[15461] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Current Cites, June 2004
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (CITES Moderator)
Fri Jul 2 20:17:44 2004
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:46:21 -0700
From: CITES Moderator <citeschk@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU>
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Current Cites
Volume 15, no. 6, June 2004
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2004/cc04.15.6.html
Contributors: [3]Charles W. Bailey, Jr., [4]Shirl Kennedy, [5]Roy
Tennant
"[6]Top 10 eBooks Library Patrons Are Reading" [7]OverDrive.com
(23 June 2004) (http://www.overdrive.com/news/pr/06232004.asp). -
At the top of the list of ebooks borrowed from public libraries
during the first half of 2004? Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My
Country. Suspense author James Patterson has two titles in the top
ten; among the how-to books which made the list are a low-carb
cookbook and a guide to tech resumes. According to OverDrive.com --
which is involved in "digital publishing and eBook technologies,
and Internet solutions for digital asset management and eCommerce"
-- library patrons and studen ts tend to prefer ebooks in PDF
format. - [8]SK
Council on Library and Information Resources. [9]Access in the
Future Tense Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information
Resources, April 2004.
(http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub126abst.html). - The Council
on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) hosted a conference in
May 2003 to "examine key factors shaping the information
environment in which libraries operate and how these factors will
affect stewardship of the cultural and intell ectual resources
vital to education and research." This volume consists of papers
commissioned from four experts to address key features of the
changing landscape, along with a brief overview at the beginning
and a concluding essay. Contributors incl ude Abby Smith, Daniel
Greenstein, Anne R. Kenney, Bill Ivey, and Brian Lavoie. - [10]RT
Entlich, Richard. "[11]Flash in the Pan or Around for the Long
Haul? Assessing Macromedia's Flash Technology" [12]RLG DigiNews
8(3) (15 June 2004)
(http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=17661#article3). - Those
who create web sites who wish to provide advanced multimedia
capabilities frequently use Macromedia's Flash technology to
provide such funtionality. This informative and interesting piece
reviews issues relating to its usability, access, and pres
ervation. The format is also compared to Scalable Vector Graphics
(SVG), the closest open standard competitor to the mostly
proprietary Flash technology. Readers wishing for advice on a clear
victor will be disappointed, however, since the issues are many and
complex, with mitigating factors on both sides of the issue. Highly
recommended for anyone wishing to create highly interactive web
sites, or those wishing to archive same. - [13]RT
Hillmann, Diane I., and Elaine L. Westbrooks. Metadata in
Practice Chicago, IL: American Library Association, 2004. - This
volume is a set of reports from the field on how metadata is being
used today in libraries. Written by leaders in the field about
their mostly cutting-edge experiences with metadata in creating new
services or enhancing existing ones, this is a b ook not to be
missed by almost any library professional. And if you're a
cataloging librarian, run -- don't walk. After all, like it or not,
your future lies in retooling your skills to encompass much more
than MARC, which the editors of this book epitomi ze. - [14]RT
McLean, Neal, and Clifford Lynch. [15]Interoperability between
Library Information Services and Learning Environments -- Bridging
the Gaps Burlington, MA: IMS Global Learning Consortium and the
Coalition for Networked Information, 10 May 2004.
(http://www.imsglobal.org/digitalrepositories/CNIandIMS_2004.pdf).
- The introduction to this paper states its primary purpose "is to
explore potential interactions between information environments and
learning environments, with emphasis on work that needs to be done
involving standards, architectural modelling or interfaces (as
opposed to cultural, organizational or practice questions) in order
to permit these two worlds to co-exist and co-evolve more
productively." This is biting off the easier portion to chew, as
the report itself acknowledges, since the toughest problems
typically are the social/political ones, not the technical. So
although this paper is an excellent start, we a lso need a strong
and sustained effort to work together collaboratively to overcome
the very real organizational and political obstacles that may
prevent the technical solution from ever being implemented. Also,
although this fifteen-page paper is an exce llent overview of the
issues, don't look to it for technical details. - [16]RT
Olsen, Florence. "[17]A Crisis for Web Preservation" [18]Federal
Computer Week (21 June 2004)
(http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0621/pol-crisis-06-21-04.asp)
. - According to this article, the [19]Federal Depository Library
Program (FDLP)is lagging to such a great extent in "cataloging and
preserving access to government documents published only on the
Web," that access to such material is growing spottier and
spottier. The [20]GPO, which runs the FDLP, is wrangling with this
"fugitive document" issue; "fugitive documents" are "electronic
publications that remain outside the federal depository collections
in 1,300 libraries nationwide." The agency is considering Web
harvesting software, but this technology is not particularly good
at unearthing information from the so-called "deep web." The author
notes that a recent study by the [21]California Digital Library
"found that about 85 percent of the Deep Web is in the .gov
domain." There are more government documents published online each
year than in print, and the agencies which publish them often fail
to notify the GPO that they are available. Also, the copyright
issue can be muddled, as it sometimes can be hard to determine
whether a report was produced by the government and is in the
public domain, or whether the rights belong to a contractor who
produced it. Up to this point, the GPO has established an
electronic archive which currently contains more than 100,000
documents, and the agency is seeking help from experts, notably
university libraries. For example, it entered into a partnership
with the [22]University of North Texas Libraries to maintain a
collection of documents from defunct public agencies, known as the
[23]CyberCemetery. But everyone concerned recognizes that the
problem is far from being resolved at this point. - [24]SK
Robb, Drew. "[25]Text Mining Tools Take on Unstructured
Information" [26]Computerworld (21 June 2004)
(http://www.computerworld.com/databasetopics/businessintelligence/s
tory/0,10801,93968,00.html). - Unstructured data, according to this
article, "typically accounts for 85% of an organization's knowledge
stores, but it's not always easy to find, access, analyze or use."
