252 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
252 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
_Current Cites_
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Volume 9, no. 3
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March 1998
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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/1998/cc98.9.3.html
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Contributors:
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Christof Galli, Kirk Hastings, Terry Huey,
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Margaret Phillips, Richard Rinehart, Roy Tennant
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Jim Ronningen, Lisa Yesson
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Electronic Publishing
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Guernsey, Lisa. "Company Offers Free Access to a Big Database, if
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Libraries Give it $400,000" Chronicle of Higher Education 64(28)
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(March 30, 1998):A30. -- Guernsey describes an unusual marketing move
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by Chadwyck-Healey, a database publisher. The firm has pledged to make
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ArhivesUSA searchable on the Web by anyone in the United States and
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Canada, if it can raise $400,000 in funds from libraries by the end of
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April. While this ultimately may be seen as an innovative strategy to
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increase access, it is a tale with many strange elements. The
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database, which was built from information that was given freely by
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libraries to the publisher, would be given to the general
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citizenry--but only if libraries will now pay a "fee" for value added
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to their original "gift." The article is well-balanced, and quotes
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both critics and supporters. Critics suggest that Chadwyck-Healey
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might consider using profits from the database to give access to
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libraries, instead of charging libraries. The scenario of
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cash-strapped non-profits giving scarce funds to a profit-making
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business must surely suggest that we are entering a brave new world of
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information pricing. Perhaps we would be well-advised to check our
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looking glasses lest we fall into them. Without doubt, it's an
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experimental project, and one worth following, because it may indicate
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the shape of future pricing strategies in the era of the net. -- TH
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Pack, Thomas. "Visualizing Information: Visualization Systems Data
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Management" Database 21(1)(February/March 1998): 47-49 -- This article
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is a gentle reminder for information professionals about the
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importance of information visualization, a relatively new technique
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for analyzing search results from large, multivariate data sets.
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Information visualization transforms data into graphic representations
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to help viewers use their natural tools of observation and processing
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to extract knowledge more efficiently. Traditionally used in
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engineering and medicine, information visualization systems are
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becoming increasingly popular in areas such as financial services
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where they help decision makers interpret large, complex data sets.
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Pack notes that there are still limitations for bringing effective
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visualization systems to the Web, but believes this will likely change
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with improvements in Web-based technologies and increased bandwidth.
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-- LY
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Infromation Technology and Society
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Agre, Phil. "The Internet and Public Discourse" First Monday 3(3)
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(March 2, 1998). -- Agre argues that the confusion about how to manage
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legal and political expectations in cyberspace is rooted in a lack of
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comprehension of the new medium. It's too easy to mistake
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communication on the net with telephony, newspapers etc--therein lies
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the problem. The medium is actually a "meta-medium": a set of layered
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services that is built from flexible elements, and its properties
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change to meet the desires of the author. To properly map legal and
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political concerns to harness the power of the new beast, we need to
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start anew and map the meta-medium to legal theories and social
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conventions that capture its modus vivendi. If we do not, we risk
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falling into the profitless trap of imposing the wrong conceptual
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framework from other media. -- TH
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Networks & Networking
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Beall, Jeffrey "Guaranteed Hits" College & Research Libraries News
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59(3)(March 1998):160-162. This practical article provides tips on how
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index your site for Search engines to ensure that it will be retrieved
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by a greater number of Web searchers. Among the strategies are 1)
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visit the major search engines and look for the "Add URL" button or
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it's equivalent (there are even Web sites that bring together all the
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"Add URL" pages of the major search engines
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(http://www.tiac.net/users/seeker/searchenginesub.html), 2) design
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your site in such a way to increase the likelihood of its being
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indexed accurately: don't include vital information exclusively in
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graphics as these will not be read by search engines and place vital
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information in larger font towards the top of the page, 3) use the
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Dublin Core, a block of data in standard form that provides
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information about your site in a way that is recognized by search
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engines; as a standard for metadata, the Dublin Core is big in the
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library community (for more information, see
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http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcdot and
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http://www.ub.lu.se/metadata/DC_creator.html), 4) catalog your site
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not only for your own online catalog but in one of the major
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bibliographic utilities as well, 5) seek out specialized search
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engines that focus on a particular discipline and then look for the
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"Add URL" button. - MP
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Jayne, Elaine and Patricia Vander Meer. "The Library's Role in
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Academic Instructional Use of the World Wide Web" Research Strategies
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(15)3 (Fall 1997):123-150. -- As academic librarians become experts in
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doing more with less, they will need these skills in yet another area
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critical to their mission: supporting the use of the Web in teaching
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and learning. The authors argue that students and faculty will need
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adequate training and guidance to take advantage of the instructional
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benefits of the Web. They propose a collaborative approach between
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academic libraries and computing centers to facilitate a Web
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instructional program. While their collaborative program suggestions
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may be fairly basic for institutions that have already initiated
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efforts in this area, they do also provide valuable criteria for
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demonstrating and constructing instructional Web sites and an
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illustrative list of library-related and subject specific Web sites.
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-- LY
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Jones, Martha. "Online Resources for Writers" LJ Digital (April 1,
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1998), Berinstein, Paula. "The Numbers Game: The Top 10 Sources for
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Statistics" Online 22(2) (March 1998) -- Many writers, interested in
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the fine art of verbal nuance, cringe at the idea of crude statistics.
