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| April 15, 2002, Volume 6, Number 1 |
ISSN
1093-5371
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FAQ We often read about new projects and programs in RLG DigiNews, but what about past efforts? What results have been produced in the five years since RLG DigiNews began publishing? The speed of innovation and the proliferation of digital library projects in recent years make it difficult to track the progress of new efforts once we report on them. So, for this issue, we decided to revisit a number of projects we announced in our first issue, in April 1997. While these are not necessarily representative of the digital library field as a whole, we found that the experiences described below offer valuable lessons for institutions contemplating new projects today. National Agriculture Library: USDA Digital Publications Preservation Program The April 1997 issue of RLG DigiNews, announced a collaborative effort to preserve digital publications created by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). A meeting in March of that year resulted in an action plan, later published as the "Framework for the Preservation of and Permanent Public Access to USDA Digital Publications" that led to the creation of the USDA Digital Publications Preservation Program, hosted by the U.S. National Agricultural Library (NAL). In the past five years, the USDA Digital Publications Preservation Steering Committee, led by the Director of the National Agricultural Library, has begun to tackle a wide range of issues related to digital preservation. One planning group conducted an inventory of USDA Economic Research Service digital publications, in which 7,000 digital objects were identified. Analysis of this inventory will inform the Steering Committee about the current status of USDA digital publications, and the costs of conducting a Department-wide inventory. Another planning group hosted a conference on metadata issues, including preservation, for USDA employees responsible for creating, managing, making accessible, and preserving USDA digital publications. A third planning group developed guidelines for USDA agencies that create digital publications, including a metadata template developed by NAL. These guidelines are designed to inform agencies on how to produce digital publications in a way that will best serve access and preservation. In June 2001 the publication guidelines and metadata template were sent to the USDA Office of the Chief Information Officer as recommendations for policy and best practice. NAL plans to place the metadata template online for USDA agencies' use. Once the guidelines are adopted as formal USDA regulations, the Steering Committee will devise specific policies for managing digital publications across their life cycle. Currently, the Steering Committee is evaluating the draft ISO standard for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) and its potential applications for USDA digital publications and NAL's own digital library efforts. In any case, the USDA Digital Publications Preservation Steering Committee sees its ongoing educational efforts as key to building consensus and obtaining sufficient funding to ensure the long-term preservation of the USDA's growing number of digital publications. As concerns over creation, management, and persistence of digital publications have grown, NAL Preservation Officer Evelyn Frangakis notes that her program has been regularly receiving calls for advice from creators of digital publications across the USDA. Additional information about the USDA program may be obtained by contacting the NAL Preservation Office. Digital Library News In August 1997, RLG DigiNews announced a new publication called Digital Library News (DLN), sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Digital Libraries and the Advances in Digital Libraries conference. It was intended to offer a "periodic electronic snapshot for the Digital Libraries field" and to "gather notices of ongoing events and new developments" in digital libraries. DLN eventually published three issues, dated June/July 1997, January 1998 and July 1998. Then it fell silent. What happened to Digital Library News? As is often the case, the Web site for DLN provides no clues. It contains an archive of the three published issues, a copy of the original publication announcement and (clearly outdated) information on how to subscribe to email distribution of DLN. A little slide show about the IEEE task force indicates that by November 1997, over 1,500 people had subscribed to DLN. The final issue includes a solicitation for more contributions and no hint that it might be the publication's swan song. We contacted DLN's former editor, Susan Feldman, for some insight into its mysterious disappearance. As it turns out, the circumstances of DLN's shutdown were fairly mundane: a task taken on largely as a volunteer (IEEE provided expenses only, no salary) proved too time-consuming, and no one could be found to take over the editing. That might be the end of the story, but it raises more questions than it answers. How typical is this kind of online publishing cessation? What happens to Web journals after they cease publishing? Which ones merit special attention for preservation? How much can be learned simply by visiting Web sites for the answers? To put the demise of DLN into some perspective, we conducted a small study on the status of Web-based journals that began publication in 1997. We based our investigation on the 1997 Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion List, published by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The 1997 ARL directory included about 3,750 electronic publications, so we narrowed the field to about 65 titles, including only those that were launched in 1997 and that were identified by ARL as journals (as opposed to 'zines or newsletters). Here's a summary of what we found:
* The number missing by 1998 includes six titles whose whereabouts could not be found and which are presumed to have had a brief publishing history.
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