[14082] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Current Cites, August 2001
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (CITES Moderator)
Mon Aug 27 20:02:35 2001
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 16:40:19 -0700
From: CITES Moderator <citeschk@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Errors-to: citeschk@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-to: cites@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU
Message-id: <Pine.OSF.4.10.10108241610260.27968-100000@library.berkeley.edu>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Current Cites
Volume 12, no. 8, August 2001
Edited by Roy Tennant
The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
ISSN: 1060-2356 - http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2001/cc01.12.8.html
Contributors: Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Margaret Gross, Terry Huwe, Shirl
Kennedy, Leo Robert Klein, Jim Ronningen, Roy Tennant
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adra, Eytan, and Huberman, Bernardo A. "A Market for Secrets." First
Monday 6 (8) (August 6, 2001)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_8/adar/). - The authors describe
a new kind of electronic system for private data that guarantees levels of
privacy, anonymity and control for individuals. The unique element in
their strategy is a means of maintaining privacy while introducing the
capability for commercial groups to mine information and automatically pay
individuals for their data. The idea depends on a novel procedure that
enables data miners to contact the data owners anonymously. The
technological platform is another bold attempt to create market mechanisms
for consumer data while guaranteeing acceptable levels of privacy. - TH
Bryar, J.V. (Jack) Taxonomies: the Value of Organized Business Knowledge
(http: //www.newsedge.com/materials/whitepapers/taxonomies.pdf). This
document is a white paper prepared for NewsEdge Corporation, an
information provider based in Burlington,MD. Recently NewsEdge has been
acquired by The Thomson Corporation. Taxonomies is a document developed as
a commercial pitch for Newsedge products. The reader must look beyond the
intent, and view the essay in the broader context of knowledge management
schemes. Mr. Bryar has produced a clear and logical exposition. He
presents several rules and key concepts for managing a large body of
information. The document covers the use of thesauri, subject headings to
facilitate information navigation and retrieval. There is one important
difference, however, Mr. Bryar employs current information technology
language to expound these fundamental themes. His first tenet, given the
diversity of electronic document formats, is a compelling case for a
common wrapper using meaningful tags. All indicators point to the use of
the XML meta language. However, the application of XML does not resolve
the problem of meaningful retrieval. Its use would result in a
standardized presentation of documents, but still retrieval chaos. In
order to facilitate information retrieval, and at the same time guarantee
the pertinence of the yield, XML must be coupled with a meaningful
taxonomy, based on the hierarchical arrangement of subject groupings.
Within the subject groupings the researcher must be able to broaden or
narrow the search, as well as find related lateral topics. The arrangement
of subject hierarchies must be logical, consistent, and expansible. As
most documents can be classified within more than one category, the
topological arrangement should be internally consistent. Each broad
category must be similarly subdivided using a standard schema. Searchers
can anticipate the arrangement, navigate easily, and thereby retrieve
relevant data. Additionally, a subject relevancy percentage or weighted
system is highly effective. In summary, this white paper is an excellent
recap of library science fundamentals, presented in the language of the
new technology for today's information professional. - MG
Calabia, Hector "New Virus Developed That Spreads Using Acrobat Files"
Computerworld (August 8, 2001) (http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/
0%2C4125%2CNAV47_STO62902%2C00.html). - Who'd have thunk it? Researchers
have discovered a worm that infects PDF files "a format considered safe up
to now." Yikes! Lurking as a player in this scenario is the usual suspect,
Microsoft Outlook. The researchers say the worm uses Outlook to send
itself hidden in a PDF file. When the recipient opens the file using
