10.26.07
RUBRIC Toolkit launched
The RUBRIC Toolkit was launched October 11 at the !DEA2007 conference in Brisbane.
The Toolkit is the culmination of almost two years collaborative efforts of the RUBRIC Project, which I have been part of. The collaborative effort between the Central team, and the Partner Project Managers has been very effective, and this tool is one of our main outcomes. It’s designed to assist people involved in all stages of repository deployment – from initial testing through to production launch and beyond. The Toolkit covers all sort of areas involved in this process, so would be of use to anyone involved in repositories.
10.24.07
ECDL 2007 – Day two – 2
The afternoon of day two included a panel session on the topic “Digital Libraries in Central and Eastern Europe: Infrastructure Challenges for the New Europe”. There were representatives from Croatia, Lithuania, Hungary and Slovenia, and each presented an outline of where their country is currently at with developments in digital libraries, and some of the challenges faced including infrastructure concerns, Open Access, funding and small language group difficulties.
An interesting point for me was the resistance to Open Access from some countries. There is still a significant fear of plagarism, and even theses are not openly available in some places. There are groups of people meeting to try to find others of a like mind (who support OA), but at this stage it seems that progress is still halting.
From a linguistics point of view, the difficulties faced by the small language groups can be sizeable. For the 10mill Hungarian speakers, 3mill Lithuanian speakers and 2mill Slovenian speakers, challenges such as working out metadata schemas for these relatively small language groups exist. It is recognised though, that digital libraries are a way of ‘advertising’ a country, which helps to gain support for this work.
In all of the discussion that took place, one point which I would have liked to hear about is collaboration between the countries. I would be interested to hear more about how these countries progress, and whether collaboration is, or becomes a means for progression. Each of the countries represented has some challenges that are similar to their counterparts, and some that are unique. In most of these challenges, a degree of collaboration could certainly assist future development in digital libraries.
ECDL 2007 – Day two – 1
Day two of ECDL saw the day start with a really interesting address by Arne Solvberg from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim, about Wifi Trondheim. Trondheim, a city of about 162,000 people in Norway has started upon a project to Wifi the entire city. Arne talked about the plan that they have to get the whole city connected by 2009 as well as some of the problems that they have encountered. He talked about the ownership of Wireless Trondheim, and how it is divided amongst various city enterprises.
A couple of interesting questions and points were raised – firstly the point about the opportunities for service providers – meaning, providers of internet-based and related services. An audience member questioned how the actual ISPs of the area are responding as well.
One of the big issues is of course seamless connectivity. The network will be integrated with the university and a desire to integrate the university’s network seamlessly with the city provides a new set of problems with security and accessibility. Arne outlined the specifications of how the wireless will be implemented – the size of the area to be covered, the numbers of base stations needed, etc.
I will be really interested to see how this goes, and what the results are. The population’s reaction to this service, and any longer-term outcomes will be valuable.
10.23.07
Vienna
Vienna – what a great city. This was my second visit to Vienna. The first was a very quick visit in early 2000 and we had skimmed over many of the beautiful sights of this lovely city. This time, we had less time in Vienna than last time, but I think we definitely managed to see and experience more. I think I might write a book about how to speed-sightsee…
Vienna in less than one day: Afternoon of day 1: Walk through Staatspark into the old town. First we found the Franziskaner Platz where there’s an old church which faces across a square. On the other side of the square is a little coffee shop, which when we walked past, was full of Viennese enjoying the afternoon sun and coffee. Keep walking across to Stephansdom. This is an icon of Vienna – it’s mosaic roof is amazing. When I first saw the church, it was being cleaned. Seven years on, it’s still being cleaned, but it looks like they’re almost done. There were people walking around outside, dressed in Mozart-era costume, selling tickets to a concert that was on later in the evening. We avoided them, and went in to take a look at the inside of the church (something I didn’t do last time). It’s big, old, big, and fairly awe-inspiring. To my delight, the final rehearsal for that evening’s concert was taking place, so we got to hear a bit of the music – very nice in such a magnificent setting. One thing I love about these cathedrals is that there is always so much to see. Yes, they’re often big with soaring ceilings, and lots of stone. But there are often niches and sculptures that have been placed in the church over the centuries by different people with different interests. The Stephansdom features an amazingly carved pulpit, quite near to the front of the church. There are faces carved into the stone as the main features, and also smaller people-figures carved. All have varying expressions, and are amidst intricate filigree stonework (how on earth can you carve stone in filigree!!). Anyway, onward, ever onward.
From the Stephansdom, head further into the city, slightly southwards. You’ll come across the Peterskirche, with the large green dome. Keep going past this church and you’ll eventually come to the square in front of the Lippzaner School. Although the entrance to the Hofburg area is very impressive, take time to look across the square at the unassuming, white entrance to the Michaelerkirche. Again, I hadn’t been inside this church last time, and was surprised at its contents. It’s a very old building – they have maintained one of the original entrances to the first building from Roman times. To the left of the entrance there is a fenced off niche – look up at the ceiling and you’ll see the restored remnants of 14th century frescoes. Continue up the left side of the church and at the end there is a large niche which is a family niche containing a baptismal font (the marble base of which dates to the 14th century), and a gothic door (very short, and which, to my understanding, leads to the crypt). All these historic gems I think are overshadowed by the church’s more spectacular neighbour, but it’s well worth stepping inside for a look.
