inter-library loans: if it is cheaper to buy the digital article directly why bother with the process of inter-library loans? Moreover, ILL staff are placed in an increasingly complex environment where it is difficult to judge the rights issues in request fulfilment. Finally, in many cases inter-library loans are seen as an easy target in a context of widespread library funding cuts.
The incremental adoption of ISO/ILL has been in marked contrast to the rapid transformation of library systems in other areas. Web-based library services have been florishing over the last 10 years, with the emergence of open source and open access systems transforming the role of libraries. This is in a context where the of libraries is otherwise significantly challenged by the emergence of rich web-based resources.
Inter-library loans systems have been encumbered by an arduous to implement standard which has become a "beached whale" comared to the lightening developments with other library systems.
It is therefore very welcome to see new directions emerging in this area with ISO TC 46/SC 4. The proposed move to a web-based service environment and state-less transaction handling framework will reduce the barriers to implementation, opening up potentially much greater interoperability. This issue has an in-depth article on the revisions proposed for the ISO/ILL standard.
IFLA Programme
The IFLA congress is not long away, and we have, once again, a lively programme. It is not too late to register and join us at our sessions. Non-standing-committee attendees are welcome to attend as observers in the Standing Comittee meetings.
IT SATELLITE MEETING
User interaction built on library linked data (UILLD) Date: 16 August 2013 Location: Jurong Regional Library, Singapore Contact: Lars Svensson: l.svensson@dnb.de Sponsor: Information Technology Section Website:
http://ifla2013satellite.nlb.sg/it/
Registration fee: 40 SGD
STANDING COMMITTEE MEETINGS
17 August 2013 09:45 - 12:15 | Room: 312 - SC I Information Technology
22 August 2013 08:00 - 09:30 | Room: 310 - SC II Information Technology
CONFERENCE SESSIONS
19 August 2013 13:45-15:45 | Room: Session Room 4-Session 108
Inspiring solutions emerging from Open Source
- From OPAC to archive: integrated discovery and digital libraries with open source. EDMUND BALNAVES (Australian Library & Information Association; Prosentient Systems, Ultimo, Australia)
- Content-as-a-service platform with the alfresco open-source enterprise content management system . KIA SIANG HOCK and WANG ZHI LIANG (National Library Board of Singapore - NLB,Singapore)
- Biblioteca Digital del Patrimonio Iberoamericano: open source technology in the service of a major cooperative project. JOSÉ LUIS BUEREN GÓMEZ-ACEBO (National Library, Madrid, Spain)
- Virtual libraries in research funding agencies: an open source approach to disseminate information to faculty, research teams and civil society . DIEGO F. UCHA, GUILHERME G. MOREIRA, ROSALY F. KRZYZANOWSKI and INES MARIA DE MORAIS IMPERATRIZ (Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil)
- Building an open source, mobile optimized, crowd-source translation tool for literacy engagement in rural Kenya . EVVIVA WEINRAUB-LAJOIE (Emerging Technologies & Services, Oregon State University Libraries & Press, Corvallis, OR, USA)
19 August 2013
Semantic Web and Linkeddata for libraries : issues, solutions, realizations
20 August 2013
Preserving for the future: Integrating physical and digital preservation and Conservation, Rare Books and Manuscripts and Library and Research Services for Parliaments.
New Interlibrary Loan Standard
Leif Andresen
Danish Agency for Culture
A new modern standard for Interlibrary Loan Transactions is under development in ISO TC 46/SC 4 (Information and Documentation. Technical Interoperability).
The old ILL standards
ISO TC 46/SC 4 published an interlibrary lending service
definition and protocol (ISO 10160 & 10161) in 1993. Despite the revision
in 1997 and subsequent amendments, the standard is by now out of date. It does
not support XML encoding of messages (but relies instead on rather ancient
ASN.1/BER encoding), and the services specified are based on 1980’s model of
interlibrary loan transactions between libraries. There are several
implementations of the standard, but all of them were first introduced several
years ago. Given the complexity of the old standard, it is not likely that new
implementations will emerge. In the same time, the pressure to create a new,
web-enabled ILL protocol is constantly growing.
