Code4Lib Journal

The first issue of the Code4Lib Journal is out and it's full of interesting stuff. Needless to say, it's open access!

Here's a quote from the mission statement:

Libraries have seized upon advances in computer technology, using computers and the Internet to offer unprecedented access to information and library resources. Ironically, the prodigious increase in tools for accessing information has left many with difficulty managing information about these tools. Projects are announced on blogs, in IRC channels, on websites, at conferences, and many other venues. It can require a research project just to find out what a tool does. Online professional/social networks help mitigate this problem, but entering into these networks can present an unnecessary obstacle to the uninitiated.

The Code4Lib Journal (C4LJ) will provide an access point for people looking to learn more about these tools, about approaches and solutions to real-world problems, and about possibilities for building on the work of others, so that the wheel need only be invented once, and can then be cooperatively improved by all.

The first table of contents:

• Editorial Introduction — Issue 1 by Jonathan Rochkind
  
• Beyond OPAC 2.0: Library Catalog as Versatile Discovery Platform by Tito Sierra, Joseph Ryan, and Markus Wust
  
• Facet-Based Search and Navigation With LCSH: Problems and Opportunities by Kelley McGrath
  
• The Rutgers Workflow Management System: Migrating a Digital Object Management Utility to Open Source by Grace Agnew & Yang Yu
  
• Communicat: The Next Generation Catalog That Almost Was… by Ross Singer
  
• Connecting the Real to the Representational: Historical Demographic Data in the Town of Pullman, 1880-1940 by Andrew H. Bullen
  
• BOOK REVIEW: The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber by Eric Lease Morgan
  
• COLUMN: 700 Dollars and a Dream : Take a Chance on Koha, There’s Very Little to Lose by BWS Johnson

Also needless to say, I'll reiterate some of my past comments about the way e-only journals are set up.

• The full citation information should be easy to spot on the first page of any article print out. Preferably it should be listed in one of the standard citation formats and should include the stable url for the article.
  
• Articles should have DOIs which should be visible on the table of contents and in the citation information for each article. This will help with Connotea integration as well other such services I'm sure.
  
• Integration with Zotero is a great idea too.
  
• Each issue should have a stable url associated with it and that url should be on the home page and on every mention of that issue.
  
• It's handy to be able to print out the whole issue in pdf as well as each article individually. Links to the individual article pdfs should be on the table of contents along with the links to the HTML versions.