ALBERT

Description: This paper is intended to help librarians and archivists who are involved in digitization work choose optical character recognition (OCR) software. The paper provides an introduction to OCR software for digitization projects, and shares the method we developed for easily evaluating the effectiveness of OCR software on resources we are digitizing. We tested three major OCR programs (Adobe Acrobat, ABBYY FineReader, Tesseract) for accuracy on three different digitized texts from our archives and special collections at the University of Western Ontario. Our test was divided into two parts: a word accuracy test (to determine how searchable the final documents were), and a test with a screen reader (to determine how accessible the final documents were). We share our findings from the tests and make recommendations for OCR work on digitized documents from archives and special collections.

Description: Some musings on the difficulty of wanting to know our users' secrets and simultaneously wanting to not know them.

Description: PA Digital is a Pennsylvania network that serves as the state’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The group developed a homegrown aggregation system in 2014, used to harvest digital collection records from contributing institutions, validate and transform their metadata, and deliver aggregated records to the DPLA. Since our initial launch, PA Digital has expanded significantly, harvesting from an increasing number of contributors with a variety of repository systems. With each new system, our highly customized aggregator software became more complex and difficult to maintain. By 2018, PA Digital staff had determined that a new solution was needed. From 2019 to 2021, a cross-functional team implemented a more flexible and scalable approach to metadata aggregation for PA Digital, using Apache Airflow for workflow management and Solr/Blacklight for internal metadata review. In this article, we will outline how we use this group of applications and the new workflows adopted, which afford our metadata specialists more autonomy to contribute directly to the ongoing development of the aggregator. We will discuss how this work fits into our broader sustainability planning as a network and how the team leveraged shared expertise to build a more stable approach to maintenance.

Description: Digital libraries at research universities make use of a wide range of unique tools to enable the sharing of eclectic sets of texts, images, audio, video, and other digital objects. Presenting these assorted local treasures to the world can be a challenge, since text is often siloed with text, images with images, and so on, such that per type, there may be separate user experiences in a variety of unique discovery interfaces. One common tool that has been developed in recent years to potentially unite them all is the Apache Solr index. Texas A&M University (TAMU) Libraries has harnessed Solr for internal indexing for repositories like DSpace, Fedora, and Avalon. Impressed by frameworks like Blacklight at peer institutions, TAMU Libraries wrote an analogous set of tools in Java, and thus was born SAGE, the Solr AGgregation Engine, with two primary functions: 1) aggregating Solr indices or “cores,” from various local sources, and 2) presenting search facility to the user in a discovery interface.

Description: DC Public Library has long held digital copies of the full run of local alternative weekly, Washington City Paper, but had no official status as a rights grantor to enable use. That recently changed due to a full agreement being reached with the publisher. One condition of that agreement, however, was that issues become available with usable descriptive metadata and subject access in time to celebrate the upcoming 40th anniversary of the publication, which at that time was in six months. One of the most time intensive tasks our metadata specialists work on is assigning description to digital objects. This paper details how we applied Python’s Natural Language Toolkit and OpenRefine’s reconciliation functions to the collection’s OCR text to simplify subject selection for staff with no background in programming.

Description: This paper reviews the main theoretical principles underlying the nascent field of decentralized justice and the early empirical experience in real life use cases. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: At the end of 2019, the Research Data Service (RDS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) completed its fifth year as a campus-wide service. In order to gauge the effectiveness of the RDS in meeting the needs of Illinois researchers, RDS staff developed a five-year review consisting of a survey and a series of in-depth focus group interviews. As a result, our institutional data repository developed in-house by University Library IT staff, Illinois Data Bank, was recognized as the most useful service offering by our unit. When launched in 2016, storage resources and web servers for Illinois Data Bank and supporting systems were hosted on-premises at UIUC. As anticipated, researchers increasingly need to share large, and complex datasets. In a responsive effort to leverage the potentially more reliable, highly available, cost-effective, and scalable storage accessible to computation resources, we migrated our item bitstreams and web services to the cloud. Our efforts have met with success, but also with painful bumps along the way. This article describes how we supported data curation workflows through transitioning from on-premises to cloud resource hosting. It details our approaches to ingesting, curating, and offering access to dataset files up to 2TB in size--which may be archive type files (e.g., .zip or .tar) containing complex directory structures.

