UKOLN News

Brian Kelly was recently interviewed by the US-based Collegewebeditor.com, an independent, popular, and influential blog about the Web, marketing, and PR in Higher Education. In his answers, Brian describes his involvement in the Web since its very early days and explains why his work at UKOLN is so stimulating. He also reflects on some of the challenges institutions face in exploiting Web 2.0 and mentions two HEIs which are overcoming the barriers and providing effective user-focused services based on Web 2.0 approaches.

The Digital Curation Centre and DigitalPreservationEurope have recently announced the release of the Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA) toolkit which is now freely available in a new updated interactive online version.

Ann Chapman looks at why the new cataloguing code Resource
Description and Access (RDA) is needed in this article which has just been
published in the September issue of the CILIPjournal “Update”.

Liz Lyon, Director of UKOLN, will be speaking at a forum called “Reinventing Science Librarianship: Models for the Future”, co-sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). Liz” presentation will address the theme “Data Curation: Issues and Challenges”. The forum will be held on Thursday and Friday, 16 – 17 October 2008, following the 153rd ARL Membership Meeting, at the Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City, in Arlington, Virginia.

The summer issue of Ariadne Web Magazine is now available with a wide range of articles on topics of interest to information professionals in archives, libraries and museums in all sectors. In
this issue there is serious discussion of the worth of Web 2.0 technologies to current educational practice as well as articles on the uses of different data in the context of the networked library
service layer and on best practice on versioning in digital repositories.
There are two items for all information professionals on the case for remote working and how to deal with the information overload, and a review of options in persistent identifiers as well of a book on Vizualizing Data. And more besides. Remember it is possible to sign up to the Magazine”s RSS feed from the front page.

The JISC-sponsored Preservation of Web Resources Project (JISC-PoWR) will be running its third and final workshop
on Friday 12 September 2008 at the Flexible Learning Space, University of Manchester. The workshop entitled “Embedding Web Preservation Strategies Within Your Institution” is open to all members of HE/FE institutions and related HE and FE agencies. Attendance is free.

The International Journal of Digital Curation launched Volume 3, Issue 1
with peer-reviewed papers and general articles on a wide range of topics
within this field. The IJDC is published by the Digital Curation Centre and is managed and produced by UKOLN.

The JISC/CNI Meeting, now the seventh in a successful series of conferences, met to debate the theme of “Transforming the
User Experience”. Over 130 delegates heard presentations by experts from the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom on a range of topics relating to information systems in education and the delivery of digital services and resources for learning, teaching and research. Slides from these presentations are now available.

The Institutional Web Management Workshop 2008 with the theme “The Great Debate” has concluded successfully.
The event held in Aberdeen was attended by over 180 delegates and much discussion occurred on how Web 2.0 is being integrated into Institutional Web Management practice. Resources are now
available from the Web site (on session abstract pages) and on slideshare.

The Institutional Web Management Workshop 2008, organised by UKOLN, provided video streaming of much of the Workshop thanks to the efforts of colleagues at the University of Aberdeen. Unedited footage from the Workshop is now available as Flash
video streams.