January 2009

Volume 4, no. 2 January 2009

ISSN 17479258

ALISS Quarterly

Association of Librarians and Information professionals in the Social Sciences

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Editor: Heather Dawson, British Library of Political and Economic Science, 10 Portugal Street, London WC2A 2HD. Email: h.dawson@lse.ac.uk

Special issue: New ways of supporting learners and researchers in the Social Sciences II Social Software

Facebook at the University of Warwick; Delicious at the Institute of Education; Facebook at the University of Wolverhampton Podcasting

Oxford Brookes University Library projects Repositories

Welsh Repository Network project; POCKET project Resource description

Cataloguers and MARC 21

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ALISS Quarterly Volume 4 no.2 January 2009 Special issue: New ways of supporting learners and researchers in the Social Sciences II Editorial Heather Dawson

Social Software Using Facebook Pages to reach users: the experiences of University of Wolverhampton Jo Alcock, resources Librarian, University of Wolverhampton.

In Your Facebook, Not In Your Face.

Katharine Widdows, Science Information Assistant University of Warwick Library A delicious.com taster: case studies from the Institute of Education Gwyneth Price. Institute of Education, London.

Podcasting The evolution of a podcast: printed guided tour to audio tour and beyond David Bell, Assistant Subject Librarian; Debbie Lenihan, Assistant Subject Librarian; Steve Burholt, E-learning Systems Developer Oxford Brookes University

Repositories How the West was won: Providing repositories across the principality of Wales Stuart Lewis, Repositories Support Project / Welsh Repository Network, Aberystwyth University and Hannah Payne Repositories Support Project, Aberystwyth University

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EDITORIAL

Welcome to the latest edition of ALISS Quarterly. It has been published by ALISS (Association of Librarians and Information Professionals in the Social Sciences) .

In our October 2008 edition we focused upon new ways of supporting our users using web 2.0 and other new technologies.

This proved such a fruitful area that we are again using this issue to highlight a number of new innovations.

The first section contains articles from staff at the University of Warwick and the University of Wolverhampton which describe their experiences in using Facebook to communicate with their users.This is followed by an article which describes how delicious social bookmarking can be used effectively to promote information literacy.

The issue then highlights two new open access repositories,The Welsh repositories network which is an exiting new project involving collaboration between colleges in Wales and the POCKET project which is seeking to create open access HE educational materials for independent learners.

Finally the issue concludes with some interesting new research relating to resource access in the digital age. It focuses specifically upon opinions about cataloguing standards and their relevancy .

Remember that you can keep up to date with ALISS news by subscribing to our free electronic mailing list LIS_SOCIAL SCIENCE at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/LIS-SOCIALSCIENCE.html . Have you seen our new website at: http://www.alissnet.org.uk

We hope you enjoy the issue!

Heather Dawson.

ALISS Secretary

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Using Facebook Pages to reach users: the experiences of Wolverhampton Jo Alcock resources Librarian, University of Wolverhampton

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Introduction Social networking websites have been steadily gaining popularity over the last few years. A recent OFCOM report (OFCOM, 2008) demonstrated that 22% of adults in the UK had registered with a social networking site (the figure is highest for 16-24 year olds and decreases with age). Facebook is, at present, the most visited social networking site and has over 130 million active users (Facebook, 2008a).This article shares the experiences of University of Wolverhampton’s pilot project into the use of Facebook pages for academic libraries.

Rationale During 2007, we noticed that many of our students using PCs in the University of Wolverhampton Learning Centres were regular visitors of Facebook. Each member of the University is given a University e-mail address as well as access to our VLE, but from talking to students, I found that some were choosing to use Facebook as the platform to communicate with their cohort and organise group work.

Academic staff had also started to use Facebook, mainly as a forum for social interaction within their classes but also as a way for students to communicate with them. Some libraries had been using Facebook to set up a profile for the library. However, Facebook regulations did not permit this (profiles should be for individuals only) and many were closed. In November 2007, Facebook began Facebook Pages which is designed for businesses and organisations (including libraries) to create a presence. By creating a Facebook page rather than a profile, other Facebook members can become a “fan� and be sent updates via Facebook.This is one way of reaching users where they already are so we began to investigate creating a Facebook page for our Learning Centres.

Concerns There were a number of concerns with creating a presence for the Learning Centres in Facebook. One common concern is that students may not want us there and feel it is an invasion of their personal or private space (Phipps, 2007).

However, with Facebook pages the user themselves must actively choose to visit the page and can opt to join as a fan if they would like to. Even if they do, they can set their privacy settings so that other users of the page (such as Learning Centre staff) can either see a limited profile (set by the user) or are unable to see the profile at all. Security has been a major issue for Facebook; privacy settings are now far more robust (Facebook, 2008b).

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Another concern was that the Learning Centres may get negative comments from users.We initially decided to set the page so that communication was only one way to prevent this, but have recently agreed to enable users to give feedback on our services via the Facebook page. If we do receive criticism we can hopefully act upon it, and if there are inappropriate comments it is possible to delete them.

With the addition of another web presence, concerns about the amount of staff time spent updating the page were considered, but at present this time is minimal.The page itself remains fairly static (apart from automatic updates via RSS feeds) and any updates sent to fans are fairly short and usually taken from information on the latest news, from e-mails, or from our Electronic Resources Newsletter.

Another issue is the stability and popularity of Facebook. As is always the case with external software, there is an inherent risk which must be taken into consideration. Facebook may cease to exist altogether or Facebook Pages may be stopped. Facebook’s popularity with our users may deteriorate in which case we would question investing time in our presence.

Establishing and developing the page After analysing the pros and cons of a Learning Centre Facebook page, it was decided to run a pilot project.The page itself was created during December 2007; our Marketing and Communications department have a corporate account within Facebook so helped set up the page. It includes a photograph, some general information (opening times, locations, website etc.), and links through to different sections of our website, such as subject resources and the OPAC catalogue. A number of libraries have since been in touch about the Quick Links box on their page; it was created using the FBML application and writing HTML to create the links.

We have a number of subject blogs written by subject librarians.To incorporate the RSS feeds from these on the page, the Blog RSS Feed Reader application was used. In order to reduce the amount of space used and only display the most recent posts, I used Yahoo! Pipes to combine the RSS feeds from each of the blogs; this creates a new RSS feed which you can then use in Blog RSS Feed Reader.

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The page is also used to help promote our drop-in information skills sessions.

We use Google Calendar to enable us to embed the calendar into our website which immediately reflects any changes made, so we added the Google Calendar application to our page. Unfortunately, the application opens the calendar on a different page, which is not totally intuitive. Because of this, each event has also been added to Facebook Events which are displayed on the page, although this was a fairly time-consuming process and duplicates the work.

A number of search applications have been developed for use within Facebook; JSTOR and COPAC search boxes have been added to our page. In the future it is possible that we may use our proxy server to enable University of Wolverhampton users to authenticate and search databases from Facebook.

Some Universities such as Loughborough have developed library search applications (searching OPACs, institutional repositories and federated search engines) within Facebook; this is also something we may look at in the future.

The page now has over 200 fans, and the number is increasing.This has been achieved with limited marketing; we have a link from the Contact Us section of our website and a screensaver on the PCs in our central Learning Centre.

There are a number of other marketing methods in both print and on the web which we may utilise in future but have not yet done so due to the nature of the pilot project.

Updates are sent to fans as and when necessary, at an average of one update per month.We recognise that users do not wish to receive messages too often, and therefore only send updates when they will be relevant to a wide range of users. Updates include letting users know our opening times over vacation periods, notifying them of new resources, and promoting events held in Learning Centres.

Conclusion Our Facebook pilot project is now coming to an end; a progress report including future recommendations will be presented in the next couple of months when we will decide if and how to further develop our presence within Facebook or other social networking sites. Although no formal feedback has been collated, informal feedback from fans of the page has been positive.