ISO TC 46/SC 4 attempted to revise ILL standards five years ago. The chosen policy was careful revision of the existing standard. This failed, since for some SC 4 members the revision was too radical, whereas some other members indicated that it was not thorough enough. In order to avoid a similar deadlock, SC 4 plenary meeting chose a different strategy in 2012. The committee will keep the old standard alive as long as necessary (for example, by making the editorial changes needed). One of the changes is to eliminate the maintenance agency, which has been taken care of by Library and Archives Canada.
More important, the SC 4 also decided to start the development of a new, Web-enabled ILL standard.
The new ILL standard
ISO 18626 Information and documentation — Interlibrary Loan Transactions will at first supplement and eventually succeed ISO 10160, ISO 10161-1 and ISO 10161-2. Unlike its predecessor, ISO 18626 is well suited to the modern, Web-based technological environment which is based on XML and Web services. Another important difference between the two standards is that while the old standard is based on a 1980s model of ILL transactions, its successor is based on and supports much simpler exchange of transactions.
The draft standard includes three simple messages: a request, a supplying library message and a requesting library message. The protocol is stateless, which means that there will be no need to maintain the interconnected state tables in the client and server applications (and the connections to the state tables in applications behind them). It is expected that the new ILL protocol will be much easier to implement than the old one, while still retaining the essential functionality of its predecessor.
In the development it has been important to focus on supporting automatically handling of the messages. The protocol itself doesn’t prescribe automatically handling, but support that the applications in the involved libraries can use automatically handling. Just one example: the requesting library application can send a message and inquire about expected delivery date when the requested material is not received at expected time. The supplying library application evaluates the answer: if few days: nothing; if long time: an alert to the ILL librarian.
ISO 18626 is the first part of a more general strategic initiative to standardize resource sharing in ISO/TC46/SC4 Technical Interoperability. SC 4 has started a process to create a modern ILL standard. At the SC4 meeting in May 2012 Danish Standards was requested to send in a NWIP – a New Work Item Proposal – in cooperation with interested parties. The group of interested parties consisted of SC4 representatives and members of The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative.
The editor group consist of Leif Andresen (Danish Agency for Culture), Clare Mackeigan (Relais International), and Ed Davidson (OCLC).
The proposal was unanimously approved in the SC4 vote, and sufficient number of members announced that they will nominate experts to the group.
To this end, a new working group, WG 14, was established in March 2013. The WG has the task to develop a web-based ILL protocol with an updated service model. The CD version of the new protocol, based on the in the beginning of February 2012 approved NWIP 18626, was sent to the members of SC 4 in March 2013 shortly after the WG14 was established.
The SC4 plenary May 2012 decided also that if the NWIP is approved, SC4 will ask the chair of the committee to establish a WG to develop a new ILL standard. Following the approval of the NWIP, in order to enable the development of the new ILL protocol, the chair of SC4 Juha Hakala approved the establishment of a new working group, ISO/TC 46/SC 4 WG 14 Interlibrary Loan Transactions. The chair of the working group will be Leif Andresen from Danish Agency for Culture (http://www.kulturstyrelsen.dk/). The group consists of the experts the ISO TC46/SC4 members had nominated during the NWIP voting process.
The result of the ISO 18262 CD ballot: 22 YES, 2 Abstain and 0 no votes. So the work goes on. The comments were processed by the editors and a draft for a DIS (Draft International Standard) version and remarks to member bodies comments were distributed before the WG14 meeting which took place in Paris as part of the annual ISO TC46 meeting week.
The WG14 had its first face-to-face meeting 5 June 2013. The WG agreed on a more explicit formulation of handling of how to handle messages, which are repeating requests without spoiling the simplicity of the model.
The editors have delivered a final version for DIS (Draft International Standard) ballot. This will take 5 months with close of ballot 6 December 2013. During this period the editors will update guidelines/use cases and plan to add a FAQ to the informational web site http://biblstandard.dk/ill/
Relation to NCIP
The editors received a letter from NISO NCIP Standing Committee with invitation to cooperation and an invitation to align data element names, XML structures, web services, and the like – to the extent that is possible. The editors accepted the invitation and the evaluation of data element names have been done in this light and the XML schema and the transport web service are developed with re use from the NCIP environment.
