272 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
272 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
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_Current Cites_
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Volume 7, no. 9
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September 1996
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The Library
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University of California, Berkeley
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Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
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ISSN: 1060-2356
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1996/cc96.7.9.html
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Contributors:
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Campbell Crabtree, Terry Huwe, John Ober,
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Margaret Phillips, David Rez, Richard Rinehart,
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Teri Rinne, Roy Tennant
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Editor's Note: I am very pleased to announce the availability of a new
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service for Current Cites readers, thanks to our web master Roy
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Tennant. With just a couple easy steps you can now create your own
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"Virtual Issue" of Current Cites based upon your own search words.
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Your virtual issue is constructed of all the citations in the
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500-entry Current Cites database that match your search and is
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displayed to you in one Web document. You may try it at:
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/virtualcc
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With the creation of this new service, it is also now possible to make
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a link that will automatically create a virtual Current Cites issue on
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a particular topic. To see how this works, go to
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Copyright/ and click on the "Quick
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Bibliography" message. If you wish to do something like this yourself,
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go to the Virtual Issue page, enter the title and search that you
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wish, view the results and verify that it is what you want, and then
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simply copy the link information from your Web browser's "location" or
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"go to" box and paste it into a link tag in your Web document. Then,
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when someone clicks on that link the search will be done automatically
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at that moment for them.
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SWISH search software and Perl were used to create this service. If
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you wish to see the Perl script that accesses the SWISH database and
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that creates the Web pages on the fly, it can be viewed at
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/virtual. Questions about
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the service should be directed to Roy Tennant at
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rtennant@library.berkeley.edu.
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ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING
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Allen, Mike. "Testing Whether Internet Readers Will Pay" The New York
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Times (September 16, 1996): C2. -- Using the experiences of the Wall
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Street Journal Interactive Edition (http://www.wsj.com/) as a model,
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this article poses the question as to whether Internet users are
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willing to pay for access to Web sites and other electronic journals.
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Although 650,000 people registered as readers of the Wall Street
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Journal Interactive Edition during its trial period, only about 10 to
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30 percent stated a willingness to pay for the service. Other online
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news sites such as those from CNN (http://www.cnn.com/), USA Today
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(http://www.usatoday.com/) and the Los Angeles Times
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(http://www.latimes.com/) remain free; charging users for access to
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their services seems to be a goal but users' willingness to pay is
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still being studied. In an interesting twist, Microsoft
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(http://www.microsoft.com/) found one way to finance their electronic
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publication Slate (http://www.slate.com/) was by selling paper
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versions of it for $29.95 which is $10 more than what the online
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version will cost when it starts charging in November. -- MP
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Hawkins, Donald T., "Information Metering: Paving the Way for
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Pay-Per-View Information" ONLINE 20(4) (July/August 1996): 36-41. --
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Information metering will allow publishers and information providers
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to increase revenue from their intellectual property in a manner that
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is convenient yet affordable for users. Two companies' similar
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approaches to implementing an information 'pay-per-view' model are
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introduced. Encrypted information is provided at a minimal cost, and
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the user pays for selective decryption. Wave Systems, Inc. relies on
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an information-metering chip, while CD-MAX, Inc.'s metering capability
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comes with the content itself, in the form of software. -- CC
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Peek, Robin, editor, "Special Topic Issue: Electronic Publishing"
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Journal of the American Society for Information Science 47(9) (1996)
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-- This special topic issue of JASIS covers many aspects of electronic
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publishing, including the redefinition of the basic concept of
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'document' to include multimedia, multi-use collections of information
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which is demanding information professionals to become
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'cyberliterate.' Other articles include a study of how scholars
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determine the value of digital library collections, a report of the
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trials and successes of the implementation of an electronic journal,
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and articles addressing the special concerns of electronically
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surveying the readership of electronic journals, and the
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organizational and practical design concerns of creating a guide to
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Internet resources. -- CC
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Pemberton, Jeff. "An ONLINE Interview with Jeff Crigler at IBM
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infoMarket" ONLINE 20(4) (July/August 1996): 28-34. -- An interview
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with Jeff Crigler discussing IBM's infoMarket plan for metering the
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use of electronic information. The infoMarket scheme creates a
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third-party relationship between publisher and user, facilitating (and
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billing for) the use of material using a non-proprietary, but
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IBM-developed 'cryptolope' technology. A cryptolope is a secure data
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container with prices and usage restrictions built in. The user will
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have the option to buy a digital unlock key or, for a lower price, a
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view-only key. -- CC
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Tally, Bill. "History Goes Digital" D-Lib Magazine (September 1996)
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(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september96/09tally.html) -- An interesting
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and anecdotal description of how some teachers are using digital
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library resources in the classroom. Using a couple of teachers as
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examples, Tally describes both the challenges and opportunities that
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digital collections provide teachers to bring history alive. Embedded
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in the article are some tips for digital library developers on how to
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better serve the instructional needs of teachers like those in the
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article. -- RT
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Willett, Perry. "The Victorian Women Writers Project: The Library as a
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Creator and Publisher of Electronic Texts" The Public-Access Computer
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Systems Review, 7(6) (1996).
