[15552] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Current Cites, September 2004
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (CITES Moderator)
Thu Sep 30 20:12:58 2004
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:31:57 -0700
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Current Cites
Volume 15, no. 9, September 2004
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2004/cc04.15.9.html
Contributors: [3]Charles W. Bailey, Jr., [4]Terry Huwe, [5]Shirl
Kennedy, Jim Ronningen, [6]Roy Tennant
Antelman, Kristin. "[7]Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater
Research Impact?" [8]College & Research Libraries 65(5)
(September 2004): 372-382.
(http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00002309/). - For those who have
been working to create open access repositories of research and
scholarship, this article is a godsend. Antelman performed a formal
study of whether open access articles are cited more frequently
than those only available through subscription services. The short
answer is "yes". For the long answer, as well as to review her
methodology, see the (yes) open access article. - [9]RT
Chapman, Stephen. "Techniques for Creating Sustainable Digital
Collections" [10]Library Technology Reports 40(5) (Sept./Oct.
2004) - Library Technology Reports appears to be on a roll, with
this excellent issue following close on the heels of Susan Gibbon's
report on institutional repositories (cited in a [11]previous issue
of Current Cites). Few people are as well suited for covering this
topic as Chapman, who has long experience in creating digital
collections at Harvard, and has spoken on this topic for years as a
faculty member of the highly regarded School for Scanning: Building
Good Digital Collections. The report begins with a section on
institutional readiness for digitization, followed by sections on
managing digitization, levels of service for image digitization,
levels of service for text digitization, managing costs, and
commiting to change. So if you find yourself suddenly responsible
for a digitization project, as many are, your first purchase should
not be a scanner, but rather this issue of LTR. Out of all the
money you will spend on your project (and spend it you will) the
$63 cost of this report will be the single most effective use of
your resources. - [12]RT
Dean, Katie. "[13]Saving the Artistic Orphans" [14]Wired News
(20 September 2004)
(http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64494,00.html). -
"Artistic orphans," as discussed in this article, are "older books,
films and music" that are "no longer commercially viable," but are
kept from the public domain because they are still under copyright.
Changes in the copyright law that no longer require intellectual
property owners to register or renew their copyrights with the
[15]U.S. Copyright Office have made locating these owners "a
formidable challenge." [16]Brewster Kahle, founder of the
[17]Internet Archive and [18]Rick Prelinger, a film collector, are
interested in digitizing these materials and putting them online so
the public can have free access. They filed suit in March to have
declared unconstitutional the changes to copyright law that prevent
such materials from entering the public domain. The legal wrangling
is ongoing; the government filed a motion to dismiss the case, the
plaintiffs filed an opposition and the government will file its
reply in October. In late October, the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California will hear arguments. [19]Lawrence
Lessig, the Stanford Law School professor representing Kahle and
Prelinger explains that copyright was traditionally "opt-in" --
where intellectual property owners had to actively register and
then renew their works. Now, from the moment a work is "fixed in a
tangible medium," copyright protection exists without any need for
registration or renewal. The article notes "that on average, 85
percent of copyright owners never bothered to renew their copyright
after the first 28 years anyway." You can submit examples of orphan
works [20]via a website set up by Kahle and Prelinger. - [21]SK
Elliott, Susan A. [22]Metasearch and Usability: Toward a Seamless
Interface to Library Resources Anchorage, AK: University of
Alaska, August 2004.
(http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/tundra/msuse1.pdf). - This paper is
the result of a sabbatical leave investigation on behalf of the
Consortium Library of the University of Alaska Anchorage regarding
metasearch software and usability. The author visited a number of
libraries that have implemented, or are in the process of
implementing, metasearch applications. The strength of this paper
lies not in the specifics regarding sofwtare options, which are
already out of date (although for those who simply can't resist,
they are available in a separate file of appendices), but in the
body of the report in which Elliott succinctly outlines the problem
these tools are attempting to solve, how they are trying to do it,
and current issues and problems. As she identifies, things are far
from perfect but these tools may at least offer libraries a way to
make things more manageable for the users we serve. - [23]RT
Ellison, Jim. "[24]Assessing the accessibility of fifty United
States government Web pages: Using Bobby to check on Uncle Sam "
[25]First Monday 9(7) (5 July 2004)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_7/ellison/). - Ellison
takes a hard look at the real obstacles that people with
disabilities face when using government Web sites. He reviews 50
sites using the well-known evaluation program known as Bobby, which
checks HTML to evaluate how successfully the code perform in
providing accessibility. While he argues that there is great
potential for improved accessibility, he claims that the U.S.
government has not met its self-imposed goals yet. This would tend
to weaken the government's standing to enforce accessibility
standards on other organizations, he concludes. - [26]TH
Greenstein, Daniel. "[27]Research Libraries' Costs of Doing
Business (and Strategies for Avoiding Them)" [28]EDUCAUSE Review
39(5) (2004): 72-73.
(http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm04510.asp). - Materials
costs continue to spiral upward. Shaped by Google and similar
systems, users' expectations rise as well, and they demand that
libraries provide increasingly sophisticated, easy-to-use systems.
Digital formats proliferate. What's a research library to do? Based
on the collaborative experiences of the University of California
System, Greenstein has some suggestions for research libraries in
similar situations. Rely mainly on electronic journals, but
preserve at least one archival print copy of each one. Closely
coordinate collection development to eliminate duplicate materials
costs, and develop new bibliographic systems to support this.
