[15111] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Current Cites, January 2004
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (CITES Moderator)
Fri Jan 30 20:15:46 2004
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 20:25:56 -0800
From: CITES Moderator <citeschk@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
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Current Cites
Volume 15, no. 1, January 2004
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2004/cc04.15.1.html
Contributors: [3]Charles W. Bailey, Jr., [4]Margaret Gross, [5]Shirl
Kennedy, [6]Leo Robert Klein, [7]Roy Tennant
[8]The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition Dublin,
OH: OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., 2004.
(http://www.oclc.org/membership/escan/). - According to the OCLC
web site, this report "was produced for OCLC's worldwide membership
to examine the significant issues and trends impacting OCLC,
libraries, museums, archives and other allied organizations, both
now and in the future. The scan provides a high-level view of the
information landscape, intended both to inform and stimulate
discussion about future strategic directions." To produce it they
reviewed the literature, performed research, and interviewed over
100 "knowledge experts" (full disclosure: I was one of them, go
figure). Chock full of interesting statistics, challenging
concepts, and good ideas, this 148 page glossy publication (or the
version on the web site) is well worth studying. - [9]RT
Albro, Edward N.. "[10]The Linux Experiment" [11]PCWorld.com
(February 2004)
(http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,113746,00.
asp). - Microsoft Windows...the operating system so many of us love
to hate. But what are the alternatives? Macintosh? Do you really
want to move to another hardware platform? How about Linux...or is
that just for geeks? Well, no...but having a geek pal or two to
hold your hand is not an entirely bad idea, according to the author
of this article, who "went on a Microsoft-free diet for four
weeks." Read about his adventures in the land of open source and
learn from his experiences if you've ever considered taking Linux
out for a spin. Includes information on sorting through the
[12]different Linux distributions and choosing the best one for
you. Points you to Web-based [13]sources of assistance. Describes
and evaluates some of the [14]applications available for Linux. The
author's verdict? He likes Linux computing, even if it requires
more work on the part of the user. - [15]SK
Atkinson, Cliff. "[16]Don Norman on PowerPoint Usability:
Interview with Cliff Atkinson " [17]Sociable Media (2004)
(http://www.sociablemedia.com/articles_norman.htm). - Rebuttal of
sorts to Edward Tufte's condemnation of PowerPoint as reported in
[18]Current Cites for August. Don Norman argues from the get-go
that "PowerPoint is NOT the problem"; it's the presenter. Norman
cautions that the tool should be used sparingly: "The best talks I
have ever heard had no slides at all. The best talks I have ever
presented had no slides." - [19]LRK
Boynton, Robert S.. "[20]The Tyranny of Copyright?" [21]The New
York Times (25 January 2004)
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/25COPYRIGHT.html ). -
Students at Swarthmore College acquired several thousand emails and
other correspendence among employees at Diebold Election Systems,
the largest maker of electronic voting machine in the United
States. Included were candid discussions about Siebold software and
network vulnerabilities to hackers. The students felt, that this
information should be available to the public via the internet,
given the debacle of the 2000 presidential election. After posting
the information, the students soon encountered the gag effect of
the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (D.M.C.A.). In an effort
to protect intellectual property, this law, as well as others, are
stifling the free expression of information, by holding the ISP
liable for materials posted by its subscribers. Diebold confronted
Swarthmore, charging that the students were infringing on
copyright, and demanded that the material be removed from the
students' Web page, on the Swarthmore College server. The College
complied. This action, as well as numerous other well publicized
lawsuits, have led to the organization of a protest movement known
as Copy Left. They argue that the laws designed to protect
intellectual property are in effect hampering free expression,
creativity, and could utimately erode democratic freedoms. The
battle that is emerging transcends the courts. It is a battle of
different views of society. - [22]MG
Cass, Stephen. "[23]A Fountain of Knowledge" [24]IEEE Spectrum
Online (January 2004)
(http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/jan04/0104comp1
.html). - IBM's [25]WebFountain -- "half a football field's worth
of rack-mounted processors, routers, and disk drives running a huge
menagerie of programs" -- works to convert the vast sea of
unstructured information roiling across the Internet into a
structured format that is capable of being analyzed. The primary
intent here is to package this information so it can be used by
companies to make smarter, more timely business decisions. In a
nutshell, IBM's technology "transforms unlabeled data into
XML-labeled data." Software programs called "annotators" scan all
the raw data looking for recognizable words and phrases and add
appropriate XML tags. What this does is create more data -- the
article indicates that by the time the annotators are through with
a document, it can be 10 times the size of the original. Yikes.
Fasincating stuff here. Using this technology, IBM researchers have
already discovered that 30% of the Web is porn and 30% is
duplicated information. 50,000,000 pages are changed or added to
the Web each day. And although 65% of all Web pages are currently
written in English, English pages will be in the minority by 2010.
- [26]SK
Cohen, Cynthia F., Stanley J. Birkin, and Monica J. Garfield, et.
al. "[27]Managing Conflict in Software Testing" [28]Communications
of the ACM 47(1) (January 2004): 76-81.