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(http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v7/n6/will7n6.html) -- A brief description
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of a project to digitize poetry into formats suitable for network
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delivery and long-term storage. The issues faced and the decisions
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made by the Victorian Women Writers Project may be useful to others
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considering similar projects. -- RT
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NETWORKS AND NETWORKING
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Berton, John Carlo, Charles R. McClure and Douglas L. Zweizig. The
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1996 National Survey of Public Libraries and the Internet: Progress
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and Issues. Washington, DC: U.S. National Commission on Libraries and
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Information Science, July 1996.
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(http://istweb.syr.edu/Project/Faculty/McClure-NSPL96/NSPL96_T.html)
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-- This report updates the 1994 report on Public Libraries and the
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Internet cited in the July 1994 issue of Current Cites. This report
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asserts that since that time there has been a 113% increase in public
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library Internet connectivity and a 119% increase in public libraries
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offering public access to Internet services. On the other hand, nearly
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40% of the public libraries without Internet connections have no plans
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to connect in the next 12 months. For more statistics as well as
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insights into how well or ill public libraries are integrating the
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Internet to their services, check out this report in either its online
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or print form. -- RT
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"Internet Resources for the 1996 Election" College & Research
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Libraries News 57(8) (September 1996): 481-486. -- Prepared by the
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ACRL Law and Political Science Section Library Instruction Committee,
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this month's C&RL News article on Internet sources focuses on the 1996
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election. On the national front it appears that only those candidates
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with a "realistic chance of winning" will be allowed to participate in
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the televised presidential debates; this article, however, takes a
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much more inclusive approach and lists Internet sites for many
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political parties including the Communist Party USA
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(http://www.hartford-hwp.com/cp-usa/), the Green Party
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(http://www.greens.org/), the Reform Party
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(http://www.reformparty.org/) along with, of course, official web
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sites for the Democrats (http://www.democrats.org/) and the
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Republicans (http://www.rnc.org/). Already out of date, references
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to individual candidates, the primaries and the two big conventions
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seem anachronistic but the annotations for everything on the list are
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thoughtful and include important information such as the site's
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sponsor and a brief summary of content. Particularly useful in this
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article are references with detailed annotations to news and
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non-partisan voter education sites on the Web such as the Countdown
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'96 Home Page (http://www.comeback.com/countdown/), AllPolitics
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(http://allpolitics.com/), Vote Smart Web (http://www.vote-smart.org/)
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and Voter Information Services (http://world.std.com/~voteinfo/). --
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MP
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Jerram, Peter. "Forms Follow Function" Byte 21(9) (September 1996) :
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153-158. -- The promised "paperless office" remains an unrealized
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dream of the information age. However, new software products are
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making it much easier to manage electronic forms, both locally and on
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the World Wide Web. By coupling a crafty administrator with the right
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e-forms software package a company might easily find itself with far
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fewer paper forms to deal with. This article explores three of these
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software products from Paperless Performance
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(http://www.paperless.com/), Symantec's Delrina Group
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(http://www.delrina.com/) and JetForm Corp. (http://www.jetform.com/),
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and optimistically looks at the future of e-forms and the Web. -- DR
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"State of the State Reports: Statewide Library Automation,
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Connectivity, and Resource Access Initiatives" Library Hi Tech 14(2-3)
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(1996): 1-348 -- This special double issue of Library Hi-Tech contains
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reports from representatives of 46 states outlining core library
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information technology and electronic library projects developed or
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developing in their states. The states not included are Arkansas,
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Hawaii, Massachusetts and South Carolina. There are two "Featured
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State Examples": "GALILEO: Georgia's Electronic Library"
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(http://www.galileo.peachnet.edu/) and "The Electronic Doorway
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Library Initiative" in New York. This issue also serves as a
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directory, with contact information for each of the contributors. The
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sheer size of the issue and the outline format of the reports make