Centralize system support functions, such as digital preservation
and tool building (e.g., online portals). Using these strategies,
UC believes it can save $30-$50 million dollars a year. Sounds like
big money. Will it solve the problem? The author says: "If the
money is simply eaten away by unmitigated steep increases in the
price of library materials, the answer is no. Changing the
unsustainable economics of scholarly publishing remains a key to
the future of research libraries indeed, to the continued ability
of colleges and universities to provide faculty and researchers
with the access they need to the world's scholarly knowledge." -
[29]CB
Hepburn, Gary. "[30]Seeking an educational commons: The promise of
open source development models " [31]First Monday 9(8) (2 August
2004) (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_8/hepburn/). -
Hepburn matches an assessment of the potential of open source
computing with the development of classroom curricula, and finds a
good match. Easily available resources, flexibility and minimal
intrusion of corporate culture into the classroom are all desirable
side benefits of open source architecture, he argues. A central
aspect of a new open source "commons" that could take root is
creativity: Hepburn foresees that educators and curriculum planners
will experience a noteworthy uptick in creative thinking if they
cleave to an open source standard. Much of this line of reasoning
is based on the hitherto-unrealized potential of the Internet to
reshape the classroom. A key challenge for educators, though, is
the development of both institutional and professional-level
commitments to mainstreaming technology management into teaching a
process that will challenge teachers and educators for some time to
come. - [32]TH
Puglia, Steve, Jeffrey Reed, and Erin Rhodes. [33]Technical
Guidelines for Digitizing Archival Materials for Electronic Access:
Creation of Production Master Files - Raster Images< /A>
Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, June
2004.
(http://www.archives.gov/research_room/arc/arc_info/guidelines_for_
digitizing_archival_materials.html). - What the staff at NARA don't
know about digitizing isn't worth knowing. And thanks to documents
like this one, you too can know what they do. From recommendations
on metadata capture to essential tips on scanning for the maximum
fidelity and information capture, this is a gold mine of best
practice that can help anyone digitizing content for web access.
Beginning with a section on metadata, the paper includes sections
on imaging workflow, digitization specifications, storage, and
quality control. The technical overview alone offers a wealth of
essential information for digitization novices as well as those who
may have been doing this activity for some time, but without a
thorough technical grounding in all the technical aspects. Highly
recommended for anyone digitizing content. - [34]RT
Rowlands, Ian, Dave Nicholas, and Paul Huntingdon. "[35]Journal
Publishing: What Do Authors Want?" [36]Nature Web Focus: Access to
the Literature: The Debate Continues (13 September 2004)
(http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/31.html). - In the
final analysis, scholarly journal publishing should be designed to
satisfy the needs of scholars. So what do they want anyway? The
authors conducted a large-scale international survey to find the
answer, ending up with 3,787 fully completed questionnaires from 97
countries. Not surprisingly, they found that authors continue to
want traditional journal benefits: "They want the imprimatur of
quality and integrity that a peer-reviewed, high-impact title can
offer, together with reasonable levels of publisher service. Above
all, they want to narrowcast their ideas to a close community of
like-minded researchers. . ." The majority of authors (61%)
indicate that they have access to needed articles, and 77% say that
access is better than five years ago. Not many have heard of open
access (82% say that they know little or nothing about it), and
they are not willing to pay much to publish articles (only 16%
would pay more than $500). Rowlands et al. estimate that the
average that authors would be willing to pay may be about $400,
which is below the fees typically charged by open access
publishers. Clearly, publishing reform advocates still have much
work to do in educating authors about the economics of scholarly
publishing and academic library finances. - [37]CB
Shenton, Andrew K., and Pat Dixon. "Issues Arising From
Youngsters' Information Seeking Behavior" [38]Library &
Information Science Research 26(2) (Spring 2004): 177-200. -
Faced with training adults to be more careful and critical
information seekers and users, it's helpful to see which patterns
are imprinted in our school years. This article explores the
general information-seeking patterns of school-age children in a
single British town. While a larger sample (only 188 individuals
here) and greater geographic variation could certainly lead to more
universally applicable conclusions, for most English-speaking
information providers there will be a high recognition factor of
those behaviors which are clear precursors to adult habits, e.g.
"the use of untaught, expedient methods was apparent in many
contexts, including the 'speculative' entry of URLs to access Web
sites and the location of information in books by simply flicking
through the pages." No wonder at expedient Google's popularity,
being so good at providing reasonable results for speculative
input. Also instructive is the prevalence of image or pattern
retention which, once achieved, encourages forgetting details like
titles and addresses. A bit discouraging for teachers of
information literacy, but good to know what one is up against. - JR
Twist, Jo. "[39]Web Tool May Banish Broken Links" [40]BBC News
(24 September 2004)
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3666660.stm). - [41]The
Jargon File defines link rot as "The natural decay of web links as
the sites they're connected to change or die." And while it is a
fact of life on the Web today, it is also a tremendous source of
frustrion to information professionals, scholars, and plain
ordinary Web users. Well, a team of UK intern students at IBM has
come up with a tool that addresses the problem of broken Web links.
Although other tools exist that can detect broken links, this tool
called Peridot also ferrets out where the missing information has
gone and "replaces outdated information with other relevant
documents and links." It can also detect links to "inappropriate
information." Basically, the technology keeps track of key elements
of webpages so it is able to quickly spot any changes. In its
current version, "it runs reliably over 100,000 pages." - [42]SK
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites - ISSN: 1060-2356
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References
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