We appreciate that not all our users on Facebook will want to use it for academic purposes, but for those who do they seem to appreciate our

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presence. According to the statistics on Facebook Insights, we currently average around 15 daily page views.

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In Your Facebook, Not In Your Face Katharine Widdows Science Information Assistant University of Warwick Library

For anyone considering setting up a Facebook page for their library service, as the page itself is minimal effort and can be both an effective marketing method and a tool for gathering user feedback, I would recommend it; however only if your users are already using Facebook.

References Facebook (2008a) Statistics [online]. California: Facebook [accessed 12 December 2008].

Available from: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics.

Facebook (2008b) Privacy Policy [online]. California: Facebook. Updated 26 November 2008 [accessed 12 December 2008].

Available from: http://www.facebook.com/policy.php?ref=pf.

Phipps, L. (2007) Web 2.0 and social software: an introduction [online]. JISC. Updated September 2007 [accessed 5 December 2008]. Available from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/web2socialsoftwarev1.aspx OFCOM (2008) Social networking: a quantitative and qualitative research report into attitudes, behaviours and use [online]. OFCOM. Updated 2 April 2008 [accessed 12 December 2008].

Available from: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/medlitpub/medlitpubrss/socialne tworking/.

Useful links Facebook: http://www.facebook.com University of Wolverhampton Learning Centre’s Facebook page: http://www.wlv.ac.uk/lib/facebook Loughborough’s search applications: http://apps.facebook.com/lborolibrary/?ref=ts

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In November 2007, following a “Just do it” style presentation from Senior Library Management on Web 2.0 possibilities I created a Facebook Page for Warwick University Library. Just to see what happened. The page took less than a couple of hours to set up, play about with, and make available - much less time than it must take many librarians to create, send out and collate data from the kind of questionnaires I now frequently receive asking how I did it! _____________________________________________________ ALISS Quarterly 4 (2) January 2009

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For anyone who is unsure about what Facebook is, it is a social web site where members can interact in a myriad of different ways online. Each member has a Profile where they post information about themselves and these Profiles form the platform for much of the interaction which takes place.They can share photos and videos, set up RSS blog feeds, converse in live chat, set up interest groups, organise events, write on discussion boards, play games, exchange virtual hugs, throw pies at each other and bite each other’s imaginary vampires (yes, really, they can) - the list goes on and on. . .

Facebook Pages were created in order to allow organisations and businesses to have a Facebook presence without using “Profiles” which are intended for the use of individual people. Pages allow multiple people to have edit rights without the need to share a password.They also provide administrators with usage statistics and allow for all that targeted marketing (at a price) which Libraries so far have avoided.

The Warwick Library Page has now been live for a year and has changed and developed greatly during that time.This has been possible because of increased student interest and because of the way that Facebook functionality continually develops and evolves. Updating the Page is quick and easy and any mistakes can be quickly removed or rectified.

The involvement of Libraries with Facebook has been a little controversial, with the sceptics arguing that, as Facebook is primarily used as a social space, it is an encroachment on that space to put academic or commercial content there. With this in mind, we asked our Students’ Union at Warwick for their opinion about us getting involved and they couldn’t have been more positive. In fact they are now linking from their Facebook Pages to ours, and hosting our videos on their Freshers’ Pages. But more generally, I think this argument is out of date. In 2007 Facebook membership ceased to be the exclusive domain of University students and was opened up to anyone with a registered email address (1).This of course makes it very profitable advertising space and so Facebook is now filled with sophisticatedly targeted in-your-face ads for everything from apples to Zanzibar. Libraries have not (so far) used this aggressive marketing approach (perhaps partly because you have to pay for

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If you are looking for us, we are easy to find, and once you have added yourself as a Fan of Warwick University Library we can contact you with “Updates” to tell you about new services, vacation loan periods, changes to opening hours, competitions and anything else we feel you should know about.

And if you get sick of hearing from us you can switch our Updates off without having to remove yourself from our list of Fans.

Our Fans also have a range of useful tools at their fingertips every time they log into Facebook.They have direct links to the Library’s subject specific resource pages, they can access photos and videos we post (very useful following our recent major refurbishment), search some of our bibliographic databases and access COPAC and WorldCat. And the functionality we can offer changes and grows as Facebook evolves.The most recent addition to our Page is an Application which allows us to RSS all three of our Subject Teams blogs into Facebook.

As well as Pages and Profiles, Facebook is choc-full of Applications. Applications are gadgets which members can add to their Profiles which allow users to do anything and everything from calculating their Body Mass Index to comparing their movie preferences with friends and sending each other plants for their virtual gardens …or even searching their Library’s catalogue.

Our Library Management System Co-ordinator found some code posted on an LMS forum by Ryerson University Library which could be adapted to build a Facebook catalogue search application for Warwick. It took our Systems Specialist less than half a day to build, test and launch the application, which currently has 44 fans, 46 monthly active users (this is higher during term time) and a total of 663 people who have installed it (3).

it). Library offerings on Facebook are generally confined to Pages and Applications. If you are not looking for us, you are unlikely to know we are there. We are in your Facebook, not in your face.With minimal

Once into the catalogue these users then have all kinds of additional Web 2.0 functionality and mash ups such as the option to add catalogue record links to their del.ici.ous accounts, link to the Internet Movie Database to view clips and synopses of DVDs we have in stock, and access Amazon content such as book reviews etc. Our Facebook Application is now also acting as a gateway into lots of other Web 2.0 gadgets which have now been employed within our OPAC thanks to our forward-thinking Metadata Librarians. A Facebook presence is much more than a presence on Facebook.

advertising by Warwick - relying mostly on the viral marketing which happens as a result of being on Facebook anyway - the Warwick Library Facebook Page has (in a year) gathered 770 self-selected “Fans” to date(2).

When the project started I fully expected almost all of our fans would be undergraduates, and a few curious librarians from other institutions. However,

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a quick look down the list of Fans today shows me a high number of Warwick postgraduates, staff and alumni. Many of our Fans do not disclose their relationship to the University, and so we will never really know who is using our Facebook service. But, knowing that researchers and postgraduates are signing up as Fans tells us that we could, if we chose to, advertise our targeted postgraduate portfolio as well as our more general services.

So far very little energy has been invested in our Facebook project, and we are already seeing returns in the form of a growing base of online Fans we can easily contact and a raised online profile. Statistics from our official web site show that the links from our Facebook Page are being used to access our subject specific resources, perhaps not as much as we would like, but it is happening. So we are starting to consider future possibilities for Facebook involvement. Ideas being thrown around include the creation of a Fines Calculator Application and the possibility of fielding library enquiries and feedback through a discussion board.Who knows, perhaps by this time next year our Facebook fans will be pitting their Virtual Subject Librarians against each other in a battle of search-skills prowess.

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A delicious.com taster: case studies from the Institute of Education Gwyneth Price. Institute of Education, London.

My interest in the use of social software, and specifically the social bookmarking site delicious (www.delicious.com), developed from my involvement in the Lassie project, which explored how social software might enhance distance learners' use of libraries (see http://clt.lse.ac.uk/Projects/LASSIE.php ) This article does not explain how to use delicious, which is described on its home page as “the biggest collection of bookmarks in the universe…” As well as proving extremely useful for sharing resources with the project team I found that delicious became an essential tool for organising my personal and professional web links.

This paper will look at three case studies using delicious in slightly different ways; firstly as a way for students to share ideas and resources; secondly as a different way to encourage information literacy skills; and thirdly as a networking tool for a professional group.

References

1. The PGCE project.

1. Phillips S. A brief history of Facebook. Guardian News and Media Limited; 2007 [updated 28th August 2007; cited 2008 17th November 2008]; Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jul/25/media.newmedia.

