With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, seven institutions (Cornell, Harvard, MIT, the New York Public Library, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, and Yale) are engaged in an initiative to create digital archives of electronically published journals. The planning phase of these projects is nearing an end. Presenters in this session will provide an update on the overall progress of these efforts and insight into some of the specific approaches being considered. The session will focus on a number of the key issues with which the project teams are grappling including features of the technical architecture of e-journal archives, the collaborative agreements with publishers needed to create such archives, the economic models needed to sustain them, the complementary roles of subject-based, publisher-based, and other forms of content organization, and the conditions, or "trigger events," under which the archives can provide access to the contents of the journals.

Microscopic imaging is fundamental to biomedical science. Nevertheless, there remains no portal through which large amounts of image data can be obtained without specific a priori knowledge about the data's existence. Biomedical images are typically accessible only indirectly through periodical literature, and only a small portion of the data collected by experimenters is ever published. Moreover, published images are usually delivered in formats that exclude much of the depth of the original digital data. To address the need for large-scale distribution and storage of biomedical image data, we are developing a publicly accessible repository and retrieval system for original digital micrographs, the Biomedical Image Library (BIL). BIL will hold light, fluorescent, and confocal micrographs that have been produced in support of basic biological research. A central, comprehensive catalog will provide access to the library's holdings. Users will query the catalog with text-based searching of keywords and controlled vocabulary (Medical Subject Headings) and will identify and retrieve material through structured, hierarchic metadata that preserve the scientific context of each image. Groups of images will be subdivided into an arbitrary number of contributor-specified nodes representing the various studies, experiments, treatment groups, and samples that make up any given project. Centralized infrastructure resources, Harvard's Digital Repository Service and Name Resolution Service, will ensure long-term maintenance and persistent naming for all objects in BIL. We anticipate that access to images in the original digital format will be of particular benefit to researchers who may wish to reuse existing digital data sets for novel quantitative analysis. BIL may also serve as a repository of data supporting articles in print or electronic publications, allowing scrutiny of data that currently cannot be published economically.

The United States National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United Kingdom Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) are establishing a joint program of activities in US and UK universities. Four exemplar projects of up to 1.5 million / US$ 2.1 million each over three years will be funded to demonstrate how the education process for undergraduate students can be transformed using innovative applications of emerging information technologies and Internet resources. The objective of this joint NSF/JISC program is to bring about a significant improvement in the learning and teaching process by fusing state of the art digital and Internet-based services, rapidly expanding global digital content of all forms and emerging applications in undergraduate education. The call for proposals is expected to be published in early December.

This session will also describe the JISC DNER strategy which has been developed to deliver an information environment for researchers and learners. The information environment vision is ambitious and is being delivered via a number of development programs over the next few years. Researchers, academics and students increasingly expect to access information on-line. The range of material available is far from comprehensible. Considerable development work is required to make it easier to find relevant on-line resources of quality, to ensure their long-term availability and to build sustainable business models. One of the biggest challenges facing the JISC over the next five years will be the design and building of such an environment, in an international context.

This session will describe two collaborative projects in digital publishing at the Dartmouth College Library, outlining the goals for the projects, describing progress, and discussing challenges and lessons learned.

1. Working with faculty in Linguistics, the Library is currently launching a refereed online journal, which will take advantage of digital technology to improve and enhance scholarly communication in linguistics. The journal, Linguistic Discovery, will have a data focus and will include audio and video content. The journal will be delivered via the WWW, displayed in HTML (with article content converted from Word) and will offer PDF versions of the content. The intent of the project is to utilize the capabilities of the digital environment to provide scholarly information, including audio and video content, in the field of linguistics research. An additional goal of the project is to develop an e-publishing model that will facilitate future journal publishing initiatives at Dartmouth.

2. In collaboration with faculty in History, the Library is publishing online a facsimile of a recently discovered 15th century manuscript in the field of astronomy. The web site for the project will contain a reproduction of the manuscript, "The Defense of Theon," written by the leading astronomer of fifteenth-century Europe, Johannes Regiomontanus, and searchable transcriptions linked to the page images. Phase I of the project will provide online access to an important document in the history of astronomy to scholars worldwide. Subsequent phases of the web project will add an expanded electronic edition of the "Defense of Theon," selected portions of the text being attacked by the "Defense" (George of Trebizond's "Commentary on the Almagest"), English translations of selected passages of both texts, and a pedagogical introduction to late medieval astronomy intended by undergraduate audiences.
   

Academic libraries face many issues as they move into an increasingly digital future and a changing higher education environment. However, many academic librarians are consumed by day-to-day efforts at achieving and maintaining quality services. In an effort to enlarge the viewpoint of librarians, the Association of College and Research Libraries, along with other organizations, is initiating efforts at identifying and analyzing the major issues, or "Big Questions" facing academic libraries. This is envisioned to be an ongoing effort that would result in a regularly updated list and exposition. This session will provide a forum to articulate the "Big Questions" as well as to discuss how the profession could create an ongoing, collaboratively developed, forum for response.

This presentation describes the creation of production and "studio" models for digital image deployment for teaching, learning, and creation of multimedia scholarship. Two new services developed at the University of Tennessee Libraries will be discussed -- the Digital Media Service, a "drop off" production facility for digitizing all types of course material (print, audio, video, images, etc.) created in partnership with the Office of Information Technology/Libraries, and The Studio, a digital multimedia laboratory embracing a studio concept for multimedia access and production by students and faculty created with assistance from academic departments. Key aspects of planning and implementing both services will be discussed. Digital Media Service URL --  <http://digitalmedia.utk.edu/> and The Studio --  <http://www.lib.utk.edu/mediacenter/>.

In 1998 the library chose to abandon its legacy finance and HR packages and to go with an enterprise software solution. Through an arduous process, SAP, a German firm with the greatest international market share of enterprise systems, was chosen. Suddenly the library was introducing software that had the potential for running all business functions of the library from training and development through to properly maintaining the filters of an A/C unit at a branch. Following implementation of the financial system, the acquisition module of the ILS was abandoned with SAP materials management software being used in purchasing all library materials. This briefing will address the process of implementing SAP purchasing module specific to the library needs.

Heritage, the Gateway to Colorado's Digitization Projects, has been developed as a means of increasing access to the unique resources and special collections in digital format offered by Colorado's cultural heritage institutions. Through IMLS funding, 48 museums and libraries in Colorado collaborated on 30 projects to create digital objects from their special collections. Resource discovery in a distributed networked environment was a major challenge, so the Colorado Digitization Project developed Heritage, a union catalog of metadata. Heritage uses Dublin Core but can receive records from a variety of systems in a variety of formats. Through Heritage, the people of Colorado can now access a virtual collection representing Colorado's heritage.