The NISO NCIP Standing Committee and the editor group of ISO 18626 both believes that such an alignment between these two standards will facilitate implementation and make adoption of both standards quicker and easier.
Simplicity of ISO 18626
The intention is for the new ISO standard for ILL transactions (ISO 18626) to be much easier to implement than its predecessor (ISO 10160, ISO 10161 and ISO 10161-1), while retaining the essential functionality. This should lead to more widespread acceptance and use of the standard.
One of the key differences when compared with the old standard is that ISO 18626 protocol is stateless. This means there is no need to maintain the interconnected state tables in the partner applications (nor the connections to the state tables in the applications behind them). The strict rules imposed by the state tables and some of the corresponding messages meant that some functionality was driven by the old standard rather than the applications. The move to being stateless, and reducing and simplifying the messages means functionality and business rules can now be better managed in the applications.
In the effort to simplify and streamline the new standard, one of the messages/statuses that have been eliminated is the concept of ‘Conditional’. However, the same functionality is supported in ISO 18626 by the Supplier sending an answer with Status = RetryPossible with an appropriate explanation, e.g., the item costs more than the Requester has indicated they are willing to pay. The Requester has the choice to submit a new request that addresses the ‘issue’ noted by the Supplier or to not proceed with this request with this Supplier.
ISO 18626 describes how the messages are transport and the content of the messages. The business logic is not part of these messages. The business logic is part of the applications and the rules the supplying library have defined in their application. An example: the supplying library can use the Request header data element RequestingAgencyPreviousRequestID (if present) to:
- link the previous request and reuse internal information of the handling of the previous request
- link the previous request and present this information for the ILL librarian
- ignore the information
It is just up to how the supplying library defines the function of their ILL application.
The clear advantage is that the application is able to handle the business rules in these situations – it is not dictated by the standard. The result is a simpler standard – easier to implement and use.
Instead of having complex work flows as part of the standard, the web site attached to the standard include a section for guidelines and use cases. This is described in the standard including some examples. But the intention is to have an dynamic web site, where the guidelines and use cases are growing reflecting the needs of the user of the standard.
Identifiers
During the discussions in the working group, there has been some uncertainty about the use of identifiers.
For an ILL request the requested title can be identified at different levels:
- Identify the object – for example, you may be able to identify the title using an ISBN or LCCN. This has no relevance to a specific supplier.
- Identify a bibliographic record describing the title – for example, you have been able to locate the requested title in a union catalogue or system. For example in WorldCat or Libraries Australia. This does not need to have relevance to a specific supplier.
- Identify a record in suppliers system, which is a unique pointer to wanted title – Supplying library’s internal unique identifier for the requested title based on a preceding automatic holdings request (e.g. Z39.50 Holdings Schema or ISO 20775:2009 Information and documentation -- Schema for holdings information).
The context or system in which the request is submitted may determine the appropriate way to describe the requested title. All three are not relevant or not useable in all situations.
Request
The request is of course the basic message. The Request contains information about the item and service requested. The Request is sent from the requesting agency to the supplying agency.
The Request contains some or all of the following groups of data elements:
- Header: Administrative information
- BibliographicInfo: Details of the item being requested
- ServiceInfo: Details of the service being requested
- SupplierInfo: List of potential suppliers
- RequestedDeliveryInfo: Where and how to send the item
- RequestingAgencyInfo: Details about the requesting agency
- PatronInfo: Details about the patron
- BillingInfo: How to charge the requesting agency
Only a few data elements are mandatory. It’s up to the libraries to decide what information to be sent. A request can be very simple: identification of requester and supplier and SupplierUniqueRecordId as the unique identification in the supplier library. But a request can also be much more complex: with detailed Bibliographic Information and detailed instructions.