In the summer of 2007 I made contact with a new course tutor on the Primary PGCE course at the Institute of Education (IoE) and we discussed different uses for social software.We decided that it would be useful to see whether students on a course of this nature, which involves practical classroom teaching as well as academic study, would find a tool such as delicious attractive and beneficial.We agreed to select a shared tag which all the students (about 200) would be made aware of. In order to provide a starting point I entered about 25 items from the course reading list, plus a few others which I wanted to recommend, with the tag ioepgce2007.The students were encouraged to add additional web resources which they found useful for their learning and teaching, again using the ioepgce2007 tag as well as further tags to organise their material.The project began in October 2007 and got off to a fairly slow start; when I talked with the students in December they were struggling with the concept of tagging and it was obvious that key word searching was similarly a mystery to them. Some discussion clarified this for them but with more time an exercise using Flickr, similar to that described by Hoffman and Polkinghorne (2008), could have been helpful.

2. University Of Warwick. University of Warwick Library Facebook Page.

2008 [cited 2008 12th December 2008]; Available from: http: //www.facebook.com/pages/Coventry-UnitedKingdom/University-Of-Warwick-Library/6168162503.

3. Statistics taken from University of Warwick Application Admin pages (unpublished) [accessed 5th December 2008]

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By July 2008 there were 566 items with the ioepgce2007 tag. In exploring these and considering why they might have been selected it was useful to divide them into the popular (ie 700+ other users of delicious had tagged them) and the unusual and unexpected.The popular included Futurelab, Primary Resources UK,Teachers’ TV, Maths is fun, Intute,Turning the Pages (British Library), Surveymonkey, RSS in Plain English on YouTube, ARKive: images of life on earth.There seemed little to worry about in terms of the quality and applicability of these resources. Some interesting (for me) resources included Potatoes for Schools (produced by the Potato Council), “Good morning” in more than 250 languages and Fascinating fireflies (on the Crayola website).

YouTube is a source of some dubious material including Dave Allen “Telling the time” (very funny but probably infringing copyright) and some fascinating ideas such as using a Wiimote to create a £40 multi-touch interactive whiteboard. It was also interesting to discover links to other PGCE student activities, such as the University of Northampton Primary PGCE blog. All these resources are easy to find using the delicious search facility.

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sharing bookmarks with conference attendees, e.g. http://delicious.com/GwynethP/LISEconf but I had hoped that members of the group would add additional material. Although colleagues are quite interested in principle, in practice it is as difficult to remember to collect resources in this way as it is to update a blog. As we all become more experienced with using a range of social software tools it is likely we will consider it normal to share our findings in different ways. I’m sure there are many other ways to use delicious which we’ll find different ways of sharing.

Reference Hoffman, C. & Polkinghorne, S. (2008) “Sparking Flickrs of insight into controlled vocabularies and subject searching” in Godwin, P. & Parker, J. (eds) Information Literacy meets Library 2.0. Facet Publishing

2. Information Literacy My initial use of delicious in information literacy sessions with students was as a bookmarking site. As I work in a predominantly post-graduate institution I generally include suggestions about using EndNote to save the results of literature searches. However with our in-service B.Ed students I decided to substitute some suggestions about using social bookmarking sites, particularly delicious. Students have been almost unanimously pleased to discover such a resource and collect resources with alacrity but I hadn’t anticipated how quickly some of the more internet savvy would discover the search facility on the site. Because delicious is evidently used by many teachers and trainees it is an excellent source for practical resources which are not submitted to journals and delicious is an excellent complement to British Education Index and our library catalogue which we generally recommend as key resources for our students.Tags used by teachers are likely to be relevant and specific to their needs so delicious may well prove more effective than Google in specific contexts and students seem to find it easier to consider quality issues when they are aware that material has been posted by people rather than found by a machine. Delicious may well have wider uses for exploring information literacy at undergraduate level.

3.Professional Networking My third experiment with delicious has been its use for sharing resources with a professional network or Enquiry Desk team.This is akin to its regular use for ALISS Quarterly 4 (2) January 2009 _____________________________________________________

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The evolution of a podcast: printed guided tour to audio tour and beyond David Bell, Assistant Subject Librarian; Debbie Lenihan, Assistant Subject Librarian; Steve Burholt, E-learning Systems Developer Oxford Brookes University In the beginning The podcast for the Wheatley Campus Library at Oxford Brookes was developed from an existing paper guide. Although guided library tours had taken place at the larger Headington campus, there were insufficient staff available at Wheatley to run undergraduate tours. Students were given a guided tour booklet which developed into a Library quiz to add interest.

A review of this quiz in the summer of 2006 led to a discussion about a more efficient way of providing tours.

Observing increasing numbers of students wandering around with their MP3 players led us to consider the idea of an audio tour which students could download.We had heard of podcasting, indeed it had been suggested as a means to promote the Library by a recent job applicant. However, nobody had any idea how you produced one and there was no other School or Directorate within Oxford Brookes that used this particular web 2.0 technology at the time.The podcast idea, however, overcame one of the great problems with audio tours – the provision of equipment. Students came with their own!

We already had a script in the tour booklet and with a little re-writing and some photographs of the Library we could potentially link a sound commentary with images. This would be made available to students over our Library web pages and have the added benefit of providing a tour for distance learners and other potential library visitors. Most importantly we had a Computer Support Officer with a background in sound engineering and a great deal of enthusiasm who was willing to experiment with a new freeware piece of software called Audacity to produce broadcast quality sound files for us.

Surely it could not be that difficult to produce a sound file and add it to a web page?

series of podcast episodes we have also discovered how difficult it is to produce quality sound and video and how important it is to be aware of potential legal issues with copyright and obtain permission for photo and audio content.

The techie bits For this project, Computer Services and the Library funded the purchase of two Audio Technica microphones, and an M-Audio soundcard.We used a standard laptop to record the interviews, positioning one microphone next to each person speaking.The free software Audacity was chosen to record the recordings which appear as a graphical display which made it easy to find parts of the audio and edit them.

The next stage was to export the file from Audacity in MP3 format.

This produces a smaller, compressed file. At this point there is an option to add information about the podcast, which will appear on the user’s MP3 player.

A simple audio tour on a webpage cannot be called a podcast if it does not have a RSS feed attached to it. RSS or Really Simple Syndication allows students to subscribe to the podcast, and software on their computers or MP3 players automatically downloads any new episodes when available. So we had to produce a RSS feed, which tells the user the name of the podcast, and where the episodes are stored.

For our project, the RSS feed file was created manually, with information added about new episodes whenever they were released. This requires technical knowledge, although it is reasonably straightforward and can be handled by someone with web page design experience.There are other ways of managing RSS feeds automatically, either by publishing the podcast via a blog, or using a dedicated podcast production system such as Apple Podcast Producer.

In conclusion, we found that best audio results were achieved by using external microphones, and a soundcard. However this requires some technical set-up and knowledge of audio, including microphone placement, file formats and mono/stereo. An easier option is to use a standalone digital sound recorder with a built in microphone although technical knowledge may still be required to transfer the file from the recorder for editing.

Well of course it would not have been, except that you have to do more than add a sound file to a web page to produce a podcast. And that was where the fun started and the stress levels began to build. In the process of building our

No holding back

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Following the audio tour launch in September 2006, the relocation of the School of Engineering to Wheatley presented us with an opportunity for an

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episode entitled ‘What’s new in the Library?’ We then thought a significant ‘pull factor’ would be to record interviews with willing academics about how students could make best use of the Library and manage their learning more effectively. Two interviews were produced, in October 2006 and March 2007, one with an Economics lecturer and the other with a professor in the Business School. Both episodes were well received by the Business School and we also managed to feature one of them on the Brookes University homepage which was a first for the Library.

