Emerging trends in academic e-publishing and e-libraries in Latin America and the Caribbean are more related to particular problems in the region -reduced number of copies printed, inter-library loans nearly nonexistent among cities and countries due to postal costs, discontinuity in library collections- than to the dynamics of the international academic editorial business. This presentation describes how CLACSO, an academic network gathering 168 social science research institutions from 21 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, is working towards a cooperative portal for open access to full-text publications of CLACSO´s network in support of education and research.

Digitization has revolutionized every field of our lives. Starting from the print media it has gone through the broadcast media and now a number of other storage media. The academic learning resources, though have taken lead, yet other such institutions are not lacking behind. Bioinformatics is such an area where the possibilities of digitization can be explored. The paper opens with the remarks that digital libraries are multifaceted systems. The area it has covered includes molecular biology, protein databanks, genome data, computer science and mathematics etc. The new phrase computational biology has been added for the readerâ s quest. The paper deals in some basic, technical and analytical questions relating to digitization. The application of Internet has been adjusted as the backbone of digitization. The paper also discusses the different field of bioinformatics which has been covered in the development of bioinformatics digital library at Jaypee University of Information Technology, Solan (HP).

The authors are conducting a three-part study to evaluate current trends in the preservation of digital content, with an emphasis on electronic records. The study emanated from the authorsâ work on the Preservation Task Force of the International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) project. This article incorporates the findings of both the survey and individual key-informant interviews that we conducted from August 2001 through February 2003, as round 2 of the study. Round 2 builds on the 2000â 2001 round 1 survey that sought to identify and describe strategies for preserving electronic records. In this second round the authors found that progress has been made in some areas while it is still lags in others.1 The full study consists of three phases: round 1 identified and surveyed 13 institutions, projects, and programs in North America, Australia, and Europe. Round 2 surveyed eight of the 13 institutions again to follow up on their progress. Additionally, we interviewed 18 key informants, including archivists and librarians. In round 3 the authors will each conduct one case study drawn from the survey participants in rounds 1 and 2. By the end of the three rounds, the authors will have studied a continuum of activities (over a six-year period) that constitutes a range of digital preservation strategies. The study will have charted the change in technological developments over this periodâ developments that have occurred in our survey institutions to meet the requirements of their mandates to preserve digital content for as long as needed.

As the Recombinant DNA, Gene Cloning and DNA sequencing technologies improved in 1970s the scientists began to think about the possibilities of sequencing the 3x109 nucleotide pairs in human genome. This led to the launch of the Human Genome Project (1990), and the greatest discovery in the field of life sciences, is near to completion. Vast and ever expanding diverse information on bioinformatics resources are being developed. These include databases of biological information, software tools etc. Advances in Internet Technology have largely affected to the bioinformatics resources as heterogeneous sources of information. It facilitates the uniform access to the educational, academic and research information sources to the bioinformaticians for their research and developmental activities. This paper describes awareness about the bioinformatics information resources and digital library needs of students at Jaypee University of Information Technology, Solan (HP) and how it can be helpful to access the information resources on bioinformatics through digital library techniques.

There is a strong history of social science research within Latin America, but its visibility (both within and outside the region) has been low for reasons of language and print distribution. The introduction of the Internet and online publication makes this information potentially more visible to the global research community, and within Latin America several organizations have undertaken to exploit this opportunity. The approaches taken show how collaboration between countries, and particularly between librarians and publishers, can provide innovative solutions. The CLACSO project uses a digital library model as a publishing platform for its member journals and this has provided a successful - and hopefully sustainable - model.

This paper examines a heritage practice by which memory institutions extend their role as repositories to becoming participants in a broader discourse about heritage with the consuming public. This practice is considered by focusing on two periodsâ the first wave of digital library development, and a most recent trend characterized by engagement of online audiences through social networking platforms.

This is a presentation at the 4th State GILS (Government Information Locator) Conference, Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records, Scottsdale, AZ, April 24-27, 2002. It discusses how metadata is akin to traditional library cataloging and classification practices by providing the context of users and intellectual access. Definitions, objectives, history, and types of metadata, a list of metadata standards are listed. Finally, it is all put together as theory that drives metadata in the form principles. Contains a list of resources and references.

Purpose: This paper is a high-level investigation of the physical-conceptual continuum occupied by both digital and physical libraries. Methodology/Approach: A framework is provided for thinking about the notions of place and library. The issue of materials and the ideas they represent is considered. Places for people are considered, including issues of people’s sense of place in physical and digital spaces. The issue of physical and digital spaces as places for work, collaboration, and community-building is considered. Findings: As more digital libraries are built, and as more physical libraries offer electronic access to parts of their collection, two trends are likely to result: (1) The role of the library as a storage space for materials will become decreasingly important, and (2) The role of the library as a space for users, for individual and collaborative work, and as a space for social activity, will become increasingly important. Research limitations/implications: Digital libraries are unable to fulfill some of the functions of the physical library as physical spaces, but are able to offer functions beyond what the physical library can offer as cognitive spaces. Practical implications: Areas of likely future development for digital libraries are suggested, as vehicles for enhancing cognitive space by augmenting representations of ideas in materials. Originality/value of paper: This paper argues that in many ways digital libraries really are places in the conceptual sense, and will continue to broaden and enrich the roles that libraries play in people’s lives and in the larger social milieu.

This is presentation slides entitled Metadata Architecture for Digital Libraries: Conceptual framework for Indian Digital Libraries. The original paper describes approach of development of Metadata solution for digital library architecture for resource description and retrieval. This deals with the concept of Metadata[2], the different Metadata standards (Dublin core in particular[3]), Digital library Environment, Computer Network capabilities etc. This paper also discusses two of the Digital Library architecture protocols, for resource description and retrieval: they are STARTS (Stanford Protocol Proposal for Internet Retrieval and Search)[4.2] and SODA (Smart Objects and Dump Archives)[4.1] architecture to arrive at a possible protocol which would help to build Indian Digital Libraries [5]. While proposing the new architecture the existing Indian Environment with respect to Information Sources and User's query of the Information Sources[5.1], which are feasible for launch of this protocol for information processing and retrieval has been taken care. This is a pilot study which the author has done while doing his Fulbright fellowship in the College of Library Information Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, MD during 1999-2000.

This Guide was shared at the NSF NSDL Educational Impact and Evaluation Workshop, October 2003. URL: http://eduimpact.comm.nsdl.org/evalworkshop/