While everyone has heard about Z39.50, there is still a lot of uncertainty about its relevance to the library community. “It’s still under development,.” you may have read on lists or heard people say. “It’s too complex to implement.” “It doesn’t work.” “It’s not needed now we have the Web.” In fact, Z39.50 is a mature standard, widely implemented in the library community. It is beginning to solve real problems, not just for libraries, but also for other collecting agencies such as art galleries, museums and archives. Implementors Implementors are no longer focusing on adding new functionality but on ensuring interoperability within and across these communities. Not only is it still relevant in a Web environment, the Web provides opportunities for universal access to Z39.50-enabled databases.

The strategic importance of Z39.50 to the library community lies in its potential to accommodate a wide range of information exchange applications between libraries and consortia. The paper addresses the effect of Z39.50 on an activity the National Library considers important: to support the provision and maintenance of a centralised union catalogue. Following a short overview of the protocol, the distributed method of providing the functionality of a union catalogue by exploiting Z39.50 is compared with centralised models.

2. The Protocol
2.1 History
The development of Z39.50 can be traced back to the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) model, where Z39.50 is an application layer protocol.1 The current version of the protocol was published in 1995 and is titled Information Retrieval (Z39.50): Application Service Definition and Protocol Specification. In this form it is an ANSI/NISO standard (American National Standards Institute, National Information Standards Organization). Previous versions were published in 1992 (version 2) and 1988 (version 1, now considered obsolete). It has become an international standard with ISO number 23950, and the texts of the ISO and ANSI versions are identical. The standard is maintained by the Z39.50 Maintenance Agency at the Library of Congress. The Agency can be accessed at: http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/. At this site, information on current developments of the standard and instructions on how to join the Z39.50 Implementors’ Group (ZIG) discussion list can be found.

2.2 Basics

The core functions of Z39.50 relate to searching and retrieving information from databases stored on multiple host sites. The protocol “specifies data structures and interchange rules that allow a client machine (called an ‘origin’ in the standard) to search databases on a server machine (called a ‘target’ in the standard) and retrieve records that are identified as a result of such a search.”2

The protocol confines itself to interactions between the client and server machines, and does not address interaction between a human user and the client machine or between the target machine and its databases. The standard is designed to facilitate interoperability between computer systems. The communication described in the standard is connection-oriented and stateful: that is, the origin initiates a session with the target and the connection is maintained until the association is terminated.

In an implementation, the origin and target convert their local forms of messages and responses to and from Z39.50 ‘language’. This means an origin can maintain a consistent user interface for searching targets which support Z39.50, because the client machine’s searching syntax can be mapped into Z39.50 queries. In this way, the origin extends the local interface to search external targets. On the target or server side, this requires considerable conversion because the incoming Z39.50 query must be mapped to retrieval mechanisms and vice versa.

The standard does not directly support the broadcasting of searches to multiple servers, but a client can open Z39.50 sessions with multiple servers either sequentially or simultaneously. Manipulating multiple result sets to remove duplicates and ensure a uniform presentation to the user also falls outside the scope of the protocol.

Web-based search and retrieval applications need Z39.50 for the same reason as proprietary applications – to avoid the proliferation of interfaces to the target databases. The Web is a static collection of html documents stored on http servers. Special programs using scripting languages and compiled modules are needed to deliver search and retrieval functionality. In server-based implementations, the http/ Z39.50 gateway resides on an http server as in the diagram below. Browser-based implementations also exist which require Java or Active X applets to be downloaded to the user’s machine.

As databases differ considerably in structure and indexing methods, the protocol employs a common, abstract model for describing databases. The model requires a “schema” or abstract record structure to be defined for each database, composed of “elements” such as author, title, date last modified. Access points are also defined for each searchable element or group of elements.

However, Z39.50 should not be interpreted as a database indexing standard. In each implementation, the targeta databases must be mapped to the Z39.50 database model to enable communication between origin and target. However, Z39.50 profiles and implementor agreements developed for specific communities do impose a de facto database indexing standard in that they define the minimum set of access points needing to be supported by the database indexes to ensure interoperability between target systems.

2.3 Search and Retrieval Facilities

The Search and Retrieval facilities are the core functions of the standard.

A Search request can be made to one or more databases at a target system and must contain a query. The group of records retrieved as the result of a query is called a result set. Several query-types are defined, including Type-1 for Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) and Type 101, which extends Type-1 for proximity searching and restricting result sets by other attributes. The protocol gives full support and mandates use of the type-1 query which consists of a single access point clause, or several clauses linked by logical operators. For example,
In the database named “Library” find all records for which the access point ‘title word’ contains the value ‘glass’ AND the access point ‘author’ contains the value ‘white’

The attributes used in searching belong to a particular attribute set, “whose definition is registered, that is, assigned a unique and globally recognised attribute-set-ID, an Object Identifier, which is included within the query.”3 The attribute set used by the bibliographic community is called bib-1

Retrieval consists of two Z39.50 services: Present and Segment. In a Present response, the origin requests response records in the result set. The origin may specify a preferred syntax, schema and element specification (e.g., brief, full, brief with holdings, title and subject only, etc.). The syntax is the envelope in which the elements are packaged for transfer between systems. Z39.50 supports a number of such syntaxes, ranging from the familiar MARC syntax to the general, but very complex GRS (General Record Structure) syntax. GRS is becoming increasingly important in library applications because it enables elements from multiple schemas (e.g., bibliographic, holdings and circulation data) to be combined in one package for transfer.

If the target cannot support the number of response records requested by the origin, the target segments the response, delivering the result set in portions.

2.4 Other Facilities

There are a number of services which complement the basic Search and Present functions by providing other types of messages between origin and target. These include session establishment and termination, access control, and operations on result sets, such as sorting, browsing or deleting. The Scan service, important to library implementations because it enables browsing of ordered term lists, was introduced in version 3 of the standard and is not yet widely implemented.

One particularly promising service is Explain which allows an origin to query a target about implementation details, e.g., which databases are available, the particular attribute sets and record syntaxes used. The facility is “intended to permit the development of clients that to at least some extent are dynamically self-configuring as they encounter various servers.”4 The Explain facility has not been widely implemented. However, a number of implementors have formed a group recently to test its functionality.

2.5 Extended Services

Version 3 introduced a new service called Extended Services, which permits tasks to be performed outside a Z39.50 session. These tasks are more complex than a search and retrieve operation, and may usually be carried out after the session initiating the task has been completed. If the task is not completed before the target responds to the Extended Services request, the target creates a task package in a special Extended Services database which can be searched by the origin using standard Z39.50 facilities.“The Extended-Services (ES) service allows an origin to create, modify, or delete a task package at the target. The target maintains task packages in a special database.”5

The Extended Services are described in Appendix 8 of the published standard. They include:

· Persistent Result Set. This enables the origin to request the target to save a search result.