Has the gain been worth the pain? We certainly think so, and apart from raising the Library’s profile, the project has also enabled the team to forge links with staff in other departments, namely AV Services, the Business School and Computer Services. Developing podcast episodes has enhanced the Library staff’s own skills in IT and Web 2.0 applications, and has encouraged colleagues at another site Library to produce their own audio tour. On a wider front, it has raised discussion within the University on adopting best practice in podcasting, and dealing with branding and copyright issues.

We have found that maintaining the momentum in producing podcast episodes has been difficult at times and only our enthusiasm for the project has kept it going. Problems were created when our friendly Computer Support Officer was seconded elsewhere and there was a certain amount of scrabbling around for equipment to continue the project which as yet had no budget.The podcast team had supplied the background research but could they handle the technical side?

And finally, please take a look for yourself – www.brookes.ac.uk/library/podcast/wheatley/home.html

In December 2007 the opportunity arose to promote the new self issue system, something which lent itself to video.We loaded Microsoft Photo Story onto an old laptop, shut a member of the Library staff in a quiet cupboard with a voice recorder and a script and then spent many hours putting the two together. Flushed by this success, we were keen to develop the videocasting technology further, and over the summer of 2008 we filmed Jude Carroll, a leading expert in plagiarism, offering advice to students.

The pain and the glory Every podcast episode is labour intensive and it takes time to come up with ideas, contact willing participants, locate recording venues and beg or borrow equipment. Once you have a recording you still have to spend time editing it to ensure that the quality matches what our generation of students are used to finding on the internet.

We have reviewed the use of the episodes as the project has evolved; a recent small scale survey showed that in terms of development, more than 60% of students indicated that they would be interested in podcasts concerning information skills.

Therefore, we feel that we are moving in the right direction with our latest episode on plagiarism which is short, visual and full of practical advice.

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How the West was won: Providing repositories across the principality of Wales Stuart Lewis, Repositories Support Project / Welsh Repository Network, Aberystwyth University and Hannah Payne Repositories Support Project, Aberystwyth University

Introduction Within Wales there exists a close-knit community of twelve higher education institutions (HEIs).We have our own funding body, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) , and our own library and IT forums: Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum (WHELF) and Higher Education Wales Information Technology (HEWIT) .Three years ago, like the rest of the UK, the number of Welsh HEIs with repositories was very low, and those that existed contained very little in the way of content. In contrast today, there is full coverage with each institution running a growing repository. Some are maturing; some are still just starting out but with the assistance of the dedicated Welsh arm of the JISC-funded Repositories Support Project (RSP) the essential building blocks of the repositories are in place.

Background Back in 2006, the JISC launched its Repositories and Preservation programme with the vision ‘to establish a network of digital resources and services’ by the programme’s end in March 2009. At this point in time there were only two institutional repositories within Wales; one at Aberystwyth University and one at Cardiff University. Both of these were only being run as pilot services, and contained very little content.

The biggest driver for repositories at the time was as a store for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs).There was a sense that theses would make the ideal first candidates to populate an institutional repository- they were home

grown documents and would benefit from being made available online; beingread rarely at best and taking up increasing amounts of precious shelf space.The national libraries had also started thinking about storing theses electronically, through the EThOS project at the British Library, and the Repository Bridge project at the National Library of Wales.Concurrently, Research Councils UK had started to publish deposit mandates concerning access to their funded research outputs.These mandates meant that any university that received research funding from these bodies would require a repository in order to fulfil the terms and conditions of the grants. Preserving and providing access to the locally generated research was to become a new function for many HEI’s libraries.

With the combination of the national libraries driving the ETD agenda; and HEI libraries and academics realising that they had to work together in order to satisfy the research funders; a compelling case for each institution running their own repository was growing

Repository funding In 2006 the JISC also issued a funding call including a set of repository projects under the banner of ‘Start-Up and Enhancement (SUE).’ These projects were designed to create new repositories or to enhance existing repositories.The projects worked on a matched-funding basis, where the JISC would pay part of the project cost, and the institution would match a similar amount with local resources.

Under the WHELF umbrella, Aberystwyth University successfully bid for money to buy each HEI in Wales the hardware that it required to run an institutional repository. £4,000 per institution was given, with matched-funding being provided locally through the staff effort required to procure, install, and run each of the repositories.

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Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW): http://www.hefcw.ac.uk/

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Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum (WHELF): http://whelf.ac.uk/background.shtml 3 4

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Higher Education Wales Information Technology (HEWIT): http://www.hewit.ac.uk/

JISC. (2007). EThOS project. Retrieved Dec. 5, 2008, from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitalrepositories2005/ethos.aspx.

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Lewis, S. (2005). Repository Bridge: Automated Linkage of National and Institutional Repositories. Retrieved Dec. 5, 2008, from: http://www.inf.aber.ac.uk/bridge/.

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The RSP is a consortium project led by SHERPA at the University of Nottingham with core partners Aberystwyth University and UKOLN at the University of Bath. For more information about the RSP please see: http://www.rsp.ac.uk/project/about (Retrieved Dec. 5, 2008).

JISC. (2006). Repositories and Preservation programme. Retrieved Nov. 17, 2008, from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/repres.aspx

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JISC. (2007). Repositories Start-up and Enhancement projects. Retrieved Dec. 5, 2008, from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/reppres/sue.aspx.

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Lewis, S. (2007).Welsh Repository Network Start-up project: Project Plan. Retrieve Dec. 5, 2008, from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/reppres/wrn_project_plan_webversion. doc. _____________________________________________________ ALISS Quarterly 4 (2) January 2009

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The consortia bid stated the following aim: “to support a centrally managed hardware procurement programme designed to provide every HEI in Wales with dedicated and configured repository hardware as a significant step towards realisation of a Welsh Repository Network (WRN)”.

This was to be achieved through close collaboration with the technical, organisational and operational support provided by the Welsh team of the JISC funded RSP, based at Aberystwyth University.

In addition to providing the hardware required, the WRN project promised to create a suite of twelve case studies, documenting the hardware purchases of each institution.

The institutions in Wales are diverse in size and type, ranging from large research-led institutions to smaller liberal arts or specialist institutions.This range of backgrounds would require a variety of hardware and software solutions that fitted with their existing infrastructure. It was hoped that creating these case studies would assist other universities, with similar backgrounds and infrastructures, to gauge what hardware they would need to establish their own repository.

Repository procurement and installation During late 2007 and 2008, each of the twelve WHELF members had to decide how to spend their hardware money.The range of choices made fell into four broad categories: 1. Purchase standalone hardware to run the repository:This was a common choice in small to medium sized institutions where each service typically runs on its own dedicated hardware. £4,000 was enough to buy a server with multiple processors and good amounts of memory and disk space.

2. Procure shared hardware that would be shared with other similar local projects:Two of the universities purchased hardware to share with their web platforms. As their web server platforms required similar web and database capabilities, they could purchase larger systems and split them between their web and repository systems.

3. Buy in to a share of a larger computing platform, typically a virtualized system:This type of system consists of a small number of high powered servers, each of which run several ‘virtual’ servers.

These larger servers require more initial investment that can be hard for smaller institutions, but can offer cost and environmental savings in the longer term.The larger institutions favoured this solution.

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4. Purchase a hosted solution:Two of the smaller institutions chose to draw on current relationships and host their repositories on hardware at a larger institution. One university decided to use their hardware allowance to instead buy a hosted solution from a commercial company, allowing them to also outsource the technical support and customisation of the repository.

Of the twelve repositories developed, ten use the DSpace platform, one uses the EPrints platform, and the twelfth is hosted by BEPress using the Digital Commons platform.

