|
|
ROADS Newsletter Editorial - Issue 9 - July 1999 |
By Paul Hollands, ROADS Liaison Officer, ILRT, Bristol University. <roads-liaison@bristol.ac.uk>
This is the last newsletter of the ROADS eLib project and so much of it is devoted to the future both of the ROADS code-base and of those services which use the software. Some of what is written may sound like a eulogy for a dear departed but in fact all our efforts over the past six months have been geared to ensure that ROADS software continues to be maintained and well used long after August 1999. `Don't panic' :-)
The future of the ROADS software and the subject gateways which use it has seemed somewhat uncertain over the past few months while the details of the new Resource Discovery Network have been ironed out.
Things are much clearer now however and in the past few weeks we've had anouncements about several of the new RDN hubs.
The three former subject gateways SOSIG, EEVL and OMNI have anounced that they are taking on hub status. This means that not only is the future of these services secure but that the significant expertise that these services have built up over the years will not be lost. They will rather be exploited to help develop a new generation of gateways with wider subject coverage for users.
SOSIG and BIOME (nee OMNI) will continue to use ROADS. The RDNC (Resource Discovery Network Centre) will be undertaking a review of architectures for the network as well as looking at issues of interoperability and this will report in December 1999. Members of the current ROADS project consortium will be offering ROADS support to RDN service providers wishing to use ROADS until then. It may well be that this arrangement may continue after December but this obviously depends on the findings of the review.
Details about the ROADS support service will be anounced as soon as they are finalised.
We are certain that the ROADS tool-kit will be in use by RDN services for many years yet. It offers good solutions and is free. It would therefore seem rather foolish not to make use of the tools wherever appropriate. We are quietly confident ROADS will not be wiped from RDN servers in December.
The future of the ROADS code-base is discussed extensively elsewhere in this isssue. We have sought to ensure that ROADS continues to be available for those who are now using it or wish to use it in the future.
Simply keeping the code for posterity is not good enough however so we have instituted procedures which we hope will ensure that ROADS continues to be developed and updated.
After July ROADS will live on a new site hosted by the ILRT, OpenSource.ac.uk (ROADS will live at http://roads.opensource.ac.uk)
The number of enquiries about ROADS continues to rise unabated and registrations of new installations appear every couple of days. Many of these new users seem to be in Eastern Europe and Asia which is an interesting development. There continues to be significant interest in Scandanavian countries where ROADS is already heavily used.
In this issue Ian Sealy of the ILRT Internet Development department writes about the work they have done with ROADS for the National Maritime Museum.
Also in this issue, Emma Place writes about the upcoming DESIRE Gateways Workshop which will take place in the Hague in September.
The DESIRE project is in the process of producing a handbook for people wishing to set up their own information gateway. Due to be published on the Web in Autumn of this year, the Information Gateways Handbook will offer practical guidelines on all aspects of setting up a gateway, including managerial issues of funding, staffing, organisation and planning as well as practical issues such as setting up the software, creating selection policies and creating metadata records.
The handbook will be freely accessible from the DESIRE web site later this year:
http://www.desire.org/html/subjectgateways/handbook/
Issue 9 July 1999
Maintained by Paul Hollands <paul.hollands@bris.ac.uk> - July 1999
