ANNEX 6

IAMSLIC FRAMEWORK FOR IMPROVED SHARING OF AQUATIC SCIENCE INFORMATION

IAMSLIC, as the professional library and information association most concerned with fisheries and aquaculture, provides a forum to discuss and encourage participation in the use of technology to enhance access to fisheries information. IAMSLIC is building on the informed discussion of recent years to provide ways for aquatic science libraries to collaborate more broadly. These include the following actions:

• developing a distributed network of resource sharing;

• maintaining a union list of marine science serials (including fisheries and aquaculture);

• funding of projects proposed by IAMSLIC members through small grants;

• creating a web portal for digital aquatic resources;

• endorsing standards for digital projects;

• supporting of a digital framework to improve access to fisheries and aquaculture information.

The IAMSLIC Z39.50 Distributed Library is a project aimed at facilitating international resource sharing among marine and aquatic science libraries. This was developed as a joint project of the IAMSLIC Resource Sharing Committee, the California State University, Monterey Bay Library and the NOAA Coastal Services Center in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. It is modeled on the Coastal Information Library developed by the NOAA Coastal Services Center and utilizes the PHP/YAZ open source Z39.50 protocols.

Started in 1992, the Union List of Marine and Aquatic Serials is a volunteer project to facilitate interlibrary loan programmes among marine science libraries by providing a list of which libraries own specific journals. Those needing a specific article from a journal can search the list, identify libraries owning the journals and then generate a request to that library. The list facilitates identifying obscure titles and those with limited distribution. The original list of serials was derived from the list of source journals for Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts. The union list is now incorporated into the IAMSLIC Z39.50 Distributed Library. Currently, more than 55 libraries participate in this project.

Funding is a constant barrier to exploring methods and means to expand access to fisheries information. IAMSLIC has limited funding but can be effective by continuing to support local initiatives with small grants. Such funding can be used to leverage additional grants from local and international organizations. IAMSLIC supports efforts to enhance the ability of developing countries to create, access, and share information.

IAMSLIC’s Web portal Aqua Terra (http://cwis.fcla.edu/iamslic) provides a means to index the vast array of Web resources that are of interest to IAMSLIC members and their primary user groups. It uses the CWIS software, developed by the University of Wisconsin with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation with the specific goal of helping groups develop OAI-compliant repositories of subject oriented metadata. The goal of those building Aqua Terra is to mine content beyond top-level institutional pages which is the focus of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s OceanPortal.

IAMSLIC members have long recognized the importance of shared standards and methodologies. As more members initiate digitization projects and linkages to digital resources, IAMSLIC encourages members to refer to these accepted guidelines:

• IFLA Guidelines for Digitization Projects (IFLA, 2003);

• Western States Digital Imaging Best Practices (Colorado Digitization Program, 2003);

• Handbook for Digital Projects from the U.S. Northeast Document Conservation Center (Sitts, 2000).

Suggested scanning guidelines are derived from the above sources and the experience of IAMSLIC members. In general, the format should be ITU TIFF (T.6) uncompressed. The colour space (black and white, grey-scale, or colour) should be appropriate to the resource, e.g. coloured materials should be imaged in colour, black and white photographs in grey-scale. Bit-depth (1-bit/black and white, 8-bit/grey-scale, or 24-bit/colour or higher) should be appropriate to the resource and anticipated uses. The greater the bit-depth, the greater the file size, but also the better the image quality. Scale to Source should be 100 percent. There should be no image size reduction in creation of the digital master.

There are two products from the scanning of images: a master digital object and the derivative or access digital object. When scanning photographs, engravings, etc. for the master digital object, recommended resolution is 600 dpi or 236 dpc (Table 6.1). This capture will support zoom applications such as JPEG2000. The format standard for the access digital object will be JPG with the smallest possible compression. Bit-depth, color space, and dpi/dpc should remain the same as the digital master. Scale to prevailing screen/monitor resolution width to mitigate horizontal scrolling, i.e., not less that 630 pixels wide. Thumbnails may be scaled to dimensions appropriate for display

Table 6.1: Measures of digital resolution

Table 6.2: Suggested scanning guidelines

Components of a digital framework to improve access to fisheries and aquaculture information emerge continually. Simultaneously, the foundation elements strengthen with time and use. IAMSLIC members work in a broad range of organizations and institutions, each with a unique approach to the digital environment and with unique information resources. Linking the components together along with the institutional information resources is challenging. IAMSLIC promotes the use of standard methodologies such as Dublin Core for basic metadata, MARC, Z39.50 as well as XML for data exchange, and Open Source software as appropriate. It also urges members to comply with the spirit of the Open Archives Initiative by recognizing the importance of interoperability standards for enhancing access to the variety of fisheries information.

IAMSLIC’s desired digital framework incorporates existing resources while allowing for inclusion of those to come. As more OAI-compliant resources emerge, IAMSLIC will implement a harvester to collect distributed metadata and provide access to institutional repositories, as well as metadata harvested from the Aqua Terra web portal. Diagram 6.1 illustrates how resources and services could be linked through a meta-search interface. This could potentially enable a single search across ASFA, the Z39.50 Distributed Library, CWIS web portals, and both OAI-compliant institutional repositories and information services. Building and maintaining such a system requires commitment by IAMSLIC members, the willingness of their institutions to support this endeavor with time and resources, and the involvement of a range of partners including FAO. Technical issues are not insurmountable, but need time and expertise applied to them.

IAMSLIC members also will continue to participate in other projects that can inform the development of the framework and ultimately improve its use. One example is IOC’s work on an institutional repository for African fisheries and oceanography information. Another need is for more work on improving cross language harvesting of digital publications.

IAMSLIC is proving to be an excellent forum for the discussion on improving access to fisheries information internationally. It utilizes its members’ expertise and enthusiasm to provide more ways for fisheries libraries to collaborate.

Diagram 6.1: Potential IAMSLIC digital framework