[15623] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Current Cites, December 2004
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (CITES Moderator)
Thu Dec 23 20:11:53 2004
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:20:01 -0800
From: CITES Moderator <citeschk@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
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Current Cites
Volume 15, no. 12, December 2004
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2004/cc04.15.12.html
Contributors: [3]Terry Huwe, [4]Shirl Kennedy, [5]Leo Robert Klein,
Jim Ronningen, [6]Roy Tennant
Ball, Mary Alice. "[7]Libraries and University Presses Can
Collaborate to Improve Scholarly Communication or "Why Can't We All
Just Get Along?"" [8]First Monday 9(12) (6 December 2004)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_12/ball/). - Ball has
written a succinct but thorough overview of the historical
underpinnings of "scholarly communication," where we are now, and
where we are going. She approaches this high profile topic with an
eye to the competing cultures of book publishing and the library
profession. Both have much to learn from each other, she argues,
and both have much to gain. Publishers maintain dramatically high
standards for final products, and they are powerhouses for design,
marketing and selection strategies. Librarians currently hold a
clear edge in grasping the importance of information standards,
"fair use" as a social good, and the power of the library's
imprimatur. Ball is looking for the common ground between the two,
but she also points out that the fault line between publishers and
librarians is copyright compliance. She argues that the two camps
should develop common goals in educating and influencing university
administrations and faculties -- and that at the present moment,
both groups have an opportunity to be heard and understood. This is
an excellent article not only for its historical analysis, but also
because it does a superb job of defining the motivations that drive
publishers and librarians. This leaves the reader with an overview
that is a fertile ground for brainstorming. - [9]TH
Chudnov, Daniel, and Jeremy Frumkin. [10]Service Autodiscovery for
Rapid Information Movement (10 December 2004)
(http://curtis.med.yale.edu/dchud/writings/sa4rim.html). - This
paper explores issues relating to capturing resource citations and
links, routing them to various locations, and using them with link
resolvers and other services such as "gather, create, share" tools.
And that's just for starters. They quickly move into discovery
autodiscovery -- first link autodiscovery, then metadata
autodiscovery, and finally service autodiscovery. There is a lot to
absorb in this paper, but it's well worth spending the time to
absorb it. They are doing no less than rethinking how we both offer
our services as well as consume the services of others, based on a
brave new world chock-full of new and powerful web-based
applications and services. I can think of no better example of the
kind of imaginative thinking we nee d to make effective use of our
opportunities and challenges. - [11]RT
Entlich, Richard. "[12]One Last Spin: Floppy Disks Head Toward
Retirement" [13]RLG DigiNews 8(6) (15 December 2004)
(http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=20492&Printable=1&Article_I
D=1692). - This informative piece summarizes the history of the
floppy disk in its various incarnations, as well as highlighting
why the format has endured as long as it has. The reasons why data
that exists only on floppy disks is endangered are outlined, as are
strategies for rescuing the data. It's clear that floppy disks are
on their way out, we just don't know exactly how fast. But as this
piece makes clear, we would be wise to start getting the data off
those disks as soon as we can, since it will only get more costly
and/or more difficult the longer we wait. - [14]RT
Gnatek, Tim. "[15]Libraries Reach Out, Online" [16]The New York
Times (9 December 2004)
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/09/technology/circuits/09libr.html?
ex=1260248400&en=bc31f3ce53fcf024&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland). -
Yeah, yeah...we know. E-books are dead. Aren't they? Apparently
not, as public libraries add extensive collections of electronic
books, "laying claim to a massive online public as their newest
service audience." This article discusses the New York Public
Library's [17]new collection of 3,000 electronic titles and how
check-in and check-out by websurfing cardholders is handled. And
the NYPL is not the only system offering e-books to its customers.
The article mentions similar collections at the [18]Cleveland
Public Library and the [19]King County Public Library. Libraries
are also beginning to offer [20]audio books in downloadable MP3
format, and some systems are even putting movie trailers online.
The article also mentioned online book clubs, virtual reference,
IM-based tutoring, library-sponsored LAN parties for online video
gaming and free [21]wireless Internet hotspots. - [22]SK
Godby, Carol Jean, Jeffrey A. Young, and Eric Childress. "[23]A
Repository of Metadata Crosswalks" [24]D-Lib Magazine 10(12)
(December 2004)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december04/godby/12godby.html). -
Librarians must increasingly deal with metadata in a wide variety
of formats. "Dealing" with such formats will, in many cases, mean
transforming the data from one format to another. The main
mechanism for doing this is a metadata "crosswalk" or a
specification as to how one format can be translated into another.
