John Akeroyd

• MPhil; BSc
• University College London

The goal of this paper is to deepen the concepts and practice of digital accessibility to people with disabilities. In particular it builds on the wider concept of sustainability. It also addresses the impact on libraries, the relevant standards and processes and finally reports an overview of the state of the art in implementation through intervie...

The goal of this paper will be to inspire and engage libraries to work on sustainability as according to the UN Agenda 2030, and especially Paragraph 4 which relates to inclusive and equitable quality education for all. In particular, we will address the issue of digital accessibility and inclusivity for the virtually impaired and present innovativ...

Changing business models in scholarly publishing means that researchers have increased choices as to where to submit their articles. Choices are made on the basis of perceived quality of the journal, the speed of publishing, and how close a match there is between the journal scope and the article topic. Additionally, there is an increasing concern...

You are invited to this half day event at University College London This event, to be held face to face and virtually, will seek to bring attendees up to date with current thinking and technologies in meeting the digital accessibility challenge. It will provide an opportunity to interact with experts in the field as well as offering case studies on...

This article presents an up‐to‐date portrayal of the greatly changed landscape of scholarly journal publishing and identifies the emerging trends characterizing it. We consider the attributes, novelty, and disruptive potential of different models, which range from improvements to the extant model to attempts at reconfiguration and transformation. W...

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 3297 governs the assignment of International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSNs) for continuing resources worldwide. It is subject to systematic review every five years and, in 2017, an ISO Working Group was set up to review the standard. This working group took the decision to survey the vi...

Conference poster for Digital textbooks 2018 - an afternoon seminar at UCL organised by the Dept of Information Studies with support from the Publishers Association.

Digital Content and Accessibility; The accessible content landscape

Key points • Library discovery systems have become successfully embedded in many academic and specialist libraries. • Such systems require excellent metadata to ensure discoverability of content and increasingly publishers are charged with delivering that. • Libraries’ traditional role in organizing their collections for effective discovery is bei...

Discovery Discoverability Library discovery systems

This paper reviews the current use of ebooks in elearning environments looking especially at the development of ereaders such as the Amazon kindle and the Ipad. It details the problems involved and argues that the emerging epub3 standard will be capable of resolving these concerns. Finally different eBook sales models are listed and the impact on i...

Information Architecture is a part of Information Technology Architecture, and has attracted interest through e-business and e-government initiatives as well as through the general popularity of Service Oriented Architecture. In many ways there is nothing new about Information Technology Architecture; however both public and private sector organisa...

Summary E-government has become pervasive in many parts of the world in various forms and can be defined in multiple ways. However it essentially looks at how ICT and the web in particular can be adopted to improve how government runs and especially how it interacts with citizens. It is possible to categorise e-gov- ernment activities and what emer...

Purpose To provide a review of the interface between e‐learning, digital libraries and learning content. Design/methodology/approach A review of current thinking and activity surrounding the delivery of content in e‐learning systems. Some analysis of information concerns and commentary on future scenarios. Findings The paper investigates the real...

LITC is a familiar organisation to almost anybody in the UK library sector. It was originally known as the Library Information Technology Centre. It was founded in 1982 by the DTI and the British Library to help libraries choose computerised library house keeping systems. The twenty years since then has seen an astonishing change to the business in...

Libraries are in a process of fundamental change brought about by radical developments in technology. This paper makes some assumptions as to how the future will look, addresses the barriers to increased use of technology and finally looks at what managers need to do to bring about these changes and reviews the relevant key issues.

A review of the future of academic libraries that draws initially on a generic model to describe the components of all library systems. Touches upon some economic changes and looks for evidence in statistical trends derived from United Kingdom reportage. From this extrapolates scenarios relating to the function of libraries as a collection of resou...

A cause des changements radicaux en technologie, les bibliotheques sont dans un processus de changement fondamental. Ce texte retrace les changements qui ont eu lieu au cours des ans, et fait quelques pronostics sur le futur. Les obstacles a l'usage accru des technologies sont analyses et expliques. Enfin, ce texte examine ce qu'un gestionnaire doi...

The development of the Digital Library has long been predicted and long awaited as a potential panacea for all manner of library ills. During the 70s much of the development effort and published literature focused on the automation of secondary services, such as abstracting and indexes tools and their efficiency, costs and management. A few comment...

In this article we review the development of Integrated Library Management Systems, and look at some broad trends in their development. More and more core functions and special features have been integrated into library systems, and there has been a move towards industry standard databases, operating systems and architecture. The second part of the...

This paper reviews the concept of on demand publishing (ODP) including the underlying technology and associated techniques. It looks at the potential benefits of ODP and analyses some current applications, particularly the use in higher education to support courses. Copyright issues are addressed briefly and a number of current projects noted. Fina...

This paper provides an overview of cd-rom Networks. It describes the systems available and provides some user experience of one network in an academic library. The technology is explained including the different possible configurations and some alternative solutions. There is an account of an installation at South Bank Polytechnic using the Optinet...

Over the past decade there has been a substantial increase in both the number and variety of information products available and whilst some of these have been small scale, operating on a regional basis or within a narrowly defined subject discipline, others have been global and comprehensive. Delivery mechanisms have also varied from highly persona...

The paper provides a review of CD-ROM networking technology. It includes a resume of currently available systems and discusses their functions and relative merits. Operational experience of systems installed in libraries, mainly in North America, is also covered, including such issues as usage levels, user education and wide area networking. Finall...

Three different interfaces for online public access catalogues were evaluated using transaction logging as a methodology. In two cases exercises were set and run against each interface so that results could be critically evaluated to indicate areas of weakness. In all cases a random transaction log was derived and this was used to diagnose system p...

An overview of CD-ROM and its development is presented to provide an introduction to this emerging medium. The technology itself is described including WORMs, and software approaches are summarised. Applications, including CD-ROM as an information and bibliographic resource, are noted. Future developments described involve networking, novel publica...

The provision of information on optical discs has had a relatively short gestation period by comparison with other new technologies, though similar problems—a lack of standardisation, a lack of knowledge of appropriate applications and general uncertainty have all been in evidence. However by 1985 there were clear moves to establish the 12 cm Compa...

The information aspects of information technology are considered with particular reference to polytechnic libraries. The automation of library housekeeping is examined retrospectively and its relevance to users criticised. The library catalogue is assessed in particular and suggestions made for its future development. Online information services an...

A short survey of the use of online information retrieval is presented and shows that 70% of academic libraries were users. The main justifications for implementation were felt to be cost-effectiveness and greater retrieval capability. Most services were directed at academic and research staff and few at undergraduates. At this stage only a small n...