Description: We would like to announce that the latest issue of the Acta Geologica Slovaca Journal (Volume 13, Issue 2) has already been released at 19th December 2021.

Description: The presented comparative study evaluates the sensitivity of selected computational procedures to chosen parameters of solute transport and source geometry in homogeneous conditions. The computation procedures include three numerical schemes with FDI (finite difference implicit), MOC (method of characteristics), and a TVD (total variation diminishing) advection solver, while the other terms of the governing equation are computed by the FDI method. Furthermore, two analytical solutions were used: the exact solution of Newille (2005) and the approximate solution of Domenico (1987). Finally, a simplified, so-called Step-method, which is still being used in the practice, was used. The sensitivities of the individual procedures to selected physical-chemical parameters and to the geometric characteristics of the solute source were evaluated and compared. The obtained results show considerable differences between the particular procedures used. In most test cases, the numerical procedures with a TVD and MOC advection solver produced higher concentrations and were more sensitive to the transport parameters in comparison with the other methods used. Applied variations of individual parameter values caused a change of the calculated solute concentrations up to 7.1 %, whereas the substitution of calculation methods caused up to 7.7 % of C0 (the concentration in solute source). The simultaneous changes of all the examined parameter values with a synergistic effect caused the maximal change of calculated concentration up to 15.3 % of C0. A significant effect of the solute source geometry on the match between the results obtained by the selected numerical and analytical methods was also found (difference up to 57.9 % of C0). The achieved results indicate a need to solve the solute transport in homogeneous conditions using both types of calculation methods, the numerical and analytical, in order to cover possible variability of resulting concentrations. The simplified Step-method predominantly yields the lowest concentrations. At the same time, it is the least sensitive procedure to the selected parameters and can be used only for a reference point situated on the plume centerline. From a cautious point of view, it is the least suitable method for solute transport modelling among the compared methods.

Description: Presented research investigate the phenomenom of karstic area remarkable with specific karst landform, so-called covered karst. So far, not much attention has been paid to this particular type of karst in Slovakia, so the aim of the research is to bring new informations about it, especially about dolines formation and their origin. Study was focused on 50 dolines following the distinctive NE–SW line in the study area - the Cajla Karst located in the Malé Karpaty Mts., Slovakia. To understand the process of the formation of dolines in the covered karst and to distinguish the dolines from the pits resulted from anthropogenic processing via mining, several geophysical methods were adopted to prove the doline origin (soil radon emanometry, electric resistivity tomography and seismic refraction tomography). For identification of dolines and subsequent processing, the lidar data were used. The formation of studied dolines was controlled by lithological-tectonic properties of the bedrock, especially along the contact zone of karstic (Triassic carbonates) and non-karstic rocks composed of quartzite and crystalline basement. The resulting shape was also influenced by infiltration of surface water into the underground.

Description: An unusual assemblage of Pb-Cu-(Sb)-(Mn) supergene minerals, represented by mottramite, phosphohedyphane, mimetite, segnitite-beudantite series, anglesite, cerussite, oxyplumboroméite, brochantite, devilline, gypsum and coronadite was recently identified at the Priečna, Johan de Deo and Anna-Zubau epithermal ore veins near Rudno nad Hronom, Štiavnické vrchy Mts., Slovak Republic. Mottramite is a rare mineral at the Rudno deposit and this is the first reported occurrence in the Western Carpathians. Also phosphohedyphane occurs only rarely at the deposit. The localized Pb2+ -- Ca2+ substitution between phosphohedyphane and pyromorphite was observed. A large substitution between As and S was recognized on the T site in the beudantite – segnitite. Anglesite and cerussite are relatively abundant supergene minerals, especially in the proximity of primary galena relicts. Secondary Cu sulphates (brochantite and devilline) are only secondary minerals found also in macroscopic size. Brochantite forms dark green tabular crystals up to 0.1 mm. Devilline occurs as a light green-blue acicular crystals grown on brochantite. Gypsum was found with this assemblage. This is also first occurrence of coronadite in Western Carpathians.

