280 lines
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280 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
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_Current Cites_
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Volume 9, no. 5
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May 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/cc98.9.5.html
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Contributors:
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Christof Galli, Kirk Hastings, Terry Huwe,
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Margaret Phillips, Richard Rinehart, Roy Tennant
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Jim Ronningen, Lisa Yesson
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Digital Libraries
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Fox, Edward A. and Gary Marchionini. "Toward a Worldwide Digital
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Library" Communications of the ACM 41(4) (April 1998). -- As they have
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done before, (see the April 1995 issue of Current Cites) the
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Communications of the ACM has devoted an issue to the topic of digital
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libraries. Anyone involved in digital library development probably has
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favorite online resources (such as our own Digital Library SunSITE
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/) for diving deep into specific problems,
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but this provides a wide scope in one neat package. To quote from the
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introduction, "This special section is a snapshot of the current state
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of digital library development around the world." The worldwide
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digital library theme has been carried out by including articles which
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focus upon technical, informational and social interoperability across
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national boundaries. The special section is broken up into the
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following categories: Interoperability, Special Types of Digital
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Libraries, Multilingual Support, National Efforts, and Supporting
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Technologies. And there's a related "Legally Speaking" column by
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Pamela Samuelson titled "Encoding the Law into Digital Libraries." As
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always with CACM, the work is scholarly, well-documented and
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foot-noted. -- JR
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Hanson, Terry. "The Access Catalogue Gateway to Resources" Ariadne 15
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(May 1998) [http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue15/main/]. -- Libraries can
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no longer be complacent with merely providing structured access to
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their holdings through their library catalog. Users must also be
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guided to CD-ROM and Internet resources in a way that makes sense and
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that integrates them as much as possible with traditional print
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resources. The typical strategies so far include adding electronic and
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Internet resources to the library catalog or creating a separate and
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parallel catalog to the existing catalog of print materials. Neither
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solution is without its problems. In this article Hanson proposes a
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new kind of access paradigm that subsumes the library catalog of print
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materials beneath an over-arching "Access Catalogue." This catalog
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would provide integrated access to the complete breadth of information
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resources, from which the user could leap off into the one they feel
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is most appropriate to their need -- whether it be the traditional
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library catalog, or a CD-ROM database, or a Web site. A number of us
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have been slouching toward just such a solution, but it is refreshing
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to see it so clearly and openly stated. Although this brief piece is
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hardly more than the statement of an idea, it is nonetheless of
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potentially much greater impact than a longer and more fully
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documented article. Those of us who were using Gopher when Mosaic was
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introduced understand the power of the right idea at the right time.
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Although I don't want to imply that Hanson's model is as potentially
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powerful, I do think it is well worth heeding. -- RT
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Jensen, Ann. "Taking Local Resources Global: The NCSTRL Experience at
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UC Berkeley Library" Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship 18
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(Spring 1998)
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[http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/98-spring/article1.html]. -- This
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piece is a straightforward report on a library project to take over
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the management of a repository of computer science technical reports
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from a computer science department that had participated in a
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ground-breaking digital library project called NCSTRL. Although the
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topic may not be as "sexy" as other digital library projects -- being
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based on technology that has existed for years -- it nonetheless is an
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example of the kind of digital library function that should be a
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library's bread-and-butter -- providing long-term, structured, and
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usable access to useful information. -- RT
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Electronic Publishing
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Kelly, Brian. RDF Tools Briefing Sheet (May 1998)
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[http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/seminars/what-is-rdf-may1998/
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rdf-briefi ng.html]. -- This summary sheet on RDF tools and resources
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is extremely helpful for anyone interesting in the Resource
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Description Framework, or RDF. RDF is an emerging standard for
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encoding metadata using XML syntax. RDF is likely to be an important
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standard for anyone creating, exchanging, or using metadata. This
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document is extremely up-to-date as of this writing, but as Kelly
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wisely notes, this is a "very volatile area." It is available in Adobe
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Acrobat, Word 97, and HTML formats. Our readers in the U.S. should
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select the option "shrink to fit" when printing it from Adobe Acrobat,