The current position Now at the end of 2008, all twelve repositories have been established, and are in various stages of use. Some are just starting to have their first items deposited, while others now contain hundreds of items and are actively managed and developed by dedicated repository staff.Three of the universities have staff with sole responsibility for the repository based in the library (or converged Information Services department); eight are run by library staff as part of another role; and one is run by the research office in conjunction with the IT department.

A quarterly video-conference is held with repository staff from each WRN institution to discuss their progress and to exchange ideas. In addition to this, for the past two years a dedicated repository stream has been run at the annual WHELF/ HEWIT Gregynog colloquium.This allows all staff to meet together in person, give presentations about their repositories, and to hear a keynote speech.These meetings continue to foster the close working relationship that exists between library and IT staffing Wales.

The RSP has been active in visiting each institution several times per year.

Visits have ranged from speaking at research management boards, through technical visits to install and customise repository software, to meeting with grass roots staff to share ideas and experiences.The RSP has facilitated the sharing and supportive culture within the Welsh repository community.

Repositories within the WRN have also received a welcome boost in support from their institutions. One university now has a research deposit mandate to collect all of the written university research outputs, and there are several institutions (with more in the planning stages) with electronic thesis deposit mandates.The institutions continue to work with the British Library and the National Library of Wales to collectively move to storing theses electronically.

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Developing Open Content: The POCKET Experience

Other external drivers have helped with the population of the repositories.

Several of the partners have imported their 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) data into their repositories, and many are starting to examine how the repositories can assist with the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Much has changed within the repository world in Wales in the last two years, and this rate of change will most likely continue and increase over the next two.

Sarah Darley (Learning Technologist) Dave O’Hare Sarah Malone (Project Manager) The Project on Open Content for Knowledge Exposition and Teaching (POCKET) is a JISC funded 18-month project due to end in March 2009 and falls under the Repositories and Preservation Programme.The project is based upon the belief that learners at HEI’s across England and the rest of the UK would benefit from more stand-alone, freely accessible educational resources designed for HE study. In addition, the creation of new courses (campus-based or distance learning) could also benefit from an enlarged pool of Open Content HE-level resources.

The JISC LXP Student Experiences of Technology project examined undergraduate learners’ behaviour with respect to their use of technology.

It found, in each of the disciplines studied, that learners increasingly used public websites and services when seeking to meet educational needs in preference to any facilities provided by their host institution.The project also showed that as a result of this, learners demonstrated highly effective independent learning strategies. Many UK educational institutions have so far done little to support such strategies, opting instead to keep all the learning resources they have developed in private locations accessible only by their own students.

However, this looks set to change with the recent announcement by HEFCE that £5.7 million of funding will soon be available for pilot projects that will open up existing quality assured educational resources from higher education institutions to the world.The 12-month projects will be managed jointly by the Higher Education Academy and JISC and will fall under an Open Educational Resources Programme.

The Open University took a major step towards Open Content in 2005 through its £5.65m OpenLearn initiative, developed with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.Through OpenLearn, the Open University offers free-standing educational resources, developed from their existing portfolio of courses.

University of Wales, Bangor have been participating in the REF Pilot Exercise. Details of the REF and this pilot exercise can be found at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/ (Retrieved Dec. 5, 2008).

Project website: www.derby.ac.uk/pocket Joint Information Systems Committee: www.jisc.ac.uk 3 Final report: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/lxp_project_final_report_nov_06.pdf 4 Higher Education Funding Council for England: www.hefce.ac.uk 5 OpenLearn: http://openlearn.open.ac.uk

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These resources are made freely accessible under a Creative Commons license, which allows non-commercial use with attribution but restricts commercial exploitation. OpenLearn also provides a set of tools to help authors publish material and to support collaborative learning communities. It is organised in two parts: the LearningSpace, which offers free course material from Open University courses; and the LabSpace, where users can upload and remix content.

POCKET aims to capitalise on the investment in OpenLearn to build a wider pool of quality assured HE-level Open Content.To achieve this it has brought together four partner institutions to explore the potential of Open Content for HEIs, both as providers of it and as users.These partners include: the University of Derby, the Open University, University of Bolton and University of Exeter.

Project Aims POCKET aims to build upon the OpenLearn approach by extending it to other HEIs, specifically aiming to: •

Provide support for learners adopting independent learning strategies

•

Promote effective mechanisms for converting existing course materials into stand-alone educational resources

•

Establish how much effort is required to create fully tagged XMLformatted stand-alone Open Content from existing materials.

POCKET will use XML as this format offers maximum flexibility in terms of searching, transferring and outputting contents.

• •

•

• • • •

•

Making the material relevant to a global audience (i.e. taking into account any specific cultural references included in the material) Ensuring that the language in the material is appropriate to the open learning environment (i.e. no references to a tutor or to formative assessment) Including a range of activities to help learners test their own knowledge and to make the material as interesting and as engaging as possible Including some kind of feedback for all activities as learners will be reading this material independently Awareness of copyright issues, especially if there are any third party materials in the text Accessibility issues, as with any online educational material Breaking up each module into manageable sections of information suitable for online learning: on OpenLearn these sections are called units Each unit had to be provided with a total number of study hours and a difficulty level as a guide for learners

•

Develop a module from scratch with all materials created for it designed as Open Content

All materials published by POCKET are designed to be stand-alone with no dependencies on other materials. This independence is important for ensuring they are relevant both to individual learners who discover them following a search and to course creators who require resources that can be used in a variety of contexts.

•

Add a significant resource to JorumOpen

The module material developed so far for POCKET includes:

Content Development Process Another key aim of POCKET is the documentation of the project content development process.This includes documenting the many steps and considerations involved in developing module material into open content and also the technical aspects of ensuring that the material is compatible with the OpenLearn platform.

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POCKET has so far documented a range of considerations for developing module material into open content, including:

Jorum is the JISC-funded collaborative venture in UK Higher and Further Education to collect and share learning and teaching materials, allowing their reuse and repurposing www.jorum.ac.uk

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2.

3.

Business and Sustainability module from the MSc Sustainable Development at the University of Exeter Customer Service Skills module from the Foundation Degree in Hairdressing and Salon Management at the University of Derby International Economic Law module from the LL.M Commercial Law at the University of Derby, which was written from scratch specifically as open content

One challenge of POCKET is to demonstrate seamless interoperability between OpenLearn and other repositories.This is important because the reuse and _____________________________________________________ ALISS Quarterly 4 (2) January 2009

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repurposing of materials is a key intention of materials published as Open Content. OpenLearn allows units to be downloaded for free in a variety of different formats to re-use and to re-purpose, including: • • • • • • • •

PDF Print Format XML file RSS feed OU XML Package IMS Content Package IMS Common Cartridge 1.0 Plain Zip of all files Moodle Backup

The project has been advised throughout by Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability and Standards (CETIS ) on standards issues.

Future Plans POCKET is currently recruiting new partners and collaborators to work with until the project ends in March. POCKET hopes to continue the work it has already done on the project, and will make all of its materials available from JorumOpen, as well as from OpenLearn.

JorumOpen is to be available from next year and will provide a place on Jorum for educational content whose creators and owners who are willing and are able to share their content on a global basis under the terms of a Creative Commons licence.

POCKET aims to build on the experience of the project and looks forward to working with both JISC and Jorum to continue to push the OER agenda forward, both within the University of Derby and across the sector as whole.

For more information on POCKET please visit the project website: www.derby.ac.uk/pocket

Cataloguers’ and other information professionals’ view of creating Dublin Core and MARC21 records for resource description Resoum Kidane Introduction MARC (Machine Readable Catalogue Format) was developed by the Library of Congress as a means of exchanging library catalogue records in the 1960s. Its development also significantly contributed to the growth of library automation and to the development of online public access catalogues (OPAC) in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the limitation of MARC in supporting resource discovery was realised with the explosive growth of digital documents in the 1990s.

