UKOLN News

The Scaling Up Report presents the results of a JISC-funded scoping study to assess the feasibility of a federated model for data repositories in the domain of crystallography. It builds on earlier work in the eBank UK Project and has been based on a mix of desk-based
research, a consultation workshop and a series of interviews with stakeholders. The report was written by members of staff at UKOLN and the University of Southampton.

Delegates can now book to attend the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2008, a 3-day event for those involved in the provision of institutional Web services, to be held at the University of Aberdeen from Tuesday 22 – Thursday 24 July 2008. The theme of this year”s workshop is “The Great Debate”. You will be required to select your parallel sessions when registering so please read up in advance.

Ariadne Issue 55 is now available with articles on a wide range of topics including an application profile for images, an overview of current initiatives in standards for educational metadata, an Australian perspective on eResearch together with an article on
developments in institutional repositories in South Africa. John
MacColl considers the “co-operative imperative” upon research libraries
while Pete Williams, Katrina Dean, Ian Rowlands and Jeremy Leighton John
provide insights into digital behaviours and developments in personal digital
collections. There is also a description of current work in Intute”s
Integration Project; and how custom-built search engines can enhance the relevance of search results. Nick Lewis outlines the University of East
Anglia’s experience of implementing a new search and retrieval interface
for presenting the library catalogue. Alex Ball of UKOLN reports on this year”s KIM Conference while colleague Steph Taylor reviews a work investigating new ways to
understand the emotions of users. Emma Tonkin of UKOLN provides her views on a work giving an overview of two decades of research into computerisation movements.

Three vacancies have arisen at UKOLN: Research & Development Team Leader, Research Officer (Metadata Advocacy) and
Systems Developer (Repositories Integration). Details can be found on UKOLN”s vacancies page. The closing date for all three applications has been extended to 16 May 2008.

Pete Cliff of UKOLN gave a presentation entitled “FRBR and Metadata Application Profiles” at the recent VIF Version Identification Workshop at the Hatton, London. Slides from this presentation are now available.

The call for papers for the 4th International Digital Curation Conference is now available. The conference will be held 1-3 December 2008 at the Grosvenor Hilton in Edinburgh.

Liz Lyon, Director of UKOLN, gave a presentation entitled
“Virtual Research Environments: Into the Future” at the recent
JISC Conference 2008: Enabling innovation. Slides from her
presentation are now available.

UKOLN has celebrated 30 years of achievement at the British Library with colleagues and friends. Presentations from an international line-up of speakers were followed by a champagne reception: it was a great pleasure to meet so many partners formal and informal not only to recall UKOLN”s achievements since 1978, but also to discuss the challenges for the future.