Progress Report: Southern Alberta Information Resources: The
Bibliography of southern Alberta, 1991-2005. Alberta
Historical Resources Foundation Heritage Preservation
Partnership Program.
Summer 2004
Progress continued establishing initial contacts and extending
cooperation with librarians, curators, and directors contacted
previously. Librarians and curators were again asked to
participate in two ways: by making sure that all significant
publications covering their community or region were included
(by searching the database and, if necessary adding those
missing) and by expressing their opinion about criteria for
materials to be included in the finished
work. Larger institutions were asked to produce an extract
from their catalogue in electronic form to make the work of
adding locations easier.
Initial site visits were made to museums at Cardston,
Claresholm, Pincher Creek and High River, and libraries at
Raymond, Claresholm, High River, and Okotoks. The latter two
represent the first approach to libraries in the Marigold
Regional Library System. Repeat visits were made to the
University of Lethbridge Library, the University of Calgary
and public libraries at Ft. Macleod, Lethbridge, and Taber.
Newspapers and economic development offices were contacted at
Lethbridge, Pincher Creek and High River to make them aware of
the project and to elicit wider support.
Site visits were made by a team of two individuals: Ian Dew
(Librarian) and Kathleen Crewdson (President, NextLibrary
Inc.) during July 2004. A second issue of the project
newsletter and a copy of the “SAIR Postcard” were produced and
distributed to all sites.
Meetings were held with librarians and library workers at most
other sites. Issues discussed include methods for the project
to co-operate with the members of the Southern Alberta
Information Network; standards (Dublin Core and other
bibliographic standards) for presenting information. |
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Long term community support for the project is growing. Major
steps can be reported in refining possible technical solutions
and in improving methodology. The University of Lethbridge
provided an extract file of records that has been loaded in a
test website. Lethbridge Public Library has also offered to
provide an extract file. Glenbow and the University of Calgary
have been asked also for an extract of their catalogue.
The search for funding and in kind assistance from sources
continued.
Technical developments are proceeding. In addition to the
experimental site provided by NextLibrary (http://nextlibrary.ca/sair)
using NextLibrary software, The University of Lethbridge has
offered to provide a site using the Greenstone software. (http://www.sadl.uleth.ca/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?a=p&p=about&c=NewerCol)
Both are yielding insights that will assist with the
development of quality products.
It was agreed that our effort would co-operate with and
otherwise support efforts of the Southern Alberta Digital
Library (SADL), which is based at the University of Lethbridge.
Opinion Summary: Bibliography Design
Most discussions with practitioners centred on the production
of the bibliography, specifically what should be included and
methods for accomplishing the task; standards for presentation
and provision of access to the content.
> Criteria for Selection
Some issues are closer to resolution, such as, the definition
of significant resources. A working definition of significance
has emerged that, beyond the common meaning, it shall mean the
importance of the topic to the region. High priority topics
will, therefore, include such things as community, water,
energy and environment, and specific topics, such as, health
issues related to the cattle industry. Some formats were
excluded. Among print and other fixed formats, maps and other
cartographic |
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materials, ephemeral materials, tourist brochures,
advertisements were excluded. Some issues and questions remain
to be resolved. Electronic formats present a number of
challenges in terms of selection and presentation, for
example, how to define “published” material as opposed to
archival or other material.
Legal issues relating to issues such as linking and location
information have emerged. Basic technical issues remain, such
as, how to update links.
Presentation. As part of the contract with AHRF one product of
this project must be a fixed format “book”., a published
version of the bibliography. This requires that we come up
with some helpful Table of contents. What should this be in
2005 compared to the previous editions?
For answers and the best solutions we ask for your opinion and
help.
A web based questionnaire will be designed in the next phase
that will elicit your opinion on issues in detail, such as,
standards for the presentation of the final output.
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