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It's precisely because most writers don't consider themselves "numbers
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people" that I offer the second citation paired with the first, just
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to encourage a little horizon broadening. Berinstein's ranking of
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statistical sites starts with the single most useful source for
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residents of the U.S., the Statistical Abstract of the United States,
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and continues with other sources which are rich in domestic and
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foreign figures. She also offers strategies for navigating this
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quantitative sea. Jones has reviewed Web sites which can help with the
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craft of writing and with getting published, and may create a sense of
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community for lonely scribes. Her top pick is Inkspot, for its breadth
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and organization. Zuzu's Petals Literary Resource Homepage is singled
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out as particularly good for poets. So visit each other's web pages,
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and maybe you counters and conjurers will understand each other a
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little better. Okay? Big hug. -- JR
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Mace, Scott, et.al. "Weaving a Better Web" BYTE 23(3)(March
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1998):58-68. -- The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is likely to
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revolutionize the Web. That's a big claim, but I'm not the only one
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who thinks that. For example, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, and
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Netscape are all lining up behind it. John Bosak from Sun is the
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father of XML, Microsoft is pushing it like crack, and Netscape
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recently announced support for it in their upcoming 5.0 version of
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their browser. This feature article in BYTE and its accompanying
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sidebars is an excellent introduction to XML as well as related draft
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standards and software. XML provides an infrastructure to solve many
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of the current problems with the Web, from better linking methods to
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powerful data structures. Web managers who ignore XML will do so at
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their peril. -- RT
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Nims, Julia K. and Linda Rich. "How Successfully Do Users Search the
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Web?" College & Research Libraries News, 59(3)(March 1998):155-158. --
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Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall to observe how people
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search for information the Web? That's just want Nims and Rich from
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Bowling Green State University did with the help of the McKinley
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Search Voyeur Web site. Although their goal was to find out the common
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pitfalls of searchers in their institution so that they could adjust
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their Web instruction accordingly, spying on their own users was
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neither technically possible nor ethically appropriate. It is perhaps
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no surprise that a large number of the searches they spied on were
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sex-related; it is also no surprise that many of the searches seemed
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poorly planned. Among the types of "mistakes" they encountered were:
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one-word searches (e.g. "women" or "computer"); inclusion of stop
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words; typing errors (the frightening thing is that users who
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mispelled words often retrieved large search results!); entire or
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partial URLs (what seemed to be happening was that users who wanted to
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go to a specific site were doing a search on the URL rather than just
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entering it into the location box); exclusion of Magellan search
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suggestions (very few of the searches seemed to take advantage of
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certain Magellan features such as using operators like "not" or "or"
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or placing quotes around a certain phrase; this indicates that users
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do not seem to be reading the help documentation before doing their
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searches). Obviously there are limitations to a study like this
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because a voyeur cannot really know what the the intent of the
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searcher is or whether or not the searcher is satisfied with the
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results. The mistakes observed here are many of the same mistakes that
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patrons have always been making on online systems; the difference is
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that the problems are magnified within the Web environment. -- MP
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Rosenfeld, Louis and Peter Morville. Information Architecture for the
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World Wide Web Cambridge, MA: O'Reilly & Associates, 1998. - We've all
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seen the problem -- Web sites with no discernible organizational
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paradigm, uses of technology that border on a federal offense, and
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just plain bad site design. Now those site designers have no excuse.
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If they don't know what they're doing, here's the book to tell them
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how. In under 200 pages, Rosenfeld and Morville (columnists for Web
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Review and principals with Argus Associates) cover such essential
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concepts as organization, navigation, searching, and labeling systems
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as well as much more. There is enough here to help all Web managers,
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no matter if we already believe ourselves to be competent in creating
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and managing our sites. Because mostly we aren't as good as we may
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think. If you manage a Web site, you owe it to your users to study
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this book. And some of you should be shackled to your servers until it
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sinks in. Still need convincing? See the sample chapter
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(http://webreview.com/wr/pub/98/03/06/feature/index.html) for a taste.
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- RT
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Summers, Ed. "Gateways to Social Work/Welfare on the Net" College &
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Research Libraries News, 59(3) (March 1998):163- 167. -- This month's
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C&RL News list of Internet resources is a selected list that
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introduces gateways to social work information on the net as well as
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provides links to social work organizations, e-journals, and
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education/employment resources. -- MP
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Watters, Carolyn, Marshall Conley and Cynthia Alexander. "The Digital
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Agora: Using Technology for Learning in the Social Sciences"
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Communications of the ACM 41(1)(January 1998):50-57. -- The "digital
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agora" at Acadia University is a Web-based system which, according to
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the authors, encourages collaborative analysis of social problems.
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Students enrolled in introductory political science, peace studies and
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international politics courses work through Web pages to read, write
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responses, pull together research and reach consensus after
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negotiation on group efforts. The focus of the article is on the
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interweaving of curriculum with site organization and functions; do
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not look here for much criticism of the effectiveness of Web-based
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learning systems. The authors do allow that Web resources may be "only
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rudimentary as tools for facilitating the understanding of the
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complexity of issues, the formulation of strategies dealing with these
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issues, and finally, the communication of ideas," which are some
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pretty serious reservations. But that topic is dropped like a hot
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potato, and the emphasis remains on implementation issues. The first
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line of the article states proudly that "Acadia University is the
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first laptop university in Canada," and this is recommended reading
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for anyone pondering programs for an equally fortunate student body.
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It's helpful to read it in the context of the January issue, themed
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"Computers Across Campus," which has several pieces about programs
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which require students to explore the possibilities of info tech. --
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JR
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_________________________________________________________________
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Current Cites 9(3) (March 1998) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright © 1998
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by the Library, Univer sity of California, Berkeley. _All rights
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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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Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collections at no
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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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