[14964] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Current Cites, October 2003
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (CITES Moderator)
Fri Oct 24 20:11:06 2003
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 20:27:41 -0700
From: CITES Moderator <citeschk@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-to: cites@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU
Message-id: <Pine.OSF.4.10.10310232012520.256214-100000@library.berkeley.edu>
Current Cites
Volume 14, no. 10, October 2003
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2003/cc03.14.10.html
Contributors: [3]Charles W. Bailey, Jr., [4]Margaret Gross, [5]Shirl
Kennedy, [6]Leo Robert Klein, [7]Roy Tennant
[8]A Guide to Institutional Repository Software New York: Open
Society Institute, October 2003.
(http://www.soros.org/openaccess/software/). - This brief guide
identifies open source software for building repositories. The
criteria for inclusion include that they are distributed under an
open source license, they comply with the Open Archives Initiative
Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, and they are "currently released
and publicly available". Although the descriptions are very brief,
this document provides a quick overview of the choices for
institutions seeking to launch a repository. Of particular benefit
is the summary table at the end, where it is easy to compare
features between competing choices. Well, easy if you have a
magnifying glass or read it online with Acrobat's zoom feature,
given the size of the print. - [9]RT
[10]Proceedings of the 2003 Dublin Core Conference Seattle, WA:
Information School, University of Washington, October 2003.
(http://www.siderean.com/dc2003/search.jsp). - The Dublin Core
Conference has emerged as a rich source of technical papers
squarely focused on practical, down-to-earth library issues.
Surprisingly, although DC often shows up in many of these papers,
it doesn't show up in all by any means, and the breadth of the
papers belies the apparent narrowness of the conference title. Were
I to be asked to come up with a name for the conference based
solely on the papers, the word "metadata" must surely be a
component, as that appears to be the binding thread of this
conference. From all appearances, all of the papers given at the
conference are here in Adobe Acrobat format, and presented through
an interesting application called "Seamark" from [11]Siderean
Software, which also serves as the host for the papers (I can't
help wondering if anyone is backing these up somewhere, but maybe
it is my proximity to the Silicon Valley that makes me loathe to
trust preservation to a dot.com). Thus, a trip to this site can be
a two-fold benefit -- the papers themselves, and the system that
makes the papers searchable and browseable in new and interesting
ways. In other words, this is a "don't miss" site. - [12]RT
Bialik, Carl. "[13]Radio Reporter Tests Wi-Fi for Filing Stories
on the Go" [14]Wall Street Journal (17 October 2003)
(http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB10661702513143900-H9jeoNp
laN2npyna3yHaayFm4,00.html). - [15]ABC News Radio correspondents,
as part of a current trial, have been filing their stories via
public Wi-Fi connections rather than using their traditional
digital audio recorders and then rushing back to the studio to
file. Not only does this save time, but "the station gets live
reports complete with ambient street sounds." This story follows
Bob Schmidt, a veteran correspondent in New York City, as he
gathers man-in-the-street reactions to a revelation that some
Manhattan movie theatres will begin selling reserved seats for $15.