Description: Assessment of hazard and disaster risk is critical for urban resilience. Given that earthquake hazard assessments will often have limitations and uncertainty, it is essential to understand the worst-case scenario of hazard possibility. Palu City is located in a disaster-prone area because it is traversed by the Palu-Koro fault, an active fault in Indonesia. In preparing the latest risk assessment for earthquakes as consideration for potential land use planning in Palu, an earthquake hazard risk assessment was carried out, including estimating earthquake hazard, vulnerability, risk, and the integration of disaster risk into land-use planning documents. This study employed the applied methods with quantitative and quantitative approaches, and the data were processed with ArcGIS tools; field observations supported primary and secondary data. The results showed that 70% of the Palu area is under high earthquake threat as located in an active tectonic area. The findings of the earthquake hazard and risk assessments were then integrated into a land-use planning document that can be used as a foundation for creating a community development plan document for the Palu City Government, known as the Palu City Spatial Plan. The spatial plan of Palu City will support the resilience of Palu in carrying out its functions as a city to eliminate impacts and risks of hazards occur. Thus, strict land-use implementation as means for disaster mitigation is urgently needed.

Description: This study aims to understand the effect of frost weathering of travertines from Spišské Podhradie in Slovakia. The application of travertine as a natural building and facing stone shows a gradually increasing trend in construction sector around the world. Travertines are commonly seen in tile sizes as façade material, wall cladding or flooring and are naturally exposed to the freeze–thaw processes. Methods of frost damage assessment in rocks are commonly based on parameters acquired mainly by destructive testing of samples, such as the uniaxial compressive strength test or Young’s modulus test. In the presented research, a nondestructive method taking advantage of selected petrophysical properties compared before and after 100 freeze-thaw (F-T) cycles, as well as recorded length change behavior and temperature development by a specially- constructed thermodilatometer (VLAP 04) with two induced linear variable differential transformer sensors (HIRT- LVDT) on vacuum-saturated samples has been conducted. Results demonstrate that travertine from Spišské Podhradie is quite heterogeneous in term of petrophysical properties. This heterogeneity can significantly affect the nature and intensity of the processes which take place during the ice crystallization within the pore space of the rock. While crystallization pressures in the macropores and the hydraulic pressure induced by the migration of water towards the advancing freeze front cause the specimen to expand, they are not sufficient to overcome the reduction of pore pressures in micro and mesopores and thus the total contraction of the specimen occurs after 100 freeze-thaw (F-T) cycles. The changes in the microstructure of the pore space of the travertine from Spišské Podhradie are not significant and so we can state that this travertine is a resistant material to the effects of frost weathering.

Description: Slovakia is rich in the Pliocene, Pleistocene travertines and Holocene tufas and travertines, which were studied in 82 localities. Travertines are developed in the spring mounds (49 %) with central orifices frequently in crater-like forms. Fissure ridges (6 %) with vertical veins were identified. A few mounds and ridges were connected to large coalesced mounds (2 %). Many tufas and travertines were formed in perched springline deposits (21 %). The mounds, ridges, and perched springline deposits have the slopes with prograding cascades, fewer included waterfalls. The dams on slopes were very rare. Most tufas were formed in dams along streams (20 %), usually with waterfalls and caves. The upper Miocene freshwater limestones in 5 localities were originated in lakes and marshes (2 %). The Slovak travertines are usually related to regionally important faults such as the N–S striking Central Slovak Fault System (17 sites). Westwards, the faults related to the travertine occurrences the NE–SW striking faults prevailed (3 sites). In northern and eastern Slovakia, the faults have generally W–E to NW–SE direction (15 sites). The travertines are often formed on the fault intersections and they are related to the extensional tectonics.