Messages after request
The supplying library returns a Supplying Agency Message with information about handling of the request. The most important information is in data element Status (see the Status box below), but with other relevant information in specific data elements. When the item is sent, the message can include barcode / RFID-tag identification.
The requesting library can send Requesting Agency Message with wishes for handling of the request. The most important information is in data element Action (see the Action box below).
The supplying library shall as part of all Supplying Agency Messages give the actual status of the request in the supplying library. The closed list of these statuses is: RequestReceived: Supplying library has received the request. ExpectToSupply: Supplying library expects to fill the request, based on e.g. information in the local OPAC. The message may include the ExpectedDeliveryDate. WillSupply: Supplying library has located the item but has not sent it yet. Loaned: The item is currently on loan to the requesting library for this request. Overdue: The item currently on loan to the requesting library for this request is now overdue. Recalled: The item currently on loan to the requesting library for this request has been recalled. RetryPossible: Supplying library cannot fill the request based on information provided or may be able to supply at a later date. The explanation may be provided in separate data element. The Requesting library may submit a modified request with revised information. Unfilled: Supplying library cannot fill the request. The explanation may be provided in a data element called ReasonUnfilled. CopyCompleted: Supplying library has sent the requested item (this status is used when the item supplied will not be returned by requesting library, i.e., a copy) LoanCompleted: Supplying library has received the borrowed item from the requesting agency (this status is used for requests when the item supplied will be returned by the requesting library, i.e., a loan) CompletedWithoutReturn: Supplying library has closed the request without the return of supplied item (e.g. because of loss or damage). Cancelled: Supplying library has cancelled the request (as indicated by the requesting library) |
The Requesting library can send the request and after this, can send Requesting Agency Messages with these actions to the supplying library. The closed list of these actions is: StatusRequest: Requesting library asks the supplying library to provide the current status for the request Received: The requesting library notifies the supplying library the requested item has been received Cancel: The requesting library asks the supplying library if the requested item can be cancelled. Renew: The requesting library asks the supplying library if the item currently on loan can be renewed. ShippedReturn: The requesting library notifies the supplying library the borrowed item has been sent back. ShippedForward: The requesting library notifies the supplying library the borrowed item has been returned Notification: The requesting library sends a message to the supplying library. It is up to the requesting library to decide which actions to use. The standard does not prescribe to use all of them – that the decision is for the individual library. |
Transport
The transport protocols for ISO 18626 is – inspired by NCIP – HTTP and HTTPS using the use the POST method. These protocols are simple to use. The editors decided not to use more complex protocol like SOAP. The consequence of this choice is that the standard also includes a Message Confirmation for each of the three messages.
Conclusion
A new standard for ILL messages is on the way through the standard process. Until now the process has been fast. With a little luck the DIS ballot will follow the previous ballot and end up with only yes votes. The DIS ballot concludes 6 December 2013. At the Paris meetings first week of June 2013 I expressed the hope for a Christmas gift for the international library community with a new standard for Interlibrary Loan Transactions. With just a little luck ISO 18626 Information and documentation -- Interlibrary Loan Transactions will be under the Christmas tree.
Background information to this process is available through the article: Leif Andresen, (2011) "ILL transactions – a next step? The Danish experience and new possibilities", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 39 Iss: 4, pp.186 - 189
Digital Milestones
QUT ePrints 10 millionth download
In the news from Queensland University of Technology is a nice open access milestone. Such institutional repositories, as they build substantial collections over time, become valuable research resources in themselves, exemplifying the essential principle underlying open access. They also represent new opportunities for effective distributed resource discovery as a challenge to the monolithic commercial solutions presented by Google and others.
From the IFLA news:
"Recently, the institutional repository at Queensland University of Technology (QUT ePrints) reached a major milestone when a full-text journal article became the 10 millionth download. Nearly ten years ago (in September 2003), QUT implemented the World’s first institution-wide open access mandate . Since then, the proportion of the University’s annual research output deposited as full-text has risen to over 75% (for 2012 publications).
