Chris Rusbridge said:
> I wondered if JIBS members are at
> all interested in the idea of the Distributed National Electronic Resource
> (DNER, part of the JISC Strategy) and how it might be implemented by the
> services.
We welcome this invitation to comment and would very much like
to urge JIBS users to take a look at the document mentioned here:
Committee on Electronic Information (CEI) - Content Working Group.
An Integrated Information Environment for Higher Education: Developing
the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER)
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/cei/dner_colpol.html
and to post comments about this or Chris's earlier message
directly to the lis-jibs-users list or to the User Group committee.
We note particularly the invitation at point 45 of the document:
45. You are encouraged to elicit wide-ranging views within your
institution, given the highly important strategic decisions for
UK Higher Education covered by this paper.
Chris also said:
> I think the idea of the DNER is quite exciting. Note "the" DNER
> rather than several DNERs. To me this means things like the ability to
> cross-search several datasets, perhaps in different data centres, for
> example. Does it make sense to cross-search a specialist dataset in your
> area, and also the ISI dataset? Or some other combination?
These are issues that have been of interest to the User Group for
some time now. The User Group itself commissioned research into
linking local holdings information with bibliographic data
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/jibs/venters/intro.htm
(report published 1996). Since then, we have been keen to see the
ideas encapsulated in the report implemented widely in practice.
Issues such as these were also explored at the JIBS User Group meeting
of 10th September 1997, Libtech, Hatfield: JIBS - towards the millennium
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/jibs/301097.htm
The need for integration was a key theme raised throughout the meeting,
very much along the lines that Chris suggests here:
> Playing with these ideas further, the eLib hybrid library projects imply
> the possibility of integrating the access to several datasets possibly of
> different kinds (eg online databases, local and remote CDs, OPACS etc)
> with other kinds of services, eg document delivery. These could produce
> subject-tailored services of great relevance, especially if they are also
> integrated with the Internet-oriented subject-gateway services.
In addition, the training and support aspects of providing such
services have been the focus of other JIBS User Group meetings.
At the most recent meeting of the JIBS User Group,
http://www.reading.ac.uk/jibs/agm97.txt
the issues of Authentication with Athens 3 and Charging for datasets
were also explored.
The JIBS User Group maintains links with named institutional contacts
engaged in supporting and promoting a range of JISC assisted services.
These links have been used to channel communication between the user
community and the service providers very successfully. Such an
established communication mechanism could be an ideal channel for
further discussions of the issues raised above.
> I would be
> interested in whether the JIBS people are as fired up by these
> possibilities as I am, and see a corresponding need for this technology
> investment.
The sort of integration we are talking about here would undoubtedly
be popular with users of JISC assisted services, as well as those
supporting and promoting them. Streamlining the working hybrid
library environment has got to be a good thing. Disaggregation is
all too often the message of the day!
Best wishes -
Betsy ([log in to unmask])
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Betsy Anagnostelis
(On behalf of the JIBS User Group committee)
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