Monday, April 30, 2012

Career Guidance Programme

Career Guidance Programme for Library and Information Science Students at K.E College Mannanam, Kottayam on 12 May 2012. Read more : http://liskeralaseminars.blogspot.in/



Tuesday, April 24, 2012

INFOPORT: INFLIBNET Subject Gateway for Indian Electronic-Resources


A Subject Gateway to Indian Electronic Resources developed by the INFLIBNET Centre was launched by Prof. Mahendra P Lama, Vice Chancellor, Sikkim University during the inaugural session of 8th PLANNER 2012 on 1stMarch, 2012. 

The InfoPort is designed and developed by the INFLIBNET Centre to serve as a comprehensive gateway to all Indian scholarly content. The gateway open-ups the Indian scholarly content scattered over the Internet through an integrated interface that support search, browse and multiple listing. 

The resources covered in the infoPort are organized under ten major categories (000 to 999) according to the Dewey Decimal Classification. Resources in the InfoPort are also arranged alphabetically by subjects. 

The Info-Port is now accessible at: http://infoport.inflibnet.ac.in/

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Google starts ranking journals

Google announced a new feature to its Scholar service. This was no prank. It was the genuine debut of a new tool called Google Scholar Metrics. The service follows the same principle that has made Google's web search engine so successful - when you are unsure what a user is looking for, give them a list of options ranked by a metric of popularity. In this instance, the users are academics ready to submit their next breakthrough but are uncertain which journal to choose. The solution Scholar Metrics offers is a database summarizing the sway of the distributors of scholarship "to help authors as they consider where to publish their new research".

Here's  how it works. http://www.significancemagazine.org/

DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books

The Directory of Open Access Books ( http://www.doabooks.org/)  is a service of OAPEN Foundation. The OAPEN Foundation is an international initiative dedicated to Open Access monograph publishing, based at the National Library in The Hague. DOAB is being developed in close cooperation with Lars Bjørnshauge and Salam Baker Shanawa (director of SemperTool), who were also responsible for the development of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). SemperTool develops and maintains DOAB system.

DOAB supports the OAI protocol for metadata harvesting (OAI-PMH). Service providers and libraries can use the protocol to harvest the metadata of the records from DOAB for inclusion in their collections and catalogues.  

  

Monday, April 16, 2012

1.5 million pages of ancient texts to be made accessible online

     The University of Oxford and the Vatican announced a plan to collaborate in digitizing 1.5 million pages of rare and ancient texts, most dating from the 16th century or earlier. The project is expected to span about 4 years and was made possible by a donation of £2 million (approximately $3.1 million) from the Polonsky Foundation—a charitable organization that supports higher education, medical research, and other general matters in the arts and sciences.

     Specifically, the texts will include pages from Oxford's Bodleian Libraries and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV). The digitized pages will include early printed books—called incunabula—from Rome and the surrounding area; Greek manuscripts including early church texts and works by Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Hippocrates; and Hebrew manuscripts from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. "With approximately two-thirds of the material coming from the BAV and the remainder from the Bodleian, the digitization effort will also benefit scholars by uniting virtually materials that have been dispersed between the two collections over the centuries," a statement from Oxford read.

     The aim of the project, as envisioned by the Polonsky Foundation is "to democratize access to information, [seeing] increasing digital access to these two library collections, among the greatest in the world, as a significant step in sharing the wealth of resources on a global scale." This is not the Polonsky Foundation's first gift to digitize rare and ancient texts, either. An earlier gift to the Bodleian Libraries from the Foundation allowed the Oxford libraries to upload images of 280,000 fragments of Hebrew manuscripts, called the Cairo Genizah Collection, which are now available to search and view for free online.

 

Friday, April 13, 2012

BARCODE (CODE39) GENERATOR FOR KOHA ILS

Barcode Label for Books


Developped by St.Joseph's College Library, Devagiri, Kozhikode

World Bank Announces Open Access Policy for Research and Knowledge, Launches Open Knowledge Repository

The World Bank announced that it will implement a new Open Access policy for its research outputs and knowledge products, effective July 1, 2012. The new policy builds on recent efforts to increase access to information at the World Bank and to make its research as widely available as possible. As the first phase of this policy, the Bank launched today a new Open Knowledge Repository and adopted a set of Creative Commons copyright licenses.

The new Open Access policy, which will be rolled out in phases in the coming year, formalizes the Bank’s practice of making research and knowledge freely available online. Now anybody is free to use, re-use and redistribute most of the Bank's knowledge products and research outputs for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

“Knowledge is power,” World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said. “Making our knowledge widely and readily available will empower others to come up with solutions to the world’s toughest problems. Our new Open Access policy is the natural evolution for a World Bank that is opening up more and more."

