D-Lib Magazine

May/June 2012
Volume 18, Number 5/6

Editorial

An Introduction to the Current Issue

Laurence Lannom
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
llannom@cnri.reston.va.us

doi:10.1045/may2012-editorial

The May/June 2012 issue of D-Lib Magazine consists of four articles and our usual collection of News and Events.

The lead article, by Simons, discusses the use of DOIs for research data sets. Managing "big data" in the sciences is an increasingly important topic for our community and this relatively brief article does an excellent job of laying out the issues that must be addressed in identifying and citing research data. The focus is on DOIs and the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) but the questions raised are relevant across the growing area of data citation.

The second article, by Westbrook, et al., describes a pilot project to audit digital library metadata at the University of Houston Digital Library. Accurate and sufficient metadata is absolutely needed for quality digital library development, but many collections have necessarily been built in a somewhat ad hoc fashion over the years, as time, resources, and demand have allowed and dictated. Auditing for consistency and completeness of digital library metadata is a logical step in continuing digital library development. The project, a collaboration between library school interns and full time staff, is described in detail including planning and lessons learned.

Our third article, by Lee, et al., introduces BitCurator, a Mellon Foundation funded project to develop digital forensic tools to be used by collecting institutions in the acquisition of born-digital material. Digital material can come in various formats and media types that can present a range of technical difficulties and raise issues of authenticity and integrity. The two-phase project has ambitious goals including the release of a set of open source tools, supporting documentation, and the development of an ongoing community process to continue the effort.

Andras Holl of the Konkoly Observatory in Budapest provides our fourth and final article, describing the Information Bulletin on Variable Stars, a journal with an interesting approach to developing enhanced services "on the cheap" to a small, dedicated community. The technical details are provided for each of the services, many of which are field specific.

We hope that digital library practitioners will find these articles of use. They cover data citation, metadata integrity, metadata accuracy, and variant approaches to publishing, all part of the growing area of digital librarianship.

About the Editor

Laurence Lannom is Director of Information Management Technology and Vice President at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), where he works with organizations in both the public and private sectors to develop experimental and pilot applications of advanced networking and information management technologies.