280 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
280 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
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Current Cites
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Volume 11, no. 5, May 2000
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Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
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The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
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ISSN: 1060-2356 -
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2000/cc00.11.5.html
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Contributors: Terry Huwe, Michael Levy, Leslie Myrick, Jim
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Ronningen, Lisa Rowlison, Roy Tennant
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Austen, Ian. "Study Reveals Web As Loosely Woven" New York Times (May
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18, 2000) Section G, p.8. - In a review of a new study of the web, a
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picture emerges -- one which has been clear to librarians for a while
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-- of a phenomenon "less like an elaborately interwoven community and
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more like the vast bureaucracy in Kafka's Castle: a mountain of
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disconnected information, lost files and frustrating dead ends." The
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study was presented at recent conferences in Amsterdam and Dallas and
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focused on web links. The study concluded that when trying to reach a
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specific destination if one only uses links this fails about 75% of
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the time; only 28% of web sites are strongly connected to the web, i.e
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have a substantial number of links to and from other sites. Another
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interesting consequence of the "weakly linked sites" is that many web
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crawlers determine the value of a site based on the number of links on
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it. By graphing their results the researchers drew a map of the web
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that looks less like a spiders web and more like a bow tie with pages
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in the center knot linking to pages on the right side. More recent
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sites (on the left side of the bow) link into the center but the
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center does not generally link back out to them. In an interesting
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comment, the author of the study under review, Raymie Stata, suggests
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that the average user wouldn't find the web compelling if it didn't
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have links because it would resemble a database such as Lexis-Nexis.
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What is forgotten in this comment is that Lexis-Nexis is a highly
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structured and well-organized collection of databases making it
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actually much easier to find relevant information. - ML
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Blume, Harvey. "Open Science Online" The American Prospect
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11(10) (March 27-April 10, 2000):44-47.
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(http://www.americanprospect.com/archives/V11-10/blume-h.html) - Blume
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uses the example of PubMed Central to discuss the issue of
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electronic scholarly publishing. PubMed Central was supposed to be an
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electronic archive administered by the NIH to give free access to
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biomedical research in the form of full text articles and research
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reports even before they appeared in a final printed form. The project
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came under fire from the New England Journal of Medicine as
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threatening "the evaluation and orderly dissemination of new clinical
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studies." In other words the dissemination of unreviewed research and
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the ability of traditional publishing outlets to adapt to new
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technological possibilities. Comparing this type of scholarly
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electronic publishing with the open source movement, ie. Linux, Blume
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suggests digital projects such as Pub Med Central will still allow
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traditional journals to frame and interpret data, and that this
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expertise will be the equivalent of an open source business making
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profits from documentation and customer support as opposed to the sale
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of sofware. - ML
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Carvajal, Doreen. "Four Giants Set to Embrace Electronic
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Publishing" The New York Times (online edition)
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(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/23books.ht
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ml) - With the digital publishing market predicted to reach critical
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mass in two to three years, three major publishing houses and
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Microsoft have decided to catch the wave that has already launched
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hundreds of smaller dot.com ventures. Carvajal outlines the details of
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an e-publishing partnership between Microsoft, Simon and Schuster, and
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Random House that hopes to propel itself to the wave's crest with the
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giveaway of an e-version of Crichton's popular time-traveling thriller
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Timeline, followed by the publication of a series of Star Trek titles.
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On a less than "tubular" note, these texts will be accessible only
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through Microsoft's proprietary reader software. Meanwhile, with an
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eye to tailoring its product to the quirks of modern-day reading and
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readers, Time Warner's iPublish site is poised to capture the Palm-
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and Rocket-book-wielding commuter-train market by proposing a series
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of shorter works of fiction and non-fiction, condensed works, and
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serialized pieces by known authors. Aiming primarily at an under-40
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readership, iPublish's sister site, iWrite, will tap the burgeoning
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"Who Wants to be a Writer?" crowd, accepting and vetting manuscripts
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without a fee from undiscovered hopefuls. - LM
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Coffman, Steve and Susan McGlamery. "The Librarian and Mr. Jeeves"
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American Libraries 31(5) (May 2000): 66-69. - Coffman is
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well-known for stirring the pot (see his previously cited
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articles,
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/bibondemand.cgi?query=coffman
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), and this piece is no exception. Coffman is ably joined by Susan
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McGlamery, another forward-thinking librarian who shares Coffman's
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(and others) vision of 24x7 reference service. In this piece they look
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at existing commercial web reference services like Ask Jeeves and
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Webhelp, and wonder why we should abandon the unsuspecting public
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to companies with a commercial interest which have access to only
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web-based information and that possess only the most superficial
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understanding of how to go about helping people find what they need.