The policy will also apply to Bank research published with third party publishers including the institution’s two journals—World Bank Research Observer (WBRO) and World Bank Economic Review (WBER)—which are published by Oxford University Press, but in accordance with the terms of third party publisher agreements. The Bank will respect publishing embargoes, but expects the amount of time it takes for externally published Bank content to be included in its institutional repository to diminish over time.

In support of the new Open Access Policy, the World Bank is adopting a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) copyright license for content published by the Bank, the most accommodating of all licenses offered by Creative Commons. It allows anyone to distribute, reuse, and build upon the Bank’s published work, even commercially, as long as the Bank is given credit for the original creation. The CC BY license helps the Bank to maximize its impact while simultaneously protecting the Bank's reputation and the integrity of its content.

World Bank content published by third party publishers will be available in the Open Knowledge Repository under a more restrictive Creative Commons license. The new copyright practice goes into effect today.

While much of the Bank’s research outputs and knowledge products have been available for free on the institution’s web site, and on other channels, the new Open Access policy marks a significant shift in how Bank content is disseminated and shared. For the first time, the Bank will have an aggregated portal to research and knowledge products, where the metadata is curated, the content is discoverable and easily downloaded, and third parties are free to use, reuse, and build on it.

“Allowing unfettered access to the Bank’s trove of development knowledge is commendable”, said Cathy Casserly, CEO of Creative Commons. For researchers, it increases the visibility, usage, and impact of their work. For users, it allows for the discovery of knowledge and encourages the open interchange of ideas.”

The Open Knowledge Repository, the centerpiece of the policy, is the new home for all of the World Bank’s research outputs and knowledge products. The Repository — available at openknowledge.worldbank.org  − currently contains works from 2009-2012 (more than 2,100 books and papers) across a wide range of topics and all regions of the world. This includes the World Development Report, and other annual flagship publications, academic books, practitioner volumes, and the Bank’s publicly disclosed country studies and analytical reports. The repository also contains journal articles from 2007-2010 from the two World Bank journals WBRO and WBER.

The repository will be updated regularly with new publications and research products, as well as with content published prior to 2009. Starting in 2013, the repository will also provide links to datasets associated with research. While the vast majority of the works are published in English, over time translated editions will also be added.

The Open Knowledge Repository is interoperable with other repositories and will support optimal discoverability and re-usability of the content by complying with Dublin Core metadata standards and the Open Archives Initiatives protocol for metadata harvesting.

“This new policy is a natural extension of our other efforts to make the Bank more open, including the Open Data Initiative and the landmark Access to Information Policy”, said Caroline Anstey, World Bank Managing Director. “Anyone with Internet access will have much greater access to the World Bank’s knowledge. And for those without internet access, there is now unlimited potential for intermediaries to reuse and repurpose our content for new languages, platforms and media, further democratizing development by getting information into the hands of all those who may benefit from it.”

The new Open Access policy and launch of the Open Knowledge Repository represent the next major development in the World Bank’s Open Development Agenda. The first two initiatives were:

·         Open Data Initiative (launched in April 2010): a range of reforms enabling free access to more than 7,000 development indicators, as well as a wealth of information on World Bank projects and finances, and
·         Access to Information Policy (launched in July 2010): a groundbreaking change in how the World Bank makes information available to the public.

Contacts:
In Washington: Yoko Kobayashi (202) 458-2624, ykobayashi2@worldbank.org
For Broadcast Requests: Natalia Cieslik, (202) 458-9369, ncieslik@worldbank.org

The Open Knowledge Repository is freely available at openknowledge.worldbank.org
More information about Creative Commons can be found at www.creativecommons.org.


Visit us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/worldbank
Be updated via Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/worldbank
For our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/worldbank

e-Content Project Management

Under the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the UGC has constituted a Standing Committee for development of e-content at postgraduate level. The Committee has identified the following subjects in the first phase of this initiative:


The last date for the submission of online Application is April 28,2012.

Eligibility: Senior faculty members / academics (including retired) working in universities and other institutions of higher learning and scientists working in R & D Laboratories having interest / experience in e-content development. Teaching experience at postgraduate level is an essential qualification.
Roles and Responsibilities of Subject Coordinators:To coordinate all the activities of e-content development in their subject according to prescribed guidelines.
To ensure timely completion and submission of e-content.
Shortlisted academics may be called for personal interaction with the selection committee. The Committee reserves the right to consider the candidates who might not have applied.
Contacts
Dr. Jagdish Arora
Director, INFLIBNET Centre
Gujarat University Campus, Post Box No. 4116
Navrangpura, Ahmedabad-380009,Gujarat
Email: director@inflibnet.ac.in
Tele. No. 079 26308528, 26305971, 26301972
FAX No. 079 26300990, 26307916
Dr. H.P. Dikshit
National Project Coordinator
Chairman, Institute of Environmental Studies
Environmental Planning & Coordination Organisation (EPCO)
Paryavaran Parisar, E-5 Sector
Arera Colony, Bhopal 462016 MP
Tele.+ 91-755-2460206