[15048] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Current Cites, December 2003
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (CITES Moderator)
Tue Dec 23 20:15:00 2003
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 15:16:01 -0800
From: CITES Moderator <citeschk@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-to: cites@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU
Message-id: <Pine.OSF.4.10.10312191458070.381107-100000@library.berkeley.edu>
Current Cites
Volume 14, no. 12, December 2003
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2003/cc03.14.12.html
Contributors: [3]Charles W. Bailey, Jr., [4]Shirl Kennedy, [5]Leo
Robert Klein, [6]Roy Tennant
[7]Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short-Term
Strategies for Long-Term Problems Ithaca, NY: Cornell University,
September 2003.
(http://www.library.cornell.edu/iris/tutorial/dpm/). - From the
same folks who brought us [8]Moving Theory Into Practice: Digital
Imaging Tutorial" comes yet another informative, engaging, and
slick presentation of essential information on an important topic.
Built to support a workshop of the same name, this online tutorial
is well worth the time of anyone interested in digital
preservation. Anne Kenney and company clearly know their stuff, and
they have applied their award-winning style in presenting a complex
mixture of organizational and technical information to great
effect. Be sure to check out their "Chamber of Horrors: Obsolete
and Endangered Media" and "Timeline: Digital Technology and
Preservation", both very useful in their own right. - [9]RT
[10]Digital Library Federation Fall Forum 2003 Washington, DC:
Digital Library Federation, November 2003.
(http://www.diglib.org/forums/fall2003/fallforum03.htm). - A
tremendous amount of innovation is going on in libraries these
days, the world over. For those of us in the United States,
however, one of the best sources for finding out about cutting-edge
developments is at the twice-yearly DLF Forums. Although only
members and invited guests can attend, the rest of us can virtually
attend by reviewing the many interesting presentations that are
available online shortly after the end of the meeting. I won't
attempt to list the topic areas of the presentations, which vary
widely, but will leave you with the assertion that if you are
interested in digital library issues of any stripe, there is likely
something of interest here for you. - [11]RT
[12]It's About Time: Research Challenges in Digital Archiving and
Long-Term Preservation Washington, DC: The National Science
Foundation and the Library of Congress, August 2003.
(http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/index.php?nav=3&subnav=11). -
I'm old enough to remember that for a while the preservation of
print materials was all the rage. The issue of books crumbling into
dust was at the forefront of everyone's awareness within the
profession, and at least to some degree, without. Therefore
government money to fund print preservation activities was
relatively easy to obtain -- particularly for large research
libraries. Now, although the print preservation problem has not
suddenly disappeared, it is the preservation of digital materials
that is all the rage. So it certainly isn't surprising to see this
report, which comes out of a workshop co-sponsored by the National
Science Foundation and the Library of Congress. If you're involved
with digital library research or -- god help you -- in digital
preservation itself, this report is essential reading. The rest of
us can probably skip it. - [13]RT
"[14]Keeping Found Things Found: Web Tools Don't Always Mesh With
How People Work" [15]Ascribe: The Public Interest Newswire (17
December 2003)
(http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribeid=20031217.05542
5&time=07%2028%20PST&year=2003&public=1). - "People have devised
many tricks - such as sending e-mails to themselves or jotting on
sticky notes - for keeping track of Web pages, but [16]William
Jones and [17]Harry Bruce at the University of Washington's
Information School and [18]Susan Dumais of [19]Microsoft Research
have found that often people don't use any of them when it comes
time to revisit a Web page. Instead, they rely on their ability to
find the Web page all over again." [20]Keeping Found Things Found
is a National Science Foundation-funded research project ongoing at
the University of Washington's [21]Information School that seeks to
learn how people actually work with the information they find on
the Web. Eventually -- according to this press release which
describes the project -- the researchers hope to develop
information seeking and management tools that are actually useful
to end users. A collection of Keeping Found Things Found
[22]presentations and papers is available online. - [23]SK
"XML and E-Journals" [24]OCLC Systems & Services 19(4) (November
2003) - This special issue focuses on the use of XML in electronic
journals. Included are articles that review the history of article
metadata standards, the history of XML, using XML for journal
archiving, and using XML for scientific publishing. I'm not yet
convinced that it is feasible to markup journal articles in XML, at
least without the ability of common authoring tools such as
Microsoft Word to output an article in a useful XML encoding. From
this set of articles, it appears that I'm not the only doubting
Thomas, as the editor (Judith Wusteman) of this collection remarks
in the introduction that "The granularity with which e-journals
should be marked up is debateable and there is more than one
approach presented in this special issue". But as Wusteman herself
puts it, "The papers in this special issue cover a breadth of
opinion but there is a common theme, namely that XML and its
related technologies can help to fulfill the promise of
e-journals." - [25]RT
Ayati, M. B, and Susan Carol Curzon. "[26]How to Spot a CIO in
Trouble" [27]EDUCAUSE Quarterly 26(4) (2003): 18-23.