Description: We analysed the surface microtextures well-preserved on stable to ultra-stable heavy minerals such as zircon, tourmaline and rutile from the Devonian siliciclastic rocks which are cropping in northeastern and northwestern Iran by a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) techniques to provide useful provenance information on various sedimentary stages, and to reconstruct their sedimentary history. Different surface mechanical and chemical corrosive features point to more detritus sources, and above all on few evolution stages in different environments. The microtexture similarity between the studied Ilanqareh and Padeha deposits indicates that they could have experienced the resembled environmental conditions – from aeolian to subaqueous (fluvial and/or marine) processes. Nature of heavy minerals points to a multi-cyclic character of the sediments, and in addition to previously published ideas about the Arabian-Nubian Shield source, the presence of local source(s) partly supplied the Ilanqareh basin may be assumed.

Description: Public service librarians without coding experience or technical education may not always be aware of or consider automation to be an option to streamline their regular work tasks, but the new prevalence of enterprise-level low code solutions allows novices to take advantage of technology to make their work more efficient and effective. Low code applications apply a graphic user interface on top of a coding platform to make it easy for novices to leverage automation at work. This paper presents three cases of using low code solutions for automating public service problems using the prevalent Microsoft Power Automate application, available in many library workplaces that use the Microsoft Office ecosystem. From simplifying the communication and scheduling process for instruction classes to connecting our student workers’ hourly floor counts to our administrators’ dashboard of building occupancy, we’ve leveraged simple low code automation in a scalable and replicable manner. Pseudo-code examples provided.

Description: The Oregon Library Association has produced its peer-reviewed journal, the OLA Quarterly (OLAQ), since 1995, and OLAQ was published in Digital Commons beginning in 2014. When the host institution undertook to move away from Bepress, their new repository solution was no longer a good match for OLAQ. Oregon State University and University of Oregon agreed to move the journal into their joint instance of Open Journal Systems (OJS), and a small team from OSU Libraries carried out the migration project. The OSU project team declined to use PKP’s existing migration plugin for a number of reasons, instead pursuing a metadata-centered migration pipeline from Digital Commons to OJS. We used custom XSLT to convert tabular data exported from Bepress into PKP’s Native XML schema, which we imported using the OJS Native XML Plugin. This approach provided a high degree of control over the journal’s metadata and a robust ability to test and make adjustments along the way. The article discusses the development of the transformation stylesheet, the metadata mapping and cleanup work involved, as well as advantages and limitations of using this migration strategy.

Description: Many in the scientific community, particularly in publicly funded research, are pushing to adhere to more accessible data standards to maximize the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR) of scientific data, especially with the growing prevalence of machine learning augmented research. Online FAIR data repositories, such as the Open Science Framework (OSF), help facilitate the adoption of these standards by providing frameworks for storage, access, search, APIs, and other features that create organized hubs of scientific data. However, the wider acceptance of such repositories is hindered by the lack of support of hierarchical data formats, such as Technical Data Management Streaming (TDMS) and Hierarchical Data Format 5 (HDF5), that many researchers rely on to organize their datasets. Various tools and strategies should be used to allow hierarchical data formats, FAIR data repositories, and scientific organizations to work more seamlessly together. A pilot project at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) addresses the disconnect between them by integrating the OSF FAIR data repository with hierarchical data renderers, extending support for additional file types in their framework. The multifaceted interactive renderer displays a tree of metadata alongside a table and plot of the data channels in the file. This allows users to quickly and efficiently load large and complex data files directly in the OSF webapp. Users who are browsing files can quickly and intuitively see the files in the way they or their colleagues structured the hierarchical form and immediately grasp their contents. This solution helps bridge the gap between hierarchical data storage techniques and FAIR data repositories, making both of them more viable options for scientific institutions like LANL which have been put off by the lack of integration between them.

