Content Managers Research Articles

Building relevance amidst the content revolution

PurposeThere has been much discussion in the past two decades about the need for the library profession to change. The prophets of doom and gloom have spoken loudly about the profession's lack of relevance and the consequence of this irrelevance. Many have taken notice – marketing campaigns have been introduced, technologies put in place, measures established, etc. All these activities have made some improvements to services but the reality is that is tinkering at the edges rather than taking the giant steps that are actually needed. By investigating the profession's past this paper aims to provide some insight in how to rebuild relevance of the profession i the digital environment.Design/methodology/approachThe challenge is to find a way in which the core skills and competencies of the profession can be shown to add value to work regardless of the context in which they are demonstrated. These skills and capabilities revolve around content; how it is created, how it used, stored, managed, accessed and utilised in order to contribute to an ever‐increasing global body of knowledge. The wider environments in which people work often fail to recognise the complexities of this cycle, and the contribution that the information professional makes to keeping accessible, relevant information available from the desk top. Big decisions whether they be company acquisitions, research methodologies or clinical trials cannot be made without appropriate content. Why then are the content managers, the information professionals, under threat? Are there new skills and capabilities required by information professionals to build value in the content industry that continues to revolutionise?FindingsLibraries need to implement a structure that will allow them to sell, deliver and communicate value. It is time to position the profession as a central player in the digitised information landscape.Originality/valueThe paper provides a high level view articulating what needs to be done for the Information Professional to take their place in the brave new information rich world.

Cataloguers in a global information network environment

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the traditional and emerging roles of cataloguing professionals in a global network information environment. That exploration becomes even more critical in view of migration of information resources into digital, electronic and virtual domains.Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory research design was adopted. The method was to first examine current issues in library and information practice with specific focus on digital technology, the electronic environment, automation, networking, the internet, cyberspace and virtual libraries. The next approach was to examine the challenges of operating in a globalized information environment.FindingsCataloguers have key roles in knowledge segmentation, identification, organization and authentication. They are vital as content and system managers, software specialists and information retrieval system designers. In all, more than 23 roles are articulated for forward‐looking cataloguing professionals.Originality/valueThe paper's originality lies in its argument that roles are correlates of competencies and that as the practice of knowledge organization migrates to a dominantly global information network environment, cataloguers must upgrade their competencies in order to effectively operate in the emerging environment.

Electronic Resources & Libraries, 2nd Annual Conference 2007

PurposeTo keep librarians and colleagues informed about the issues and programs of the Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference held in Atlanta, Georgia on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus in February 2007.Design/methodology/approachProvides a review of the conference.FindingsAcquisitions staff, catalogers, public service staff, administrators, IT personnel, information providers from the vendor side, content managers, and others all came together to assess what needs to be done to continue high servicing of both born digital and electronically available resources in a hybrid environment that continues to describe all library settings today. As the percentage of electronic resources quickly grows, there are new challenges in acquiring, caring for, servicing, preserving, using and citing them that keep librarians up at night to consider short‐and long‐term solutions in how they should be organized bibliometrically and how we can re‐engineer some of our procedures to best treat the wide range of e‐Resources now common in all libraries.Originality valueThe program blended services with processing reinforcing the importance of electronic resources for the “total” library environment. It seemed like there was nothing left out.

Crafting the message: Controlling content on agency Web sites

Abstract While much research has focused on the new opportunities that government Web sites offer for greater citizen involvement and improved agency efficiency, less attention has been given to agency decisions about what to post on these Web sites. Here we use interviews with content managers in seven federal agencies to investigate the political and institutional influences behind decisions about Web content. We analyze the approval processes for new content and the emerging governance structures for evidence of greater centralization and political control or greater decentralization and autonomy for Web posters. In the end, it appears that institutional factors persist to influence content governance.

Cooperation and Quality Assurance in Technical Translation Projects

The professional profile emerging to address today’s demands in business and industry bears little resemblance to the traditional view of translators as solitary all-rounders. Translators and technical writers are now increasingly seen as problem-solvers, working in teams and interacting with other experts. They act as text coordinators, language leads, localisers, information designers or content managers.

Assessing the durability of formats in a digital preservation environment

PurposeTo describe INFORM, a new methodology for investigating and measuring the risk factors of digital formats and providing guidelines for preservation action plans.Design/methodology/approachConstruction of a model which aims to discover specific threats to preservation and measure their possible impact on preservation decisions. The methodology defines: risk categories of digital formats and their dependencies; risk factors for each category; scales to measure probability of occurrence and impact; and methods to collect, report and interpret the results.FindingsWhile individuals are biased and subjective in their aversion to risk, collating the assessments of many individuals should generate group‐consensus or group‐averaged objective results. Hence, preservation plans can be based on objective analysis of risk trends instead of individuals’ opinions developed in the relative isolation of their institutions. The methodology takes into consideration individuals’ aversion to risk, therefore refraining from imposing specific courses of action, but simply making suggestions of possible actions.Research limitations/implicationsA comprehensive approach to the format assessment must also consider, in addition to the risk factors, two other considerations, reflecting the quality of the digital format specification: significant properties of the format under consideration; the features of the format as defined in the format specification. These two aspects will be defined at a later time.Practical implicationsDigital archives, institutional repositories and digital libraries can take advantage of the measurements offered by the INFORM method to select digital formats most apt for long‐term viability. Moreover, by repeating the process, involved parties can detect changes in the threat model over time, to which digital collections managers can act accordingly.Originality/valueRisk management has been previously used to detect the potential of loss of web resources and has been inspirational to this author. However, this method is the first to use risk factors to measure digital preservation viability of digital formats. The results of the measurements described here can be used by: content creators and publishers, to suggest best formats to use; content curators, to restrict what is collected; content managers, to know in advance how difficult to handle a certain collection may be; and preservation planners, to define and implement preservation plans, in the form of either, migration strategies or short‐term emulation solutions.