Filing stories via Wi-Fi is not exactly a smooth, trouble-free
process. Before he even does any interviews, Schmidt scopes out a
potential Wi-Fi hot spot. "As with many such access points, its
origin is unclear; some individuals and businesses leave their
connections open to the public, sometimes unwittingly." Since this
one provides too faint a signal for Schmidt to use, he misses
filing in time for the 11 a.m. newscast. He also runs into several
technical issues involving his laptop, and the whole experience
proves somewhat frustrating. In spite of the precarious Wi-Fi
situation -- "It's really the wild, wild west," Schmidt said -- he
is bullish on the future of the this technology as a media tool. -
[16]SK
Darlington, Jeffrey. "[17]PRONOM -- A Practical Online Compendium
of File Formats" [18]RLG DigiNews 7(5) (15 October 2003)
(http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews7-5.html#feature2). -
As anyone familiar with the issue of digital preservation knows,
the real problem facing those in the field is migration. That is,
bringing files forward from dead file formats into formats that can
be used with current software. Clearly, one piece of this problem
is simply knowing what you have in hand and what you need to make
sense of it (i.e., which software may be able to read it). This
article describes efforts to help this problem, through an online
registry of file formats and associated information. The web site,
called [19]PRONOM, is a project of the National Archives of the UK,
the contents of which ("over 250 software products, 550 file
formats and 100 manufacturers") will be searchable online any day
now. With this service, as well as the web site highlighted in this
same RLG DigiNews issue, [20]JHOVE, which identifies file formats
based on the file itself rather than the often missing or
inaccurate filename extension, we are beginning to get some real
traction with the migration issue. - [21]RT
Hugos, Michael. "[22]Toward A New Technology Strategy" [23]Darwin
(October 2003)
(http://www.darwinmag.com/read/100103/itstrategy.html). - Getting
IT "stuff" these days is easy. Much is available at attractive
price points. However, utilizing this "stuff" to maximize its
potential involves people. The basic point here is that computers
should be used for things that they do best -- crunching data,
managing inventory, running accounting and financial systems --
which frees people to do what they do best -- "think and
communicate and solve problems." This essay indentifies "six basic
IT building blocks" -- ASCII flat files, ftp, e-mail, batch
processing, relational databases and Web pages. An organization
looking to maximize its IT investment can mix and match these in
different combinations or tack them onto existing systems to create
something entirely new. The objective should be to have systems
that handle all of the routine transactions. The oddball stuff
"that does not follow one of the simple routine processing rules"
can be bounced to a live human being, who uses brainpower to fix
the problem. People enjoy working on non-routine tasks. Says the
author, "The human brain has been evolving for the last 150,000
years to do just this kind of work." Hard to argue with that. -
[24]SK
Jordan, Mark. "The Self-Education of Systems Librarians"
[25]Library Hi Tech 21(3) (2003): 273-279. - If you are a
systems librarian, the article title no doubt caught your eye -- I
mean, who among us can't say they are self-educated to one degree
or another? So if you've read this far you will likely find
Jordan's piece to be informative and insightful -- perhaps even
comforting. After first discussing the definition of systems
librarianship, Jordan provides a brief literature review,
highlights essential attitudes and traits of systems librarians,
and then provides specific methods to keep up-to-date in key
technology areas. Thankfully, as Jordan notes, these days
opportunities for developing important skills are "open to anyone
with a connection to the Internet and a motivation to learn." Full
disclosure: Jordan cites some of my work. - [26]RT
Lin, Nancy. [27]ACLS History E-Book Project: Report on Technology
Development and Production Workflow for XML Encoded E-Books New
York: American Council of Learned Societies, 3 October 2003.