Description: Image acquisition, visualization, and measurement are examined in the context of extreme close-range photogrammetric data analysis. Manual measurements commonly used in traditional stone artifact investigation are used as a starting point to better gauge the usefulness of high-resolution 3D surrogates and the flexible digital tool sets that can work with them. The potential of various visualization techniques are also explored in the context of future teaching, learning, and research in virtual environments.

Description: This paper describes how the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library provided access to circulating library materials during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, it details how the library adapted existing staff roles and digital library infrastructure to offer on-demand digitization of and limited online access to library collection items requested by patrons working in a remote teaching and learning environment. The paper also provides an overview of the technology used, details how dedicated staff with strong local control of technology were able to scale up a university-wide solution, reflects on lessons learned, and analyzes nine months of usage data to shed light on library patrons’ changing needs during the pandemic.

Description: The Belgian Art Links and Tools (BALaT) (http://balat.kikirpa.be/) is the continuously expanding online documentary platform of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), Brussels (Belgium). BALaT contains over 750,000 images of KIK-IRPA’s unique collection of photo negatives on the cultural heritage of Belgium, but also the library catalogue, PDFs of articles from KIK-IRPA’s Bulletin and other publications, an extensive persons and institutions authority list, and several specialized thematic websites, each of those collections being multilingual as Belgium has three official languages. All these are interlinked to give the user easy access to freely available information on the Belgian cultural heritage. During the last years, KIK-IRPA has been working on a detailed and inclusive data management plan. Through this data management plan, a new project HESCIDA (Heritage Science Data Archive) will upgrade BALaT to BALaT+, enabling access to searchable registries of KIK-IRPA datasets and data interoperability. BALaT+ will be a building block of DIGILAB, one of the future pillars of the European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science (E-RIHS), which will provide online access to scientific data concerning tangible heritage, following the FAIR-principles (Findable-Accessible-Interoperable-Reusable). It will include and enable access to searchable registries of specialized digital resources (datasets, reference collections, thesauri, ontologies, etc.). In the context of this project, Elasticsearch has been chosen as the technology empowering the search component of BALaT+. An essential feature of this search functionality of BALaT+ is the need for linguistic equivalencies, meaning a term query in French should also return the matching results containing the equivalent term in Dutch. Another important feature is to offer a mechanism to broaden the search with elements of more precise terminology: a term like "furniture" could also match records containing chairs, tables, etc. This article will explain how a thesaurus developed in-house at KIK-IRPA was used to obtain these functionalities, from the processing of that thesaurus to the production of the configuration needed by Elasticsearch.

Description: Metadata analysis is a growing need in libraries of all types and sizes, as demonstrated in many recent job postings. Data migration, transformation, enhancement, and remediation all require strong metadata analysis skills. But there is no well-defined body of knowledge or competencies list for library metadata analysis, leaving library staff with analysis-related responsibilities largely on their own to learn how to do the work effectively. In this paper, two experienced metadata analysts will share what they see as core knowledge areas and problem solving techniques for successful library metadata analysis. The paper will also discuss suggested tools, though the emphasis is intentionally not to prescribe specific tools, software, or programming languages, but rather to help readers recognize tools that will meet their analysis needs. The goal of the paper is to help library staff and their managers develop a shared understanding of the skill sets required to meet their library’s metadata analysis needs. It will also be useful to individuals interested in pursuing a career in library metadata analysis and wondering how to enhance their existing knowledge and skills for success in analysis work.

Description: This paper presents an introduction to Pythagoras, an in-progress digital humanities project using Python to parse and analyze XML-encoded music scores. The goal of the project is to use recurring patterns of notes to explore existing relationships among musical works and composers. An intended outcome of this project is to give music performers, scholars, librarians, and anyone else interested in digital humanities new insights into musical relationships as well as new methods of data analysis in the arts.