Since such a procedure will hopefully be done with software rather
than humans, it is necessary to specify a machine-parseable
mechanism to handle crosswalking. This article specifies one such
piece, and a pivotal one, if we are to enable computers to
seamlessly move metadata around. Not surprisingly this work is
being done by OCLC Research, an office that clearly both "gets it"
and has the technical wherewithal to do something about it. We
would be wise to pay attention. - [25]RT
Greenfield, Adam. "[26]All watched over by machines of loving
grace: Some ethical guidelines for user experience in
ubiquitous-computing settings " [27]Boxes and Arrows (23
November 2004) (http://tinyurl.com/6s87p). - What if we had
computers embedded in every little gizmo in our waking lives and
their design was no better than the average voice mail system and
their privacy guidelines looked like they were put together by a
telemarketer? It'd be hell. These two concerns, design and privacy,
are the focus of this article on Ubiquitous Computing or "ubicomp"
by Adam Greenfield. In it, Greenfield paints a nightmare world of
ubiquitous interruptions and widgets so unusable that they spin
out-of-control at the slightest slip of the finger. Greenfield goes
on to propose a number of "baseline standards" for how systems
ought to work from the standpoint of systems and interface
designers. Several of the [28]comments following the article are
also worth reading, particularly the heartfelt one by Chris Fahey
on Opt-in v. Opt-out. - [29]LRK
Haas, Stephanie C.. "[30]X Marks the Spot: The Role of Geographic
Location in Metadata Schemas and Digital Collections" [31]RLG
DigiNews 8(6) (15 December 2004)
(http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=20492#article1). - This is
a good introductory/overview article on geographic location
information for digital objects. Starting with how MARC and LCSH
deal with this information, Haas moves on to more recent and
sophisticated examples of geospatial data in modern computer
systems. Examples of such systems include the [32]National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration library catalog, the [33]Alexandria
Digital Library, and the [34]Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative.
The sources cited can serve as a start for further investigation. -
[35]RT
Hammond, Tony, Timo Hanay, and Ben Lund. "[36]The Role of RSS in
Science Publishing: Syndication and Annotation on the Web"
[37]D-Lib Magazine 10(12) (December 2004)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december04/hammond/12hammond.html). -
"RSS is the very antithesis of the website," the authors -- from
the Nature Publishing Group -- point out here, indicating that it
functions more as a syndication/annotation tool. They offer an
explanation of RSS technology and development, and indicate that it
is catching on fast in the world of scientific publishing because
it "presents a very simple XML structure for packaging news titles
and links, and delivering them down to user desktops and
handhelds." RSS, according to the authors, "allows us to bundle
rich descriptive metadata" along with the standard newsfeed items.
This alone would make RSS attractive to science publishers. It also
serves as an excellent delivery vehicle for tables of content
alerting services. From a purely scientific standpoint, RSS can be
used "transmit complete scientific data sets." The authors discuss
Urchin, an open source RSS Aggregator developed by the Nature
Publishing Group. "NPG uses Urchin to provide keyword-filtered RSS
feeds for its staff, and to populate a science, technology and
publishing news portal." The article contains extensive notes and a
bibliography. - [38]SK
Kenney, Brian. "[39]Googlizers vs. Resistors" [40]Library Journal
(15 December 2004)
(http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA485756). - This article is
a summary transcript of a debate-like discussion held at the
Pennsylvania Library Association Annual Conference in October.
Although it predated the announcement by Google that they were
preparing to digitize the full collections of selected major
research libraries, there was nonetheless enough fodder for a
spirited discussion of issues. I doubt anyone will be "converted"
from a given perspective to another from reading this piece, but
that is not its purpose. If the piece causes us to think about our
services in relation to the services of web sites like Google, and
consider carefully our appropriate role, then it will have been
well worth the reading. - [41]RT
Seffah, Ahmed, and Eduard Metzker. "The Obstacles and Myths of
Usability and Software Engineering. " [42]Communications of the
ACM 47(12) (December 2004): 71-. - Usability and User-Centered
Design (UCD) permeate so much of what we do on the web. It
sometimes comes as a shock to find out that the world of
programming may be marching to an entirely different beat. In fact,
as this article seems to suggest, there is a considerable
disconnect between the worlds of interface designers and
programmers. The article speaks to both groups, assigning blame in
a most even-handed and perceptive way. It also suggests sensible
ways of bridging the gap. These include rationalizing UCD methods
as well as making these methods a standard part of
programming/computer science curricula. - [43]LRK
Van de Sompel, Herbert, Michael L. Nelson, and Carl Lagoze, et.
al. "[44]Resource Harvesting within the OAI-PMH Framework"
[45]D-Lib Magazine 10(12) (December 2004)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december04/vandesompel/12vandesompel.html
). - The [46]Open Archives Initiative - [47]Protocol for Metadata
Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is a well-established protocol for retrieving
piles of metadata from compliant content repositories. One of the
most well-known harvesters is OAIster, which has gathered records
for nearly 5 million digital objects from OAI-compliant
repositories. This article, by those directly involved with the
development of the protocol, looks at how service providers (those
who gather metadata from data providers) can use the protocol to
fetch the actual objects described by those metadata records. After
reviewing possibilities relating to protocol extensions, they
discard those options in favor of specifying a metadata format that
can better accommodate resource harvesting than the
protocol-required simple Dublin Core format. Since the protocol
already specifies that any metadata format can be surfaced in
addition to simple Dublin Core, no protocol extension is necessary
to enable content harvesting. The authors advocate the use of the
MPEG-DIDL format, although they acknowledge that the [48]METS
format could be used for this purpose as well. - [49]RT
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites - ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright (c) 2004 by the Regents of the University of California All
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51. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