(http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0343.pdf). - Catalog of
"warning signs" that the head of IT will get the axe if left
unresolved. Many of the points will be familiar to anyone who has
felt themselves under the tyrannical yoke of an unresponsive
Systems operation. Warning signs include "everything is always a
crisis with them" and "we can count on them to fail", or my
personal favorite, "I have students who are more up-to-date." -
[28]LRK
Barton, Mary R., and Julie Harford Walker. "[29]Building a
Business Plan for DSpace, MIT Libraries' Digital Institutional
Repository" [30]Journal of Digital Information 4(2) (2003)
(http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v04/i02/Barton/). -
Currently, there is a great deal of interest in institutional
repositories, but little is known about their costs. This article
outlines MIT's business plan for its well-known DSpace repository.
Not considering software development and system implementation
costs, the authors conservatively estimate a budget of $285,000 for
FY 2003. The bulk of the costs are for staff ($225,000), with
smaller allocations for operating expenses ($25,000) and system
hardware expansion ($35,000). MIT's DSpace service offerings have
two components: core services (basic repository functions) and
premium services (e.g., digitization and e-format conversion,
metadata support, expanded user storage space, and user alerts and
reports). While core services are free, MIT reserves the right to
potentially charge for premium services. For further information
see: MIT Libraries' DSpace Business Plan Project--Final Report to
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
([31]http://libraries.mit.edu/dspace-fed-test/implement/mellon.pdf)
,which indicates that system development costs "included $1.8
million for development as well as 3 FTE HP staff and approximately
$400,000 in system equipment." - [32]CB
Brown, Cecelia, Teri J. Murphy, and Mark Nanny. "[33]Turning
Techno-Savvy into Info-Savvy: Authentically Integrating Information
Literacy into the College Curriculum" [34]Journal of Academic
Librarianship 29(6) (November 2003): 386-398.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W50-4B6SHHP-5/1/e0d
34964b0b4c84cbcd66197a7e68b2b). - Information literacy is most
successful when it directly relates to the individual information
needs of each student. That's the conclusion of a case study
presented here looking at information seeking behavior of college
students majoring in education. Among a number of great points made
throughout the article is this gem: "It is no longer effective to
provide a laundry list of information resources that librarians
believe to be 'good for' students, but rather, instruction must
focus on the learning styles and preferences of the target
population. Others have also suggested that to successfully foster
and promote information literacy librarians must first understand
how people learn. " - [35]LRK
Kugel, Robert D.. "[36]Unstructured Information Management"
[37]IntelligentBPM (December 2003)
(http://www.intelligentbpm.com/feature/2003/12/0312feat2_1.shtml).