Acrobat Reader, a game is launched that encourages the recipient to click
on a picture of a peach. When he or she does so, a Visual Basic script
fires off, activating the virus. Although the virus has not yet made it
out of the laboratory in which it was created, it could be a harbinger of
something really ugly, given the widespread popularity of Acrobat. - SK
Caplan, Priscilla. "Reference Linking for Journal Articles: Promise,
Progress and Perils." portal: Libraries and the Academy 1 (3) (2001):
351-356. - Constantly changing URLs don't scale up well for article
reference linking purposes in today's complex electronic publishing
environment. To deal with this problem, publishers have adopted DOIs
(Digital Object Identifiers) as stable article identifiers. To help
publishers locate DOIs for articles in journals published by other
companies, CrossRef was established to allow for DOI retrieval based on
metadata, such as author name. However, a major issue remains for
libraries: once the DOI is known, how can the user be routed to an
accessible copy of the article given licensing restrictions? Caplan
clearly explains these "localization" issues and the roles that OpenURL
and SFX could play in their potential resolution. - CB
Crawford, Walt. "MP3 Audiobooks: A New Library Medium?" American Libraries
(August 2001): 64-66. - In his typically technically accurate and thorough
yet readable style, Crawford highlights a new technology that may turn out
to be the best thing to hit audio books since the cassette tape. While
many of us have heard of (or even used) MP3 files, they may be connected
in our brain with Napster and other applications for swapping and playing
music. Crawford makes us break that connection and consider the very real
possibility (opportunity) that the MP3 format may be useful for audio
books as well. It isn't completely smooth sailing, however, since there
are technical issues that remain to be resolved one of them being the
ability to stop a book and return to that location again ("bookmarking").
But should those issues be resolved, and the use of the format grows,
Crawford thinks it is a promising new medium for libraries. - RT
Engle, Randall. "The Neo Sophists: Intellectual Integrity in the
Information Age." First Monday 6(8) (August 6, 2001)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/ issue6_8/engle/). - The author
presents a lengthy history of sophistry to make several points about
"mythmaking" and the Internet. This leads up to his central premise, which
is that today's spinmeisters from both industry and cultural studies are
engaged in a new and improved form of sophistry which is blurring the
lines between market-driven ideologies and objective perceptions of
technology and society. This article is generally interesting for its
broad-based analysis, but it's also helpful because it explores the
tension between commercial mindsets and pure academic research. - TH
Fraser, Janice Crotty. "Registration Revamp". WebTechniques (Sept. 2001).
(http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/09/crotty_fraser/). - So much
of web development is a balancing act: Marketing wants this, Systems wants
that. Libraries are no exception. Wading through the tangle of conflicting
priorities at Netscape back in 1996 was designer Janice Crotty Fraser
whose half-year-long struggle to make Netscape's registration process less
of a headache for the user is here chronicled. - LRK
Lewis, Peter "OK, So You Need a Laptop" Business 2.0 (August 2001)
(http:// www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,16716,FF.html). - Due to
the stagnant economy, this is a really good time to buy any kind of
computer. If you've got your eyes on a laptop, Lewis can help you choose
one that is appropriate for you. The key question, he says, is "How much
laptop do you really need?" Which, of course, depends on how you are going
to use the machine. Do you need a full-blown desktop replacement or a
light-as-a-feather portable that will not weigh you down as you dash
between gates at the airport. How much of a factor is cost? Which
accessories should you consider? Whatever your needs, Lewis encourages
buying a machine with at least 128 megabytes of RAM and a 10 gigabyte hard
drive. See which models he recommends and why. - SK
Lieberman, Henry, Christopher Fry and Louis Weitzman. "Exploring the Web
with Reconnaisance Agents." Communications of the ACM 44(8) (Aug. 2001) :
69-75. - Intelligent Agents can't live with them, can't live without them.