Most of this is text files, and a new generation of text-mining
softw are "allows companies to extract key elements from large
unstructured data sets, discover relationships and summarize the
information." While there are separate tools available for
analyzing either databases or text files, "there are also
techniques that allow the two to be correlated." These applications
are relatively easy to install, but require special expertise in
order to be used effectively. Users must not only have analytic
skills, but must also understand the subject matter of the datasets
under analysis. - [27]SK
Schonfeld, Roger C., Donald W. King, and Ann Okerson, et. al.
"[28]Thee Nonsubscription Side of Periodicals: Changes in Library
Operations and Costs between Print and Electronic Formats"
[29]Council on Library and Information Resources (June 2004)
(http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub127/pub127.pdf). -
Academic/research libraries have been confronting a major
transition in the format of major parts of their collections, from
print to electronic. This report, which analyzes data gathered from
11 U.S. academic libraries, examines the effects of this s hift to
electronic resources on library operations and costs. "The study is
useful not only for its findings but also for the significant
questions it raises about the cost shifts now under way between
libraries, publishers, academic administrations , and third-party
service providers. These shifts point to the need for staff with
new skills, a new array of reader services geared to digital
delivery, and a willingness to negotiate new relationships with
other units on campus, from academic computing to facilities
management." - [30]SK
Suber, Peter. "[31]The Primacy of Authors in Achieving Open
Access" [32]Nature Web Focus: Access to the Literature: The Debate
Continues (10 June 2004)
(http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/24.html). - In
this article, Peter Suber, author of the SPARC Open Access
Newsletter and editor of the Open Access News Web log, underscores
the critical role that authors play in facilitating open access,
and he suggests that open access advocates & quot;can guide, help
or nudge authors" to become active participants in the open access
movement. He emphasizes the importance of peer communication in
this process: scholars are most likely to be persuaded by
colleagues who have experienced the per sonal benefits of open
access, such as higher citation rates for their papers. However,
librarians can also be effective change agents by assisting
scholars in depositing their works in institutional repositories,
providing workshops on copyright issues, and through other
strategies. Suber also discusses how the "Ingelfinger Rule"
continues to concern scholars, who are hesitant to put preprints
online because journals may view this as prior publication and
refuse to consider them. He suggests that universities and funding
agencies could require scholars to make their work available
through open access arrangements, and he cites a study that offers
preliminary evidence that they may welcome this. He concludes by
discussing the importance of j ournal prestige factors in scholars'
choices of what journals to publish in, and he suggests ways to
enhance the prestige of open access journals. - [33]CB
Swan, Alma, and Sheridan Brown. "Authors and Open Access
Publishing" [34]Learned Publishing 17(3) (2004): 219-224. - In
this survey research study, Swan and Brown assessed the attitudes
of authors who had published in open access journals and those who
had not. An interesting finding was that both groups had a
relatively low awareness of e-print archives (fewer than 30% of
each group), while 62% of the "non-OA" authors were aware of open
access journals. Why do authors publish in OA journals? Ninety-two
percent said free access, 87% said faster publication times, 71%
said OA journals had larger readershi ps, 64% said higher citation
rates, and 56% said concerns over the expense of conventional
journals. The reluctance of non-OA authors to publish in OA
journals was attributed to unfamiliarity with OA journals in their
fields (70%), low impact or prestige of these journals (69%),
smaller readerships of OA journals (64%), or an inability to find a
relevant OA journal to publish in (56%). For other interesting
findings, see the article (or the complete study, which is
available at
[35]http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/JISCOAreport1.pdf). -
[36]CB
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites - ISSN: 1060-2356
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References
Visible links
1. LYNXIMGMAP:http://sunsite/CurrentCites/2004/cc04.15.6.html#head
2. http://roytennant.com/
3. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm
4. http://www.hooboy.com/
5. http://roytennant.com/
6. http://www.overdrive.com/news/pr/06232004.asp
7. http://www.overdrive.com/
8. http://www.hooboy.com/
9. http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub126abst.html
10. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
11. http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=17661#article3
12. http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=12081
13. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
14. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
15. http://www.imsglobal.org/digitalrepositories/CNIandIMS_2004.pdf
16. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
17. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0621/pol-crisis-06-21-04.asp
18. http://www.fcw.com/
19. http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/
20. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html
21. http://www.cdlib.org/
22. http://www.library.unt.edu/
23. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/
24. http://www.hooboy.com/
25.
http://www.computerworld.com/databasetopics/businessintelligence/story/0,10801,93968,00.html
26. http://www.computerworld.com/
27. http://www.hooboy.com/
28. http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub127/pub127.pdf
29. http://www.clir.org/
30. http://www.hooboy.com/
31. http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/24.html
32. http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/
33. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm
34. http://www.alpsp.org/journal.htm
35. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/JISCOAreport1.pdf
36. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm
37. mailto:listserv@library.berkeley.edu
