It seems like a long time since I posted last, but a couple of recent news items deserve a mention.
First of all, UK electronic legal deposit is finally a reality, with recent regulations having come into force on 6 April 2013. More information is available on the British Library's website here. The Library also this video overview of what this means.
Possibly one of the strongest arguments for the vital role of libraries in preserving digital as well as printed information seemed to me to be highlighted by the recent news of acquisition of the free reference management tool Mendeley by the publishing giant Elsevier. Andy Tattersall of Sheffield's School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) recently carried out this fascinating brief interview with Victor Henning, co-founder of Mendeley, which is published in full on the ScHARR library blog.
18 April 2013
20 February 2013
British Library and the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
There was a really interesting announcement from the British Library earlier this week about the Library's future involvement with FutureLearn Ltd, a provider of MOOCs from UK institutions. The news release is available here. The British Library is the first non-university institution to join the project, launched by the Open University last December.
24 January 2013
DNA as a new method of digital data storage
Quite the most exciting, extraordinary thing that I've read about recently: encoding information in DNA as a means of high density archival data storage. The Guardian has a news article about this: 'Shakespeare's sonnets encoded in DNA' and the original research is reported in an article in Nature 'Towards practical, high-capacity, low-maintenance information storage in synthesized DNA'.
21 January 2013
Links to the ALISS presentations
All three presentations from last month's ALISS Christmas seminar are now available on Slideshare.
Sharon Johnson's (Head of Content Development Implementation, The British Library) presentation "Are we nearly there? Measuring progress and success on the road to implementation" is available at: http://www.slideshare.net/alissinfo/are-we-nearly-there-measuring-progress-and-success-on-the-road-to-implementation
The presentation "Transforming our collections: How we reviewed over 1 million items in five years and got them all to fit!" by Paul Johnson (Head of Collections and Space, University of Reading) and Claire Cannings (Collections Project Co-ordinator, University of Reading) is available at: http://www.slideshare.net/alissinfo/transforming-our-collections-how-we-reviewed-over-1-million-items-in-five-years-and-got-them-all-to-fit
Sharon Johnson's (Head of Content Development Implementation, The British Library) presentation "Are we nearly there? Measuring progress and success on the road to implementation" is available at: http://www.slideshare.net/alissinfo/are-we-nearly-there-measuring-progress-and-success-on-the-road-to-implementation
The presentation "Transforming our collections: How we reviewed over 1 million items in five years and got them all to fit!" by Paul Johnson (Head of Collections and Space, University of Reading) and Claire Cannings (Collections Project Co-ordinator, University of Reading) is available at: http://www.slideshare.net/alissinfo/transforming-our-collections-how-we-reviewed-over-1-million-items-in-five-years-and-got-them-all-to-fit
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