That's the feeling the wary reader will probably come away with after
going through this discussion of two approaches to finding relevant
information on the Web. Finding this information, say the authors in this
issue of CACM devoted to visualization, is a joint undertaking between
human user and computer. Just how far the collaboration will go however,
is open to question: Even at this early stage, where it works as at Amazon
where items are presented to the user based on prior likes/purchases it's
a useful tool. On the other hand, in an online world where just to take
one example paid advertising masquerades as search results, purity of
motives even for an automated agent can't be taken for granted. - LRK
McGillis, Louise and Elaine G. Toms. "Usability of the Academic Library
Web Site: Implications for Design" College & Research Libraries 62(4)
(July 2001): 355-367. - How one can truly know the many ways in which all
types of library users may fumble around with academic library websites is
still elusive. In this case, the authors know what a small group of 33
participants did, but they were volunteers, had a familiarity with the
library, and probably had some degree of interest in online access (as
opposed to people who'd only use it kicking and screaming when there's no
other alternative). They gained insight into their pool's reactions to
particular problems many of us have wrestled with in designing sites:
Where to start? How to avoid library jargon? Does the site uselessly mimic
the library's bureaucracy or the patterns of the physical collection, when
the more appropriate arrangement would be to place the online tasks to be
accomplished first and foremost? The reactions of these particular
testees, interesting as they are, represent just a subset of potential
users, and we need to figure out how to hear from those who don't speak
up. - JR
Nellhaus, Tobin. "XML, TEI, and Digital Libraries in the Humanities."
portal: Libraries and the Academy 1 (3) (2001): 257-277. - DTD, EAD, RDF,
SGML, TEI, XLink, XML, and XSL. If you are asking yourself what does this
technical gobbledygook mean and why should I care, this article is for
you. Using examples from theater and drama studies, Nellhaus provides a
concise and lucid overview of these increasingly important topics that
does not require the reader to be an expert in markup language esoterica.
When you're done with the article, bake your own TEI DTD using The Pizza
Chef: A TEI Tag Set Selector (http://www.tei-c.org/pizza.html) or go to
one of the other recommended Web sites, such as XML.com
(http://www.xml.com/), to learn more. - CB
Nelson, Matthew G. "Wireless Goal: Don't Get Whacked" Information Week
(July 9, 2001)
(http://www.informationweek.com/thisweek/story/IWK20010705S0013). --
"Whacking," we learn in this article, is the wireless equivalent of
hacking "usually done by a person who's in the right place at the right
time with the right kind of radio transceiver." It's emerging as a large
problem for IT security folks as wireless networks become the latest
must-have enterprise technology. Although some people feel wireless
networks are inherently less secure than their wired counterparts, locking
down a wireless network isn't all that different than protecting wired
ones. User authentication, data integrity and security to prevent data
interception are the key concepts. - SK
Pfahl, Michael, "Giving Away Music to Make Money: Independent Musicians
and the Internet." First Monday 6(8) (August 6, 2001)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/ issues/issue6_8/pfahl/). - Pfahl assesses the
current state of Internet-based music and its impact on the full
distribution chain from artist to consumer. Unlike many of the more
prominent analyses of file-sharing programs that we've seen in recent
months, he analyzes the production and distribution shifts from the
perspective of independent musicians. No one has felt the impact of music
on the Internet more than the independent musician, he argues, and the
recording industry has dominated the production and distribution of music
for many years. He proposes an alternative strategic plan for successful
Internet commerce that would be based on artists giving away all of their
music for free via the Internet. His plan sounds radical, and it is, and
this reflects his understanding of the essentially subterranean
relationship that thrives between a band and its fans, and how elusive
this relationship remains for Music, Inc. - TH
Streitfeld, David. "E-books Solving a Problem Consumers Don't Have."
Chicago Tribune (Aug. 9, 2001)
(http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/
chi-0108090012aug09.story) . - Tittle-tattle courtesy of the Chicago
Tribune on the woes of e-books as seen through the eyes of some unhappy
authors. Includes the noble sentiment: "If it's going to be a failure, it
might as well be a huge failure." - LRK
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Cites 12(8) (August 2001) ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright 2001 by the Regents of the University of California All
rights reserved.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized bulletin board/
conference systems, individual scholars, and libraries. Libraries are
authorized to add the journal to their collections at no cost. This
message must appear on copied material. All commercial use requires
permission from the editor. All product names are trademarks or registered
trade marks of their respective holders. Mention of a product in this
publication does not necessarily imply endorsement of the product. To
subscribe to the Current Cites distribution list, send the message "sub
cites [your name]" to listserv@library.berkeley.edu, replacing "[your
name]" with your name. To unsubscribe, send the message "unsub cites" to
the same address.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