(http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/962081.962083). - Developers are from
Mars, testers are from Venus. That's the standard picture of these
two groups, both essential to successful software development, who
nonetheless are often known to work at cross purposes. The article
does a good job of going over some of the differences: differences
in attitude, role and approach. Better yet, it also offers
excellent advice on diminishing these differences. Among the
suggestions are developing common goals and expanded social
contacts: "testers and developers who communicate only when
problems occur lack a robust social fabric with which to smooth the
process. Several testers and managers we interviewed indicated that
social contact paved the way to better working relationships with
developers." Note, this is one of several good articles in this
month's CACM. - [29]LRK
Crow, Raym. [30]A Guide to Institutional Repository Software. 2nd
ed New York: Open Society Institute, 2004.
(http://www.soros.org/openaccess/pdf/OSI_Guide_to_Institutional_Rep
ository_Software_v2.pdf). - If you need a quick overview of
institutional repository software options, try this brief guide
from the Open Society Institute. It describes software that: (1) is
open source, (2) conforms to the latest version of the OAI metadata
harvesting protocols, and (3) is currently available for use. This
includes ARNO, CDSware, DSpace, Eprints, Fedora, i-Tor, and MyCoRe.
Each system is overviewed in a separate section, and then the
features of all systems are compared in a detailed, lengthy table.
- [31]CB
Stacy-Bates, Kristine. ""E-mail Reference Responses from Academic
ARL Libraries: An Unobtrusive Study". " [32]Reference & User
Services Quarterly 43(1) (Fall 2003): 59-70. - The article
discusses an effort to determine e-mail reference quality by
looking at the query responses. To do this, the author sent
(relatively simple) reference questions to all 111 academic
libraries in ARL. The responses "generally met orexceeded"
expectations though accuracy varied. The author suggest making
accuracy of response and consistent identification of the librarian
making the response (e.g. name and job title) part of standard
e-mail reference guidelines. - [33]LRK
Tillett, Barbara. What is FRBR? A Conceptual Model for the
Bibliographic Universe Washington, DC: Library of Congress,
Cataloging Distribution Service, September/October 2003. - At ALA
Midwinter 2004 in San Diego, I picked up this piece as a color
glossy reprint at the Library of Congress booth. When I returned
home I fruitlessly searched their web site for a PDF, or even a way
to order a paper copy. But since it is a reprint of a
Technicalities article (September/October 2003, vol. 25, no. 5),
perhaps you can find it there. And find it you should, if you don't
know anything about IFLA's [34]Functional Requirements for
Bibliographic Records (known as FRBR, pronounced "ferber"). In this
piece Tillett (who was involved with creating FRBR) explains FRBR
concepts simply and understandably. However, it may not be possible
to understand the full implication of FRBR without looking at a
system that implements some of it concepts. Luckily, there is such
a system available from the Research Libraries Group (RLG), called
[35]redlightgreen.com. So after reading Tillett's piece, go bang on
redlightgreen.com and get a better sense of some possible
implications for library systems. You may find, as I have, that
FRBR presents us with some compelling possibilities. - [36]RT
[37]VRD 2003 Online Proceedings Syracuse, NY: The Virtual
Reference Desk, November 2003.
(http://www.vrd2003.org/proceedings/). - If you're interested in
digital reference, you should be all over this. Likewise, if you're
not, you may have better things to do. These are (mostly)
PowerPoint presentations from the 2003 Virtual Reference Desk
Conference held in Austin, Texas in November. Presentations are
grouped under the topic areas of Technology, Evaluation,
Management, Staffing and Training, User Behavior, Information
Literacy, Collaboration, General, and Vendor Demonstrations. -
[38]RT
Wittenborg, Karin, Chris Ferguson, and Michael A.
Keller. [39]Reflecting on Leadership Washington, DC: Council on
Library and Information Resources, December 2003.
(http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub123abst.html). - I will admit
to writing this review having read only part of this intriguing
publication. But the part I have read is well worth paying the $15
to buy it, let alone firing up your web browser and getting it for
free in either HTML or PDF. These very personal statements about
leadership are likely to inspire a mix of emotions and thoughts in
you. You will find comments with which you strongly agree, others
that may challenge your preconceptions, and still others that will
cast light on areas of the profession and your place in it that you
have perhaps not considered before. Come to be enlightened,
encouraged, and informed, but stay to be challenged to think about
your own career and what role leadership plays in it. - [40]RT
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites - ISSN: 1060-2356
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References
Visible links
1. LYNXIMGMAP:http://sunsite/CurrentCites/2004/cc04.15.1.html#head
2. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
3. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm
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20. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/25COPYRIGHT.html%20
21. http://www.nytimes.com/
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24. http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/
25. http://www.almaden.ibm.com/webfountain/
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27. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/962081.962083
28. http://www.acm.org/cacm/
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30.
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31. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm
32. http://sunsite/CurrentCites/2004/cc04.15.1.html
33. http://leoklein.com/
34. http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/wgfrbr/finalreport.htm
35. http://redlightgreen.com/
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39. http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub123abst.html
40. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
41. mailto:listserv@library.berkeley.edu
