Institutional Repositories (IRâ s) offer the opportunity for academic libraries to collect and preserve and disseminate the intuitions scholarly output. Serving an important service to the community, institutional repositories offer many benefits to the academic intuitions community as well as other people and communities around the world. Institutional repositories make it possible to collect content in one location, capture and provide open access to the intellectual output of a university, as well as preserve content that may be otherwise unavailable or out of publication. It is essential to explore the benefits as well as the challenges of institutional repositories to make sure it is worthwhile to the library as well as the institution. It is also important that the benefits outweigh the costs of this ambitious endeavor. This paper will explore issues effecting libraries operating institutional repositories, as well as explore some of the challenges and benefits to libraries operating an IR. Lastly, this paper will examine the future of IRâ s as it relates to issues in sustainability and viability for institutional repositories.

This is a presentation (28 slides) prepared and delivered in July 2006, as a report to the University of Calgary Library, by the author who was the 2006/2007 Canadian Studies Faculty Research Fellow. Provides a quick summary about libraries and library education in India, and quick pointers to library networks, associations, etc. in the country.

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 explores the body of professional knowledge for academic librarians by researching library staff in Japanese colleges and universities. The research was undertaken in two ways. Initially 23 focus-group interviews were conducted at eight academic libraries from 2003 to 2005. Secondly a paper survey was carried out in 2004. Both of these targeted the whole body of the library staff, ranging from the chief librarian to junior staff. The authors have identified the knowledge and skills required for todayâ s academic librarians and learning opportunities that they preferred. The body of professional knowledge and skills revealed through the analysis of the outcomes of the research is presented here.

Education aims to impart knowledge and makes good citizens. Libraries are the repositories of knowledge and form an integral part of education. Libraries have a long history, starting with the chained and closed-access libraries of earlier times to the present-day hybrid, digital, and virtual libraries that use the latest technology for provision of information through various services. Accordingly, librarians have also changed from storekeepers who were concerned with protection of books against theft, mutilation, and pilferage, to that of information officers, navigators, and cybrarians who find themselves in the vast ocean of reading material and are busy in satisfying their clients who want anytime and anywhere information. With the advent of computers, the nature of libraries has changed dramatically. Computers are being used in libraries to process, store, retrieve and disseminate information. As a result, the traditional concept of library is being redefined from a place to access books to one which houses the most advanced media including CD-ROM, Internet, and remote access to a wide range of resources. Libraries have now metamorphosed into digital institutions. Gone are the days when a library was judged by its quantitative resources. Today, libraries are surrounded by networked data that is connected to a vast ocean of Internet-based services. Moreover, electronic resources relevant to the professions are developing at an unprecedented pace. Academic libraries are considered to be the nerve centres of academic institutions, and must support teaching, research, and other academic programmes. The situation in academic libraries of India is the same as that of academic libraries the world over; however, Indian libraries must provide maximum information with limited resources.

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.

Paper was presented in ULA of Sri Lanka, 2007 Conference / This was presented at the Third International Conference of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka, held on 8 and 9 June 2007, Galadari Hotel Colombo, Sri Lanka. The presentation briefly discusses the genesis of the education system in India from third century to present scenario. This includes formal and informal education, Gurukul and Traditional System, Scientific and Technical Education. The higher education system includes role of the guiding and quality controlling authorities such as UGC, AICTE, NACC etc. The state of libraries in higher education institutions in India and their role is the main consideration of the presentation. The development of academic institutions and their libraries have been discussed from the point of view of government as well as public sector. The presentation also discusses problems related to finance and other issues. The state owned academic institutions face severe financial crisis as the axe falls on the libraries affecting the higher education system and intellectual growth. The major issues of automation, digitization, copyright, institutional repository, consortium support, networks support, staff resistance, training etc. also find due attention in the presentation. It also emphasizes the need of overall restructuring and reframing higher education policies as envisaged by the D.S. Kothari commission expecting six percent budget allocation on higher education. A few recommendations to the UGC are included. The presentation closes with the remarks on emerging trends and future perspectives in the field of libraries in higher education in India.

This article explores the history, purpose and perspectives about the United States Presidential Libraries: and sections include how presidential papers before presidential libraries were handled; Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the origin of the presidential library; the presidential library system's evolution and the issues of presidential papers; the insider's view of presidential libraries; other's views on presidential libraries; and, the future of presidential libraries. The article closes by summarising and making a policy recommendation. It recomends the establishment of "a single Presidential Archives, housed in a facility run by the National Archives (although an empowered archival agency) in or nearby Washington, D.C. where the records of all subsequent Presidential administrations will be stored conveniently for researchers and the public. This facility should focus on records, with some space for small revolving exhibitions about the history and nature of the Presidency, but its primary purpose will be archival."

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.