Desire | Research, Deliverables: D3.4 Information Gateways Handbook, Peer review

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Research: Deliverables: D3.4 Information Gateways Handbook: Peer review 2

Project Number:	RE 4004 (RE)
Project Title:	DESIRE II - Development of a European Service for Information on Research and Education II
Deliverable Number:	(D3.4)
Deliverable Title:	Information Gateways Handbook v1.0
Deliverable Type:	(PU)
Deliverable Kind:	(RE)

Principal Reviewer:	Name	Risto Heikkinen
	Address	P.O Box 35 FIN-40351 Jyväskylä, Finland
	E-Mail	risto.heikkinen@library.jyu.fi
	Telephone	+358 14 2603472
	Fax	+358 14 2603371
	Credentials	M.A. University of Jyväskylä, librarian in Jyväskylä University Library (1995 -), project engineer in Finnish Virtual Library Project (1996 -) and in two projects of FinELib – National Electronic Library (1999), author of Tiedonhakijan teho-opas (Handbook for Information Search) together with A. Agander, E. Ijäs & M. Laitinen 4 ed. 1999 Teknolit.
Other Reviewers:	(if relevant)
Summary:	Relevant	4 (1 = poor, 5 = excellent)
	State-of-Art	5
	Meets Objectives	5
	Clarity	5
	Value to Users	5
Specific Criticisms	1	Information Gateways Handbook contains no strategies for maintaing gateways in simple link list format.
Developer Response:		The corrections suggested will be addressed as a priority, as will the issues raised in connection with the reviewers project. All issues will be addressed over the next month, as the handbook undergoes some minor modifications.

This is the handbook, what we need in the world of information gateways. It put together all subjects in this area. It is useful every people, who are working with gateways.

I read this prototype version of handbook very interested, because I´m working here in Finland in same kind of book project. We collect our experiencences in Finnish Virtual Library Project (http://www.jyu.fi/library/virtuaalikirjasto/) to handbook. Aim of our book project is to get more organisations involved in our Virtual Library Work.

I didn´t find any bad mistakes in the content of handbook. The European gurus in this area surely know, what they are saying. Also the language and structure of book is clear. Link system works well and language is very understandable for non-english persons.

I hope that this kind of book will be freely available in the net and it will be updated frequently.

Some little corrections and comments, anyway:

1.1. Information gateways overview

Example of The Finnish Virtual Library Project

Text should be (more informative): The Finnish Virtual Library project, launched in 1996 and funded directly by the Finnish Ministry of Education, aims to form a foundation for a Finnish field-specific subject index of subject gateways. A collection of libraries have produced individual virtual libraries over 50 subject areas; these are now being converted into a gateway format, and offered as bilingual services in Finnish and English. For instance Kuopio University Library has mounted its Virtual Library as a ROADS-based gataway, covering the subject areas of Clinical Nutrition, Environmental Health, Molecular Medicine and Gene Therapy and Pharmacy. The Finnish Virtual Library has also co-operation with Nordic NOVAGate Information gateway.

http://www.jyu.fi/library/virtuaalikirjasto/
http://www.uku.fi/kirjasto/virtuaalikirjasto/
http://novagate.nova-university.org/

2.3. Resourse Discovery

Issues of mature gateways

Text: - collection management - you need to ensure that all the different subject areas within your collection are growing at the same rate - target efforts at areas that are falling behind and require development.

Comment:

I think that we must agree that in internet there is little material for some subject areas. So it is useless to keep amount of records equal for every subject-field in gateway.

Glossary

Text: URL-minder a service based in California, USA, twhich enables you to track changes made to Web sites

Comment: There is also URL-minder services outside California ;-)

2.4. Metadata formats

General comment: The chapter is full of jargon and acronyms, but where is the glossary?

Why create metadata formats?

Text: Information gateways are services that give access to networked resources in particular subject areas, linguistic domains, and so on. Many Internet portals simply comprise of sets of Web pages with lists of hyperlinks on a static Web page, perhaps with annotations, however, this approach has distinct disadvantages:

the portal can be browsed, but with no database it cannot be searched effectively
maintaining the portal is time consuming as all edits and additions require manual changes to the HTM

Comment: Anyway, if there is clearly under 100 records in gateway, it is rather easy to maintain collection in link list format.

We must think about different strategies of subject gateways. Some maintainers of gateways like the idea to keep the amount of recources under 100 in their collection. Their strategy is to store only the best resources in the subject area and nothing else. They don’t need any database solutions, so they don’t need to give resources for configuration of database. They can just concentrate only to main thing: to select resources from the net, describe them and maintain "their little resource garden".

I think, that this kind of strategy is suitable for some subject gateways: anyway there is no words about this strategy in Information Gateway Handbook.

2.14. Co-operation between gateways

Glossary

General comment:

In the Example part "RDNet The Resource Discovery Network" is term "hub". I think, that it needs explanation in the glossary.