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They assert, "if we hope to continue to serve as honest brokers and
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offer a viable alternative to the Ask Jeeveses and Webhelps of the
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world, then we must adopt the tools and strategies of our competitors
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and join our patrons on the web." Coffman and McGlamery go on to
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describe an innovative project they are managing in Southern
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California, funded in part by grants, to do just that. The project is
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using Webline (recently bought out by Cisco Systems) software, which
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provides sophisticated tools well beyond "chat" to enable librarians
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to interact with patrons. If you work in a library, this project is
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clearly one to watch. - RT
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Desmarais, Norman. The ABCs of XML: The Librarian's Guide to the
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eXtensible Markup Language. New Technology Press, Houston: 2000. - -
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Desmarais has written a clear, concise guide to XML that should be of
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great use to not just librarians, but anyone interested in this
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important standard. In fact, the only chapter focusing on potential
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uses for XML is inexplicably given over to e-commerce -- a rather
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strange choice for a book aimed at librarians. I would much rather
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have seen "XML and its Potential for Libraries." But that is a minor
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quibble, and even completely skipping the chapter does little to
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diminish its substantial worth. What makes this book so good is not
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how big it is, but how little. At around 150 pages of text (and less
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than 130 if you don't count that useless chapter), Desmarais has done
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you a serious favor. He has boiled down a complicated topic to its
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essentials, and doesn't waste your time with the stuff and bother that
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plague many XML books. This will not be your last book on XML, but it
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would be hard to do better than this for your first. - RT
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Goldman, Roy, Jason McHugh, and Jennifer Widom. "Lore: A Database
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Management System for XML" Dr. Dobb's Journal (April 2000)
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(http://www.ddj.com/articles/2000/0004/0004i/0004i.htm). - XML is
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clearly taking the world of business by storm, if not the rest of us.
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Microsoft is into it bigtime, and in Silicon Valley you couldn't chuck
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a stone without hitting some dotcom that is betting the farm on it. So
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given this stampede, wouldn't you think we would be awash in database
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products optimized for structured text? Well, mostly what is available
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tends to be legacy database systems such as Oracle and Sybase that are
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being re-engineered in some way to accommodate XML. Lore, a research
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project at Stanford, is unique (as far as I'm aware) in that it is
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engineered from the ground up for XML. For example, you don't create a
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structure into which to load the XML data -- a typical SQL thing to do
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-- you don't create a structure at all. Lore does not assume any
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particular structure -- the data defines the structure for you. Lore,
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in other words, was constructed with XML in mind, not tweaked to
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accommodate it. If you're working with XML, or hope to, you should
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check this out. - RT
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Hitch, Leslie P. "Aren't We Judging Virtual Universities by Outdated
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Standards?" Journal of Academic Librarianship 26(1) (January 2000):
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21. - An interesting look at the role of distance learning in the
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context of traditional university values. What it means to be learner
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centered and how we define the role of faculty in "teaching" or merely
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"training" students in the online environment, the outmoded concept of
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the credit hour as a means for defining and translating completed
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student work among and between institutions, as well as a good chunk
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of library issues - where the most significant appear to be not how
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and when to provide distance learners with information, but how to
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provide them with the necessary information literacy skills to help
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them plow through the ever growing quantities of information available
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to them online. Intriguing for the implications of library technology
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in contributing to the developing definitions of library user services
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in the increasingly online context of higher education. - LR
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King, David, "Specialized Search Engines: Alternatives to the Big
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Guys" Online 24 (3) (May 2000)
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(http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL2000/king5.html) - The May
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edition of Online Magazine, which regularly features Greg R. Notess'
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excellent monthly column(s) on what's happening under the hood of
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various search engines, offers a slew of articles on different aspects
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of web searching. As a group they are sure to make riveting reading
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for the wireless palm-wielding, train-commuting information
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technologist, along with the rest of us. As a representative sampling,
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I will single out David King's article on specialized search engines
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which focus on a particular subject, file format, region, and so on.