The National Center for State Courts' Court Information Web Site: CourTopics

In 2002 the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) launched its Court Information Web site, a content-rich collection of knowledge directed toward the state justice com munity. One of the most comprehensive compilations of state court information in the world, this one-of-a-kind Web site is a product of the Center's unique position in the state court arena. CourTopics, as it was later named, provides a specific port of entry to knowledge and information resources the NCSC retains that can help courts in their mis sion to better serve the public and operate more effectively. CourTopics was made possible by the melding of two prominent NCSC resources funded by the State Justice Institute. In 2000 the Information Service and the Technology Information Service merged into Knowledge and Information Services (KIS). KIS staff are the content managers of CourTopics and for over thirty years have responded to requests for information from the justice community in over 125 court related topic areas. Now these information specialists are transferring this knowledge onto CourTopics. The collection consists of 125 topics arranged into 18 major subject areas. Each topic features an Overview, a Resource Guide or Bibliography, NCSC documents that can be opened in PDF format, and a Frequently Asked Questions section. Many of the topics also include lists of what is happening in the states relevant to the topic. To make this a one-stop shopping forum for those seeking information about court issues, other NCSC divisions contribute their resources, as well. For example, the Research Division provides materials from their projects and publications, such as juries, public trust and confidence, trial court performance standards, statistics, court interpretation, and family issues. The Institute of Court Management contributes their course descriptions and Court Executive Development Program papers. Court Consulting Services offers sum maries of their recent projects, while Technology Services supplies content about their work on functional standards and electronic filing, as well as presentations from Court Technology Conferences. The Government Relations Office provides Issues Briefs on relevant concerns for courts in Congress, and the International Division brings a world wide flavor to the Web site.

Beyond backup toward storage management

The IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, a client/server product providing backup, archive, and space management functions in heterogeneous distributed environments, performs extensive storage management after client data have reached the server. Beyond minimizing the amount of data that a client needs to send on successive backup operations, Tivoli Storage Manager optimizes data placement for disaster recovery, for restore operations, and for fault tolerant access. It also adapts to changes in device technology. The original design points of the product in research have been expanded to provide a comprehensive set of functions that not only facilitate backup but also support content managers and deep storage applications. The design points and functions are described in this paper.

E-Business trust concepts based on seals and insurance solutions

Consumers have embraced the concept of e-commerce although less enthusiastically than expected. Major concerns still exist regarding the use of the Internet for private purchasing. Trust is seen as a factor that is becoming increasingly important for both consumers and content managers alike. Various trust-related support features for online transactions are available, but most lack any form of guarantee or insurance for the parties involved. In this context, the paper seeks to explore the concepts and potential contributions of contract-based guarantees and insurance services with regard to business-to-consumer online transactions. After an inventory-taking of available seals of approval and insurance solutions for B2C online transactions, the paper drafts a research framework for investigating different insurance models. The case of ‘Trusted Shops’, backed by a German insurance provider, illustrates the concept of insurance solutions and analyzes benefits and risks for all parties involved. The potential advantages and limitations of extending the concept along the dimensions ‘scale’ and ‘scope’ are presented. The paper concludes by providing some suggestions for further research.

The architecture of content reuse

AbstractAs organizations have moved towards content management and dynamic delivery of content they have begun to create reusable content. Reusable content is object‐oriented content that can be used across documents, across media and across information types. Reusable content can consist of entire documents, sections, paragraphs, sentences, or even individual words.Effective content reuse requires robust information models, metadata, and strategies for utilizing content management and personalization to support reuse. This paper provides the concepts, strategies, guidelines, processes, and technological options that will empower enterprise content managers and Information architects to meet the increasing demands of creating, managing, and distributing reusable content.

MPEG-7: A standardised description of audiovisual content

Abstract The value of information often depends on how easily it can be found, retrieved, accessed, filtered and managed. An incommensurable amount of audiovisual information is becoming available in digital form, in digital archives, on the World Wide Web, in broadcast datastreams and in personal and professional databases, and this amount is only growing. In spite of the fact that users have increasing access to these resources, identifying and managing them efficiently is becoming more difficult, because of the growing volume. The question of identifying content is not just restricted to database retrieval applications such as digital libraries, but extends to areas like broadcast channel selection, multimedia editing, and multimedia directory services. In 1996 MPEG has recognised the need to identify multimedia content, and started a work item formally called `Multimedia Content Description Interface', better known as MPEG-7. The new MPEG-7 standard will provide a rich set of standardised tools to describe multimedia content. The people active in defining MPEG-7 represent broadcasters, equipment and chip manufacturers, digital content creators and managers, telecommunication service providers, publishers and intellectual property rights managers, as well as university researchers. Both human users and automatic systems that process audiovisual information are within the scope of MPEG-7. This paper will present an overview of the MPEG-7 standardisation project. The paper concentrates on the motivations and objectives behind MPEG-7, giving some applications, outlining the process and work plan. It will also explain the relation with the other MPEG standards, notably MPEG-4.