Today, there are 25,681 full-text publications in the repository and 22,315 of them (86%) are open access. The average number of documents downloaded each month is over 200,000. Over 97% of the downloads are from an external IP address. Many of the embargoed full-texts can be accessed via a ‘Request Copy’ feature (see: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/55328/).
QUT ePrints was the top ranked Institutional Repository in Australia and 14th in the world in the latest biannual Ranking Web of Repositories."
Librarian Turned Developer: A Perspective on the Inner Workings of the Koha Community
David Cook,
Prosentient Systems
For those of you who don’t know, Koha was the
world’s first free, open-source library management system. Originally crafted
for the Horowhenua Library Trust of New Zealand by Katipo Communications in
late 1999, it is now developed internationally around the world by dozens of
organizations and hundreds of individuals (for more information read the
following http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638).
From January 2013 through July 2013 alone, there have been 60 unique committers
of code to the master branch of the http://git.koha-community.org
codebase. While patches might range from a simple string change on a
template to a much more sophisticated new feature, there are many hands in the
pot and the community is alive and well.
So what does the community look like?Well, it depends on where you look! The best first point of contact is probably the website: http://koha-community.org. It provides a central location where you can catch up on details of the latest Koha releases, read the documentation/manuals, find options for free and paid support, and find links to community resources like the Gitweb/Github (i.e. codebase), Bugzilla (i.e. issue tracker), wiki, listservs, and the IRC channel. It also includes links to instructions on how to download and install Koha yourself (http://koha-community.org/download-koha/).
Personally though, when I think of the community, I will always think of the IRC channel. No matter what time of day you visit #koha on irc.oftc.net, there will always be someone around working on Koha. There might be times when no one is free to answer a question, because they’re working on Koha itself, but – generally speaking - if you ask a question politely, you will almost certainly receive a polite greeting and helpful guidance. If it’s a rare case when no one is around, I recommend sending an email to one of the Koha listservs. If it’s a general question, the koha list is a good bet. If it’s a technical question, try out the koha-devel list. The people tracking that second list are the actual developers of Koha. While they might not always have the solution, they will always have an answer.
In fact, that’s how I found my way into the community. While it was only a year and a half ago, I can’t remember the issue I had, but it was beyond my ability to fix it. I needed help.
The “Support” page on the community website had a web interface for IRC, so I signed on and I asked my questions. At first, as a librarian, I found myself struggling with the technical answers I received. I had taken a 12 week course on database design and a 12 hour course on PHP scripting during my MLIS, but I had very limited experience with Apache and Linux, never used Git, never programmed in Perl, never administered a MySQL database, and certainly never crawled around in the internals of the Zebra indexing engine. However, I was curious. I asked question after question with deference to the knowledge of the Koha developers (especially jcamins and rangi), and soon I began to understand.
With their help, I installed Git, wrote a short (yet valuable) fix for the Perl templates, formatted the patch using Git, wrote a bug report on Bugzilla, uploaded the patch, and waited.
Eventually, someone read the bug report, tested it on their own development instance of Koha, and “signed off” the patch on Bugzilla.
The next step was for a member of the volunteer QA (Quality Assurance) team to review the patch. They tested the patch again, ran it through some automated tools, and made sure that it adhered to the community’s code guidelines.
Once it had passed the QA phase, the release manager (Paul Poulain for Koha 3.8 at that time) pushed my patch to the master branch of the Koha codebase and thanked me for my efforts. That was it! On March 16, 2012, I became the 179th developer to have a patch pushed to Koha. I was elated.
Of course, while that was my first experience with the community, it certainly wasn’t my last. I’m still an active Koha developer, and I’ve learned a few things along the way.
First, it’s important to always be respectful. It’s Koha – not KOHA, and while Koha is free and open source, it is the product of hundreds of paid and volunteer hours. While it is helpful to be critical of the code, it is not helpful to act entitled to service. The community is happy to help, but it is not obligated to answer demands.
Second, if you want someone to sign off on your patch, try testing, commenting, and signing off on someone else’s patch. While every contribution is valuable, there is a lot of work to do, and the more you give, the more you will receive.