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as it is formatted for A4 paper. It is also designed to be distributed
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as a one-page, back-to-back, folded handout. You would be hard-pressed
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to find any better RDF summary sheet than this. -- RT
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Kelly, Brian. What is XML? Ariadne 15 (May 1998)
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[http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue15/what-is/]. -- The question posed by
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the article title is on the lips of many individuals these days, and
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will be pondered by even more in the days to come. Kelly's piece,
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written in the question-and-answer format popularized by net
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"Frequently Asked Questions" documents (FAQs), is aimed at answering
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only the most basic questions about XML. However, those who know a bit
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more than the basics may be pleasantly surprised by up-to-date
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pointers to some interesting papers from the Seventh International
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World Wide Web Conference. -- RT
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Miller, Eric. "An Introduction to the Resource Description Framework"
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D-Lib Magazine (May 1998)
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[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may98/miller/05miller.html]. -- Let's not
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mince words. The Resource Description Framework, or RDF, is not for
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the faint of heart. Anyone who has difficulty with the concept of
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_labeled directed graphs_, yours truly included, will find themselves
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wishing they had a dentist's appointment they could rush off to when
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confronted with RDF syntax. But surely, you think, this preamble is
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leading up to something more engaging than having one's teeth pulled,
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right? Right. There _is_ a reason to endure such pain. If you've ever
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wished for a mechanism by which you could encode, exchange, and use
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structured metadata on the Web, then here it is. RDF is an emerging
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solution to a variety of problems, from "cataloging" Web pages to
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providing browsing of a Web site hierarchy and more. So pull up an
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armchair, lean back, and open wide. The doctor is "in." -- RT
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Stepanek, Marcia. "From Digits to Dust" Businessweek 3574 (April 20,
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1998): 128. -- Librarians will be shocked! Shocked! To learn that
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digital preservation is a vital issue. This article covers the growing
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awareness among technology managers that digital information, much of
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will never appear on paper, is subject to decay and degradation. In
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many cases, the actual life span of CD-ROMs and other formats are no
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longer than the life span of paper copies, despite the fact digital
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copies are far more expensive to develop. Although this article is
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very well written and informative, it falls into a very common trap of
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business writers: a lack of research on the preservation initiatives
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that originate in the library world. Maybe if digital preservation
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values and strategies of librarians were more widely known, we
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wouldn't be in such a pickle. This article makes it abundantly clear
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that consideration of preservation issues must be folded into the
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design process for digital formats. -- TH
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Multimedia & Hypermedia
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Donovan, Kevin. "The Promise of the FlashPix Image File Format" RLG
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DigiNews 2(2) (April 15, 1998)
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[http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews22.html#FlashPix]. -- One
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of the critical questions at the moment for anyone doing serious image
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work on the Web is what the next image format will be. It's clear that
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the ubiquitous formats of GIF (Compuserve's Graphic Interchange
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Format) and JPEG (the Joint Photographic Engineers Group
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specification) are sufficient for providing Web eye candy, but they
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are clearly deficient for serving high-resolution images. The problem
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is that there is no clear winner among several competing formats.
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FlashPix is one of these formats, and this article does a decent job
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of explaining what it is all about. Can you implement it and be
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certain it will be the format of the future? Perhaps, perhaps not. But
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with Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Live Picture, Inc., and Microsoft
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behind it, you can't count it out either. At least with the help of
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this article you will know about about your options. -- RT
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Gulick, Rebecca. "Adobe Proposes PGML as Web Image Standard" MacWeek
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12(15) (April 20, 1998): 1,8 -- Adobe, along with Netscape, IBM, and
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other supporters proposed PGML as the new standard for vector-based
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images for the Web to the W3C. Vector-based images are not defined as
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a fixed set of pixels, but rather as algorithims. One of their
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benefits is that a Web site could host a very high-resolution
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vector-based image, which when delivered by the intelligent Web server
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gets "dumbed down" into a lower-resolution image for the browser for
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speed, but the end-user could "zoom" in on the image and request
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higher and higher resolutions from the server. This would obviously
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enable many uses for which the Web is now impractical, and could
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greatly reduce the storage and mangement problems of multiple versions
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of image files. PGML is not the only standard being proposed, but the
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move toward vector-based images in general should be watched closely.
