282 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
282 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
_Current Cites_
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Volume 8, no. 5
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May 1997
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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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Acting Editor: Roy Tennant
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ISSN: 1060-2356
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1997/cc97.8.5.html
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Contributors:
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Campbell Crabtree, Christof Galli, Kirk Hastings, Terry Huwe,
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Margaret Phillips, David Rez, Richard Rinehart,
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Teri Rinne, Roy Tennant
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DIGITAL LIBRARIES
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Cameron, Robert D. "A Universal Citation Database As a Catalyst For
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Reform in Scholarly Communication" First Monday 2 (4) (April 7, 1997)
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[http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_4/cameron/]. Cameron lays out
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a proposal for a universal, Internet-based, bibliographic and citation
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database. It would link all scholarly work ever written, no matter
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what the format. This seems a little ambitious, but it's an
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interesting solution to information retrieval over networks, and very
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much in line with digital library strategies that would blend together
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primary materials and search protocols. Stepping back from the abyss
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of the "big idea", the author names a more feasible initial goal: a
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"semi-universal citation database. - TH
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Dempsey, Lorcan and Rachel Heery. A Review of Metadata: A Survey of
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Current Resource Description Formats Work Package 3 of Telematics for
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Research project DESIRE (RE 1004) (19 March 1997)
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[http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/DESIRE/overview/]. Stu Weibel of
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OCLC, who has been laboring in the metadata orchard for years, calls
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this report "the single most comprehensive survey of metadata
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standards and issues that I am aware of." Such strong endorsement
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should make all those interested in metadata issues on the Internet
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run, not walk to the site where this report can be found (the
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excellent site maintained by the UKOLN Metadata Group at
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http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/). - RT
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McNab, Rodger J., Lloyd A. Smith, David Bainbridge and Ian H. Witten.
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"The New Zealand Digital Library MELody inDEX" D-Lib Magazine (May
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1997) [http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may97/meldex/05witten.html]. - It is
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every librarian's dream of a music retrieval system -- hum a few bars
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of faintly remembered melody and up pops a list of tunes that match or
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nearly match your imperfect performance. Unrealistic? Impossible? Not
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really, says the New Zealand Digital Library
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(http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~nzdl/). A group of researchers there
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have a prototype music retrieval system called MELDEX
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(http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~nzdl/meldex) that promises to do just
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that. How they are doing it, the problems they face, and how they
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(mostly) are overcoming them is what this article is about. The
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technical details are for the most part understandable to someone new
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to music retrieval, and some of the problems they face will sound
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familiar to anyone with retrieval experience of any kind (does it come
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as any surprise that users are often found to be inaccurate when
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singing a few bars of their favorite tune?). By some stroke of luck,
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it turns out that melodies are recognizable regardless of the key in
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which they are sung. I guess there's hope for those of us who are
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musically challenged after all. - RT
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Peters, Carol and Picchi, Eugenio. "Across Languages, Across Cultures:
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Issues in Multilinguality and Digital Libraries" D-Lib Magazine (May
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1997) [http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may97/peters/05peters.html]. Digital
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Library research and development has, until recently, tended to avoid
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the issues of multilingual presentation and access. However, we can no
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longer assume that our audience is for the most part English speaking.
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In this unusually clear article, Carol Peters and Eugenio Picchi
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present the major issues involved in creating a multilingual interface
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for your digital library environment and some of the approaches
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presently under development. Having had, recently, to deal with a
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number of non-English character sets for a large project, I especially
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appreciated the authors coverage of multiple language recognition and
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representation in HTTP and HTML. It is, by far, the best summary of
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the direction standards are taking that I have read. Also covered here
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are the approaches to multilingual retrieval now being experimented
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with, including machine translation, knowledge-based techniques
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(dictionaries and thesauri), and corpus-based techniques. Finally
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Peters and Picchi present a practical example incorporating thesauri
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and digital corpora which seems to have promise for large collections.
