Richard D. Hacken

The role of web services in portal design: approaches for an Algerian university library

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to present a conceptual model for the design of a scholarly web portal at the University of Tebessa, with which it is hoped that scholarly work stations that combine local and remote holdings, tools and documents will be created. Today, with access to enormous quantities of information facilitated by the web, boundaries between remote and local source documents become invisible. This is of extreme interest for libraries in Algeria, whose local holdings are very limited.Design/methodology/approach – An outlined conceptual model of library portal architecture, with ontological classifications and relationships is presented. The model comes from applying literature reviews to the needs and specifications of the authors and leads to a detailed breakdown of the planning and implementation process.Findings – Three findings in particular are worth noting. First, the contribution of web services to the seamless utility of a scholarly portal is indispensable: interoperable ...

The Current State of European Studies in North America and of Scholarly Publishing in Western Europe.

Abstract European Studies in North America are increasingly polarized between regionalism and particularism, a trend affecting acquisition priorities for academic materials. Continental scholarly title production is booming—fed by multinational publishing and unencumbered by the slow rise of digitization—even as library budgets stagnate.

Semantic Ontologies for Multimedia Indexing (SOMI): Application in the e-Library Domain

Purpose – The overwhelming speed and scale of digital media production greatly outpace conventional indexing methods by humans. The management of Big Data for e-library speech resources requires an automated metadata solution. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model called semantic ontologies for multimedia indexing (SOMI) allows for assembly of the speech objects, encapsulation of semantic associations between phonic units and the definition of indexing techniques designed to invoke and maximize the semantic ontologies for indexing. A literature review and architectural overview are followed by evaluation techniques and a conclusion. Findings – This approach is only possible because of recent innovations in automated speech recognition. The introduction of semantic keyword spotting allows for indexing models that disambiguate and prioritize meaning using probability algorithms within a word confusion network. By the use of AI error-training procedures, opt...

From the Ashes: Identifying, Documenting, and Rebuilding the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek’s Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft Collections

In 2004, fire struck the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek ( HAAB ) in Weimar. The fire particularly affected its seventeenth-century collections, among them rich holdings of works associated with the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, the foremost seventeenth-century German cultural society. This article investigates the impact of the blaze, looking back over the decade that has elapsed since the event. Among the questions investigated are: what are the numbers of lost, damaged, and surviving volumes? What are the effects on the scholarly research community? How successful has the HAAB been in replacing lost Society editions? What roles have the HAAB ’s duplicates and restoration efforts played in the editions’ continued accessibility? How has, in sum, the significance of the library’s Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft holdings been altered due to the damage inflicted by an early twenty-first century disaster?

BOOK AND SOFTWARE REVIEWS

Paul Knottnerus. Sample Survey Theory: Some Pythagorean Perspectives. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2003. ISBN 0-387-95407-4. 417 pp, EUR 74.95, 69.95 USD. The book provides rather detailed information on methods for estimating variances and correlations between values of the target variable measured on cases selected using different sampling designs. I believe it is an excellent reference for persons involved in teaching or carrying out survey data analysis, as well as those more specifically concerned with writing statistical computing programs for estimating variances and correlations for data collected using the sampling designs. The manner in which material is presented allows the reader to compare different estimation methods. Admittedly, the text is highly theoretical and an appreciation of calculus and matrix algebra is a requisite for successful comprehension of the content. Nevertheless, very useful examples and results of simulations are provided to illustrate proofs of various theorems. Of great interest is the manner in which the author incorporates the ancient Pythagorean Theorem to provide solutions to optimization and estimation problems. This theorem traverses the boundaries of sample designs and estimation methods. The book shows that this ancient technique is still very relevant and applicable to modern-day survey sampling theory. Comprehension of the theorem application is facilitated by the graphical illustration of the components of equations solved thereby. The emphases for estimation in the volume are population means, totals and variances. The Horvitz-Thompson (HT) estimator is commonly proposed and recommended as appropriate for sampling without replacement. The Hansen-Hurwitz estimator for population totals, on the other hand, is deemed suitable for sampling with replacement. The author propounds variance estimators for the HT estimator of population total as derived by Horvitz-Thompson and by Sen (1953) and Yates and Grundy (1953). Both, expressed as functions of the inclusion probability, are compared in the text. After going through different methods of arriving at the variance estimators the author delves into the