· Persistent Query. In this service, the target saves a Z39.50 Query in response to a request from the origin.

· Periodic Query. The origin requests the target to save a query and run it periodically, according to a schedule specified by the origin.

· Item Order. The origin can submit a document delivery request to the target

· Database Update. The origin requests that the target update a database by insert new records, replacing or deleting existing records, or by modifying elements within records.

· Export Specification. The origin specifies the format, delivery mechanism and destination of records from result sets.

· Export Invocation. This service allows the origin to request delivery of records, according to an Export Specification.

3. Business Applications

There are a number of potential and existing applications of this standard to libraries. Local access to external data sources. The basic search and retrieve functions can be used to extend the number of data sources available for searching at a user workstation. Local and remote databases can be searched using the syntax provided in the local system. This has been the most common implementation of Z39.50 in libraries.  Creation of virtual or distributed union catalogues. A group of libraries can use the Search and Present services to enable access from a local origin to many targets. In this way, a user on one library can use the syntax and interface of their local system to search catalogues of other systems in the group. With the ILL Protocol, a group of libraries could provide a virtual union catalogue and mechanisms for resource sharing between them. Issues related to this will be discussed later in the paper.  Copy cataloguing using Z39.50. A local Z39.50 origin can search an external database, specify that the records be presented in MARC syntax, and copy them into their local system for inclusion in a local catalogue. This practice is becoming more widespread.

Orders for bibliographic outputs. The Extended Services allow a variety of methods to retrieve result sets on a regular basis and have them sent in specified formats. There are a number of possibilities for use of these facilities: SDI services; new and changed records for catalogue purposes; reports for collection development purposes.
Updating databases. The Update service of the Extended Services can enable simultaneous updating of more than one target by an origin. This will be taken up further in the discussion of the Union Catalogue Profile.

4. Union Catalogues
4.1 Introduction

The business applications outlined in Section 3 have implications for centralised bibliographic services. The availability of copy cataloguing through Z39.50 can be expected to have some impact on enterprises based on supply of MARC records. In Australia, the use of ABN for catalogue record creation and supply has made a significant contribution to the development of a national union catalogue, which supports resource sharing and collection development activities in libraries across the nation. In planning for the replacement of ABN, the Library has had to take account of new and possible ways for libraries to build their catalogues: vendors supply MARC records; catalogue records can be obtained from other utilities such as OCLC and RLG; catalogue records can be copied from other servers, e.g., the Library of Congress.

While considering the future of the national union catalogue, the National Library has observed the development of sectoral consortia and regional or state-based networks. Z39.50 has the potential to change the operations of these networks through increasing implementations of distributed or virtual union catalogues. During planning for the Networked Services Project, the Library had to make a key strategic decision about continuing to provide and maintain a centralised national union catalogue. The decision was positive, because the Library believes the union catalogue will continue to play a role in resource sharing and collection development for at least another five years. Union catalogues may also have a strong role to play in access to digital collections, through collection level and item level records linked to the digital files at a remote host site. However, the Library did recognise that while the services delivered by a centralised national union catalogue were required, Z39.50 raised possibilities for new methods of creating this catalogue

4.2 The Virtual Union Catalogue

In the past, union catalogues have been implemented as centralised systems, with a single database on a single system. This model includes: commercial services such as OCLC, RLG and WLN which developed as large scale shared cataloguing systems; pure union catalogues, such as the University of California’s MELVYL system, developed specifically as public access union catalogues; and, shared union catalogues which are part of an integrated library system shared by a group of libraries.

Z39.50 based searching, on the other hand, allows users to search multiple catalogues on multiple distributed systems with a single search. These multiple databases then constitute a ‘virtual’ union catalogue from the user’s point of view. Key research in this area is being carried out by the National Library of Canada. The goal of their virtual Canadian union catalogue (vCuc) project5 is to determine the long term feasibility of using Z39.50 for searching distributed individual library catalogues and consortial union catalogues which together would emulate the services provided by a centralised union catalogue.

One particular problem with the distributed search model is the retrieval of locations, holdings and circulation information. Recent discussion within the Z39.50 Implementors’ Group on how to provide this information in response to a Z39.50 query has not yet achieved consensus. The problem is compounded by the lack of consistency in the storage of holdings data in local and union catalogues. The USMARC format for holdings and locations seems an obvious candidate to ensure predictability and reliability in standardising these types of data. However, in Australia there has not been widespread implementation of this particular USMARC format. USMARC also allows summary information for holdings to be embedded in bibliographic records in tags 850 and 852, but there is little evidence of this practice in Australia. Generally holdings data is held in locally defined MARC fields, usually in the 9XX block.

Another limitation of the distributed model is its inability to deal satisfactorily with duplicate records in a search result. Ideally, the separate result sets retrieved from each target should be merged and duplicate records removed. In centralised union catalogues, duplicate resolution is chiefly achieved through software. The residue of duplicates which cannot be resolved by software is sent to human review. However, duplicate resolution in the distributed environment is primarily a human task. When search results are retrieved from a Z39.50 broadcast search sent to multiple targets, a human being reviews the results to identify duplicates. With records being presented sequentially as the search results from each target arrives, and screen displays that are not designed to make record comparison easy, the searcher can have a difficult task.

The task of de-duplication will become critical if the shift to distributed union catalogues gathers pace. The University of Bradford is conducting some useful research in this area, using client software to merge records and deliver including record merging and user-friendly displays.6 However, the National Library of Canada is uncertain of the scalability of a client-based architecture for duplicate removal if complex algorithms such as those now common in large central databases are involved.7 At the National Library of Australia, we are beginning to think that “middle-ware” solutions may deliver better performance, with the client referring Z39.50 searches and the responsibility for resolving duplicates to a server-based broker. Such an architecture might also address concerns with the intellectual property invested in MARC records by managing user authentication and logging transactions. There is an increasing trend for OPACs to present search results in a syntax other than MARC to avoid copyright issues related to the re-use of records purchased from bibliographic utilities and other copy cataloguing services.

Lynch has examined the advantages and limitations of the centralised and distributed approaches, and concluded that with current technology, centralised union catalogues have major advantages both in function (searching and indexing consistency, database quality and removal of duplicates) and in performance (particularly from the user’s point of view, availability and response time)8. One argument against virtual union catalogues is that, to work effectively, they appear at present to be successful with a limited number of targets – up to around eight. The technical problems such as merging and de-duplication of result sets and performance may be solved sooner rather than later. However, on balance, there are technical advantages in delivering services through centralised union catalogues.