Third, when you develop Koha, you might not feel like you’re making a difference, but the reality is quite the opposite. As Olugbenga Adara mentioned recently in an email to Jared Camins-Esakov (the RM for Koha 3.12) on the koha listserv:
"…this is another opportunity to say a big thank you to you and all the great people who has contributed to making Koha what it is today. Anytime I think about how awesome Koha is, my heart feels gratitude to this wonderful community. For us in Nigeria, Koha has provided the major option (if not the only one) to library automation as most other options are just too expensive for over 90% of libraries in Nigeria to afford."
Chrispin Simasiku Sitali also spoke to how he has spent hours learning “the internals of Koha and Linux” so as to help “other institutions in Zambia to migrate to Koha”.
In the end, that’s what the Koha community is all about. It’s about constantly learning, trying new things, reporting bugs, contributing one’s efforts to the greater good, and reaping the benefits of that collective effort. While I’ve written from the perspective of a librarian turned developer, there are plenty of librarians who participate in the community without writing code and there are developers who commit code without stepping into a library.
Koha is a team effort and everyone has a voice. Anyone can edit the wiki, report a bug, and upload a patch. Admittedly, there are positions of power in the community. We have release managers, release maintainers, translation managers, QA managers, and other team members. However, these people are elected at public IRC meetings. I suppose that one could say that there are some members of the community who have more power and influence than others (such as former RMs), but this is due to the high level of knowledge, commitment, money, and volunteer time that they devote to the project. In the Koha community, status and reputations are earned; they are not arbitrary.
Speaking of earning, it’s important to mention that Koha is more than just a library management system; it’s also how many of us make our income. While there are valuable community members (like those that Chris Cormack mentions in the unsung heroes section of his blog Korerorero) who work in libraries, many of us work for software providers like Prosentient Systems, C&P Bibliography, Catalyst IT, ByWater Solutions, and BibLibre. As Koha spreads, more people can be given money to work on code that they then give back to the community and to the libraries that rely on that community for systems and support.
Finally, as the Maori origin of the name Koha reminds us, the Koha community is about reciprocal giving. Be respectful, and you will be respected. Help others, and be helped in return. Give and you will receive.
Book Reviews
Practical
Digital Preservation: a how-to guide for organisations of any size. Adrian
Brown
London: Facet, 2012. ISBN 9781856047555.
Adrian Brown has bought
together in one book many strands in the world of digital preservation. As the
Head of Preservation and Access in the Parliamentary Archives in the UK he is
well positioned to survey the digital preservation scene. It is, of course, an
evolving area and no-one has a definitive "solution" to the area of digital
preservation. However it is useful to have a resource which pulls together in
one cover the many strands of progress, and goes further with examples to
illustrate different approaches to digital preservation to meet different sizes
and types of organisations.
This work it is that it pulls in a great deal of material together and traverses the journey from initial software selection through to injection workflows, metadata description and of course preservation itself. Some information that is useful is scattered - for instance, the discussion of software presents the classic commercial/opensource/bespoke divide, while elsewhere he covers the emergent cloud solutions. His analysis is not favourable of open source despite the prevelance of open source solutions in this area.
Adrian Brown fulfills his mission in providing a very practical view on how to progress in the area of digital preservation. To get started on digital preservation may seem daunting, as there are more unsolved than solved problems in this area for the long term. Nevertheless there are quite achievable steps that Brown in each chapter identifies to get organisations embarked on a more effective course for digital preservation.
Records and
Information Management by Patricia Franks
London: Facet, 2012. ISBN 9781856048361.
Patricia Franks presents a detailed, and systematic treatment of Records Management. While it lives in a similar area to digital archiving, it targets a narrower territory, and is as a result fuller in its treatment. Associate Professor Franks gives an excellent survey of the field with case studies and illustrations along with a credible level of detail. The book traverses the practice of records management as well as some observations on the emerging area of information governance. The book could perhaps have delved to a greater level of detail regarding records management metadata and its role in both identification and discovery, and the relationship between this and archiving ontologies.
The book traverses the full life cycle of records management, from systems appraisal and establishment, through to record collection management, disaster and risk management, long term preservation, and the professional mileau of Records management in the context mainly of archivists.
