Apologies for cross-posting


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Dear friends,
Quite a few DLF developments are recently reported on the DLF website. A
brief list is supplied here with pointers for those  interested in learning
more.

1) Preliminary report on the DLF members survey. An initial summary of the
survey results was discussed by a small group that met in Washington on
April 10. An unedited draft report of that meeting, including some
preliminary trend analysis and a plan for develping a formal report is
available from http://www.clir.org/diglib/roles.htm

2) A number of DLF initiatives have turned attention to the tools and
services that digital libraries need but cannot develop by themselves. The
aim is to specify requirement and develop business and organizational
options in the hope of stimulating service development by some third party.
Three developments are worthy of note

        2.1. Academic Image Cooperative. Our work on the functions, organization,
and business development of an image distribution service contributed
directly to the ArtSTOR service recently announced by The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation. ArtSTOR 'is an independent not-for-profit organization that will
develop, "store," and distribute electronically digital images and related
scholarly materials for the study of art, architecture, and other fields in
the humanities'. More details from
http://www.clir.org/diglib/collections.htm

        2.2. Cataloguing tool for visual resources. In early 2001 the DLF launched
an investigation into the need for, functional design of, and potential
sustaining organizational and business models for a shared cataloguing tool
that would assist in the shared development of high-quality image
descriptions. The initiative, reported from
http://www.clir.org/diglib/collections.htm, is likely to be taken forward by
ArtSTOR.

        2.3. Registry for digitized books and serials. Such a registry may be a key
part... "of an evolving network of organizations and services that support
the efficient and responsible stewardship of our cultural heritage, all
formats, old and new, and the economical and effective development of
high-quality scholarly collections." The characteristics and various
benefits of such a service are described in a draft report of a DLF meeting
held in April 2001, as are some of the next steps the DLF hopes to take to
more fully develop functional, organizational, and business requirements. An
unedited draft report of the meeting is available from
http://www.clir.org/diglib/collections.htm.

3) Standards for structural, administrative and technical metadata. The DLF
has launched a process to build upon and extend the work of the Making of
America II. An initial meeting of experts has produced a preliminary draft
metadata scheme which is currently under review. More details are available
from http://www.clir.org/diglib/standards.htm

Regards,
Dan


Daniel Greenstein
Director, Digital Library Federation
1755 Massachusetts Ave, NW #500
Washington DC 20036
(202) 939-4762