Development of Databases is the major cooperation of IT and LIS. I suggest development of specialized databases considering at least one new/unique aspect. Tagging/coding data and turning them into metadata and providing IR optimized methods to access the data is one idea. Also, development of methods and tools to extract data/info/knowledge from available information/databases is another suggestion.

I've already worked with IT professionals in development of a new Journal Management software package. We integrated web platform, submission platform and output formats platform in one.

Have a nice Thesis!

Thank you very much Farhad!. If there is any person that have information about this kind of collaboration work I'll really be pleased to receive it.

Dear Claudia,

People I've worked with are in my home country and are not able to communicate in English. Also, for such projects, you have to sit behind one desk with IT guys and really get involved and discuss issues that could not be done in online environment.

I suggest you find some people from Uruguay. I'm sure there are IT professionals in IT topics of ResearchGate. Also, you can find some interested people from your own university's IT departments.

It's excellent advice, I really appreciate it!. Thanks.

I have worked with them mostly in Library Automation Projects. I never had problems, but you have to learn their language. It is easier than to hope they will lean librarianship

Thank you very much.

You could try to find information on 'digitalization of library catalogs', which were some time ago/or are still carried out by interdisciplinary teams (librarians and IT people). As a computer scientist I tell my students that computing is useless unless you have an application to apply your work for. So, IT people are committed to understand the problems they want to solve, be it in libraries or in business, for example.

Another important topic, where IT people helped or could have helped is the information retrieval area, which is now going to yield from semantic technologies. Here, librarians with their domain knowledge (and connections to specialists) could lay the basis for many more ontologies than having been created up to now.

I've worked with our IT department to create a Digital Archives (SharePoint) and am currently working with them to create an Institutional Research Repository.

We each rely on our specific expertise. For instance, I identify the vocabulary used for metadata and IT builds the architecture to support that. In this instance, metadata fields are limited to specific choices via drop down lists. Access, file hosting, retrieval are all issues we collaborate on. The collaboration is in one physical location with face-to-face discussion.

Collaboration between experienced librarians and IT is essential for development of systems meant to be accessed by a variety of people. Very few people have the ability to serve as experts in both system design and system architecture: 2 different viewpoints and skill sets.

Application of information technology and information science (IS) to library science (LS) is more than mere digitization of databases, catalogs, content, and retrieval processes. The potential exists to enhance the optimal services of both LS and IS by mutual learning environment and collaboration. Before you get too far into your thesis, suggest review the brief report of the experience from Thailand university "Building collaboration between LIS educators and practitioners in

developing countries: transcending barriers, creating opportunities" by Sacchanand (June 2012) at:

http://conference.ifla.org/past/ifla78/213-sacchanand-en.pdf

The author describes challenges and opportunities to advance the science and research in this area beyond use of IT simply as a tool to modernize and update current systems and processes.

Hi Claudia, If you are going to write a thesis rather than do it for real, then you are on safe ground. If this is a live project then you need to get some advise from an IT professional. Having worked on a number of digitisation projects and I would offer the following advice.

The first thing is to write a specification for your project. You need to be able to articulate what you need. My suggestion is to redraft this a few times in consultation with an IT expert. Its almost certain that you don't know what questions to address in the first draft. Consider getting an IT expert to write the final draft for you. You may need a different expert to look at data structures and standards if you are creating a resource like a database.

My second suggestion is to articulate the basics of project management cost, time and resources. making sure you know how much of each you need and that you have access to them. Always add on a percentage at least 10% on everything but keep it to yourself. Gives you a bit of space when things go wrong, they always do.

My third suggestion is to ask if you need to work with them on a day to day basis or at arms length and meet for specific work packages or can you afford to employ someone to work with you full time. Always work with proven software and consider how you might adapt an existing project. If your spec. is good then you might be able to outsource the IT side of the project.

Finally you need to keep in mind maintenance, upgrades and availability. A five year time horizon is probably good. If you are working in an organisation like a university, it is probably best to get support at management level. Things can easily go wrong if you find you are in conflict with rather than running in line with the corporate IT strategy.

Be very wary of the IT professional who says he can build stuff from scratch. If he can build something form scratch he is already looking for anther job and you will be left with something no one else understands. He/she won't have documened it anyway. BW Matt

Hi Claudia, I agree with Matt. If you have a specific focus on a topic including aspects of semantics, ontologies some of the projects in the ZBW-Labs might be of interest for you. They include the collaborative works of librarians and IT-specialists: http://zbw.eu/labs/en Good luck Tamara

Thanks to every one!. This are very good advices. I will prepare and define mostly the principal subject for my thesis in 2014. The conversation in Researchgate is for me a very good place to have good ideas and advisement.

For you to know exactly what is my idea, I can tell that my favorite subjects are Thesaurus, Ontology, Semantics and User online experience in clinical health research information area. Specifically online available clinical research information databases. I Would like to treat IS and IT professionals work in this areas as the principal focus, and the enfasis would be the influence of Evidence Based Medicine searching process in the design of Information Retrieval Systems.

I work in health informaton research and the experience said that there is a lot of things to fix and coordinate in this area. I think IS and IT professionals are the right combination to do so.

Thanks again really!

Hi Claudia, if you are mostly interested in the clinical/Medical context the Morphosaurus project by the ZB MED might be of interest for you:

http://www.zbmed.de/en/about-us/projects/morphosaurus.html

Excellent recommendation Tamara, thanks, this is what I mean!

I'll see how I do to understand German but the bibliography for now will be extremely useful. Thanks again!

You are welcome. I know a couple of colleagues at the ZB MED who will answer your questions in English. Just let me know if you want to contact them.

Ok, thank you very much!

Hi Claudia,

In addition to the helpful suggestions below, you might like to look at an example of librarians working with other information professionals to develop Semantic Web-based systems: http://hdl.handle.net/10072/39664

A 2nd example is not yet openly accessible: http://www.vala.org.au/vala2014-proceedings/794-vala2014-session-5-wolski

Joanna

Hello Claudia, Sorry, I am sending my comment a bit late. Librarians/Information Professionals achieve more of their dreams with the support of Computer Professionals. In fact, the two professionals work hand-in-hand. Although, in most cases, some Librarians are Computer expert and may not need help from a Computer professional. When I was with Babcock University, Nigeria,  I worked with some Computer professionals to achieve this http://library.babcock.edu.ng/ and is currently working. So they can work together and the end result of such project will be wonderful.