Citation
Lee Eden, B. (2008), "Introduction", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 26 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/lht.2008.23826aaa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2008, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Introduction
Article Type: Introduction From: Library Hi Tech, Volume 26, Issue 1.
The six articles that make up this issue of Library Hi Tech all deal in some way or another with information organization futures: that is, new ways to add and/or view content in the OPAC, new ways to deal with challenging digital objects, and potential open source and 3D mechanisms for delivering information. The first article, “Topic maps and the ILS: an undelivered promise,” explains what topic maps are, how they can be integrated into OPACs via XTM, and how delivery of MARC data in XTM format is much more exciting than one-dimensional text. In the article, “Visualizing OPAC subject headings,” semantic-aware technologies are discussed, and an AJAX-powered GUI application that has been developed for just such a purpose is presented. Moving into digital objects, the article “OPAC integration in the era of mass digitization: the MBooks experience” describes how the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service (DLPS) integrates new digital content into the OPAC through the use of crosswalks with various metadata standards, and a workflow arrangement that encourages collaboration and cooperation with technical services staff. A prototype application that incorporates Google Maps as an interface for the library catalog is the topic of the next article, and the author discusses the development of this application. Kent State University’s challenge of finding efficient methods to promote as well as semi-automatically generate the metadata necessary to access electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) should be read by all libraries that are already dealing with or are soon to deal with these unique scholarly materials. Finally, an open-source metasearching tool named MasterKey is described, and how it improves metasearch services through Z39.50/SRU-compliancy.
Bradford Lee EdenAssociate Editor, Library Hi Tech