Article Abstracts

Volume 52, No. 1

Web Citation Availability: A Follow-up Study

By Mary F. Casserly and James E. Bird

The authors report on a study to examine the persistence of Web-based content. In 2002, a sample of five hundred citations to Internet resources from articles published in library and information science journals in 1999 and 2000 were analyzed by citation characteristics and searched to determine cited content persistence, availability on the Web, and availability in the Internet Archive. Statistical analyses were conducted to identify citation characteristics associated with availability. The sample URLs were searched again between August 2005 and June 2006 to determine persistence, availability on the Web, and in the Internet Archive. As in the original study, the researchers cross-tabulated the results with URL characteristics and reviewed and analyzed journal instructions to authors on citing content on the Web. Findings included a decrease of 17.4 percent in persistence, and 8.2 percent in availability on the Web. When availability in the Internet Archives was factored in, the overall availability of Web content in the sample dropped from 89.2 percent to 80.6 percent. The statistical analysis confirmed the association between the likelihood that cited content will be found by future researchers and citation characteristics of content, domain, page type, and directory depth. The researchers also found an increase in the number of journals that provide instruction to authors on citing content on the Web.

Who Has Published What in East Asian Studies? An Analysis of Publishers and Publishing Trends

By Su Chen and Chengzhi Wang

This study examines Western-language, particularly English-language, monographs on East Asian studies published in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and other countries from 2000 through 2005. The study provides a landscape view of the scope and trends of publications for both scholars and librarians in East Asian studies. The data for this study were collected from the YBP’s GOBI (Global Online Bibliographic Information) database, covering publications profiled by YBP from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2005. The results of data analysis shed light on scholarly currents and publishing trends in East Asian studies over that six-year period.

Mass Digitization: Implications for Preserving the Scholarly Record

By Trudi Bellardo Hahn

Libraries and archives have a critical role in preserving the scholarly record; many players in the publication cycle depend on them for this. Preservation of scholarly books that are being digitized has lagged far behind preservation initiatives for electronic journals. The issue has become more critical, as large commercial companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have begun mass digitization of millions of books in research libraries. Since December 2004, the pace of developments has been rapid, involving great risks on Google’s part over the copyright issue. Google and certain participating libraries have not addressed the issue of whether or not all this effort to digitize huge numbers of books indiscriminately will serve students’ and scholars’ needs in the long run. Quality, secrecy, and long-term stability are all issues that suggest that it may be foolish to expect that commercial companies will share librarians’ values and commitment to digitized material preservation. The information profession must exert strong leadership in setting policies, standards, and best practices for long-term preservation of the scholarly record.

Converting and Preserving the Scholarly Record: An Overview

By Jeffrey L. Horrell

The author provides an overview of the issues related to preservation in the digital environment and describes initiatives that promise to address these issues. He considers the mutability of electronic content, the mission of libraries to preserve, the long-term ownership of digital content, the nature of preservation in a digital age, and promising digital preservation initiatives. The paper, drawing on the work of a collaborative Dartmouth/Duke grant-funded project, concludes with recommended elements for a campuswide digital repository.

An Operational Model for Library Metadata Maintenance

By Jim LeBlanc and Martin Kurth

Libraries pay considerable attention to the creation, preservation, and transformation of descriptive metadata in both MARC and non-MARC formats. Little evidence suggests that they devote as much time, energy, and financial resources to the ongoing maintenance of non-MARC metadata, especially with regard to updating and editing existing descriptive content, as they do to maintenance of such information in the MARC-based OPAC. In this paper, the authors introduce a model, derived loosely from J. A. Zachman's framework for information systems architecture, with which libraries can identify and inventory components of catalog or metadata maintenance and plan interdepartmental, even interinstitutional, workflows. The model draws on the notion that the expertise and skills that have long been the hallmark for the maintenance of libraries' catalog data can and should be parlayed towards metadata maintenance in a broader set of information delivery systems.

Use of the Checklist Method for Content Evaluation of Full-text Databases: An Investigation of Two Databases Based on Citations from Two Journals

By Thomas E. Nisonger

Following a detailed (but not comprehensive) review of the use of citation data as checklists for library collection evaluation, the use of this technique for evaluating database content is explained. This paper reports an investigation of the full-text and indexing and abstracting coverage of Library Literature and Information Science Full Text and EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier, based on checking citations to journal articles in the 2004 volumes of Library Resources & Technical Services and Collection Building. Analysis of these citations shows they were predominately to English-language library and information science journals published in the United States, with the majority dating from 2000 to 2004. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text contained 21.1 percent of the citations in full text format, while the corresponding figure for Academic Search Premier was 16.1 percent. The database coverage also is analyzed by publication date, country of origin, and Library of Congress classification number of cited items. Some limitations to the study are acknowledged, while issues for future research are outlined.