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Despite the touted filtering success of killer sorting algorithms on
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the millions of pages being indexed by the Big Guys' robots and
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crawlers, some searchers are increasingly availing themselves of
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engines that are more tailored to their own needs, and that appear to
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some extent at least to have benefited from human vetting and
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annotation. As King puts it, why founder in the vast reaches of Super
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Wal-Mart searching for that special item, when you can find it quickly
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and painlessly in the specialty shop on the corner, and perhaps even
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get some trusted product information from a knowledgeable clerk in the
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bargain? King next outlines some of the features of nearly a score of
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specialized engines in the fields of Health Care, Law, Science, and
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Multimedia. In the library of Babel that the web is fast becoming, if
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you wish to find a specialized search engine to suit your needs you
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will have to leap into the mis-en-abyme, so to speak, of proliferating
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search engines to locate search engines ... ad infinitum. A few are
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listed in the article, e.g. Search Engine Guide at
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http://searchengineguide.com; Search Engine Watch:
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http://www.searchenginewatch.com/links/; and Invisible Web:
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http://invisibleweb.com/. - LM
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Lynch, Clifford. "From Automation to Transformation" EDUCAUSE
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Review (January/February 2000): 60-68
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(http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm00/pp060068.pdf). - This piece
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summarizes the recent transformation of academic libraries from
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bastions of print to highly computerized bastions of print, with a
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layer of digital on top. Anyone who has lived through these
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interesting times will likely both recognize his descriptions and be
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amazed at what we have accomplished. Those who haven't been a part of
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it may be surprised to realize just how long and how thoroughly
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libraries have been involved with computerization -- first to automate
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existing procedures, then to create or use new ways of providing
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collections and services. For example -- slowly, quietly, and
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thoroughly, librarians around the world have created a monolithic
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union catalog of library holdings using a computer standard created by
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the library community in the 1960s -- long before most people had ever
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come in contact with a computer. But far from resting on these
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laurels, Lynch suggests that "[academic] libraries must now turn their
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attention to defining their missions and activities in relationship to
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their transforming context -- the information technology revolution in
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teaching, learning, and research." - RT
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Moen, William E. and John Carlo Bertot. "Interoperability for
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Information Access: Technical Standards and Policy Considerations"
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Journal of Academic Librarianship 26:2 (March 2000): 129. - Moen
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provides a brief look at the role of standards in libraries, from MARC
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to TCP/IP. Bemoaning the somewhat limited activity of the library
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community on national and international standards making groups such
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as the Internet Engineering Task Force and the World Wide Web
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Consortium, Moen asks whether standards development (such as with XML)
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is moving on a course which is compatible with future library
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directions. A brief discussion of the common role of Z39.50 in system
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interoperability is provided. However, larger and more interesting
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questions of the role of system interoperability in the face of
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unified user gateway interfaces such as those variously termed "My
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Library" or "My Gateway," in addition to the policy and technical
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questions surrounding interoperability in a environement of continued
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proliferation of databases and other online tools, are not addressed.
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- LR
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Sherman, Chris. "The Future Revisited: What's New with Web Search"
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Online 24 (3) (May 2000)
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(http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL2000/sherman5.html) - As the
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author himself is well-aware, to prognosticate about web futures is a
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risky business. However, Sherman dares to look at the daily onslaught
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of web developments and pick out some important signs of what's to
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come: convergence (access with content, with that mix popping up in
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new devices), massive search engines which can take bigger bites from
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the smorgasbord of web pages, more sophisticated
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human/machine-compiled directories, systems adaptable to personal
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needs, browser-free searching, search input capability increasing from
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phrases to large chunks of text, and a few AI gee-whizzes. Each idea
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is clearly explained and related to real-world examples. Includes a
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complete list of relevant URLs. - JR
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Shneiderman, Ben. "Universal Usability" Communications of the ACM
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(http://www.acm.org/cacm/) 43(5) (May 2000):84-91. - There's been a
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lot written about achieving universal access, so computer technology
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becomes as ubiquitous as TV, but "there it is, use it" doesn't work as
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the final step in the process when a significant percentage of the
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public can't take advantage of it. Shneiderman advocates a research
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agenda for making universal usability the goal, and focuses on three
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challenges for attaining it: adapting to technology variety, accepting
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the fact of user diversity, and bridging gaps in user knowledge. With
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a realistic attitude about the technology enthusiast's fear that
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accomodating low-skilled users will result in a lowest common
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denominator system, he cites cases which demonstrate success in
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multi-level implementations, and the unexpected universal benefits of
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innovations which originally targeted only those who needed a little
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extra help. Though the primary audience for this article is software
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designers, those of us who are information providers for a broad
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spectrum of people will find this article thought-provoking and
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encouraging. - JR
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_________________________________________________________________
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Current Cites 11(5) (May 2000) ISSN: 1060-2356
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Copyright � 2000 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley.
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All rights reserved.
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Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized bulletin
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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. This message must appear on copied material. All commercial use
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requires permission from the editor. All product names are trademarks
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or registered trade marks of their respective holders. Mention of a
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product in this publication does not necessarily imply endorsement of
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the product. To subscribe to the Current Cites distribution list, send
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the message "sub cites [your name]" to
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[36]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. Editor: Teri Andrews Rinne, trinne@library. berkeley.edu.
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