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-- RR
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Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) 1.0 Specification
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(April 9, 1998) World Wide Web Consortium. -- A new proposal for a Web
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based standard for multimedia. the Synchronized Multimedia Integration
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Language (or SMIL; thanks Timothy Leary 8-) ) is an XML-based language
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for integrating multimedia (audio, video, images) on the Web. Full
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approval is pending and the SMIL specification can be found at
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http://www.w3.org/TR/PR-smil. -- RR
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Networks & Networking
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Platt, Nina. "GPO Access - Government At Its Best?" Database 21 (2)
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(April/May 1998): 41-43. -- If you've ever been frustrated by trying
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to locate U.S. government information you may be pleased to read Nina
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Platt's review of recent improvements to GPO Access
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[http://www.access.gpo.gov/], the U.S. Government Printing Office's
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electronic directory of Federal Government information. GPO Access
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includes government information databases (such as The Federal
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Register and The Code of Federal Regulation), individual Federal
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agency files from the Federal Bulletin Board and tools for finding
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government information. GPO Access also provides multiple access
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options and general and specialized search pages. Platt acknowledges
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that GPO Access has been available since 1994, but only recently has
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begun to live up to its promise, by adding more resources and
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simplifying the search process. -- LY
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Proceedings of the 7th International World Wide Web Conference,
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Brisbane, Australia April 14-18, 1998
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[http://www7.conf.au/programme/fullprog.html]. -- The International
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WWW Conference is the Web conference for academics and researchers.
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Unlike conferences such as Internet World or Interop, you won't be
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bumping into too many suits in the halls. This is both good and bad,
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if you're of a practical bent. If you're looking for Web solutions you
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can implement today, you will find few of them here. But if you want
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to know where the Web may be heading, discover what technical
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possibilities there are, and sample some cutting-edge solutions to Web
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problems, this is the place. You will likely find that many of the
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papers are of limited interest, but even if you find only one or two
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that expands your knowledge about what is possible on the Web, it will
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be worth a visit. My guess is you will. -- RT
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Udell, Jon. "Effective HTML Forms" BYTE 23(5) (May 1998): 103-106
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[http://www.byte.com/art/9805/sec7/art1.htm]. -- I don't normally cite
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individual articles on creating Web documents, but this one has such
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great advice about a Web structure that is so often done poorly, I
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couldn't help myself. Udell, who doubles as the BYTE Web manager, not
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only targets the markup with comments like "Mark required elements"
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and "Use layout and visual cues to organize elements" (he gives
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examples), but also the programs that will process the input: "Accept
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all unambiguous inputs" (for example, (XXX) XXX-XXX or XXX-XXX-XXXX
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for phone numbers) and "Use short error messages linked to longer
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explanations." By the way, it's not absolutely necessary, but it will
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help a lot if you know a little Perl, or at least some programming
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language. -- RT
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Optical Disc Technology
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Herther, Nancy K. "CD-ROM to DVD-ROM: Moving Optical Storage Along a
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Bumpy Road into the New Century" Database 21 (2) (April/May 1998):
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26-36. -- Will the deployment of DVD technology benefit from the
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CD-ROM learning curve? This is the question that Nancy Herther
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discusses in this overview of the optical storage industry. DVD is the
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next generation high density compact disc. While CD-ROMs can store
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about 650MB of data or music, DVD discs can store between 4.7 GB to 17
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GB - enough for more than a full-length MPEG-2 compressed motion
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picture. DVD, if successful, will eventually replace videotapes,
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laserdiscs, CD-Audio, CD-ROMs and other video game formats. After
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interviewing over 35 industry participants and experts, Herther
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concludes that this will depend on the resolution of remaining
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standards issues, Win98 support for DVD, the number of available DVD
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titles and backward compatibility with current CDs (DVD and DVD-ROM
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players must be able to play today's current CDs). She also provides a
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brief history of the CD-ROM industry, a helpful summary of the the
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various CD and DVD formats (including recordable) and an extensive
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list of Web resources for additional background information. -- LY
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_________________________________________________________________
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Current Cites 9(5) (May 1998) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright
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1998 by the Library, University 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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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. To unsubscribe, send the message "unsub cites" to the same
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address. 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].
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This message must appear on copied material. All commercial use
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requires permission from the editor, who may be reached at
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trinne@library.berkeley.edu //
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