Reflecting on
the future of academic and public libraries
London: Facet, 2012. ISBN 9781856049481.
Change is upon libraries, as it is upon every information-based profession. The physical has been replaced with the virtual, and even warriors now sit at computer screens . It is good to read lively discussion on the future of our particular profession and institutions. Public and Academic libraries are quite dissimilar, so their future challenges are in many ways quite different. A free public library service is a relatively modern invention, while libraries have been a part of universities for as long as their existance. However, one way or another, much of the general public will make contact with one or other of these institutions in their lifetime, so it is reasonable to look at a treatment of their future under a single banner. The focus on the Academic sector is reinforced by presence of a chapter of invited writers only for the University sector. Given the background of the authors, it is not surprising that this fascinating exposition of the future of libraries is strongest in the area of University Libraries and is weaker around the lively but formative debates around copyright and e-books that are shaping the direction of Public Libraries. Some of the forward-looking ideas in this book for the role of Academic libraries are very relevant to Public and other libraries also, especially in the increasing role for libraries as a local publisher and archive.
Afterword on the reviews
It is always interesting to read footnotes & citations. Brown's book, for instance, contains the statement "A frequently cited statistic is that 90% of businesses suffering a major data loss go out of business within two years". The end-note for this statistic in Chapter 2 contains a startling admission: "Despite its frequent citation, it has proven difficult to confirm the source for this statistic. While it should therefore be treated with caution there does appear to be good evidence to support it". Editorial caution might well have advised omitting an unconfirmed statistic from the main body of the narrative. Curiously the work by Franks has a similar quote: "Fact: one in four businesses never reopens its doors after a disaster". In this case, the statement is backed by a reference - in this case to another work which itself unfortunately makes an unsupported claim.
In my opinion, the evidence base of quotes that assert a fact or a statistic should be solid and preferably from a primary source or a substantial secondary. This is important, as information quoted in substantial works such as these may be requoted by readers in support for projects.
Reviewed by Edmund Balnaves, Information Officer, IFLA IT Section
About the Section
The Information Technology Section (ITS) serves to promote and advance the application of information technologies (IT) to library and information services in all societies, through activities related to standards, education and training, research, and the marketplace. At present, the IT Section has 24 standing committee members from 23 different countries.
The section meets every year at the IFLA annual Congress. In between
congress sessions, section members collaborate with other Sections in progress
and workshops. The section maintains a micro-site within the IFLA website at http://www.ifla.org/it. This site has news,
blogs and resources regarding activities of the Section, as well as session
minutes, publications and section membership details.
There are ballots for elections every two years, as members complete their
terms of four years. See the complete list of SC member at the end of this
newsletter. The IT Section is the second biggest section in IFLA with over 370
members from 90 countries and all types of libraries. The section members come
from a range of disciplines, and the section itself is strongly involved with
the activities of other IFLA sections. If you would like to join our section,
please contact IFLA Headquarters or consult the IFLA membership information at:
http://www.ifla.org/en/membership.
The section also maintains a listserv. The purpose of the IFLA-IT mailing
list is to provide a forum for the members of the Section on Information
Technology to exchange ideas and experience in use of information and
communication technologies in libraries. To subscribe please go to the web
interface at http://infoserv.inist.fr/wwsympa.fcgi/info/ifla-it.