(http://www.historyebook.org/heb-whitepaper-1.html). - The
[28]History E-Book Project of the [29]American Council of Learned
Societies seeks to "assist scholars in the electronic publishing of
high-quality works in history, to explore the intellectual
possibilities of new technologies, and to help assure the continued
viability of the history writing in today's changing publishing
environment." The project released 500 books on the web in
September 2002, to those who have licensed access to the
collection. In this whitepaper, Ms. Lin lays out in an informative,
readable, and understandable way the technical infrastructure they
created to put these books online. Decisions are documented, with
accompanying justification, as well as sufficient detail to fully
understand what they chose to do and why. Overall, this whitepaper
is a rare glimpse into why and how a particular technical
infrastructure was developed to support publishing books online,
and should be required reading by anyone seeking to do the same. -
[30]RT
Norman, D. A. [31]Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday
Things [sample draft chapters] New York: Basic Books, [eta:]
January 2004. (http://jnd.org/books.html). - A thing of beauty is a
joy forever. That no one disputes. But quantifying exactly how much
of a joy has always been a problem. Researchers know aesthetics
play a role in how we evaluate a product but few know exactly to
what degree. These things, after all, are hard to measure. So more
often than not the pure utility of an object, its "cognitive"
aspect as Don Norman would say, is emphasized over more emotional
considerations. This produces a lopsided view of how people
interact with things, making the prediction of their acceptance or
rejection extremely difficult. Don Norman believes both emotional
and cognitive aspects are necessary. This belief is backed up by
research he discusses in the rest of the book. "Aesthetically
pleasing objects," he concludes, "actually work better." - [32]LRK
Rehmann, Ulf. "[33]Documenta Mathematica: A Community-Driven
Scientific Journal" [34]High Energy Physics Libraries Webzine
(October 2003) (http://library.cern.ch/HEPLW/8/papers/3/). - This
article provides a brief overview of Documenta Mathematica, a free
peer-reviewed mathematics e-journal (founded in 1996) that also has
a low-cost annual print-on-demand edition. What did it cost to
produce the e-version of this journal in 1999? The author, who is
the journal's Technical Managing Editor, estimates it cost
approximately 200 euros. Of course, the authors, editors, and
referees were not paid; however, the author notes that this is
typical for mathematics journals, which also usually require
authors to submit TeX typeset files for their manuscripts. Assuming
a modest 400 libraries worldwide accessed the journal, the author
estimates that they saved 128,800 euros compared to what it would
have cost if the journal were priced like the typical mathematics
journal. (The author does not attempt to calculate the costs of
readers printing e-journal articles.) The author also provides
production cost information for the proceedings of the 1998
International Congress of Mathematicians. - [35]CB
Young, Arthur P., Ronald R. Powell, and Peter Hernon.
"[36]Attributes for the Next Generation of Library Directors"
[37]Proceedings of the ACRL 11th National conference, Charlotte NC,
April 10-13 2003
(http://www.ala.org/Content/NavigationMenu/ACRL/Events_and_Conferen
ces/hernon.pdf). - With so many library administrators retiring
within the next decade, there will be a critical need to recruit
senior library staff. This paper attempts to identify the
attributes (defined as traits, skills and knowledge) that the next
generation of library directors should have. In order to identify
these attributes, Delphi Technique surveys were conducted amongst
incumbent library directors from ARL member universities, ACRL
member institutions, and large public libraries. [More information
on the Delphi Technique of consensus development may be found at:
[38]The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications by Harold A.
Linstone and Murray Turoff, Editors, 2002 or [39]The Delphi
Technique] While variations exist, primarily based on the survey
participants' background, i.e. on the type of their library
affiliation, six common attributes were identified: 1. Leadership
Abilities and Skills, 2. Management Skills, 3. Knowledge Areas
(technical competencies), 4. Cognitive Skills/Abilities, 5.
Interpersonal Abilites, 6. Personal traits. This article will be
amplified, as well as survey specifics presented in the authors'
book currently in press: The Next Library Leadership: Attributes of
Academic and Public Library Directors, Westport Conn.: Libraries
Unlimited. - [40]MG
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites - ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright (c) 2003 by the Regents of the University of California All
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References
Visible links
1. LYNXIMGMAP:http://sunsite/CurrentCites/2003/cc03.14.10.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://leoklein.com/
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8. http://www.soros.org/openaccess/software/
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13.
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14. http://online.wsj.com/
15. http://www.abcradio.com/index.cfm?bay=content.view&catid=63&cpid=77
16. http://www.hooboy.com/
17. http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews7-5.html#feature2
18. http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/
19. http://www.pro.gov.uk/about/preservation/digital/pronom/default.htm
20. http://hul.harvard.edu/jhove/jhove.html
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30. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
31. http://jnd.org/books.html
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39. http://instruction.bus.wisc.edu/obdemo/readings/delphi.htm
40. http://www.cam.org/~mgross/mgross.htm
41. mailto:listserv@library.berkeley.edu