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this issue more of a reference work than anything else. Although for
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many of us it is interesting to see how other states and institutions
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are grappling with the issues facing all of us; but be aware that
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these articles contain the quick summaries rather than the detailed
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answers. -- DR
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"The Total Librarian" Review of Books and Multimedia Supplement, The
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Economist 340 (7983) (September 14, 1996): 12. -- The Economist rates
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Internet search engines to evaluate whether it is possible to
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successfully index the Internet. The authors provide humorous
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critiques (on Yahoo!: "...bringing order to all human knowledge is a
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long-standing Sysyphean folly, but Yahoo! comes close") and also
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evaluate the programming strategies employed by the more successful
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search engines. A new strategy in development would utilize PC-based
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"softbots" that learn about user interests and perform more complex
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textual parsing. What's missing? Any mention whatsoever of the
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authority control, structured fields, and other enhancements one
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expects to find in the information professions. What's the message?
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Lifetime employment for librarians who can sell themselves to Internet
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service providers. -- TH
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OPTICAL DISC TECHNOLOGY
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Halfhill, Tom R. "CDs for the Gigabyte Era" Byte 21(10) (October
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1996): 139-144. -- Digital Versatile Disc or Digital VideoDisc (DVD)
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has the potential to revolutionize mass storage for small systems.
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This new format type would take CD-ROM way beyond 650MB to as much as
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17GB per CD-sized disc. This informative article explains the plethora
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of physical formats and the problems that such variety can cause
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(which has apparently pushed back the likelihood of seeing available
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products into 1997), but luckily this variety is limited to how the
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data is physically stored on the disc. There is only one logical
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format, called the Universal Disk Format (UDF), that all forms of DVD
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will support. One possible use of this technology would be to put a
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full-length feature movie on a disc along with a computer game or
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education software based on it on the same disc. Definitely a
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technology to watch, as many in the music and movie industry are
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already doing. -- RT
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GENERAL
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"Focus Interview" The Electronic Library 14(3) (June 1996): 225-229.
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-- In this brief but informative interview five librarians
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representing Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Canada and Mexico
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answer questions about library automation. The format is a simple
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question and answer mostly about topics that involve moving to
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automation in a library. For instance, procedures to define specs and
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functionality, the overall cost and staff training are all covered
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during the course of the interview. For anyone that might be looking
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at starting the process toward library automation this interview
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furnishes some good systems information that may save a step or two,
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at the very least it will provide an idea about what is involved. --
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DR
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-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Current Cites 7(9) (September 1996) ISSN: 1060-2356
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Copyright (C) 1996 by the Library, University of
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California, Berkeley. All rights reserved.
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All product names are trademarks or registered trademarks
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of their respective holders. Mention of a product in this
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publication does not necessarily imply endorsement of the
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product.
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[URL:http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/]
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To subscribe, send the message "sub cites [your name]" to
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listproc@library.berkeley.edu, replacing "[your name]"
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with your name. Copying is permitted for noncommercial use
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by computerized bulletin board/conference systems, individual
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scholars, and libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the
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journal to their collections at no cost. An archive site is
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maintained at ftp.lib.berkeley.edu in directory /pub/Current.Cites
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[URL:ftp://ftp.lib.berkeley.edu/pub/Current.Cites]. This message
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must appear on copied material. All commercial use requires
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permission from the editor, who may be reached in the following
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ways:
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trinne@library.berkeley.edu // (510)642-8173
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--------------------------------------------------------------------
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