Primary contacts
Chair
Alenka Kavčič-Čolić, National & University Library, Slovenia, Alenka.Kavcic@nuk.uni-lj.si
Secretary
Frank Cervone, Purdue University Calumet
fcervone@purduecal.edu
Information Coordinator
Edmund Balnaves, Prosentient Systems, Australia
ejb@prosentient.com.au
Standing Committee Members 2009-2013
Emmanuelle Bermes Chef de projet Multimédia - Centre
Pompidou France Emmanuelle.bermes @centrepompidou.fr
Alenka Kavčič-Čolić National & University Library
Slovenia Alenka.Kavcic@nuk.uni-lj.si
Giuliana de Francesco ICCU - Instituto Centrale Catalogo Unico
Delle Biblioteche Italiane Italy defrancesco@beniculturali.it
Vivekanand Jain Banaras Hindu University India
vivek-digora@rediffmail.com
Lesiba Steve Ledwaba National Library of South Africa Sth
Africa lesiba.ledwaba@nlsa.ac.za
Andrea Marchitelli CILEA Italy marchitelli@cilea.it
Penny Robertson Scottish Library and Information Council UK
scotearl@slainte.org.uk
Sue Stimpson, Library of Parliament, Canada Canada
stimps@parl.gc.ca
Hilde van Wijngaarden, Koninklijke Bibliotheek Netherlands
hilde.vanwijngaarden@kb.nl
Zhixiong Zhang, Library of Chinese Academy of Sciences China
zhangzx@mail.las.ac.cn
Standing Committee Members 2011-2015
Edmund Balnaves Prosentient Systems Australia
ejb@prosentient.com.au
José Luis Bueren Gómez-Acebo Biblioteca Nacional de España
Spain joseluis.bueren@bne.es
Frank Cervone Perdue University Calumet United States
fcervone@cervone.com
Mikhail Goncharov Russian National Public Library for Science and
Technology Russian Federation goncharov@gpntb.ru
Nina Hyvönen The National Library of Finland Finland
nina.hyvonen@helsinki.fi
Annika Lund The Jakobstad City Library Finland
annika.lund@jakobstad.fi
Shawky Salem ACML-Egypt Egypt chairman@acml-egypt.com
Lars G. Svensson Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Germany
l.svensson@dnb.de
Dawei Wei, The National Library of China China
weidw@nlc.gov.cn
Standing Committee Members 2013-2017
Hasna Askhita, Syrian Computer Society, Syrian Arab
Republic, hasna@scs-net.org
May Chang, IT & Digital Initiatives, University of
California, United States, may@library.ucsb.edu
Khalid Cherkaoui Addahabi, Ecole des Sciences de L'Information
(ESI), Morocco, ceghali@yahoo.fr
Nthabiseng Kotsokoane, Monash University, South
Africa,Nthabiseng.kotsokoane@monash.edu
Jie Li, University of South Alabama, United
States,jili@southalabama.edu
E. Maepa, University of South Africa, South
Africa,maepame@unisa.ac.za
Tan Sun, National Science Library of CAS (Library of Chinese
Academy of Sciences), China,sunt@mail.las.ac.cn
Kazuo Takehana, Digital Information Services Division, Digital
Information Department, National Diet Library, Japan,k-takeha@ndl.go.jp
Ainura Toktombaeva, National Library of Kyrgyz Republic,
Kyrgyzstan,miranat@mail.ru
Aluwani Witness Tshishonga, National Library of South, South
Africa,aluwani.tshishonga@nlsa.ac.za
Astrid Verheusen, Koninklijke Bibliotheek,
Netherlands,astrid.verheusen@kb.nl
Qiang Xu, Shanghai Library, China,qxu@libnet.sh.cn
Corresponding Members
Antonin Benoit Diouf, Université Gaston Berger Senegal
antoninbenoit@gmail.com
Tiina Ison, National Library of Finland Finland
tiina.ison@helsinki.fi
Alexeis Garcia Pérez, Cranfield University UK
alexeis.garcia-perez@coventry.ac.uk
About the contributors
Leif Andresen
Danish Agency for Culture
<lea@kulturstyrelsen.dk>
Edmund Balnaves, PhD
Information Officer for the Information Technology Section of IFLA
Director of ALIA
Director, Prosentient Systems
<ejb@prosentient.com.au>
Alenka Kavčič-Čolić, PhD
Alenka is the chair of the IFLA Information Technology Section
Head of Library Research Centre at National and University Library.
<Alenka.Kavcic@nuk.uni-lj.si>
Cook, David, MA
Senior Software engineer
Prosentient Systems
<dcook@prosentient.com.au>
PDF Version
The PDF version of this newsletter is available at:
http://www.ifla.org/files/assets/information-technology/tilt_v2_i1.pdf