4.3 Centralised Union Catalogues

Technical factors were not the sole criteria for a decision about maintaining a centralised union catalogue. The National Library of Australia considered the value of the existing asset within the National Bibliographic Database, the cooperative environment in Australian libraries built up over many years, the high quality of service it can offer and the viability of the present service. For these reasons the National Library of Australia stated in its RFT for the Networked Services Project which will replace the ABN system, that “for the location information on the NBD, it is the Library’s present view that the most practical solution is probably a centralised national database”9. The National Library is committed to the national union catalogue as a means of supporting resource sharing among Australian libraries and believes that a centralised system is the best way of achieving this at the present time. However, the Library is aware that there may be significant changes to this system in the next few years.

Weighed against the advantages of a centralised system is the high cost of building and maintaining a large centralised database and the consequent charges which are passed on to searchers to meet desired levels of cost recovery. In the case of the ABN database, there are six million records without holdings in addition to the seven million with location information. The records without holdings are included to meet the needs of cataloguers searching for copy: before the Internet, it was an efficient way of providing a wide range of cataloguing data for libraries. The Library has been looking for other ways to deliver these services, and suggested in the Networked Services RFT that “for the data which does not have attached location information, the Library wishes to offer ‘apparent one-stop shopping’ but has no prior preference for whether this is implemented through a distributed or centralised model”10. Lynch argues that the centralised and distributed approaches should be complementary rather than competitive11.

While the national union catalogue, that is all bibliographic records with holdings, will probably be implemented in the replacement system in a centralised form, the provision of source data for copy cataloguing may be considered differently. The National Library is considering, for example, not migrating some older data without holdings to the new system. Access to lesser used data can be provided by Z39.50 searching of external databases through the same search interface as is provided for the proposed National Bibliographic Utility, and therefore the amount of data which the National Library has to maintain can be reduced. However the main benefit of Z39.50 searching of external databases for users lies in the wider range of bibliographic source data which can be made available.

4.4 Strategies for delivering a centralised union catalogue

The shared cataloguing service goes hand in hand with, and is a vital means of building and maintaining the national union catalogue. In replacing the ABN system, one of the National Library’s objectives is to make it as easy as possible for users to contribute to the national union catalogue.

Several years ago, it looked as though the best strategy for achieving this was to integrate file transfer mechanisms seamlessly into the workflows of information providers. The current ABN system has a downline loading service based on ftp which delivers records to the local system in real time. However, this service requires users to use one interface to catalogue the item and another to add detailed holdings information. In addition, keeping the national union catalogue up-to-date as holdings change depends on duplicating workflows or using a batch update process which has not been widely taken up by libraries. While the National Library recognises the need to accommodate libraries preferring to catalogue locally, the current ABN system is not equipped with duplicate removal software sufficiently sophisticated to support upline loading. Upline loading of records from local systems has been a key requirement from early stages in plans to replace ABN.

Since then, library systems have evolved from proprietary character-based applications to Z39.50-enabled client/server technologies. This new architecture provides both a threat to the existing strategies for maintaining the union catalogue and a significant opportunity to achieve seamless integration of union catalogue maintenance into user workflows.

Part of the solution is already provided by the Z39.50 Search and Present services. These enable libraries to obtain bibliographic records in MARC syntax from Z39.50-enabled servers. Many library system vendors now offer Z39.50 cataloguing client software to their users. The next generation of products will be integrated technical workstations which fully acknowledge the interrelationship between selection, acquisition, accessioning and cataloguing processes in building library catalogues.

4.5 Union Catalogue Profile

In 1996, IT/19, the joint Standards Australia and Standards New Zealand Committee dealing with library-related standards, endorsed a proposal from Jan Gatenby of Stowe Computing and the National Library of Australia to develop a cataloguing protocol that would enable all cataloguing to be done from a single client.12

Benefits of using a single client are:
Potential for a superior work flow
Only one interface to master
A simple efficient configuration
Simplified support
A wider choice for users
Opportunities for independent evolution of client and server products.

The cataloguing protocol needed to support all catalogue maintenance functions, including bibliographic, holdings and authority data. It needed to recognise that the update function is dependent on searching and that database searches are frequently done at several stages in the update process. Another requirement was to transfer information between systems about transactions as well as data. The protocol also needed appropriate security mechanisms and effective client-based, interactive error resolution methods where possible.

A Union Catalogue Profile over Z39.50 was considered to be the most appropriate mechanism for delivering these requirements. A profile specifies how a particular standard, or group of standards will be used to support a given application, function, community or environment. It is used both for procurement purposes and to ensure interoperability between systems. Developing a Z39.50 profile rather than a separate cataloguing protocol avoided the proliferation of protocols. Z39.50 already has all the services in place to support user authentication and search and retrieval, together with a Database Update Extended Service defined within it. These services have been widely accepted and implemented by the library community. The profile has now been reviewed by the ZIG in several versions and is about to be submitted to the International Standards Organisation as a Draft Internationally Registered Profile (DIRP).

The Union Catalogue Profile presents a strategy for enabling all cataloguing to be done through a single client. The National Library is interested in supporting and developing the Profile. The Networked Services Project RFT sought products which supported the Union Catalogue Profile. At the time of writing, it is not possible to disclose any more information about the tender process and solutions being considered. However, before any major implementation of the Profile, some testing will be required.

The Library encourages libraries and integrated library management system vendors to read the Profile and register interest in pilot projects. Comments on the Profile are also encouraged. It is recognised that implementors may wish to move towards conformance in stages. A set of priorities for staged implementation is included in Appendix 3 of the Profile. It may take several years before the Union Catalogue Profile is widely implemented. In the meantime, services such as the replacement ABN will have to support a range of migration strategies involving a combination of proprietary and standards-based solutions

5. Conclusion

The National Library recognises that the resource sharing environment is becoming more open and distributed. This trend has been assisted by libraries implementing key standards: MARC, Z39.50, the ILL Protocol are prominent now. There are many predictions about this future environment and many research projects underway. For the next five years at least, the National Library believes the national union catalogue still has an important role to play. As distributed approaches grow, the national union catalogue may end up covering gaps in the recording of collections and locations. Whatever the outcome, the national Library is committed to maintaining a centralised union catalogue, but offering a wide range of options for libraries to contribute to it. We believe it still a very important part of the nation’s information infrastructure.

