Describes a project by Media Projects International to create a visual database of 56,000 items from The Wellcome Institute Library for the History of Medicine (United Kingdom). Topics discussed include identifying the users; defining the display system; project management; production processes; designing the photographic capture process; and…

In the United Kingdom over the past few years there has been a dramatic growth of national and regional repositories to collect and disseminate resources related to teaching and learning. Most notable of these are the Joint Information Systems Committee's Online Repository for [Learning and Teaching] Materials as well as the Higher Education…

The five papers compiled here cover topics related to electronic publishing, library collections and services, interlibrary loan, and serials. In "The Impact of Electronic Publishing on Library Collection and Services: An American View," Joseph W. Price considers possible consequences on library collections and services in the United…

Purpose: What kinds of online cultural heritage exhibitions are now available on the internet? How far have these cultural heritage institutions voyaged in terms of harnessing the power of information and communication technology and the interactivity of multimedia systems to exhibit cultural heritage resources? This study aims to highlight the…

The media industry is the fastest growing business in the world today; additional leisure time, coupled with increasingly global distribution, has created large international markets for information and entertainment. The United Kingdom is relatively strong in the three main areas concerned with new media publishing: information technology,…

Examines issues of copyright clearance by British universities for digitizing published printed materials. Discusses types of digitization, pricing, contract language, "compliance culture," publishers' rights, terms of licenses, and developing a publishers'"code of practice," and proposes a matrix of uses and users to support…

Discusses the impact of electronic publishing of professional articles on scholarly and research communication. A survey of academics in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States is described that investigated publishing via commercial databases, the Internet, and other networks; document supply and interlending; and universities as…

Surveys the recent literature on scholarly publishing and its conversion to the electronic medium. Presents results of a questionnaire survey of the United Kingdom-based scholarly publishing industry. Results suggest publishers are moving quickly towards use of the Internet as a major medium for distribution, though they do not expect an early…

Purpose: To describe the issues involved in the introduction of mandatory submission of electronic theses at Cranfield University. Design/methodology/approach: Background information on how the availability of e-theses has developed at Cranfield University is provided along with discussions and advice on issues such as the choice of software,…

Drawing on a current study, funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre, the context of higher education libraries is discussed, including funding and costs and recent major official reports on education and libraries. Future trends and imperatives are outlined. Models of library purchasing consortia are presented. The operation…

This article considers the question of the authorship of digital texts and their use by learners and teachers in higher education. It draws on the work of Foucault, in particular how his concept of the "author function" is applied by Poster to the authorships of the digital age. From this theoretical basis, the article goes on to…

Encoded Archival Description (EAD) can be seen to have reached maturity as the global data structure standard for the electronic representation of archival finding aids. One factor responsible for this success, flexibility, is now being questioned as it has led to a great deal of divergent practice. This article discusses the attempt to tighten…

The essays collected in this volume present the personal visions of several individuals, mostly librarians and other information professionals, on what the library might look like 25 or 30 years from now. The contributors represent a wide variety of libraries and related institutions on four continents. The essays collected are:…

The strategy for conversion to electronic cataloguing of western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library has been to a large extent determined by circumstances--the size and variety of the manuscript collections, the existence of detailed published catalogues for the earlier collections, the availability of funds for specific purposes, and, above all,…

Describes the ELVYN project in the United Kingdom that investigated the scenario of dual publishing (in electronic and print formats) of journals in the physical sciences by delivery of the electronic file from the publisher to academic libraries. Topics include implementation, use of the World Wide Web and electronic mail, usage data, and cost…