Evidence of this is supported by various sources. Khurshid (2002) mentions that the MARC format works fine for describing traditional library material, but it does not work as well for most electronic resources. Coyle (2000) also states that MARC was developed as a machine-readable holder for sharable bibliographic description. Ede (2001) explains that the main drawback of MARC is due to the lack of common standardisation arising from the number of national MARC format variants, and also the apparent competition between UNIMARC and MARC21.

Consequently, in the 1990s various metadata formats were developed for the description of digital documents on the Web. Dublin Core is one of these formats which were developed in 1995 at a workshop by OCLC to improve bibliographic control of web pages. Cathro (1997) adds that the Dublin Core metadata element set was developed as a response to these needs to improve retrieval of information resources, especially on the World Wide Web. Since its development the Dublin Core Metadata Element Sets and other metadata schemes are now widely used for electronic records management systems. This could be due to the simple structure of Dublin Core, and the fact that it is cheap to apply by non-professional cataloguers, and also that its records can be encoded in XML, html and RDF. As a result of the above and other factor not mentioned the future of MARC has became an issue amongst information professionals, and there is a possibility that Dublin core will replace MARC for cataloguing both digital and print documents.

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CETIS: http://jisc.cetis.ac.uk/

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Therefore to obtain information about the attitudes of cataloguers and other information professionals with regard to their awareness of Dublin core as well as their view of Dublin Core and MARC21 use a resource description in the digital age, a brief survey was conducted in June 2007. _____________________________________________________ ALISS Quarterly 4 (2) January 2009

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The main aim of this research is to find out different opinions within academic and research libraries on the use of Dublin Core and MARC 21 for resource description in order to answer the research question

Core and MARC21.There is a brief discussion about the findings of the survey separately in section 5.

Research question

Most of the respondents 29(72.5%) were cataloguers, there were only 11(27.5%) respondents from others occupation. Of those 1(2.5%) were information Specialist, 3(7.5%); researchers; and 7(17.5%) Others(system librarian, information consultant, director, educator etc.)

It was assumed that Dublin Core is not widely used for cataloguing especially by cataloguers compared with other information professionals.This assumption raised this question: “What is the perception of cataloguers and other information professionals about the future cataloguing or description of resources in the digital age?

Methodology and Data collection The collection of data involved use of a structured and semi-structured questionnaire.The questionnaire was comprised of questions mainly focused on the type of bibliographic format in use for resources description, and use of Dublin Core and MARC21 for resource description related issues.

The target of this study was cataloguers and other information professionals who use any metadata standard elements for describing electronic resources (electronic prints).

The questionnaire was sent to selected mailing list subscribers and posted blogs assuming that they were heavily used by cataloguers, information specialists, researchers employed within academic, research, national and governmental libraries.

A decision was made in choosing a sample (to include all the above professionals) from different regions who are subscribers to the following mailing lists: AutoCat, MARC@sun8.LOC.GOV, LISTSERV@JISCMAIL.AC.UK, diglib@infoserv.inist.fr, OCLC-CAT@OCLC.ORG, DCAGENTS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK, ALISS, and also to potential users of the following blogs ISKO UK and Catalogblog.

Results Fifty responses were received from cataloguers and other information professionals from North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Of the 50 responses received, 80% respondents sent a completed survey; and 20% respondents failed to complete the questionnaire. Because of this only 40 responses were included for the data analysis of this survey. Of those 60% respondents were from Canada and USA, 32.5%, Europe, 5% China, and 2.5% South Africa The findings of the survey are summarized in three sub- sections: respondents’ background, awareness of the Dublin Core, and comparison between Dublin ALISS Quarterly 4 (1) October 2008 _____________________________________________________

Respondents background information

Additionally, the result of this survey found out that, 26 (65%) respondents are working in academic libraries whereas 6(15%) respondents are working in the government libraries and 8 (20%) in other places.

Hence, respondents who are cataloguers, and also those who working in the Academic library have the highest number in this survey.This might be because of the research question which raises an interesting issue about the trend of cataloguing in the digital age which will be greatly affect cataloguers especially for those who working in the academic libraries.

Those libraries where the respondents working are defined by 16(41%) digital library, 18(46 %) hybrid library, and 5(13 %) as others. Regarding the library management systems which are used in those libraries, 38 (95%) respondents said that they are using different library management systems. As can be seen from table 1 Aleph and Voyage library management systems are used more frequently than other library management systems which are cited by respondents.

Table 1. Library Management Systems Categorise Cataloguer Information Specialist Researcher Other Total

library management Aleph Innopac 8 6 1 0 1 0 2 0 12 (32%) 6 (15.5%)

system which is used by respondents Liberto Sersi Others Voyager 0 3 2 7 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 1 0 2 2 1 (2.5%) 4 (10.5%) 6 (15.5%) 9 (24%)

Total 26 1 4 7 38

However, only 9 (28%) respondents said that their library management systems support Dublin Core or XML. The other 23 (72%) respondents state that their library management systems did not support either of them.

Awareness of the Dublin Core Although 40 (100%) respondents are aware of Dublin Core, it is only used by 21 (52.5%) respondents these are 11 (52%) cataloguers, 1(4.5%) information specialist, 3(14%) researchers and 6 (28.5 %) others. A researcher, the _____________________________________________________ ALISS Quarterly 4 (1) October 2008

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cataloguers, an archivist, an educator and a director who responded gave various explanations for using Dublin Core according to their response the reason for using Dublin Core are summarized as follows: it is simple and cost- effective; its use to support digitisation projects; its use to allow the creation of simple record and basic data entry such as minutes, reports, and policies ; its use for mapping bibliographic data (MARC21) to archival catalogue data (based on ISAD(G) and museum collections data (SPECTRUM-Based, its use for teaching purpose, and for creating metadata for images.

Comparison between Dublin Core and MARC21 a.

The finding of this research in fig. 2 also showed that the use of MARC21 for description of e-theses and digital by respondents is greater than Dublin Core.

This was verified by 27 (67.5%) of respondents. Of those 10 (37%) and 12 (44 %) respondents use Dublin Core and MARC21 respectively, 3 (11 %) respondents use both of them, and 2 (8%) use others.

50%

The finding of this survey also showed that Dublin Core is not used for resource description by 19(47.7%) of respondents. As for not using Dublin Core, respondents gave different explanations.To mention a few: an information consultant said that “customers use professional or work oriented metadata schemes like LON Fr, or others”. A cataloguer also states that Dublin Core is too simple.

45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15%

Concerning of application of the 15 basic elements of Dublin Core for creating description of resources, 9 (36%) respondents said that they use all 15 basic elements of Dublin Core, and the remaining 16 (64%) respondents said that they don’t use them. See fig 1 Fig 1. Applying the 15 basic elements of Dublin yes no

36 %

64 %

10% 5% 0% MARC 21

Fig. 2

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Dublin Cor e

Both

Other s

Use of Metadata formats for resource description.

Concerning encoded or embedded Dublin Core, 23 (57.5%) of respondents described that Dublin Core is encoded in XML, HTML, RDF and MARC. Figure 3 below shows that 14 (61%) respondents encoded Dublin Core in XML which is more than those who encoded Dublin Core in HTML 6 (26%) and RDF 3(13%).

To find out if they added qualified Dublin Core in addition to the basic element for creating description only 8 (28.5%) respondents said that Yes, and 20 (71.5%) No. As can be seen from Fig. 1, there are only 8 (28.5%) of respondents who added Qualified Dublin Core.Those respondents gave different reasons for example :Applying basic elements of DC is too simple; Qualified Dublin Core is part of dataset for the e-prints/e-theses records; Qualified Dublin Core is necessary to define corporate and personal creators, subject etc. On the other hand one respondent who is a researcher gave as his reason for not using either basic or qualified, “It’s not sufficient for us to just use DCMES and Qualified DC.We add a few localized elements on the DC schema”

Use of Metadata formats for resource description

70 % 60 % 50 % 40 % 30 % 20 % 10 %

0%

XM L

HTM L

RD F

Fig. 3 Dublin Core Metadata embedded b.