References
Clifford Lynch, “The Z39.50 Information Retrieval Standard. Part 1, A Strategic View of Its Past, Present and Future”. In D-Lib Magazine [online]. April, 1997 [cited 4 August 1997].
Lynch.
Z39.50 Maintenance Agency, Information Retrieval (Z39.50): Application Service Definition and Retrieval Specification (Washington, 1995), p. iii.
Lynch.
National Library of Canada, Virtual Canadian Union Catalogue Project [online] Ottawa, 1997 [cited 20 November 1997].
University of Bradford, Dept. of Computing. Bradford OPAC 2 (BOPAC2) [online] Bradford, 1997 [cited 20 November 1997].
Carrol Lunau, Fay Turner, Issues Related to the Use of Z39.50 to Emulate a Centralized Union Catalogue [online]. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1997 [cited 4 August 1997].
Lynch.
National Library of Australia, Request for Tender for National Library of Australia Networked Services (Canberra, 1997), p. 49.
National Library of Australia, p. 49.
Lynch.
National Library of Australia, Union Catalogue Profile [online] Version 3, August 1997. Canberra, The Library. 1997 [cited 4 August 1997].

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Another center of attention was the new Biblio IntelligentShelf – installation, which allows visitors to check the publication or the media directly.

The new portable hand reader is clearly more than just a further development of the familiar BiblioWand models. The new Biblio Mobile StaffStation is in fact a user-oriented, multifunctional and extremely lightweight device which, in conjunction with a laptop, can be used for media maintenance as well as offering a whole range of additional features. The very high reading speed is particularly striking: the device can reliably detect up to 500 shelved media in one minute. This is an outstanding performance compared to other mobile reading devices currently available. There is now a wide range of possible search criteria – in line with the requirements of modern practice. The Biblio Mobile StaffStation also fulfils the requested improvements in terms of operating convenience, memory, performance and service life. The reader and the slim yet stable antenna are surprisingly light, weighing just 700 grams.

All actions are carried out conveniently from the laptop, which is placed on a fully-fitted BiblioCart, a narrow carriage with smooth-running rollers, barcode reader, label dispenser, independent power supply and much more. In addition to inventory taking, the Mobile StaffStation can also be used for media checking or conversion purposes. And this is not all: data migration, data update, data model checks or data model updates are other potential functions. The device can also be integrated into the BiblioCockpit environment, the management platform for all new Bibliotheca products. Communication between components is wireless.

The areas of research, academic publications and evaluated were classified into 8 groups. Six together the hard sciences (clinical medicine, health sciences, disciplines related to health, biology, physics and engineering and computer science) and the two remaining groups are math and social sciences and humanities.

The issues raised in this report were grouped into three sections: issues of methodology, discipline groups and their aggregation and sensitivity analysis.

1.1 Relevance of Web of Science (WoS)
To start, the authors created a database of researchers and publications from the complete list of departments for the RAE 2001, which had been provided by HEFCE. In the category of “best” publications submitted to RAE 2001 articles published in scientific journals are on average 73% of all publications submitted for evaluation. Cette proportion atteint 92 % en sciences dures et en mathématiques. In contrast, social sciences and humanities, books and book chapters represent 15 and 24% respectively.

On all publications submitted to evaluation committees, 84.1% were published in journals listed in the WoS for the hard sciences, 81.8% for mathematics and 24.9% for social sciences and humanities . In the hard sciences, the range of WoS coverage extends from 97% for clinical medicine at 70% for engineering and computer science. It is noteworthy that in computing and engineering, sub-disciplines are remarkably heterogeneous in terms of the WoS coverage: 44% in computer engineering, 86% for electrical and electronic engineering and 88% for chemical engineering.

1.2 Correlation between the impact of quote “best” publications and the classification of RAE 2001
The analysis of correlation between the impact of quote “best” publications submitted for evaluation by a university department on the one hand, and the classification of the same department received the 2001 RAE the other hand, focused on publications of the period from 1996 to 2000 and citations periods of four years of each publication. According to a global trend, citing the impact of increases in parallel with increasing rank of the department in EIR. The authors suggest however that there are exceptions. In the group of engineering and computer science for example, departments rated 2, 3a, 3b, 4 and 5 in RAE 2001 obtain quotations impacts very similar. Only those departments rated 5 * get a higher citation impact to others. This distribution is also found in group medical clinic in this case, however, the impact of citation are much higher than those observed in Group Engineering Sciences and Informatics. Therefore, the authors suggest that if the HEFCE wishes methods of peer review used for the RAE 2001 represent the baseline measurement to validate the newly developed metric indicators (for the years ahead score), the approach of relying on the citations of “best “publications of a department on the 4-year period following the publication is only partially valid in engineering and computer science and clinical medicine, because it masks the incremental intrinsic value of a department. However, it allows to distinguish the best from other departments. In most cases, the citation impact differs substantially if the authors took into account not the “best” but all publications.

1.3 Analysis of citations of publications published in journals not referenced in the WoS
This analysis indicated that the number of citations is higher for a book to an article referenced in the WoS. However, it is lower for book chapters, conference proceedings and items not listed in the WoS. In engineering and computer science, conference proceedings and items not listed in the WoS are much less cited than those listed in the WoS. It is noted that an analysis of publications not referenced in the WoS can be automated so that the need for human intervention limits the number of publications that can be incorporated into the analysis.

1.4 Collection of exhaustive lists of publication of staff submitted to RAE 2001
The report’s authors have developed a technique extremely sensitive and almost completely automated allowing them to identify all publications referenced in the WoS for a given author. This technique, which takes into account the homonyms and synonyms, showed high precision but low recall, especially for authors with only few publications referenced in the WoS.

During the analysis of a sample of publications collected in several major British universities, the authors found that in 70% of cases, the address of the institution indicated in the article matched the address of the researcher at the time of evaluation. In the subgroup of “best” publications referenced in the WoS, this proportion rose to 78%. In other words, between 20 and 30% of publications submitted to evaluation by a department are the result of work that has not been done in the department. It is therefore crucial that the evaluation takes into account these differences and that is decided, upstream of the year, what approach will be used: the past performance of a department or those active staff in the department at evaluation.

2. Combinations of disciplines and aggregation
2.1 Appointment of groups of subjects
Initially, the authors found a correlation between categories of journals listed in the WoS and the group of scientific disciplines of the RAE 2001. Each article submitted for evaluation and was assigned to a group of scientific disciplines, according to the newspaper in which he had been released. This correlation was then enlarged using co-citations and redistributing each article published in a newspaper multidisciplinary in unique categories of newspapers, on the basis of the nature of newspapers cited references. For example, an article mentioning mostly articles published in journals of astronomy would be classified in astronomy. Whatever happens, an article will often be classified in more than one category because the boundaries between disciplines are increasingly blurred.

