[14862] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Current Cites, July 2003
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (CITES Moderator)
Thu Jul 31 20:11:04 2003
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 15:11:25 -0700
From: CITES Moderator <citeschk@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-to: cites@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU
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Current Cites
Volume 14, no. 7, July 2003
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2003/cc03.14.7.html
Contributors: [3]Charles W. Bailey, Jr., [4]Margaret Gross, [5]Shirl
Kennedy, [6]Roy Tennant
Arar, Yardena. "[7]Better 802.11 Security" [8]PCWorld.com (2 July
2003) (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111330,00.asp). -
When I was a .edu, I enjoyed a wonderful wireless work environment.
Now that I am a .mil, this is completely out of the question.
Wireless networks have a well-deserved reputation for being
insecure. [9]WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), the existing "security
algorithm" that is part of the 802.11 standard, is completely
crackable using off-the-shelf tools by anyone with a little
technical savvy. Also, since it does not come enabled by default in
wireless routers/access points, the average Joe or Jane with a
wireless home network simply does not use it. Although the
[10]Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is
working on an iteration of 802.11 with better security (802.11i,
for those keeping score), this will not be a viable alternative for
a year or more. However, the [11]Wi-Fi Alliance -- the trade group
which certifies the "interoperability of wireless Local Area
Network products based on IEEE 802.11 specification" -- has come up
with an interim solution. Known as [12]Wi-Fi Protected Access
(WPA), it uses a more sophisticated "encrytion key technology" that
can authenticate users on a corporate network via a dedicated
server, but is still simple enough to work without much hassle on a
home or small office network. Good news for those with existing
wireless routers and access points: WPA firmware may already be
available for download to your existing hardware. Check your
manufacturer's website. - [13]SK
Head, Alison J. "[14]Personas: Setting the Stage for Building
Usable Information Sites" [15]Online 27(4) (July/August 2003):
14-21 (http://www.infotoday.com/online/jul03/head.shtml). -
Successful website development requires profound knowledge of the
target audience. In order to gain insight into the needs, habits,
eccentricities, etc. of users, one needs to create the 'typical'
client. Personas are hypothetical stand-ins for typical users. They
are full blown characters with a given age, gender, job, family,
hobbies, expertise, and so forth. This article offers useful tips
for the design of personas, and how to gain most benefit from their
creation. The author, [16](http://www.ajhead.com) who has written
two books on web usability, provides a case study of the
development of a newspaper website. She describes how the creation
of personas demands extensive research and detail in order to
accurately reflect the targeted user. A Q&A session with this
hypothetical being helps breathe life into the persona. This
interesting article concludes with several references. - [17]MG
Kenney, Anne R., Nancy Y. McGovern, and Ida T. Martinez, et. al.
"[18]Google Meets eBay: What Academic Librarians Can Learn From
Alternative Information Providers" [19]D-Lib Magazine 9(6) (June
2003) (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june03/kenney/06kenney.html). -
This is the report of an interesting study by Cornell University,
in which Cornell reference librarians went toe-to-toe with Google
Answers to try to determine which service answered reference
questions better and most cost-effectively. The study was basically
inconclusive, and the authors admit that it was a "quick, limited
review," but they offer three lessons: "First, the study revealed
the importance of self-assessment...Just as public school teachers
evaluate each other's performance throughout the school year,
reference librarians could improve their services through peer
review...Second, academic libraries should make a practice of
regularly monitoring developments in the broader infromation
landscape...Finally, what lessons can academic libraries draw from
the ancillary services offered by commercial enterprises?
