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  1. Graphic details : a scientific study of the importance of diagrams to science (2016) 0.02
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    Content
    Bill Howe and his colleagues at the University of Washington, in Seattle, decided to find out. First, they trained a computer algorithm to distinguish between various sorts of figures-which they defined as diagrams, equations, photographs, plots (such as bar charts and scatter graphs) and tables. They exposed their algorithm to between 400 and 600 images of each of these types of figure until it could distinguish them with an accuracy greater than 90%. Then they set it loose on the more-than-650,000 papers (containing more than 10m figures) stored on PubMed Central, an online archive of biomedical-research articles. To measure each paper's influence, they calculated its article-level Eigenfactor score-a modified version of the PageRank algorithm Google uses to provide the most relevant results for internet searches. Eigenfactor scoring gives a better measure than simply noting the number of times a paper is cited elsewhere, because it weights citations by their influence. A citation in a paper that is itself highly cited is worth more than one in a paper that is not.
    As the team describe in a paper posted (http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.04951) on arXiv, they found that figures did indeed matter-but not all in the same way. An average paper in PubMed Central has about one diagram for every three pages and gets 1.67 citations. Papers with more diagrams per page and, to a lesser extent, plots per page tended to be more influential (on average, a paper accrued two more citations for every extra diagram per page, and one more for every extra plot per page). By contrast, including photographs and equations seemed to decrease the chances of a paper being cited by others. That agrees with a study from 2012, whose authors counted (by hand) the number of mathematical expressions in over 600 biology papers and found that each additional equation per page reduced the number of citations a paper received by 22%. This does not mean that researchers should rush to include more diagrams in their next paper. Dr Howe has not shown what is behind the effect, which may merely be one of correlation, rather than causation. It could, for example, be that papers with lots of diagrams tend to be those that illustrate new concepts, and thus start a whole new field of inquiry. Such papers will certainly be cited a lot. On the other hand, the presence of equations really might reduce citations. Biologists (as are most of those who write and read the papers in PubMed Central) are notoriously mathsaverse. If that is the case, looking in a physics archive would probably produce a different result.
    Dr Howe and his colleagues do, however, believe that the study of diagrams can result in new insights. A figure showing new metabolic pathways in a cell, for example, may summarise hundreds of experiments. Since illustrations can convey important scientific concepts in this way, they think that browsing through related figures from different papers may help researchers come up with new theories. As Dr Howe puts it, "the unit of scientific currency is closer to the figure than to the paper." With this thought in mind, the team have created a website (viziometrics.org (http://viziometrics.org/) ) where the millions of images sorted by their program can be searched using key words. Their next plan is to extract the information from particular types of scientific figure, to create comprehensive "super" figures: a giant network of all the known chemical processes in a cell for example, or the best-available tree of life. At just one such superfigure per paper, though, the citation records of articles containing such all-embracing diagrams may very well undermine the correlation that prompted their creation in the first place. Call it the ultimate marriage of chart and science.
  2. Cathro, W.: New frameworks for resource discovery and delivery : the changing role of the catalogue (2006) 0.01
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    Abstract
    There is currently a lively debate about the role of the library catalogue and its relationship to other resource discovery tools. An example of this debate is the recent publication of a report commissioned by the Library of Congress on "the changing nature of the catalogue" As part of this debate, the role of union catalogues is also being re-examined. Some commentators have suggested that union catalogues, by virtue of their size, can aggregate both supply and demand, thus increasing the chance that a relatively little-used resource will be discovered by somebody for whom it is relevant. During the past year, the National Library of Australia (NLA) has been considering the future of its catalogue and its role in the resource discovery and delivery process. The review was prompted, in part, by the redevelopment of the Australian union catalogue and its exposure on the web as a free public service, badged as Libraries Australia. The NLA examined the enablers and inhibitors to proposition "that it replace its catalogue with Libraries Australia, as the primary database to be searched by users". Flowing from this review, the NLA is aiming to undertake a number of tasks to move in the medium to long term towards a scenario in which it could deprecate its local catalogue. Bezug zum Calhoun-Report
  3. Leuenberger, M.; Stettler, N.; Grossmann, S.; Herget, J.: Combining different access options for image databases (2006) 0.01
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    Abstract
    Living Memory is an interdisciplinary project running for two years, which is realised in cooperation of several institutions. It aims at developing an information system for a digital collection of different types of visual resources and will combine classical methods of image indexing and retrieval with innovative approaches like content-based image retrieval and the use of topic maps for semantic searching and browsing. This work-in-progress-report outlines the aims of the project and present first results after the period of fifteen months.
  4. Danskin, A.: "Tomorrow never knows" : the end of cataloguing? (2006) 0.01
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    Abstract
    This paper reviews the perceived threats to the future of cataloguing posed by the increasing volume of publications in all media, coupled with a resource base which is declining in real terms. It argues that cataloguing is more rather than less important in such an environment and considers some of the ways in which cataloguing will have to change in order to survive.
    The purpose of this paper is to review the challenges confronting cataloguing as we have known it and to consider how these challenges might be confronted and whether they may be surmounted. The main focus of this paper is on cataloguing rather than the catalogue, although it is obviously difficult to separate one from the other. First of all, what does "cataloguing" mean? For the purposes of this paper I have adopted a broad definition incorporating the following activities: - description of the resource sufficient for purposes of identification and for differentiation from other similar resources - identification and control of access points - identification and control of relationships with other resources - subject analysis of the resource - assignment of subject indexing terms - assignment of classification numbers The challenges facing cataloguing are all too well known. In no particular order, the major challenges are: - Increasing inputs - New kinds of information resource - Competition from other mediation services. - Perception that cataloguing is high cost and offers poor value for money. - Fiscal constraints - Declining workforce This is a daunting list. We have a choice, we could, to paraphrase John Lennon, "Turn off our minds, relax and float down stream", until we retire, take voluntary redundancy, or retrain as marketing consultants; or, we can choose to confront these challenges and consider what they really mean for cataloguing.