Comparisons between MARC21 and Dublin Core

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Fig 4. shows that only 6 (16.6%) of respondents are applying Dublin Core for cataloguing digital and electronic theses, whereas another 30 (83.4%) respondents do not apply it.There is an assumption that those might use MARC21 instead.

17 % Ye s

No

83 %

Fig. 4 Applying of DC for Cataloguing The problems encountered by respondents in applying MARC21 and DC to describe resources are summarised in tables 2 and 3.The findings presented in table 2 show that 9 (32 %) respondents have encountered problems in describing resources with MARC21, whereas another 19 (68 %) have no problems.

According to one respondent who is a researcher, MARC 21 is not suitable to describe e-resources. Another respondent who is a cataloguer also stated that MARC21 is poor at showing the relationship between fields and data; its subfield structure can also be restrictive.

Table.2 Categories

Table. 3 Categorises

Difficulties Yes Cataloguer 3 Information Specialist 1 Researcher 2 Other 4 Total 9

in describing resources with Dublin Core No Total 13 1 0 1 1 3 1 5 15 24

Although 62.5% of respondents mentioned that they have problems with Dublin Core to describe resources, in a separate question 24(60%) respondents expressed their view on advantages the advantage of using Dublin Core compared to MARC21 for resource description, see fig 5. According to their responses 14(58.5%) Dublin Core is easy to create records, 6 (25%) Dublin Core is retrieved by internal and external meta-search engines, 1 (4%) Dublin Core is improved access to electronic materials and 3 (12.5%) others.

See fig.5

60 50 40

Difficulties in describing resources with MARC21 30

Cataloguer Information Specialist Reseearcher Other Total

Yes 5 1 0 3 9

No 15 0 1 3 19

Total 15 1 1 6 28

Regarding difficulties in describing resources with Dublin Core, only 9 (37.5 %) respondents have problems with Dublin Core, whereas 15 (62.5 %) respondents have no problems in applying DC for resource description. One respondent said that DC has been easy to use for describing sets of digitized documents for internal.

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58.5%

20 25%

12.5 %

10 4% 0 Easy t o c r e raet ec o r d s

Retrieve d by s earc h engin e

Impro ving acc ess

Other s

Fig.5 Advantage of using Dublin Core

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C. Future cataloguing As stated earlier in the research question, the main aim of this survey was to find the perception of cataloguers and other information professionals about future cataloguing in describing resources in the digital age. As figure 6 showed that, 38 (95%) of respondents expressed their view about future cataloguing in the following 11( 29 %) respondents strongly believe that MARC will never replace by Dublin Core, 26 (68 %) respondents said that both be used in the future and 1 (3%) other.

Other, 3% Not repla ce, 2 9%

Both, 68 %

Fig.6 Many cataloguers said that MARC is not replaced by Dublin Core because of the followings : DC is not precise; bibliographic control by DC is slippery at best; MARC21 is going to replace seems senseless 15; MARC will not die easily, it has many advantages, and has been around for long time; there is too much political weight behind MARC for it to be replaced by DC, but MARC21 quite adequate for the special materials; DC will not widely understandable and acceptable; DC far too simplistic; something will replace MARC, but not DC? DC and MARC, so perhaps neither will survive eventually; DC will replace MARC-at least not anytime soon; there is a possibility that MARC to be replaced by xml eg MARCXML;

Discussion This research found that 41% respondents defined their library as digital and 46 % respondents defined their library as hybrid. This shows that a rapid growth of Internet resources and digital collections has led to the transformation of libraries from being traditional to digital. As a result of this development information professionals (cataloguers and non-cataloguers) are involved in digital projects to make their library collections accessible through the internet. However MARC, which was developed for describing printed ALISS Quarterly 4 (2) January 2009 _____________________________________________________

the internet. However MARC, which was developed for describing printed materials, encountered problems with cataloguing electronic resources in the digital age. These problems have raised a debate about the future of cataloguing in the digital age.The result of this survey also showed the problems of using MARC for cataloguing internet resources, one respondent of this survey said that MARC is not suitable for describing e-resources. Because of this some librarians have already argued that MARC is not adequate for representing all the useful characteristics of digital resources and they argue that MARC could be replaced by Dublin Core.

There is an argument among information professionals that Dublin Core is more flexible than MARC21 in providing description for Internet resources Indeed, Dublin Core allows anyone to create a simple record. According to Coyle(2005) the purpose of Dublin Core was to provide a simple set of data elements for describing documents and other objects on the internet.

Guinchard (2001) adds that DC meets the need for simple resource description very well. Regarding the simplicity of DC, one respondent also explained that the reason for using DC is due to its simplicity which allows creating of simple records. In addition DC is less labour intensive in comparison to MARC which is expensive to operate and labour intensive because it requires professional cataloguers who have knowledge of cataloguing rules - based on AACR2.

There is also an argument that traditional catalogue code and bibliographic formats (such as AACR and MARC) are not useful for digital resources and this has greatly contributed to the use of Dublin Core for resource description. Lankford (2007) states that the lack of rule and rule interpretations makes the use of Dublin Core simpler and easier for local application. El-Sherbini (2004) also adds that creation of a DC record does not require the detailed knowledge of cataloguing practice.

In addition to the above, Dublin Core is more flexible than MARC, and every element is both optional and repeatable andno element is obligatory. Regarding the complexity of MARC,Tennant (2002) stated that in MARC, field are coded with a numbering scheme that cannot be read by some one unfamiliar with the complicated syntax.

Because of the DC being more flexible than MARC and also allowing for anyone to create simple record, its use for resources description is not only restricted to web pages or other internet resources but also many digital archives of physical objects are starting to make use of the Dublin Core (Dutta 2003)

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The advantage of DC over MARC is not only limited to the above mentioned but it is also used by some librarians as the basis for mapping bibliographic data.This was mentioned by one respondent of this survey.To use Dublin Core also does not need special software or library management systems to create records unlike in creating a bibliographic record in MARC

designation scheme with 1908 field/subfields in comparing with Dublin Core which has only 16 elements. In the survey which was conducted by Guinchard in 2001, the most frequently mentioned challenges in implementation of DC were those related too few elements or qualifiers. This could be a problem for interoperability between MARC and DC

Despite the above advantages of DC, Hopkinson (2003) states that the use of MARC has increased since people began to talk about its demise. He adds that there are now a high number of bibliographic records around the world in the MARC format, and records can easily be transferred from one system to another because they all use ISO 2709 format.This allows for sharing of catalogue records which saves a lot of time and expenditure for the library.

However, a Dublin Core records could not be transferred from one system to another and this may result in duplications of records.

The problem of interoperability is also affirmed by Glasgow Digital Library (2002) and Clarke (1997) both of whom highlighted the possibility for data lose when data is transferred from MARC21 Metadata Schema which is encoded in ISO2709 to Dublin Core Metadata Element Sets (DCMES) Schema which is encoded in XML, RDF and HTML. Figure 3 of this survey also shows that 14 (61%) respondents encoded Dublin Core in XML which is more than those who encoded Dublin Core in HTML 6 (26%) and RDF 3(13%).

MARC supporters also criticize Dublin Core for its lacks of cataloguing rules, and for not being supported by most library systems.This was confirmed from the survey 23 (72%) respondents state that their library management systems did not support Dublin Core. Regarding this Guinchard (2001) in her survey cited that lack of provision for DC input/edit in current ILS is limiting the use of DC. She adds that DC Community needs to take a lead at pushing ILS and museum vendors to begin integrating DC into their systems in order to support both MARC and DC to transfer records without loss of granularity.