Commercial enterprises determine their services in part by
assessing their competitors and going one better." Required reading
for reference librarians and administrators. - [20]RT
Kichuk, Diana. "Electronic Journal Supplementary Content, Browser
Plug-ins, and the Transformation of Reading" [21]Serials Review
29(2) (2003): 103-116. - In this article, the author examines the
need for plug-ins and add-ons to fully access the content of
scholarly journals in the electronic collection of the Canadian
National Site Licensing Project. Primary content access requires
support for the ASCII, BibTeX, DVI, HTML, LaTeX, PDF, PostScript,
and TeX file formats. Supplementary content requires support for
numerous file formats (listed in a table in the printed version of
the article that takes up most of a page). Discussing the impact of
this support requirement on her library (the University of
Saskatchewan Library), the author says that: "An ever-expanding
list of plug-in and add-on viewers and players is required to
access this new content: word-processing files, 3D images,
animations, video clips, virtual reality, and chemical-structure
data, audio files, and interactive applications. Anecdotal evidence
indicates a wide range of patron response, from bewilderment and
avoidance to full acceptance and excitement." While this
supplemental content is not yet prevalent, it raises immediate
support issues--if libraries want to provide users with access to
the entire article, they must install and maintain a growing
collection of plug-ins and add-ons, some of which do not have MIME
types and may conflict with plug-ins and add-ons that do. Moreover,
free plug-ins and add-ons may have limited functionality; the full
version may need to be licensed to provide adequate access.
Plug-ins and add-ons constantly change, and staff must track these
changes and install updates. If plug-in and add-on support is
difficult for technical staff in the library, how easy will it be
for users to perform similar tasks on their home and office
computers? I'll add that what is supplemental content multimedia
use today may be primary content multimedia use tomorrow as
e-journals move beyond mimicking print journals and evolve into new
forms that more fully exploit their unique capabilities. Then the
fun really begins. - [22]CB
Krim, Jonathan. "[23]Site Lets Citizens Monitor 'Big Brother'"
[24]The Washington Post (8 July 2003)
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23552-2003Jul7.html
). - MIT graduate student Ryan McKinley has created something he
calls the [25]Government Information Awareness Project, a online
repository to which citizens can contribute information about
public officials, corporations and corporate executives. He
anticipates that the end result "will be a giant set of databases
that show the web of connections that often fuel politics and
policymaking, such as old school ties, shared club memberships and
campaign donations." McKinley, who says his inspiration was the
military's Terrorism Information Awareness project, wants to make
sure it is not just federal authorities who have a lock on
databases/data mining projects of this magnitude. So far, McKinley
has entered into his site such freely available data as "lists of
White House appointments of agency heads, biographies of members of
Congress and campaign-contribution data compiled by public-interest
groups." This means one-stop shopping for those who would otherwise
have to visit a number of different websites to collect diverse
information about an official or a corporate entity. Anyone
contributing information must identify him- or herself, although
aliases may be employed by those using the site. An individual who
is the subject of posted information is notified and may file a
rebuttal/response if desired. Users can configure the site not to
show information from posters they consider unreliable or
offensive. Some planned current awareness features have not yet
been activated. - [26]SK
"[27]SCIENCE: Grokking the Infoviz" [28]Economist Technology
Quarterly (19 June 2003)
(http://economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1841120)
. - Is Infovis going mainstream? Infovis is a term that stands for
information visualization. This article deals with software that
will allow far more visualization of informational patterns that
are currently obfuscated and hidden by the printed word. While the
technology has been around for several years, several factors have
interfered with its widespread application. Software evolution has
been controlled by few players, and the hardware 'plumbing' has not
been robust enough to efficiently handle graphics. Several factors
are now giving impetus to the spreading of infovis technology.
Textual information overload, data stored in a structured manner,
use of XML for marking up data from diverse sources. The preceding
coupled with a downsize of corporate decision makers, who need
actionable information quickly, are contributing to the increased
need for information visualization tools. - [29]MG
Seaman, David. "[30]Deep Sharing: A Case for the Federated Digital
Library" [31]EDUCAUSE Review 38(4) (July/August 2003): 10-11.
(http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0348.pdf). - At the 2003
Spring Digital Library Federation Forum, Director David Seaman
announced a major new DLF initiative -- the Distributed Online
Digital Library. This brief piece introduces the concept to the
higher education community, and makes the case for building a
unified collection of digital objects from libraries across the
country. The proposal is that libraries would contribute not just
the metadata, but the actual digital files into a central
repository. Other libraries, or conceivably other individuals,
could then download the actual content and recombine materials from
diverse collections to create a new type of collection or service.