2.2 Distribution of researchers in the groups of subjects
The authors used two methods to classify the researchers evaluated each based on recent publications: classification of the researcher in the group of disciplines in which he introduced more publications; splitting proportional to the researcher’s classification between groups of subjects in which publications are classified. The correlation of the two methods shows that only 77% of results are correlated in Engineering Sciences and Informatics, 75% in physical sciences, 68% in biology, 67% in health sciences, 65% medicine clinic, 64% in social sciences and humanities, 58% in sciences related to health and 55% in mathematics.

2.3 Aggregation of bibliometric indicators in groups of subjects
The profiles of citation impact of an institution or group of disciplines clearly reflect the distribution of staff submitted to the RAE and publications, regardless of the impact factor of journal in which the article was published. They bring a new vision of comparison between institutions and the differences that occur when changing the period analyzed. The authors developed a method of aggregation of bibliometric indicators by group of scientific disciplines. This method is based on research and publications. The steps are:
- Assign to each researcher or publication of a category of citation impact;
- Allocate a value to each impact category;
- Calculate the total value of all researchers or publications by institution and by discipline group;
- Finally, calculate the share of each individual publication or within an institution and compare the total number of individuals or items in a given group of subjects.

3. Sensitivity analysis
A framework is established to review the relevance of the results depending on a variety of methodological variations. This framework creates profiles of groups of scientific disciplines for a series of bibliometric indicators, profiles reflect the distribution of a performance indicator among institutions. These profiles are compared in pairs.

Minimal differences were observed when compared pairs of indicators are the number of articles published between 1992 and 2001 on the one hand, and those published between 1997 and 2002 on the other. In contrast, larger differences were demonstrated when comparing the total number of researchers to researchers assessed by the RAE, and the value of impact category of quote attributed to them. This difference suggests that consideration of the impact of quote allocated to researchers evaluated the influence score of the institution. The results are substantially different from those obtained when only the volume indicators is taken into account.

Comparing the number of researchers with a value of citation impact and assigned the number of articles published in the top 5% merit special attention: if both indicators are a selection of excellence, but they differ in approaches used first, and from one institution to another, on the other. It is therefore important to decide what upstream approach will be most appropriate to the desired results.

The article highlight several new roles that are being fostered in research libraries and offer different leadership perspectives on the change process. Two authors are associate university librarians with broad responsibilities for managing the development of new functions and responsibilities of their institutions’ public services staff (Williams and Dupuis). Two are programmatic experts leading the development and delivery of services that require liaison support for effective engagement with faculty clients–scholarly communication (Kirchner) and data management (Gabridge). Another fifth author is a liaison librarian with a personal commitment to reinvention (Whatley) describing the change process from the inside.

Amidst the diversity of stories and assessments gathered here, several recurrent themes stand out. New forms of relationship building, particularly with faculty, are central to effective liaison functions. New kinds of relationships are needed to respond to the changing work of faculty and researchers and to constantly evolving learning outcomes, research processes, and communication practices. In addition, research libraries are increasingly seeking to influence larger dialogs about changing practices that are occurring on campuses and within disciplines. Liaison librarians need well-developed, high-trust relationships to create strategic opportunities to participate in and influence disciplinary and departmental decisions.

It is also evident that the range of activities addressed through liaison work is growing. As a consequence, liaison librarians increasingly need the ability to acquire new skills and leverage more specialized expertise among their library colleagues in service of their clients. Liaisons cannot be expert themselves in each new capability, but knowing when to call in a colleague, or how to describe appropriate expert capabilities to faculty, will be key to the new liaison role. Just as researchers are often working in teams to leverage compatible expertise, liaison librarians will need to be team builders among library experts where this advances client research.

New liaison roles are not emerging de novo, but rather in continuity with established roles. Consequently, the articles describe developmental processes from the perspective of particular roles and institutions. While there may be growing consensus on where to go, how to make the journey is a pressing question. Organizations will need to map out different routes to address their particular circumstances, but for fellow travelers the authors have some helpful observations and astute insights to offer.

Due to the changing nature of librarianship resulting from the increasing amount of information available in digital format, educating digital librarians has become an important agenda within library and information science schools. To design and offer appropriate courses and teaching approaches for training competent digital librarians, educators can benefit from feedback provided by current practitioners in order to accurately determine what skills and knowledge are really required for digital librarians to be effective in the digital work place. To that end, we surveyed current digital library professionals in academic libraries in the United States to identify their activities and skills and to detect any gaps in their training. We analyzed input from the survey responses to learn more about the nature of digital library work practices and to identify common and necessary attributes (knowledge and skills) required of “digital librarians.” The findings from our study have implications for the design of digital library education that meets real workplace needs.

1. Introduction

Digital libraries are an emerging concept, as today’s libraries routinely provide information and services in digital form. As the nature and role of libraries have changed in response to the new digital environment, new applications and services have been developed. Many practitioners have reported on these changes in the digital workplace (Association of Research Libraries, 2000; Croneis and Henderson, 2002; Stoffle, et al., 2003).

Digital libraries have unique characteristics that differ from traditional libraries and their approaches to information provision. The evolutionary view of digital libraries has been addressed by practitioners in the library and information fields (Borgman, 1999; Digital Library Federation, 1998). From a traditional librarian’s point of view, digital libraries present a transformative model of a large-scale, user-centric organization that is moving towards an integrated form with various components (See Figure 1). However, the main purpose of digital libraries remains consistent with that of traditional libraries in that the purpose of digital libraries is to organize, distribute, and preserve information resources just as it is for traditional libraries.

Increasing priorities to align digital library (DL) applications with traditional library collections and services requires staff with new expertise that adds another dimension to library practice. Many researchers (such as Chowdhury and Chowdhury, 2003; Tanner, 2001) have described digital librarians’ roles, and have suggested core competencies and skills needed to perform these roles. Now, in addition to their traditional library skills and knowledge, many of today’s professional librarians are expected to possess additional knowledge and skills required for work within the digital information world. Librarians are thus faced with the challenge of acquiring advanced knowledge and skills to augment what they traditionally learned, and to do so while at the same time there is a shortage of experienced library staff (Tennant, 2002). As a consequence, educating digital librarians who are competent to work in the dynamic and complex digital environment has become a high priority.

An important step in dealing with these needs is to design educational programs appropriate for preparing future digital librarians for the workplace. To design such programs, we need to understand the staffing patterns in digital library practice, the activities and tasks in which current practitioners in DL development are involved, and the practical skills that help these practitioners function effectively. The study described in this article contributes to the development of education for digital librarians in taking that first important step.

The goals of the study were to:

• Understand staffing patterns in digital library areas,
• Identify critical activities of digital librarians,
• Determine skills and knowledge required for digital librarians, and
• Seek feedback on preparing students for digital librarianship.