As a result of the above advantages of MARC, there is an argument that MARC wouldn’t be replaced by Dublin Core.This is supported by 29 % respondents of this survey. One of those respondents said that MARC will not die easily because it has been around for long time and has many advantage.

Since both MARC and DC have their own strength and weakness there is an argument that it would be worthwhile to use Dublin Core in addition to MARC. (Hakala, 2003) also stated that in addition to these traditional materials libraries need to use new kind of tools alongside the old ones. Dublin Core metadata element set will be one of the new tools.The result of this survey also showed that 68% of respondents said that both MARC and Dublin Core will be used in the future for cataloguing or describing resources.

Thacker (2000) also stated that Dublin Core is not a replacement for the cataloguing record but libraries can also use Dublin Core to harvest or import metadata from other systems as the starting point for their bibliographic work.

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To solve the interoperability between MARC and Dublin Core, there is an attempt to synchronize the Dublin Core and MARC records in order to facilitate the exchange of data between various metadata formats such as Dublin Core and MARC, through incorporating MARC in XML, and developing Metadata Crosswalks.

However since both MARC and Dublin Core records can be represented in XML, it seems that the problems for interoperability between MARC and DC could be solved. As a result of this, data can be transferred between Dublin Core can be encoded in XML and the MARCXML version of MARC21 which is encoded in XML Finally it is worthwhile mentioning that in this survey there is a trend for Dublin Core to be replaced by MODS which is cited by one respondent.

According to Beall (2004) Dublin Core is likely to be replaced soon by an emerging standard the Metadata Object Description Schema MODS, this is because of the Dublin Core weakness of having poor interoperability and nonstandard data elements.

The trends of MARCXML to replace MARC and MODS to replace Dublin Core can be seen from cataloguing job advertisements as most library employers prefer someone who has experience and knowledge of DublĂ­n Core, EAD, MARCXML, and MODS in addition to AACR and MARC. The probability of MARCXML and MODS to be used in the future for resources description also can be seen from the Library of Congress for developing MARCXML for representing a complete MARC record in XML, and the use of MODS instead of MARC for resource descriptions by COPAC [see appendix 1].

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To conclude, the main purpose of this research to find out the perceptions of cataloguers and other information professionals about future cataloguing or description of resources in the digital library.

The finding of this survey affirms that 100% respondents are aware of Dublin Core, and it is also used by 52.5% respondents. It is also possible that the increasing use of xml in the library for bibliographic description will be both MARC21 and Dublin Core superseded by MARCXML and MODS respectfully in the future for resource descriptions.

Appendix 1 Copac Full Record Title details: Published: Physical desc.: Subject: Genre: Language:

Dublin core and metadata applications.

Emerald, 2005. p. 8-9.

Dublin core Metadata applications Conference publication English

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View MODS XML Record <mods xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3" xmlns:h="http://copac.ac.uk/schemas/holdings/v1" xmlns:cpc="http://copac.ac.uk/schemas/mods-copac/v1" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd http://copac.ac.uk/schemas/mods-copac/v1 http://copac.ac.uk/schemas/mods-copac/v1/mods-copac-v1.xsd http://copac.ac.uk/schemas/holdings/v1 http://copac.ac.uk/schemas/holdings/v1/holdings-v1.xsd"> - <recordInfo> <recordIdentifier source="copac">72013402052</recordIdentifier> <recordContentSource>Copac</recordContentSource> <recordCreationDate>20080521</recordCreationDate> </recordInfo> <typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource> - <originInfo> <dateIssued encoding="marc">2005</dateIssued> </originInfo> - <originInfo><publisher>Emerald,</publisher> <dateIssued>2005.</dateIssued> </originInfo> - <titleInfo> <title>Dublin core and metadata applications.</title> </titleInfo> - <subject> <topic>Dublin core</topic> </subject> - <subject> <topic>Metadata applications</topic> </subject> - <language> <languageTerm type="text">English</languageTerm> </language> - <physicalDescription> <extent>p. 8-9.</extent> </physicalDescription>

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<genre authority="marcgt">Conference publication</genre> - <extension> - <h:localHolds> <h:org type="CURL" displayName="British Library">BLI</h:org> <h:objId>72013402052</h:objId> - <h:holds> - <h:item> <h:loc displayName="Document Supply Services">DSC</h:loc> <h:shelfmark>5198.875000</h:shelfmark> </h:item> </h:holds> - <h:holds> - <h:item> <h:loc displayName="Humanities and Social Sciences, St Pancras Reading Rooms">HMNTS</h:loc> <h:shelfmark>LIS</h:shelfmark> </h:item> </h:holds> - <h:holds> - <h:item> <h:loc displayName="Humanities and Social Sciences, St Pancras Reading Rooms">HMNTS</h:loc> <h:shelfmark>2719.y.191</h:shelfmark> </h:item> </h:holds> - <h:holds> - <h:item> <h:loc displayName="Humanities and Social Sciences, St Pancras Reading Rooms">HMNTS</h:loc> <h:shelfmark>2719.k.2087</h:shelfmark> </h:item> </h:holds> <h:localNote /> </h:localHolds> </extension> </mods>

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References Beall, Jeffrey (2004) Dublin Core: An Obituary http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published /EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/2390210812.html Chan, Lois Mai (2005) Metadata Interoperability: A study of methodology http://www.white-clouds.com/iclc/cliej/c119chan.htm Cathro,Warwick(1997) The Dublin Core: Simplicity or Complexity? http://www.nla.gov.au/staffpaper/cathro2.html Clarke, Roger(1997) Beyond the Dublin Core: Rich Meta-Data and convenience of use are compatible after all. http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/DublinCore.html Coyle, Karen (2005?) Understanding metadata and its purpose. Preprint.

Published in Journal of Academic Librarianship, 31 (2) Coyle, Karen (2000) Is MARC dead? A panel at the American Library Association meeting, July, 2000 http://www.kcoyle.net/marcdead/marcdead.html Dutta, Biswanath (2003) Cataloguing web documenting using Dublin Core, MARC 21.

Ede, Stuart (2001) Cataloguing in the Digital Age Liber Quarterly 360-371 El-Sherbini, Magd.. et.al (2004) Metadata and cataloguing practices.The Electronic Library Vol 22, No 3 238-248.

Hakala, Juha (2003?) Internet metadata and library cataloguing http://www.lnb.lt/events/ifla/hakala.html Hopkinson, Alan(2003?) Tradicional communication formats: MARC is far from dead. http://www.lnb.lt/events/ifla/hopkinson.html.

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Glasgow Digital Library (2002) Glasgow Digital Library draft metadata standards policy http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/documents/gdlmetadatapolicy.htm Guinchard, Carolyn (2001) Summary of DC-libraries questionnaire responses.

Metadata Librarian,The Alberta Library , University of Alberta, Canada.

Guenther, Rebecca (2000) DublĂ­n Core and MARC 21:Their relationship and use as metadata for electronic resources. http://www2.sub.unigoettingen.de/metalib/guenther/sld001.htm.

Khurshid, Zahiruddin(2000) From MARC to MARC21 and beyond: some reflections on MARC and the Arabic language Lankford, LaTisha D (2007) Guide for cataloguing legal websites: using MARC and Dublin Core.

MA thesis.

Ramos de Carvalho, Joaquim (2003) Meta-information about MARC: an XML framework for validation, explanation and help systems Tennant, Roy (2002) MARC must die .

Library journal (http://libraryjournal.reviewsnews.com/index.asp.

Thacker, Jane (2000) Standardization and libraries: Secretary of ISO Technical Committee 46, Subcommittee 9 ( url)

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