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- KH
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Price-Wilkin, John. "Just-in-Time Conversion, Just-in-Case
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Collections" D-Lib Magazine (May 1997)
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[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may97/michigan/05pricewilkin.html]. - In
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this article, Price-Wilkin builds a compelling case for storing
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digital library resources (whether pages of text or images) in the
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richest possible format (for example, SGML-encoded text or
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high-resolution TIFF images) and converting them on-the-fly for
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display. This enables the University of Michigan' Digital Library
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Production Service (DLPS) to easily deliver the best possible format
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given the user's capabilities. As the Web evolves, simple changes to
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the conversion programs enables the delivery of a format that can take
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advantage of new capabilities. The DLPS reports that conversion
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happens fast enough to be undetected by the user -- an essential
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characteristic of any just-in-time conversion scheme. Another benefit
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of storing highly-structured versions of digital documents is the
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ability to repurpose documents in various ways. Examples offered
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include the ability to recombine portions of different documents into
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new ones or to display only the hierarchical view desired (for
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example, section headings). All digital library developers would do
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well to consider the techniques Price-Wilkin and others have
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pioneered. - RT
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ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING
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Dougherty, Dale. "The XML Files: Multidimensional Files That Go Beyond
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HTML" Web Review (May 16, 1997)
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[http://webreview.com/97/05/16/feature/]. Murray Maloney, co-author of
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"SGML and The Web," is quoted here as saying "HTML is the low-end
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Volkswagen of markup languages and SGML is the high-end Rolls Royce."
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The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is an attempt to create a
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mid-range vehicle that does more than HTML but at less of an overhead
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cost than SGML. This Web Review cover story is actually four pieces,
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including a Real Audio interview with Steve Bray, who has been
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instrumental in the development of the XML specification, a
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transcribed interview with Murray Maloney (a member of the XML Working
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Group), and a guide to XML resources. Take my word for it, XML has the
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potential to be big. Real big. If you publish information on the
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Internet you cannot afford to be ignorant of XML. - RT
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Giussani , Bruno. "A New Media Tells Different Stories" First Monday
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2(4) (April 7, 1997)
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[http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_4/giussani/]. Giussani is a
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Swiss writer who frequently contributes to the New York Times. In this
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article, he tackles a subject that is very much on the minds of
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newspaper publishers, namely, what papers will be like in five years?
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He explores the many angles of this white-knuckle question with
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considerable flair. Even when he declares the obvious ("The newspaper
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is no longer a product. It becomes a place"), the surrounding
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discourse is original and thought-provoking. He recognizes that online
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readers behave differently from newspaper readers (some surf, some
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search, some cherry-pick), and one hopes that his publishers are
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listening to him in this regard. It's nice to see a journalist
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assessing how to adapt the time-honored newsrag with the radically
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different world of the Net. - TH
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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY
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Goldhaber, Michael. "The Attention Economy of the Net" First Monday
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2(4) (April 7, 1997)
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[http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_4/goldhaber/]. Goldhaber
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writes in his abstract that "if the Web and the Net can be viewed as
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spaces in which we will increasingly live our lives, the economic laws
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we will live under have to be natural to this new space. These laws
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turn out to be quite different from what the old economics teaches, or
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what rubrics such as 'the information age' suggest." He goes on to
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argue that value on the Net is defined by the attention span of
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viewers, and this is quite different -- perhaps even incompatible --
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with an industrial-money-market. Commercial success will come first to
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those who understand how to measure attention spans, and to tailor
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products and services to the varying styles of attention that internet
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users possess. - TH
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MULTIMEDIA & HYPERMEDIA
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Bruce, Roger. "Digital Photography - Liquifier of Museums?" Image
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39(3-4):10-17. This is an exploration of the relation between the
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utility of an image of a thing and the thing itself; especially in the
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case when the thing itself is not a utilitarian object (i.e. art).
