These links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by the Library of Congress of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation or organization or individual. The Library of Congress bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.
The ARL Scholars Portal is a program activity of the Association for Research Libraries (ARL), Access & Technology Program and is pursuant to ARL's strategic objective "to make access to research resources more efficient and effective." This Web page lists the members of the "ARL Scholars Portal Working Group," ARL staff liaisons, project advisors and contains a substantial list of links to ARL articles and reports from the ARL Scholars Portal program.
The IFLA Annual Conference held in Berlin, Germany in 2003 offered a workshop titled "The Scholar's Portal: An International Perspective," held on August 7, 2003. Presentation slides and summaries of the topics covered in this workshop are available. The workshop programs discussed the "scholar's portal," the trends, developments and needs in scholarly portals, and their use in research libraries with an international perspective.
"The LibPortal project is concerned with a comprehensive review of current practice and future prospects in academic library portals through a series of surveys of libraries and their users as well as other evidence gathering approaches." The project also includes a study on the introduction of Metalib with SFX in the Pilkington Library at Loughborough University.
"The mission of the IG is to explore, research, educate and generally facilitate an understanding and sharing of knowledge about portal services ... among LITA members and throughout the library community... ."
Their Web page includes a meeting calendar, minutes of meetings, governance and procedural matters, list of officers and members and selected resources.
ALA preconference "Portals in Libraries: A Symposium" sponsored by LITA IPIG on June 25, 2004, held in Orlando FL includes links to PowerPoint slides and reports. Speakers included Mary Jackson, ARL and Roy Tennant, California Digital Library (CDL)
.
The MOUSS Catalog Use Committee Web site includes links to presentation slides from the 2003 ALA Annual Conference program, "One-Stop Metasearch Tools: Friendly Time Saver or Confusing Quagmire?" held on June 22, 2003 in Toronto. This program was sponsored by the RUSA/MOUSS Catalog Use Committee and the ALCTS Networked
Resources and Metadata Committee. The pro's and con's of metasearch tools and portals were presented by speakers from Boston College Libraries, North Carolina State University Libraries and University of Nevada, Reno Libraries.
The MOUSS Catalog Use Committee has also compiled the bibliography, "One-Stop Metasearch Tools: Friendly Time Saver or Confusing Quagmire : Bibliography" which includes citations to articles on MetaLib, intelligent agents, library portals and cross-database searching along with a list of Web site links to portal vendors and products.