2. Method

To identify the range of activities in which digital librarians are engaged, we employed a survey method. The survey was distributed to 123 directors of libraries that were members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). We requested the directors to forward our survey questionnaire to the current practitioners in their libraries that were in charge of digitization projects or digital library projects during the period from September to December 2005.

The survey defined a “digital librarian” as someone who is responsible for and involved in technology-based projects to deliver digital information resources in non-public service areas (Croneis and Henderson, 2002).

Information collected in the survey included demographic information (such as age, gender, and educational background), current job title and responsibilities, job history, academic preparation for the position, perception of the knowledge and skills important in performing their job, and suggestions about education and training programs.

The total number of survey responses collected was 48, from 39 libraries.

3. Results
3.1 Demographics

Forty-one of the respondents (85%) identified themselves as professional librarians, five respondents (10%) were paraprofessionals, and two (4%) were neither librarian nor paraprofessional, with titles of “associate director” and “director for digital library programs.” Of the 48 respondents, 37 (77%) had a master’s or doctoral degree in Library and Information Science, and 7 (15%) had an academic background in computer science, engineering, or information technology management. There were slightly more women (27, 56%) than men (21, 44%) among the respondents (see Table 1). One-third of respondents were aged in their 30s.

Among the 41 respondents who were professional librarians, 18 (43.9%) had a relatively short period of experience as a professional librarian (Table 2). Previous working experience in libraries varied from being a reference librarian to a media librarian to a data service librarian to a digital librarian. The most frequently mentioned areas of previous experience were reference services (16), special collections/archives (13), systems (11), and cataloging (9). Some respondents had acquired experience outside libraries, as a systems analyst, software developer, and a Web site developer.

3.2 Digital Librarian’s Position

Position Title

Two other workplace studies revealed a high demand for new professionals for leading digital library efforts in traditional libraries (Association of Research libraries, 2000; Croneis and Henderson, 2002). The results of our survey suggest that this trend is likely to continue. Positions of more than half of the respondents (29, 60.4%) had the term, “digital” in their title or that of their department. Examples are “Digital Initiatives Librarian (Coordinator or Manager)”, “Digital Project Manager”, “Director of Digital Library Development”, “Director of Digital Library Initiatives”, and “Head of Digital Project Department”. Among these respondents, 18 (64.3%) had held their current position for less than 3 years, while one-third had been in position for more than 3 years (Table 3). The increasing number of professionals dedicated to digital libraries reflects a workplace need for digital librarians to provide leadership and coordinate a successful transformation of library services into digital libraries.

Position titles like “Director of Preservation and Digital Programs”, “Chair of Digital Initiatives and Special Collections” and “Digitization Librarian” also reflect current efforts in digital libraries that are related to digital initiatives for preservation of and access to primary resources (Dalbello, 2004; Lynch, 2003). Other position titles include “Metadata Librarian”, “Data Librarian”, “Preservation Reformatting Librarian”, “Digital Imaging Specialist” and “Digital Technologies Development Librarian”.

About 40% of the respondents had been involved in digital library work from other functional areas, such as the technical service areas of cataloging and serials, collection management, special collections and preservation areas, and others. It is clear that the design, development and management of digital libraries require a collaborative effort from staff in many different functional areas within libraries.Main Activities/Tasks

Participants were asked to provide statements of their job responsibilities. From the responses of the 46 participants who provided this information, 274 specific job responsibilities were gleaned, and these were individually analyzed and grouped into six broad categories: “Management”, “Technology”, “Processing”, “Digital Library”, “Collection and Resources”, and “Other”.

Job responsibilities in the “Management” category were the most frequently mentioned, with almost half (45.99%) of the identified job responsibilities falling into this area. The survey results support previous findings that digital job advertisements emphasize administrative responsibilities (Croneis and Henderson, 2002). Responsibility for policies and procedures, collaboration, supervision, grants and planning were mentioned by more than 20 percent of the participants. Only 15 percent of the job responsibilities identified was grouped in the category of “Technology”.

The job responsibilities within each category are as follows:

• Management (45.99%)
  • Leadership, policies and procedures, collaboration, planning, supervision, resource management, project management, grant, representation
• Digital Library (17.14%)
  • Digital projects/initiatives, technical standards/practices, design, development and implementation, digital preservation, framework, digital repository, digital contents aspects
• Technology (15.71%)
  • Websites, digitizing/converting, technical support, system administration/maintenance, data conversion, system analysis/testing, open source software development, usability testing, interoperability, digital library technology
• Processing (8.57%)
  • Metadata, access and retrieval mechanisms (bibliographic records, finding aids, EAD, MARC records), quality control, databases.
• Collection and Resource (7.14%)
  • Collection development, collection management, preservation/record management, online resources
• Other (6.43%)
  • Instruction/staff training, reference/public services, liaison, professional activities, user studies

The most frequently mentioned responsibilities from the 46 respondents were Website-related tasks (35% of participants), policies and procedures (28%), collaboration (28%), supervision (26%), overall responsibility for digital projects/initiatives (26%), monitoring of technical standards and practices (21.7%), and writing and administrating grants (21.7%).
Skills and Knowledge Needed

Participants were asked to rate the importance of skills and knowledge in performing their work for three areas (technical areas, traditional library-related areas, and other skills), with 23 sub-areas on a 5-point Likert scale. The five highest ranked choices among all sub-areas were communication and interpersonal skills (mean 4.60), project management/leadership skills (4.56), understanding of digital library architecture and software (4.52), knowledge of the needs of users (4.42), and knowledge of technical and quality standards (4.33).

The highest ranked choices for each area are shown in Table 4.

These findings confirm the continuing importance of communication skills, project management, and team leadership skills identified from a Delphi study of academic librarians (Feret and Marcineck, 1999). It should be noted that the definition of “digital librarian” given in this survey was limited to non-public service areas. Thus, rating for some of the knowledge and skills, such as reference service areas and teaching and presentation skills would have been rated differently by professionals working in public service areas.

Educational Courses Supporting Current Work

The survey asked participants to indicate the most relevant/valuable courses they had taken in an LIS school for performing their current work. Twenty-one respondents provided answers to this survey question. Various courses were mentioned ranging from cataloging to an internship. The most frequently mentioned courses were in the areas of cataloging, collection (electronic resources) development and management, systems analysis, and information technology. “Digital Libraries” was mentioned as a course name only once.

3.3 Training Gaps and Thoughts on DL Education

The survey also asked participants to describe the aspects of their position for which they felt least prepared. Thirty-four participants identified areas for which their education and training had not prepared them adequately. The most frequently mentioned tasks were related to technical aspects. These are:

• Overall understanding of the complex interplay of software,
• Lack of vocabulary to communicate to technical staff,
• Knowledge of Web-related languages and technologies,
• Web design,
• Digital imaging and formatting,
• Digital technology,
• Programming and scripting languages,
• XML standards and technologies, and
• Basic systems administration.