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Rather than purely theoretical however, the article also considers the
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practical, political and economic aspects of marketing and educating
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in the new networked environment (especially when one will be able to
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search vast databases of images, rather than the images of just one
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institution as is often now the case). Will the role (and thus need)
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for the singular institution be diminished? Many museums (and other
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repositories of visual material) approach the Internet cautiously;
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unsure whether the proliferation and dissemination of images of
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objects in their care will in effect replace all need to experience
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the original in an era that seems perfectly satisfied with simulacra,
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or whether they will take the significance of the original outside the
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constraining walls of the museum and ignite curiosity on a broader
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scale. The author is optimistic for museums and archives using the
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Internet but considers the issues broadly. - RR
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Tufte, Edward R. Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence
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and Narrative. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1997, 151p. Tufte
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describes his last book, Envisioning Information, as a book about the
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visual depiction of nouns or static information, and this book is
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about the visual depiction of verbs or dynamic information. The timing
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couldn't better coincide with the evolution of the web toward more
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multimedia/dynamic information, and Tufte's books provide a
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non-technical guide to the intelligent and efficient display of all
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types of information, from scientific and business statistics to
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museum kiosks to weather analyzing videos, useful for print or
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multimedia and online publishing. - RR
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NETWORKS & NETWORKING
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Hermans, Bjorn. "Intelligent Software Agents on the Internet" First
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Monday 2(3) (March 3, 1997)
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[http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_3/ch_123/]. This title is
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actually comprised of seven chapters, which together make up almost
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the entire March issue of First Monday. It will tell you all you will
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ever want to know about the current state of intelligent agents
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development, including the pros and cons. He covers both the
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theoretical underpinnings of agents, and their practical use. To make
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further research on this topic easier, he also includes a bibliography
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-- posing for a moment as an intelligent agent of a more organic
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nature. - TH
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Hof, Robert D. "Internet Communities" Businessweek no. 3535 (May 5,
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1997): 64-80. Special Report
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[http://www.businessweek.com/1997/18/b35251.htm]. The author revisits
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the world of Internet chat rooms and spins an interesting overview of
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the changes underway in Net culture. He also provides a few good
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reviews of communities (how about "Parent Soup", or "Agriculture
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Online") that you might otherwise miss. The news: close to fifty
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percent of Internet users are now women, and it's having an influence
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on etiquette and style; and what's more, it looks like people actually
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enjoy communing in chat rooms more than they like random surfing
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around the Web. - TH
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Lavagnino, Merri Beth. "Networking and the Role of the Academic
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Systems Librarian: an Evolutionary Perspective." College & Research
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Libraries 58(3) (May 1997): 217-231. The present article traces the
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evolution of the academic systems librarian's role from manager of
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function-specific automated library systems to coordinator of
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integrated online library systems and collaborator in campus-wide
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information infrastructure developments. Focusing on the dramatic
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increase in both technological and administrative requirements of
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these positions, the piece also provides an overview of the
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development of local automated library systems on mainframe or
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minicomputers with dumb terminal access methods into complex,
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networked, distributed client-server environments serving the campus,
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state or region. - CG Leiner, Barry M., Vinton G. Cerf, David D.
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Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel,
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Lawrence G. Roberts, and Stephen Wolff. "A Brief History of the
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Internet: Part I" OnTheInternet (May/June 1997): 16-25. A group of
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Internet architects has come together to pen as close to an official
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history of the Internet as we are likely to see. It can be fascinating
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to discover "what a long, strange trip it's been" and to find out how
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TCP/IP took the world by storm (is there anyone out there who
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remembers OSI?). This article is based on one that appeared in the
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March 1997 issue of the Communications of the ACM, and is part one of
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a two-part series. Unfortunately the references are in part two, so
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you may need to wait until next month (or refer to the CACMversion) to
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know who they're citing. - RT
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McCollum, Kelly. "Magazine Ranks Colleges on How "Wired" They Are; MIT
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Comes Out on Top." Chronicle of Higher Education 63 (no. 33), April
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25, 1997, p. A24. The Ivy League is poorly represented in the top
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twenty "most wired" campuses, according to a recent survey conducted
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by Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. The surveyors looked for examples of
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online homework assignments, required coursework in Internet
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resources, as well as non-academic characteristics, such as chat rooms
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and usenet groups. Liberal arts colleges and land grant universities
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are very well represented, along with Dartmouth and Princeton. - TH
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_________________________________________________________________
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Current Cites 8(5) (May 1997) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright (C) 1997 by
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the Library, University of California, Berkeley. All rights reserved.
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All product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
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respective holders. Mention of a product in this publication does not
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necessarily imply endorsement of the 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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listserv@library.berkeley.edu, replacing "[your name]" with your
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name. Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
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bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and libraries.
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Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collections at no
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cost. An archive site is maintained at ftp.lib.berkeley.edu in
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directory /pub/Current.Cites [URL:
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ftp://ftp.lib.berkeley.edu/pub/Current.Cites]. This message must
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appear on copied material. All commercial use requires permission from
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the editor, who may be reached in the following ways:
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trinne@library.berkeley.edu // (510)642-8173
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