The October 16 issue of ShelfLife refers to my forthcoming article on portals (now on the website):
This article explores the design and use of portals in a library environment. It discusses the motivations for building portals, it discusses portal architectures and typology, and it examines the user environment in which portals are being deployed. It argues that portals provide useful integration and presentation services, but that they should be seen as one component of a broader set of services the library is building to engage users and useful resources. It briefly considers the services portals are providing: distributed query or metasearch, personalization, request, OpenURL resolution, alerting, and so on. It considers the emerging need for directory or registry services for such things as collection and service description, policy and rights data, and so on. It discusses the impact of web services and the changing patterns of research and learning on consideration of network information provision and use. It considers library services as part of an increasingly rich systems environment which includes learning or courseware management systems, campus portals, shared services such as authentication, and other systems and services. [The recombinant library: portals and people [OCLC]]
And to Lorraine’s article on special collections in First Monday.
Many digital library collections are the virtual analogs of special collections in libraries, museums, historical societies and archives today. A field study of people responsible for collection maintenance across a variety of institutions was carried out. It aimed at improving our understanding of issues involved in collection description and access. A second study examined the current state of Web access to materials from the previously studied special collections. Data concerning the availability of online finding aids, externally accessible databases for collection content, digitized images and Web exhibits are presented. [Studying special collections and the Web]
