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No. 67, March 2010

1 Introduction

The National Diet Library (NDL) is pleased to inform you that the CDNLAO Discussion Forum website will be available soon.

At the 16th annual meeting held in Tokyo in 2008, four themes to be discussed among the CDNLAO member libraries were decided, and it was suggested that the CDNLAO website should include the function of a forum so that members can discuss the themes via the Internet. At the same meeting, the NDL proposed to take responsibility for the maintenance of the CDNLAO website, and the proposal was approved. The new Discussion Forum website is hosted by the NDL, and the CDNLAO member libraries can access it from the current CDNLAO website.

2 How to access the new Discussion Forum website

To access the new Discussion Forum website, please click on the new link “Discussion Forum” in the center of the front page of the CDNLAO website. The link to the Forum is provided also in the green bar under the title. This link is available from any page inside the CDNLAO website.

Front page of CDNLAO website

The Discussion Forum website is available only to CDNLAO member libraries. Before entering the website, you will be asked to login with user name and password. Please enter your user name and password in the login window and click the “Sign in” button. Then you can access the Forum. The user name and password can be used inside each member library, so the director as well as staff members in charge can use the Forum.

Login window

3 How to view and post topics

The Discussion Forum website offers a platform for exchange of information among the member libraries. You can see messages recently posted in “Recent Topics” on the left side and last replies to the postings in the center. The member libraries can view and post topics by clicking the “Start topic” button.

Front page of CDNLAO Discussion Forum website

Through the “Start a Topic” window, a new topic can be posted. Please enter your title and body text into the boxes. Before clicking the “Submit” button to complete your post, please select a relative theme from the pull-down menu. You can also upload a file.

4 How to reply a topic

If you would like to reply to a topic, click the “Reply” button at the right of the topic, and the “Add a Reply” window will appear.

5 How to view all the discussions on a theme

When you want to refer to all the discussions on a theme, click one of the themes on the right side. Then you can see all topics and replies on the selected theme.

The discussion themes offered on this Forum website correspond to the four themes adopted at the 16th annual meeting in Tokyo: (1) Open Source Software, (2) Digital Preservation, (3) "National Libraries Global" Project and (4) Web Archiving. We also prepared a category “Other Themes” for topics not related directly to these four themes. The member libraries can post topics on any of these themes and the leader library for each theme, decided at the 16th annual meeting, will be a moderator.

6 Comment from NDL

We hope you will find this Discussion Forum website useful. We look forward to fruitful discussion and exchange of information among the CDNLAO member libraries. If you have any comments or inquiries, please feel free to let us know.