Description: The Author explores the nature of DAOs and highlights several areas where states and regulators can adapt existing legal regimes to potentially accommodate DAOs. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: The Author inquires, "How should a DAO be apprehended by a legal system?" Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: An overview of key drivers and unique valuation, due diligence, and integration hurdles for the current wave of blockchain M&A.〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: With the publication of Issue 51, the Code4Lib Journal is now closer to Issue 100 than we are to Issue 1. Also, we are developing a name change policy.

Description: Hexlant introduces the story of the beginning, present, and future growth of NFTs based on blockchain technology. This paper will focus on NFT technology trends, challenges, and prospects. Part of Issue Report Vol. 16.〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: The study focuses on the upper Miocene colluvial to alluvial fan deposits of the Modrová Mb., which accumulated on the marginal blocks of the Považský Inovec Mts., transitional to surrounding depressions of the Danube Basin. These blocks are delimited tectonically according to the geophysical evidence, and the late Miocene normal faulting produced fault scarps causing rapid sediment supply. However, the supply of coarse clastics composed mostly of Mesozoic dolomites was of intensity sufficient only to fill the accommodation of the marginal blocks. The sediment input to the surrounding Danube Basin is on the both sides of the Považský Inovec Mts. not traceable, probably due to an overwhelming alluvial redistribution. Facies analysis of the Modrová Mb. implies an environment of colluvial fans with prevalence of cohesive debris flow deposition, associated with less frequent rockfall, grain flow and sheetwash processes on the western side of the mountains in the area of Modrová village. In contrary, the easterly situated area of Tesáre village exhibits dominance of debris flow deposition with more than one third of the succession deposited by channelized and unchannelized shallow traction currents, indicating sedimentary environment of an alluvial fan close to its transition to colluvial sediment-feeder system. Petrographical and geochemical study showed extremely low content of siliciclastic component in the colluvial deposits of the Modrová area. Dolomite clasts form a major part of the sediment and are covered by a coating of clay minerals. The coatings and sediment matrix contain iron oxides possibly derived by fersiallitic weathering and by oxidation of pyrite scattered within the matrix. Geochemistry of muddy layers in the Tesáre succession implies either cold or dry weathering conditions. However, weathering proxies are considered to be biased due to the rapid denudation in the colluvial to alluvial fan environment, since observed facies and published regional studies imply rather warm and humid climate. Several examples of simultaneous comparable depositional settings in the broader region imply, that these colluvial to alluvial fan successions could be related to a mild phase of regional tectonic activity at ~8 Ma.

Description: In our current library fiscal climate with yearly inflationary cost increases of 2-6+% for many journals and journal package subscriptions, it is imperative that libraries strive to make our budgets go further to expand our suite of resources. As a result, most academic libraries annually undertake some form of electronic journal review, employing factors such as cost per use to inform budgetary decisions. In this paper we detail some tech savvy processes we created to leverage a Python script to automate journal subject heading generation within the OCLC’s WorldCat catalog, the MOBIUS (A Missouri Library Consortium) Catalog, and the VuFind Library Catalog, a now retired catalog for the CARLI (Consortium for Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois). We also describe the rationale for the inception of this project, the methodology we utilized, the current limitations, and details of our future work in automating our annual analysis of journal subject headings by use of an OCLC API.

Description: From the fall of 2017 to the beginning of 2020 a project had been carried out to upgrade spatial subject indexing in North Rhine-Westphalian Bibliography (NWBib) from uncontrolled strings to controlled values. For this purpose, a spatial classification with around 4,500 entries was created from Wikidata and published as SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) vocabulary. The article gives an overview over the initial problem and outlines the different implementation steps.

Description: Learning games are games created with the purpose of educating, as well as entertaining, players. This article describes the potential of interactive fiction (IF), a type of text-based game, to serve as learning games. After summarizing the basic concepts of interactive fiction and learning games, the article describes common interactive fiction programming languages and tools, including Ink, a simple markup language that can be used to create choice based text games that play in a web browser. The final section of the article includes code putting the concepts of Ink, interactive fiction, and learning games into action using part of an interactive OER created by the author in December of 2020.