Other tasks mentioned less frequently include: overall understanding of digitization and digital library aspects, project management skills, management, administration, supervisory skills, collection development, metadata, organizational structures, library culture, changing policies, actual day-to-day work, and contract law, negotiation, and licensing.

Several respondents addressed the importance of trend analysis based on the newness and changing nature of digital libraries. They made the following comments:

“I simply had to make the effort to understand the work through reading, attending
workshops and learning on job”"So much has changed”"Changing policies to apply digital preservation”"…from management to ‘you-name-it’”

Others commented on the value of practical experience in the workplace and pointed out the lack of actual technical and practical training in their academic courses, which provided theory-based discussion rather than practice.

We invited respondents to provide their suggestions for LIS educators/schools on courses that should be added to the digital library curriculum. Obvious answers were a need for courses providing tools and techniques for project management, team leadership, and soliciting and administering grants, and courses specifically on digital libraries such as: digital library design, digital preservation, digitization, and current digital technologies such as: OAI-PMH, metadata standards, XML, EAD, and TEI. Courses on usability testing, human-computer interaction, Web design and applications, information retrieval, and cataloging were also mentioned. The topics suggested for the courses emphasized a balance between theory and practical skills. These ranged from courses relevant to working in the real world of digital libraries – with respect to technology and standards, business skills, copyright issues, programming, user studies/scholarly communication – to courses on the theory of digital libraries, to help in understanding the big picture for various digital library applications.

4. Summary and Conclusions

A summary of our findings from the survey follows:

• While there are emerging units and positions within digital libraries, the working environment of digital libraries is collaborative in areas that range from computing systems to traditional library functions.
• Professionals working in those areas tend to be young and are relatively recent graduates. Because many libraries will eventually be transformed into digital libraries, and require professionals educated in this area, digital library jobs will be very attractive to the next generation of the library profession.
• Major tasks in which digital librarians are involved include management, leadership, and website-related tasks. Managerial tasks emphasized planning and oversight of digital library projects, while providing leadership and expertise in digital library areas contained elements of collaboration with other members of the library staff and with users. Trend analysis, such as monitoring the practice and standards of current digital libraries, is critical in these jobs.
• Survey results confirm the high value of soft skills needed in digital librarianship. Due to the emphasis on team-based and collaborative projects, current digital librarians considered communication skills and project management skills very important in performing their roles. As the nature of digital libraries is constantly changing, digital librarians must be able to adapt to change and continue to learn.
• The needs of DL education present two main aspects: one is the need to emphasize skills and competencies, such as communication skills and trend analysis; the other addresses the need to further develop the technical and information skills for practical and operational understanding of digital libraries.

Clearly, digital libraries are the future of academic and research institutions, and digital professionals will be required to have more breadth and depth of knowledge and skills across the dimensions of traditional library knowledge, technology, and human relations. Because of the complexity of digital libraries and digital library projects, professional education programs for digital librarians should provide not only technical skills and traditional library training, but also should place greater emphasis on management, including project management skills through practical experience of a digital project. In addition to the necessary technical skills, library professionals need to develop strong interpersonal and team-work skills. Based on this survey, it appears that LIS education needs to pay attention to additional education in interpersonal and communication skills and integration of practical skills and experience with digital collection management and digital technologies into curricula.

Our survey was limited to digital librarians in non-public service areas in academic and research libraries. Conducting a similar survey in other types of institutions and roles, such as cultural heritage organizations and professionals in public service areas, would be useful to confirm our findings. It would also be desirable to conduct a similar study on individual parts of a digital library framework to understand the similarities and differences among them with regard to required skills and knowledge. By conducting such a study, we could further identify core competencies needed for digital librarians, and learn from existing digital library practice to better educate future information professionals.

5. Acknowledgements

This study was sponsored by a research grant from the Association for Library and Information Science Education. The authors express sincere appreciation to those digital librarians who took the time to participate in the survey.

References

Association of Research Libraries, SPEC Kit 256: Changing Roles of library professionals. Janice Simmons-Welburn. May 2000.

Borgman, C.L. (1999). What are digital libraries? Competing visions. Information Processing & Management, 35: 227-243.

Chowdhury, G. G. and Chowdhury, S. Introduction to Digital Libraries. Facet publishing; London. 2003.

Croneis, K.S. and Henderson, P. (2002). Electronic and digital librarian positions: A content analysis of announcements from 1990 through 2000. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 28(4): 232-237.

Dalbello, M. (2004). Institutional shaping of cultural memory: Digital library as environment for textual transmission. Library Quarterly, 74(3), 265-298.

Digital Library Federation (1998), A working definition of digital library, retrieved January 16, 2006, from <http://www.diglib.org/about/dldefinition.htm>.

Feret, B., Marcinek, M. (1999). The future of the academic library and the academic librarian: a Delphi study. Librarian Career Development, 7(10), 91-107.

Lynch, C. (2003). Colliding with the real world: Heresies and unexplored questions about audience, economics, and control of digital libraries. In A. P. Bishop, N. A. Van House, & B. P. Buttenfield (Eds), Digital library use: Social practice in design and evaluation (pp. 191-216). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Stoffle, et al. (2003). Continuing to build the future: Academic libraries and their challenges. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 3(3). 363-380.

Tanner, S. (2001). Librarians in the digital age: Planning digitization projects. Program, 35 (4): 327-337.

Tennant, R. (2002). Digital libraries: The digital librarian shortage. Library Journal, March 15, 2002.

Youngok Choi, Assistant Professor, School of Library and Information Science
The Catholic University of America
Washington DC, U.S.A.
<choiy@cua.edu>

Edie Rasmussen, Professor and Director, School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
The University of British Columbia, Canada
<edie.rasmussen@ubc.ca>

Converting holdings to a digital format

This is the new look of the U.S. Library of Congress: blinking lights, lots of cables and an ocean of digital information with more than 50 million individual files. This fancy tower is one of several Web servers that brings most of the information to the Internet.

Jane Mandelbaum manages information technology services at the library. “All the data on our website is here,” she explains.

So far, the library has a total of 700 terabytes of data. But because of copyright issues, only 200 of those are available on the Web.

“A terabyte is about 1,600 CDs or about 330 hours of TV or about 2,000 books and we have about 500 terabytes that we keep in our long term preservation systems,” she adds.

At the Library of Congress, the numbers can be mind-boggling. Experts estimate they have more than 120 million books, 36,000 feature films, hundreds of thousands of music sheets and recordings, and the large collections of manuscripts, Web sites, posters and photography. Yet only one percent of it has been digitized.

