Editorial
Who would think in this highly dynamic age that the same co-editors would be around long enough to launch the fifth consecutive volume of a publication? We are here to say that we are still having fun, enjoy the interactions with our contributors and our relationships with our publishers at Emerald. Many changes are underway and this issue suggests some major ones – Library Hi-Tech News has emerged in full maturity as it is now searchable via the Emerald database. There is a new hosting platform called “Insight,” and it offers new features such as forward reference linking; customization for saving searches, managing table of contents alerts more integrated searching;structured abstracts and provides editors with improved usage statistics, so that we can tell what content our readers are most reading. Increased indexing is available for the conference reports and features. This was done in response to reader demand and should encourage additional contributions to our publication. We are excited and look forward to an even greater range of content in future issues.
We have arrived at another milestone with LHTN. This issue launches fully searchable content in the Emerald database and we know our readers want to search for specific pieces they have previously read or to find new articles of interest so we are very excited by this debut.
Another year and volume will cover the technology boom and bust and how the internet continues to revolutionize how we conduct business, engage in learning and scholarship, record our activities and live our lives. Clearly, the internet has altered the course of our lives in the past decade regarding business models, productivity, entertainment, education and healthcare. We will try and focus on the ways that this is done and how our profession of library science and the practice of librarianship is advancing due to the internet. The advances in broadband, wireless and networks will determine the success of our plans and how distributed it will be worldwide. We need to follow the activities around the globe as competition and new models are born. That said, we will try and bring you case studies and illustrations about how libraries are copies and providing new services and access to the proliferation of information and new digitized content available all the time.
This particular issue is very full. It demonstrates the worldwide focus of our profession with conference reports highlighting different technology applications for a range of library applications, historical preservation,digitization, virtual reference, metadata and standards, open source and open archives, grey literature, and coming from around the world. No wonder we are tired individuals, keeping up with this program of events is demanding and our profession is so dynamic, that one can not be disengaged for long without missing enormously exciting news. Just this month as we assembled this issue, we embraced the news about Google and different libraries partnering to digitize a large list of books which will become available in the public domain. Details are sketchy at this point, but we will learn more in coming months.
There are two interesting features in this issue. One on GeoLib, a model of how to handle GIS and spatial information in public libraries by Christi Koontz and the other is a fascinating interview Rose Okiy conducted with Professor Lenrie Olatokunbo Aina, a leading library science educator and author in Africa. Gerry McKiernan is back with another eProfile. This column is about ebrary and the eBook collection that Christopher Warnock started using the Adobe platform and potential that his father, John Warnock founded when he introduced the Acrobat reader long enough ago so that we cannot remember when we did not have pdfs. It is a fascinating read and is so relevant to the new business and access models under development.
We still seek contributions for future issues and hope that you will keep us in mind with your contributions.
Julia Gelfand(jgelfand@uci.edu)Colby Riggs(cmriggs@uci.edu) Co-editors