- This white paper, from [38]Ventana Research, offers a lucid
explanation of what "unstructured information" actually means, and
why it will consume a significant amount of IT resources in the
coming years. Structured data is the easily classified stuff --
names, addresses, zip codes, SKU numbers, etc. Unstructured data
"does not readily fit into structured databases except as binary
large objects (BLOBs)." Examples given include e-mails, multimedia
files, document files.... Although these objects may have some
structure -- e.g., an e-mail address -- they are not easily
classified for storage in a structured format that makes a typical
database happy. As the amount of this unstructured data increases
exponentially, solutions are being sought; XMLis a big help because
of its flexible tagging system. If this data cannot be efficiently
stored and retrieved, it has little or no utility. The white paper
identifies six potential components of a viable storage system:
document management, Web content management, records management,
digital rights management, collaboration, and image capture. All of
these elements are emerging as critical, especially in light of
today's more stringent regulatory environment (i.e.,
[39]Sarbanes-Oxley) which dictates compliance standards for
information retention. - [40]SK
LeFurgy, William G.. "[41]PDF/A: Developing a File Format for
Long-Term Preservation" [42]RLG DigiNews 7(6) (15 December 2003)
(http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews7-6.html#feature1). -
The number of files in Adobe Acrobat format (also known as PDF for
Portable Document Format) is astounding. This file format has been
embraced by the U.S. Government, journal and book publishers, and
indeed just about anyone who wishes to have more control over how
something displays on screen than can be attained by HTML. And
although PDF is a somewhat open format (with the specification
openly published), it nonetheless remains in the control of a
commercial company, and therein lies the preservation rub. "Adobe
controls its development and is under no obligation to continue
publishing the specification for future versions. The format
includes some features that are incompatible with preservation
purposes," states the author. Therefore, there is a move afoot,
which this piece outlines, to specify a stable subset of the PDF
format upon which librarians, archivists, and others can rely as a
method to preserve digital information over the long haul. Given
the number of PDFs that were created while you were reading this,
such a development can only be good news. - [43]RT
Margulius, David L.. "[44]Trouble on the Net" [45]InfoWorld (24
November 2003)
(http://www.infoworld.com/pdf/special_report/2003/46SRInternet.pdf)
. - "The founders of the Internet sought to minimize intelligence
at its core and insure end-to-end connectivity. Today, a host of
challengers, including commercial interests and security concerns
threatens that vision. What can be done?" Some interesting tidbits
from this article: 1) The number of "average daily queries" to the
Net's DNS services is "up fivefold since 2000." The number doubles
every 18 months; 2) "Internet traffic is growing at a faster rate
than [46]Moore's Law predicts...."; 3) [47]IPv6, the so-called
"next generation Internet," has gotten off to a slow start in the
U.S. Says Symantec CTO [48]Rob Clyde, "That whole product upgrade
cycle is likely to be very complex. Everything has to be changed.
It will probably take the government driving IPv6."; 4)
[49]VeriSign has invested more than $100 million in the DNS system
and provided "100% availability for six years." Note: Large PDF
file -- 5.63MB - [50]SK
Orlowski, Andrew. "[51]A Quantum Theory of Internet Value"
[52]The Register (18 December 2003)
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34586.html). - Google
"sucks," according to this IT columnist. This in spite of its
impending (as of this writing) rollout of [53]Google Print, which
is more or less like Amazon.com's [54]Search Inside the Book tool.
It's not Google's fault that it sucks, the writer says, because
Google's "aggressive, but essentially dumb robots" simply cannot
"see" most of the Web. The intial promise of the Internet -- that
everyman would be easily connected to the entire world of
information -- has not been fulfilled. Why? "Information costs
money." What a concept! "Taxonomies also have been proved to have
value...." Another concept! And, says this columnist, librarians
and archivists know this better than anyone. He wonders why no one
has seriously looked into "how come our 'Internet' went AWOL, while
we weren't looking?" Has it been totally overpowered by garbage and
hucksterism? And why haven't such "fads" as portals and blogging
been enough to save it? Or maybe the Internet as we perceived it
back in 1994 never actually existed. What is important, the author
says, are the "information archives" we have now. And if you doubt
this, he suggests, "ask a librarian, while you can still find one."
- [55]SK
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Current Cites - ISSN: 1060-2356
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