Thomas Youkel is the senior systems engineer. “We have a scan lab here that scans anywhere from four to six million items a year,” he says, “I don’t guarantee that all those are put on the web, but a lot of it is.”

Technology used for preservation

Most of the library’s digital collection is for preservation reasons. But it is the one percent of the collection that has been digitized for the web that serves most of its customers: 85 million a year. 

Digitizing the Library of Congress is a long and expensive process. This is one of 205 volumes from Abraham Lincoln’s documents from the 1800s.  The careful scanning of manuscripts makes this very slow work. 

The collection of around 65 million manuscripts hold some of the most treasured documents at the library, from presidential papers to original poems. The chief of the manuscript division, James Hutson, says in the computer age, the creative process of manuscripts is getting lost.

“You won’t have Shakespeare first draft or Beethoven’s original sketch of the ninth symphony in the future probably, is all lost in the digital age,” Hutson said.

More than five million maps are being digitized. Some in large sizes like this map of Africa painted on cloth at the turn of the last century. Atlas books like this one, hand painted in the early 1600s, require a different technology. Its anthropomorphic map of Belgium is beautiful but geographically incorrect.

Colleen Cahill leads the digitizing team. She says people can freely use those materials on the Web. “You are looking at four acres of cartographic materials, they represent over five million maps, tens of thousands of atlases, hundreds of globes,” she said.

Also, nearly one and a half million photos have been posted on the web. 

One of the biggest challenges at the Library of Congress today is the rapid change of technology.

“If you think in terms of changing technologies you go from this to this. This holds approximately 100 times as much information as this one,” Youkel said.

While workers continue scanning and digitizing millions of items, they keep an eye on a migration plan, to move from obsolete technology to new technology – a never ending process.

1. RFID tags replace both the EM security strips and Barcode.
2. Simplify patron self check-out / check-in.
3. Ability to handle material without exception for video and audio tapes.
4. Radio Frequency anti-theft detection is innovative and safe.
5. High-speed inventory and identify items which are out of proper order.
6. Long-term development guarantee when using Open Standard.

RFID Technology for Libraries

1. RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) is the latest technology to be used in library theft detection systems. Unlike EM (Electro-Mechanical) and RF (Radio Frequency) systems, which have been used in libraries for decades, RFID-based systems move beyond security to become tracking systems that combine security with more efficient tracking of materials throughout the library, including easier and faster charge and discharge, inventorying, and materials handling.
2. RFID is a combination of radio-frequency-based technology and microchip technology. The information contained on microchips in the tags affixed to library materials is read using radio frequency technology regardless of item orientation or alignment (i.e., the technology does not require line-of-sight or a fixed plane to read tags as do traditional theft detection systems) and distance from the item is not a critical factor except in the case of extra-wide exit gates. The corridors at the building exit(s) can be as wide as four feet because the tags can be read at a distance of up to two feet by each of two parallel exit sensors.
3. The targets used in RFID systems can replace both EM or RF theft detection targets and barcodes.

Advantages of RFID systems

Rapid charging/discharging

1. The use of RFID reduces the amount of time required to perform circulation operations. The most significant time savings are attributable to the facts that information can be read from RFID tags much faster than from barcodes and that several items in a stack can be read at the same time. While initially unreliable, the anti-collision algorithm that allows an entire stack to be charged or discharged now appears to be working well.
2. The other time savings realized by circulation staff are modest unless the RFID tags replace both the EM security strips or RF tags of older theft detection systems and the barcodes of the automated library system – i.e., the system is a comprehensive RFID system that combines RFID security and the tracking of materials throughout the library; or it is a hybrid system that uses EM for security and RFID for tracking, but handles both simultaneously with a single piece of equipment. There can be as much as a 50 percent increase in throughput. The time savings are less for charging than for discharging because the time required for charging usually is extended by social interaction with patrons.

Simplified patron self-charging/discharging

1. For patrons using self-charging, there is a marked improvement because they do not have to carefully place materials within a designated template and they can charge several items at the same time.
2. Patron self-discharging shifts that work from staff to patrons. Staff is relieved further when readers are installed in book-drops.

High reliability

1. The readers are highly reliable. RFID library systems claim an almost 100 percent detection rate using RFID tags.
2. There are fewer false alarms than with older technologies once an RFID system is properly tuned.
3. RFID systems encode the circulation status on the RFID tag. This is done by designating a bit as the “theft”(EAS) bit and turning it off at time of charge and on at time of discharge. If the material that has not been properly charged is taken past the exit sensors, an immediate alarm is triggered. Another option is to use both the “theft”(EAS) bit and the online interface to an automated library system, the first to signal an immediate alarm and the second to identify what has been taken.

High-speed inventorying

1. A unique advantage of RFID systems is their ability to scan books on the shelves without tipping them out or removing them. A hand-held inventory reader can be moved rapidly across a shelf of books to read all of the unique identification information. Using wireless technology, it is possible not only to update the inventory, but also to identify items which are out of proper order.

Automated materials handling

1. Another application of RFID technology is automated materials handling. This includes conveyer and sorting systems that can move library materials and sort them by category into separate bins or onto separate carts. This significantly reduces the amount of staff time required to ready materials for re-shelving.

Long tag life

1. Finally, RFID tags last longer than barcodes because nothing comes into contact with them. Most RFID vendors claim a minimum of 100,000 transactions before a tag may need to be replaced.

Sony, developer of the Sony Reader Digital Book, has partnered up with OverDrive, the leading global digital distributor of eBooks and audiobooks to libraries, to offer readers an easier way to borrow e-books from the library. How does it work exactly? Here are some more details from their joint press release:

Thousands of libraries in the OverDrive network (http://search.overdrive.com) offer eBooks compatible with the Sony Reader. Users simply browse or search their library website, check out their selected eBook with a valid library card, and download to a PC. Once downloaded, the eBook may then be transferred to the Sony Reader via free Adobe Digital Editions software.

…In addition to reaching new and existing patrons via the Sony and OverDrive network websites, OverDrive will train librarians on how to help patrons use the Sony Reader with their download service. OverDrive provides download services for more than 9,000 libraries, schools and retailers worldwide with support for PC, Mac®, and Sony® Reader, as well as the largest collection of iPod®-compatible audiobooks for libraries.

This collaboration looks like a win-win model and will definitely help to move forward the integration of the eBook format into libraries. I think it’s an important step also in terms of keeping libraries updated and relevant in the digital age. Now we’ll have to wait and see if this collaboration will be an exclusive one or we’ll see future similar collaborations with Amazon and other providers of popular e-book reading devices.

If you want to check if your public library is a member of the OverDrive network, visit http://search.overdrive.com.