Continuing back through the Lippzaner school, we came out at the Wiese in front of the Hofburg palace. Apart from it being quite spectacular, we were happy to find an ‘Erntedankfest’ taking place. There were lots of stalls with local produce including honey, and honey products, local fruits, local sausage and meats, local wines, and of course, lots of beer to wash it all down with! We wandered around here for a while, supporting the local industries, and enjoying the sunshine.
Reluctantly moving on, we headed across to the Maria Theresia-Platz, where the statue of Maria reigns. After observing local wildlife for a while, we moved on towards the Parliament buildings, and from here, onto the Rathaus. I love the architecture of the Rathaus – again, lots of sculptures, and spires reaching up. From here, it was another short walk to the Votivkirche which is another of Vienna’s awe-inspiring churches. To me, it doesn’t have the same level of awe-inspiration that Stephansdom has, but it feels more approachable. Walk inside though, and I think they’re on a par. Beautiful frescoes, and of course the obligatory niches, are scattered through the building. This church also has a mosaic-covered roof although at the moment it’s a bit hard to see with the restoration work that’s going on (the Viennese seem to take restoration very seriously).
That’s about a good 3 hours walking there. Jetlagged and exhausted, we headed back for sleep. And now a quick plug for the hotel we stayed in – The Goldene Spinne. Its location as far as distance to the city, is great. It is just near the Landstrasse / Wien Mitte stations, and just a walk across the Staatspark away from the city. Of course, being so close to the train station means it’s very close to the train line, but we didn’t find that much of a problem. The owners of the hotel are very friendly and were patient with our attempts at communication. The breakfast we had was fantastic – just what we needed before another busy day.
Next morning was an early start – we wanted to catch a 11:50am train, but also wanted to see a bit more of the city. After (the very yummy) breakfast provided by the hotel, we headed back into the city, this time heading straight for the area around Stephansdom, then heading straight over towards the Staatsoper. A quick glance at Hotel Sacher, a round around the Staatsoper, then a stop for coffee and cake at Aida café, across from the Staatsoper. Then back to the hotel and onto the train to Budapest!
10.03.07
On the road
To go with the posts about ECDL2007, I will (of course) have to put some posts in here about the actual travel component of the trip! For this trip we flew with Emirates, via Singapore and Dubai. As an airline, Emirates was fairly average – some good things, some bad. Probably my biggest bug-bear though – touch screens. Everyone loves touch screens, right? But what about when that touch screen is embedded in the back of the chair you’re sitting in? From Brisbane to Dubai I was fortunate enough to have a girl of about 10 years old sitting directly behind me, who loved the idea of the touch screen. However, the concept of ‘touch’ screen flew out the window early – it was more like ‘jab’ screen. So every few minutes I would be jolted by the jabbing. Endearing for about the first half hour. The placement of the handsets underneath the touch screens also leaves me wondering – passengers will still poke and prod their handset if their touch screen doesn’t work. My preference is most definitely for non-touch screens, and handsets that live in the arm of your seat.
But enough about jab screens. Generally it wasn’t a bad flight (or rather, 3 flights). We arrived in Vienna – tired but glad to be on the ground.
ECDL 2007 in retrospect
I’ve just returned from a couple of weeks away, to attend the ECDL2007 conference in Budapest, Hungary. Seeing as it was a bit tricky to get much internet access, all my blogging about the conference will have to be done retrospectively.
The first day’s keynote speaker was Seamus Ross, from HATII at the Uni of Glasgow, who spoke on Digital Preservation, Archival Science and Methodological Foundations for Digital Libraries. Seamus’ presentation spoke about the heart of many of the issues facing repositories and digital libraries today. Where does the concept of digital curation come into the work being done in digital libraries? He made the point that any future work done on developing digital libraries must include work on preservation.
Satoshi Nakamura did an interesting presentation on trustworthiness analysis of web results, going into detail about a survey carried out on Japanese web users as to what traits web content needed to be considered trustworthy. The survey feedback is able to then feed into further development of web resources. Ee-peng Lim then presented on a Key Element-Context Model for web metadata maintenance which was amazing in its complexity. His algorithms for maintaining the key element embedded in a context were fascinating, although I wonder as to their practical use. Integration into a user-friendly tool may result in wider use of such a concept.
Day two, in the next post.
Open Repositories 2007
Ok, after being really slack for quite a while now, I’m taking the hint and catching up on some long overdue posts as to my activity over the last while. January 2007 saw myself and Peter Sefton attending the Open Repositories 2007 conference in San Antonio, Texas, USA. Seeing as that’s what we’re dealing with here at RUBRIC, it was a great conference to attend, both to learn what sort of cool things are being done with repository software, and to network with like-minded people.
Peter and I also both had the opportunity to present posters during the Poster Presentation session – thirty or so people each with an easel or two with an A3 sized poster about something relevant. I presented two posters: one on the data migration work being done here at RUBRIC, and the second on the way RUBRIC has used virtualization. Peter presented one poster on ICE, and another on the FRED project. All posters were well received, and I know I certainly spent a busy couple of hours talking to people who had lots of questions.
The conference presentations varied considerably, but there were some really interesting sessions – in particular, some of the presentations about how repository-type software is being used in educational applications, and the presentation on Xforms by Matt Zumwalt during the User Group sessions. The User Group sessions were also great for hearing some of the war stories of various organizations and institutions that have been through the phases of setting up repository infrastructure – one of our main foci here at RUBRIC.
Overall, a conference which provided a good opportunity to catch up on some of the latest development work going on in the repository world, and to talk to like-minded people.