Clearly there are many challenges ahead, not the least of which are
political and legal in nature, but if it can be done at all, Seaman
makes a fairly compelling case that it should be attempted. -
[32]RT
Spring, Tim. "[33]Bogus Ink Stink" [34]PCWorld.com (2 July 2003)
(http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111319,00.asp). - In one
of my first real jobs out of undergraduate school, I worked in a
graphic design department with a guy who had ties to...the sort of
people who were able to obtain high quality merchandise at
rock-bottom prices. Something new and interesting "fell off the
truck" almost every week -- Burberry trench coats, Sony Trinitron
TVs, Hitachi camcorders... Apparently, what is falling off the
truck these days are bogus ink jet and toner cartridges which,
according to this article, "can ruin prints, spray ink, and
permanently damage your printer." The Internet, of course, has made
it tres facile for these counterfeiters to ply their trade -- open
up your inbox in the a.m and this becomes immediately obvious. As
you might suspect, this is causing a lot of grief for legitimate
purveyors of ink jet and toner cartidges, which include the major
printer manufacturers. Not only is money being lost directly to
fake merchandise, but when consumers use the counterfeit products
in their printers, the resulting damage is usually blamed on the
printer manufacturer. As with piracy and trademark violations in
general, the problem is most acute in certain parts of the world;
it is estimated that as many as half of the name-brand cartidges
sold in Mexico and the Middle East "may be inauthentic." In the
U.S., the [35]Imaging Supplies Coalition says that one in every 20
cartridges sold is a fake, and the problem is growing. - [36]SK
Van de Sompel, Herbert, Jeffrey A. Young, and Thomas B. Hickey.
"[37]Using the OAI-PMH...Differently" [38]D-Lib Magazine 9(7/8)
(July/August 2003)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july03/young/07young.html). - Readers of
Current Cites are familiar with the [39]Open Archives Initiative,
which has created a protocol for harvesting metadata from
distributed repositories. In this piece, the authors describe some
interesting ways that they are extending the functionality of the
protocol, and therefore the applications to which it can be
applied. The techniques highlighted include sending an XSLT
stylesheet parameter with the OAI repository response to allow the
result to be viewed directly in a web browser, using a [40]PURL to
turn complex OAI requests into simple URLs, and exposing such
things as usage logs to private OAI harvesters. The primary benefit
of this article is not the specific uses described, but rather the
example it sets in freeing up your thinking to think of the OAI
Protocol for Metadata Harvesting as an extensible infrastructure,
not a standard that is narrowly focused on solving one particular
problem. Let a thousand flowers bloom. - [41]RT
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites - ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright (c) 2003 by the Regents of the University of California All
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References
1. LYNXIMGMAP:http://sunsite/CurrentCites/2003/cc03.14.7.html#head
2. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
3. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm
4. http://www.cam.org/~mgross/mgross.htm
5. http://www.hooboy.com/
6. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
7. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0%2Caid%2C111330%2C00.asp
8. http://www.pcworld.com/
9. http://www.80211-planet.com/tutorials/article.php/1368661
10. http://www.ieee.org/
11. http://www.wi-fi.org/
12. http://www.wi-fi.org/OpenSection/protected_access.asp
13. http://www.hooboy.com/
14. http://www.infotoday.com/online/jul03/head.shtml
15. http://www.infotoday.com/online/
16. http://www.ajhead.com/
17. http://www.cam.org/~mgross/mgross.htm
18. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june03/kenney/06kenney.html
19. http://www.dlib.org/
20. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
21. http://www.elsevier.com/locate/issn/00987913
22. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm
23. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23552-2003Jul7.html
24. http://www.washingtonpost.com/
25. http://opengov.media.mit.edu/
26. http://www.hooboy.com/
27. http://economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1841120
28. http://economist.com/science/tq/
29. http://www.cam.org/~mgross/mgross.htm
30. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0348.pdf
31. http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/
32. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
33. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0%2Caid%2C111319%2C00.asp
34. http://www.pcworld.com/
35. http://www.isc-inc.org/
36. http://www.hooboy.com/
37. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july03/young/07young.html
38. http://www.dlib.org/
39. http://www.openarchives.org/
40. http://purl.org/
41. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
42. mailto:listserv@library.berkeley.edu