Description: The Western Regional Storage Trust (〈a href="https://cdlib.org/west/about-west/west-membership/"〉WEST〈/a〉), is a distributed shared print journal repository program serving research libraries, college and university libraries, and library consortia in the Western Region of the United States. WEST solicits serial bibliographic records and related holdings biennially, which are evaluated and identified as candidates for shared print archiving using a complex collection analysis process. California Digital Library’s 〈a href="https://cdlib.org/services/d2d/"〉Discovery & Delivery〈/a〉 WEST operations team (WEST-Ops) supports the functionality behind this collection analysis process used by WEST program staff (WEST-Staff) and members. For WEST, proposals for shared print archiving have been historically predicated on what is known as an 〈a href="https://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/faqs.asp"〉Ulrich’s journal family〈/a〉, which pulls together related serial titles, for example, succeeding and preceding serial titles, their supplements, and foreign language parallel titles. Ulrich’s, while it has been invaluable, proves problematic in several ways, resulting in the approximate omission of half of the journal titles submitted for collection analysis. Part of WEST’s effectiveness in archiving hinges upon its ability to analyze local serials data across its membership as holistically as possible. The process that enables this analysis, and subsequent archiving proposals, is dependent on Ulrich’s journal family, for which ISSN has been traditionally used to match and cluster all related titles within a particular family. As such, the process is limited in that many journals have never been assigned ISSNs, especially older publications, or member bibliographic records may lack an ISSN(s), though the ISSN may exist in an OCLC primary record. Building a mechanism for matching on ISSNs that goes beyond the base set of primary, former, and succeeding titles, expands the number of eligible ISSNs that facilitate Ulrich’s journal family matching. Furthermore, when no matches in Ulrich’s can be made based on ISSN, other types of control numbers within a bibliographic record may be used to match with records that have been previously matched with an Ulrich’s journal family via ISSN, resulting in a significant increase in the number of titles eligible for collection analysis. This paper will discuss problems in Ulrich’s journal family matching, improved functional methodologies developed to address those problems, and potential strategies to improve in serial title clustering in the future.

Description: In recent years, higher education institutions have implemented electronic solutions for the management of syllabi, resulting in new and exciting opportunities within the area of large-scale syllabi analysis. This article details an information pipeline that can be used to harvest, enrich and use such information.

Description: Via a study of digital sovereignty and its blockchain interactions, this paper shows the tensions and frictions born from the last twenty years of the Internet’s evolution. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: The existing governance arrangements in the Bitcoin network have been largely successful in dealing with major crises that would have otherwise become existential threats to it. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: These concluding remarks aim at following up on the presentations that took place at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg by clarifying three closely related philosophical and anthropological issues that emerged during the seminars.〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

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Description: Blockchain technology can address the main problems with the current intermediated proxy voting and engagement systems. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: Blockchain technologies are operating as useful supplements within the Chinese judicial system. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: Mathematical certainty and certainty with respect to some technologies are able to sustain and produce particular relations within a state. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: On-chain DAO governance enables dynamic regulatory features that facilitate unprecedented decentralized regulatory solutions. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: The new framework Decentralized & Collaborative AI on Blockchain is proposed in the spirit of democratizing AI. The original version of this paper was published at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/leveraging-blockchain-to-make-machine-learning-models-more-accessible.〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

