About the presenter: Jane Greenberg teaches in the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Her research interests focus on lexical-semantic relationship systems and on metadata and classification problems that involve the organization and retrieval of information objects, including images, archives, and multimedia resources. Greenberg's current metadata research involves serving as a project principal and the Metadata Coordinator for the North Carolina Plant Information Center, a partnership funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Greenberg is a member of UNC's Open Source Research team, where she has examined the production of Linux Software Maps and participated in metadata-based analyses that examine the evolution of the open source community. Greenberg has taught metadata workshops nationwide for AMIGOS, PALINET, SOLINET, and SOASIS. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Internet Cataloging. Prior to earning her doctorate, she held a number of posts as professional librarian and archivist, the most recent of which was as the Coordinator of Special Collections Cataloging at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a Research Division of the New York Public Library. Full text of paper is available

Summary:

Over the last few years the bibliographic control community has initiated a series of experiments that aim to improve access to the growing number of valuable information resources that are increasingly being placed on World Wide Web (here after referred to as Web resources). Much has been written about these experiments, mainly describing their implementation and features, and there has been some evaluative reporting, but there has been little comparison among these initiatives. The research reported on in this paper addresses this limitation by comparing five leading experiments in this area. The objective was to identify characteristics of success and considerations for improvement in experiments providing access to Web resources via bibliographic control methods. The experiments examined include: OCLC's CORC project; UKOLN's BIBLINK, ROADS, and DESIRE projects; and the NORDIC project. The research used a multi-case study methodology and a framework comprised of five evaluation criteria that included the experiment's organizational structure, reception, duration, application of computing technology, and use of human resources. This paper defines the Web resource access experimentation environment, reviews the study's research methodology, and highlights key findings. The paper concludes by initiating a strategic plan and by inviting conference participants to contribute their ideas and expertise to an effort will improve experimental initiatives that ultimately aim to improve access to Web resources in the new Millennium.