CoSMiC

1
CoSMiC

• Information for Scotland,
• 29th November 2004
• Dennis Nicholson, Director,
• Centre for Digital Library Research,
• Glasgow, Scotland

2
What is CoSMiC?

• The Confederation of Scottish Mini-Cooperatives
• A confederation of independent organisations,
  services and projects working together to foster
  and sustain co-operation between organisations
  actively engaged in building and developing
  'virtual Scotland a specific focus being work
  within and between Libraries, Archives, Museums,
  and Electronic Learning Services
• SLIC, SMC, Archives Representative, SCURL, SFEU,
  regional cooperatives like ALF, TAFLIN and
  others, and many others
• Funding (via projects and conferences) by SLIC

3
What is CoSMiC?

• Additional resourcing in kind by other
  participating organisations (including CDLR)
• Aim is gradual sustainable growth of
  organisational infrastructure through the
  (representative) CoSMiC Task Group
• Limitations (e.g. library domain best
  represented)
• Various mechanisms to encourage and co-ordinate
  community involvement (more later)
• Primary focus joint management of the distributed
  environment

4
Managing the Distributed Environment

• Why Important?
• Users increasingly use and need distributed
  resources and finding tools, so co-operation is
  now essential as well as desirable
• Institutional and other boundaries are becoming a
  barrier to providing what users need
• Coherent distributed virtual cross-domain
  information services wont just happen we must
  co-operate to manage retrieval and user
  environments

5
Managing the Distributed Environment

• How?
• Interoperability the key to a co-ordinated and
  coherent distributed environment
• People interoperability is a pre-requisite of
  technical and metadata interoperability,
• So
• CoSMiC
• Plus various mechanisms, co-ordinated through
  the

6
The COSMIC Joint R D Plan What is it? The
COSMIC RD Plan is a statement of the agreed
research and development priorities for the year
it covers. How is it Used? The RD Plan is used
in two ways COSMIC organisations and their
members seek funding from the usual sources to
pursue aspects of the joint plan and receive
backing from COSMIC when doing so. COSMIC aims
to encourage funding agencies to allocate
resources to the priority areas specified in the
Plan What is the Current Status of the
Plan? The priorities in the current plan are
being developed within the SLIC-funded SPEIR
project (see http//speir.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/)
Is there a more detailed version of the Plan
available? Yes. On the COSMIC web-site at
http//cosmic.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/Plan
In a Nutshell What is COSMIC? COSMIC is the
Confederation of Scottish Mini-Cooperatives, an
organisation supported by a wide range of key
players active in the areas of archives,
libraries and museums in Scotland. Why a COSMIC
Joint Research and Development Plan? COSMIC
members are working to build and develop Virtual
Scotland, a jointly managed distributed
information environment serving all Scottish
citizens. The COSMIC RD Plan is a statement of
the agreed research and development priorities
for the year it covers. How and When is the Plan
Reviewed? The plan will be reviewed annually by
the COSMIC Task Group. A new draft will be agreed
and circulated to accredited representatives of
COSMIC member organisations. Feedback received
will be utilised in finalising the revised
plan. What is the Primary Focus of the
Plan? The current focus is the development of a
Scottish Cooperative Infrastructure (see leaflet
on this topic for further information).

• Joint
• RD Plan
• 2004
• Functions
• Current Summary
• Review Mechanisms

http//cosmic.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/
7
Coordination and Management Build on COSMIC Task
Group to create required COSMIC organisational
infrastructure using existing Scottish
organisations where possible Create COSMIC
common look and feel Develop COSMIC RD plan
and projects database Monitor and steer agreed
RD work Plan future
Local User Environments Scottish Cultural
Portal project Generic portal support
facilities (e.g. CAIRNS) Pilot user type
landscaping facility Pilot landscaping facility
for cultural facets (music, football etc) Pilot
extend of collections strengths landscaper to
Public Libraries Facility to generate CP, GDL
and other views via landscaper Accessibility
Shared Central Services Upgrade, integrate
CAIRNS and SCONE More public libraries, SCRAN,
Ucablis in CAIRNS Create a pilot Scottish
Distributed Digital Library, able to be viewed
through a range of front ends CAIRNS, SCONE,
SDDL used seamlessly by local portals Related
landscaping functions Pilot terminologies
server and full specification
Interoperability Forum Scottish
Interoperability Forum web-site Upgrade
cataloguing standards for CAIRNS for public
libraries and FE Agree similar standards for
electronic materials Build on NACO, SACO, local
Connexion authority file approach to terminology
control User levels metadata issues
International awareness
Professional Support Advise Public
Libraries on Zservers, firewalls etc. LIS
support (BUBL-SLAINTE) WIDWISAWN and Scotslink
promotion SCAMP based collaborative collection
facilities Roadshows Staff contacts in all
libraries Interoperability Focus SCI related
training COSMIC leaflets, conferences, events
Collaborative Activities Pilot SDDL
collaborative cataloguing Extend use of
Connexion Development and use of SCAMP to
support collaborative collecting in SDDL etc.
SCAMP Conferencing facilities SCAMP updates at
source pilots Identify digital and non-digital
collections for Cultural Portal
8
Coordination and Management
9
Coordination and Management

• CoSMiC itself
• Task Group
• Web-site http//cosmic.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/
• CoSMiC RD Plan
• Plus other stuff
• Community outreach stuff (later)
• Projects database

10
(No Transcript)
11
Local User Environments
12
(No Transcript)
13
SDDL
14
Shared Central Services
15
(No Transcript)
16
Interoperability Forum
17
Interoperability?

• For example
• Discussion Groups
• Guidelines
• Protocols
• Metadata standards
• Terminologies

18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
Collaborative Activity
21
Collaboration?

• For example
• CAIRNS, SCONE, SLIR
• Collaborative Cataloguing (CORC)
• Terminologies
• Collaborative Collecting (SCAMP RCO)
• SDDL

22
SDDL
23
Professional Support
24
PS

• Professional Support
• WIDWISAWN
• Scotslink
• Electric Connections
• Leaflets
• Roadshows papers articles web-sites
• TikiWiki e-fora (and other stuff)
• SLAINTE
• BUBL
• SCAMP

25
Welcome!
To Electric Connections 2004!
26
(No Transcript)
27
(No Transcript)
28
The Cultural Commision

• CoSMiC response
• Build on the work of CoSMiC
• Formalise the currently voluntary role of CoSMiC
  as a co-ordinating mechanism
• Possibly by creating a CoSMiC Steering Group
  with high-level representatives from the three
  domains and one or more representatives from the
  CoSMiC Task Group.
• Obviously entails a continuing push towards
  improved involvement from Museums and Archives
  domains

29
Further Information

• CoSMiC Website
• http//cosmic.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/
• Leaflets