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The first steps of library automation in Finland
This article takes us back to the 1970's when Finnish libraries were building their first intergrated library system, using the Swedish LIBRIS software that only worked on Swedish made Saab computers. It is a long and rocky road from there to where we are now; yet many of the problems seem oddly familiar still today. The article is based on Jyrki Ilva's research on the history of the IT Task Force, which later became the Automation Unit of Finnish Research Libraries. In those days it sorted under the Ministry of Education; nowadays it is incorporated into the Helsinki University Library and is known as the Database Services Department. It still is the unit responsible for the ILS of research libraries in Finland, and for other IT systems as well.
EDCL 2005 - new digital library trendsThe objective of EDCL, the European Conference for Digital Libraries, is to promote communication between different disciplines and sectories. It combines both theoretical research and practical applications. The topics discussed in EDCL 2005 included e.g. automation of harvesting and organising digital contents, P2P applications in library context, query formulation problems and targeting digitisation projects. This is a report on the conference by Esa-Pekka Keskitalo and Pasi Kurvinen of the Helsinki University Library. The proceedings are available in a conference publication:
Library services vs. Google Scholar?Google Scholar, which currently is still a beta relase, is one of the Google web services. It is designed for searching scientific documents. It enables linking to library applications for direct access (with e.g. SFX) or finding holdings information in a library catalogue. This article is based on a SWOT analysis made by the Helsinki University Library staff. The objective was to list both the advantages and the threats Google Scholar prsesents to traditional library services. Background information is provided by the Metasearch systems vs Federated search workshop at ELAG 2005 and Tamar Sadeh's article on the same subject.
Google and E-thesisUnlike libraries the open access publishers tend to see Google not a a threat but as a dear friend. This article is based on the log statistics of the Helsinki University electronic dissertations service, E-thesis. The author describes Google's role as a gateway to the service and also discusses this issue in a larger context.
Information and documentation standards in 2006The ISO Technical Committee 46 (Information and documentation) had a conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in February 2006. Several subcommittees and working groups also held their own meetings there. In this article Juha Hakala reports on the conference. He also discusses the latest developments in Information and Documentation standardisation in general, including the revision of the ISSN, DOI and ISTC.
HUL supports creation of Open Access archivesThe Helsinki University Library participates in a project for promoting Open Access publishing in Finland, funded by the Ministry of Education. HUL supports libraries in the technical problems involved with building Open Access archives. Currently HUL is evaluating three open source solutions: Eprints (http://www.eprints.org/), DSpace (http://www.dspace.org) ja CDSWare (http://cdsware.cern.ch/). The final selection will porobably be made in May this year.
MetaIndex for NELLI portalMetaIndex is the latest tool for the NELLI information retrieval portal. It was implemented in the beginning of 2006. It is an extension of the MetaLib software, and it is designed for building virtual collections using OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting). The authors discuss its potential and give practical advice to libraries who wish to use this extension.
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Tietolinja 01/2006 |
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