Page 253 - DLIS007_LIBRARY AUTOMATION

Library Automation

Notes
Did u know? The Internet is not the virtual library, but constitutes an important part of it.
In the library environment a slogan during recent years has been ‘from collection to
connection’.

This is certainly a very precise description of the development, but the vision of the virtual or
the digital library must include ‘collection’ as well as ‘connection’.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

13. National bibliographies are not the cornerstones of the library system.
14. The aim of Virtual Library is to achieve a total overview of the recorded knowledge.
15. One of the most important items in the digital library is metadata.
16. A system of naming must be temporary.

Case Study Electronic Publishing in Science

lectronic journals create added value in publication that has great appeal to scientists
and publishers, and the number of electronic journals in science, engineering and
Emedicine – refereed and unrefereed – has increased dramatically in recent years.
But electronic publishing, with its greater flexibility and variety of presentation, challenges
conventional norms and practices. How will the existing culture and practices associated
with publication in science be affected? What standards should apply in the electronic
environment?

To explore these and related questions, an international workshop was organized from
12–14 October 1998, under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science (AAAS), the International Council for Science (ICSU), and the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to examine the application
of electronic methods to the publication of scientific journals with a view to encouraging
the development of internationally recognized practices and standards. The Workshop
was intended to build on the work of the international conference of ‘Experts on Electronic
Publishing in Science’ that was convened by ICSU Press and UNESCO in February 1996. A
major recommendation emerging from that meeting urged the convening of a forum
involving scientists and their organizations ‘to formulate codes of ethics and of conduct
for electronic publication which would spell out the reciprocal obligations of the scientist
and the community on such matters as peer review, citation, integrity and authentication
of material and archiving.’
Wide variations in the practices and traditions of scholarly publishing across disciplines
suggest caution in attempting to construct generalizations intended to apply broadly.
Nevertheless, the Workshop was able to identify a number of issues that merit attention
by the scientific community at large. They are the following:

Defining a Publication: Digital processing facilitates the production and preservation
of several public versions of a document or scientific paper, and the Workshop
Contd...

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