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Description: The application of protective coatings can significantly influence the essential physical properties of rocks used in building and decorative industries. This paper presents the results of laboratory tests demonstrating the positive effect of the protective coating Antipluviol S applied on a tuff from Tuscany in Italy, which is a weak volcanic rock of a very low strength and very high porosity. The efficiency of the coating was measured by absorption tests, standard uniaxial compressive strength tests and cyclic frost resistance tests. After the coating application, the water absorption decreased from 39.1% to 31.3% by total rock immersion at atmospheric pressure conditions. The water absorption only by capillary suction showed much higher efficiency of the coating. The change in the rock strength, resulting from the coating application, was less pronounced; the mean values rose from 5.8 to 6.8 MPa (17.2% increase). For all strength values are quite similar in both treated and untreated groups, as well as scattered within the groups, no relevance to the coating impact could be confirmed. But, even such a slight improvement of the monitored physical parameters has the effect of slowing down the rock's weathering. This was proven by the results of the frost resistance test. Coated samples withstood all the standard 25 freeze-thaw cycles, whereas untreated samples began to disintegrate after the 17th test cycle. These findings can help the maintenance of the famous historic architecture of picturesque tuff towns of Tuscany suffering from weathering, and contribute to the preservation of the cultural heritage. On the other hand, they showed how important such tests are when considering building stone import.

Description: Petroleum hydrocarbons are one of the most common contaminants. Paper presents current theoretical approaches in identification and evaluation of sites with LNAPL (Light Non-Aquaeous Phase Liquids). To compare them with field results outputs from the ongoing remediation in a former railyard are utilized. New information from drilling and sampling is evaluated, with focus on the spatial distribution and migration of total petroleum hydrocarbons in soil and groundwater. Samples of LNAPL (diesel) were collected and analyzed by gas chromatography - mass spectrometry, to obtain more information about the quality, degree of weathering and the approximate age of the spill. It’s a common problem to distinguish between old and new contamination, and the observation of weathering rate can help to evaluate all possible contamination sources. Weathering degree of analyzed diesel samples ranged from almost none (even light n-alkanes abundant) to complete removal of all n-alkanes, though the railyard is more than 10 years out of operation. Based on the results, new LNAPL sources were identified, possible migration pathways were discussed and the age of LNAPL in different parts if the railyard was estimated.

Description: There are many ways to look at electronic resource use, individually or aggregated. I propose two new metrics to help give a better understanding of comparative use across an online collection. 〈em〉Users per mille〈/em〉 is a relative annual measure of how many users a platform had for every thousand potential users: this tells us how many people used a given platform. 〈em〉Interest factor〈/em〉 is the average number of uses of a platform by people who used it more than once: this tells us how much people used a given platform. These two metrics are enough to give us good insight into collection use. Dividing each into quartiles allows a quadrant comparison of lows and highs on each metric, giving a quick view of platforms many people use a lot (the big expensive ones), many people use very little (a curious subset), a few people use a lot (very specific to a narrow subject) and a few people use very little (deserves attention). This helps understand collection use and informs collection management.

Description: NYPL’s workflow for transferring optical media to long-term storage was met with a challenge: an acquisition of a collection containing thousands of recordable CDs and DVDs. Many programs take a disk-by-disk approach to imaging or transferring optical media, but to deal with a collection of this size, NYPL developed a workflow using a Nimbie AutoLoader and a customized version of KBNL’s open-source IROMLAB software to batch disks for transfer. This workflow prioritized quantity, but, at the outset, it was difficult to tell if every transfer was as accurate as it could be. We discuss the process of evaluating the success of the mass transfer workflow, and the improvements we made to identify and troubleshoot errors that could occur during the transfer. A background of the institution and other institutions’ approaches to similar projects is given, then an in-depth discussion of the process of gathering and analyzing data. We finish with a discussion of our takeaways from the project.

Description: The interplay of RegTech and SupTech should be at the forefront of regulatory activity in the near future. The Authors examine the challenges of relevant blockchain proposals. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: The Authors assess the contributions of stablecoins, then the macroeconomic risks they generate, and finally, the responses that these risks merit.〈div class="enclosure"〉〈/div〉

Description: We would like to announce that the latest issue of the Acta Geologica Slovaca Journal (Volume 14, Issue 1) has already been released at 19th December 2021.