τεχνοσοφια

I know precious little about rights management.  And what I do know I have gleaned from the occasional Slashdot post or Wired article.  Former colleague Grace Agnew, Associate University Librarian for Digital Library Systems at Rutgers University, has put the wraps on a book about digital rights management targeted at librarians, Digital Rights Management: A Librarian’s Guide to Technology and Practice (also available in paperback):

This book provides an overview of the current landscape in digital rights management (DRM), including: an overview of terminology and issues facing libraries, plus an overview of the technology (including standards and off-the-shelf products). It discusses the role and implications of DRM for existing library services, such as integrated library management systems, electronic reserves, commercial database licenses, digital asset management systems and digital library repositories. It also discusses the impact that DRM ‘trusted system’ technologies, already in use in complementary areas, such as course management systems and web-based digital media distribution, may have on libraries. It also discusses strategies for implementing DRM in libraries and archives for safeguarding intellectual property in the web environment.

If you’re a librarian or information professional looking for an introduction to DRM, an underpinning for rights management strategy, or a refresher on rights management technologies, you might consider checking it out.

For full disclosure, I was one of several reviewers of this book.

I’ve been using my time at RepoCamp today to get the OAI-ORE plugin for WordPress validating again.  I’m having some trouble using the validator so I say that with some diffidence.  But the latest code which is now checked in to the WordPress plugins svn repo ought to be close, if not fully conformant, to the 0.9 version of the ORE spec.

I’m not sure the plugin is really useful; it’s just an Atom feed of all posts and pages in a WP instance.  I can think of some ways to make this more useful, by allowing blog authors to create their own aggregations, pulling in content outside of the particular instance.  I am certain that others can come up with even better uses.  I’m open to suggestions.

Thanks to Jay Datema for prodding me a bit, if indirectly.

About a month ago, I read on my colleague’s blog that the Emory University Digital Library published a new book on sustaining digital libraries.  I’ve finally started reading it and figured I would post a note here.

The articles of this monograph provide resources for digital library stakeholders who seek to better understand how to effectively evolve such efforts from short-term projects to long-term sustainable programs. The monograph includes contributions from leaders in major digital libraries that have made such transitions or which are systematically considering the question of programmatic sustainability, including representatives from the National Digital Infrastructure and Information Preservation Program (NDIIPP) and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL).

I might also note that the book is available for free as a PDF.

So far I’ve read the introduction by the editors and the abstract from Leslie’s paper, and the book looks like a high-quality read from cover to cover, with articles based on actual digital library experience.  It’s a pragmatic approach for how to sustain digital library initiatives, looking beyond technical concerns towards the more challenging social and economic ones.  To some extent, we are getting pretty good at preserving bits and relationships between collections of bits — it is yet to be seen how good we will be at preserving the preservation systems themselves.

It’s hard to believe but I’ve been at the new job for six months already, a full half-year come the 29th. Some days it seems like I’ve been here forever; others like I’m still a rank newb. I haven’t written terribly much about what I’ve been up to (but I assure you I’ve been busy). Let me rectify that.

The Transfer Problem

Two of the projects I’ve been working on relate to a fairly general problem that we like to call “transfer,” which revolves around, well, transferring files to and fro. Sounds simple. Is simple. That is, until you start thinking about preservation and accounting for a highly heterogeneous network with idiosyncratic nodes, esoteric storage software, and differential firewall rules. And that’s where it gets interesting (and problematic). Continue reading…

… meanwhile, the Code4Lib Journal has published its second issue and boy is it packed with articles; Eric Lease Morgan, Coordinating Editor of the issue, does a bang-up job on the introduction (though the title has effectively Bostonroll‘d me).

Each article in this issue has a little bit of something for all who call themselves a librarian or work in a library. Each identifies some sort of library problem to be addressed, and offers one or more solutions. Many are complete with code snippets. After all, this is Code4Lib.

For example, people in public service may be interested in Edward M. Corrado and Kathryn A. Frederick’s review of database-driven subject guide applications. Kenneth Furuta and Michele Potter describe a simple help system that brings librarians running to the reference desk. Margaret Mellinger and Kim Griggs explain how library resources can be organized into course pages without the need of HTML knowledge and yet sport Web 2.0 features. Nancy Fried Foster, Nora Dimmock, and Alison Bersani shed light on participatory design.

For those of us who enjoy cataloging and metadata issues, Jonathan Gorman outlines how he modified VUFind to exploit Wikipedia and cataloging authority records to enhance information about authors in a library catalog. Chris Freeland, Martin Kalfatovic, Jay Paige, and Marc Crozier illustrate a different use of Library of Congress Subject Headings by integrating place names with Google Maps. Carol Jean Godby, Devon Smith and Eric Childress describe a technique for crosswalking just about any metadata format into just about any other metadata format.

For the systems librarian in you, Dan Scott and Kevin Beswick share how they used Linux live CDs customized as kiosk browsers to provide laptops as ‘quick lookup’ stations at their library. Andrew Darby takes advantage of the Google Calendar API to easily manage the display of library hours. Jody DeRidder exploits Google sitemap technology and static HTML pages to make content in the “deep Web” more accessible. We hope you find these articles useful, stimulating, and relevant to your daily working lives.

I am ashamed to admit that I have not yet finished the first issue, so I now have pages upon pages to read. Ordinarily when I am behind on my reading I wind up letting bits fall by the wayside but the material largely looks too good to ignore.

Congratulations to Editorial Committees past and present and to the community on the whole!