textfiles/magazines/CURRENTCITIES/2000.11-4

                               _Current Cites_   
                        Volume 11, no. 4, April 2000
                                      
                      Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
                                      
           The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
                             ISSN: 1060-2356 -
        http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2000/cc00.11.4.html
   
      Contributors: Terry Huwe, Michael Levy, Leslie Myrick,
    Margaret Phillips, Jim Ronningen, Lisa Rowlison, Roy Tennant 
   
   Brown, John Seely, and Duguid, Paul. "Special Issue with Excerpts
   from: The Social Life of Information" First Monday 5 (4) (April 3,
   2000) (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_4/); Brown, John Seely
   and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information, Boston, MA:
   Harvard Business School Press, 2000. - The book has been on the New
   York Times Bestseller list, and an early manuscript was published here
   on First Monday a few years back. Now the netzine is publishing the
   table of contents, introduction, and first three chapters for the
   online audience to review. If you haven't browsed it in a bookstore,
   take a look here, for free. Iconoclastic and unflinching in their
   analysis, the authors skewer the many excesses of media hyperbole
   about information technology and the Internet. A refreshing focus on
   how people use -- and fail to use -- technology emerges from the text,
   a universal dilemma that librarians have been speaking to for years.
   An excellent read. - TH
   
   Buehler, Marianne. "U.S. Federal Government CIOs: Information
   Technology's New Managers - Preliminary Findings" Journal of
   Government Information 27 (1) (January/February 2000): 29-45. -
   "Elements of efficiency that customers can measure are the time they
   spend standing in line or being placed on hold at the end of a phone
   connection attempting to access information." But hasn't information
   technology made all that go away? I'm sure you know from experience
   (and inference from Buehler's quote above) that the revolution is far
   from complete, and some government agencies have been among the most
   recalcitrant. This article examines one aspect of recent Congressional
   and Executive mandates for improvement: the employment of chief
   information officers as agents for change. The Clinger-Cohen
   Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-106)
   and Clinton's Executive Order 13011 have been in effect long enough
   that the author felt a survey was in order, and she reports on
   compliance, the nature of the CIO position in practice, and impacts on
   agency information policies. The oversight roles of the General
   Accounting Office and the Office of Management and Budget are also
   described. As systems analysts know, the organization is an integral
   part of the problem, and can be part of the solution, too; these first
   CIOs are in a position to address the "pervasive waste in government
   IT spending and inexusably poor consumer-service systems" and take
   action. - JR
   
   Burk, Roberta. "Don't Be Afraid of E-Books" Library Journal 125(7)
   (April 15, 2000): 42-45. - There has been a lot of hype lately about
   e-books and how they are poised to transform the way in which we
   purchase and read books. This article goes beyond the hype by
   describing how one library has successfully added e-books and their
   associated readers to their collection. Ebooks that do not require
   specialized hardware (such as those offered by NetLibrary) are not
   covered in this article. A sidebar highlights several types of
   hardware- and software-based ebook systems. It is too early to tell
   what impact these devices may have on libraries, but this article is
   an important early report on how at least one library is being
   successful at integrating this type of material into their array of
   services. - RT
   
   Carr, Sara and Vincent Kiernan. "For-Profit Web Venture Seeks to
   Replicate the University Experience Online" The Chronicle of
   Higher Education (April 14, 2000): A59-A60. - Five educational and
   cultural institutions have come together to construct a for-profit web
   site that seeks to recreate not just university courses, but also the
   intellectual milieu of a university campus. Partner institutions
   include Columbia University, the British Library, the Cambridge
   University Press, the London School of Economics and Political
   Science, the New York Public Library, and the Smithsonian
   Institution's National Museum of Natural History, with possible
   additional participants joining later.Called Fathom
   (http://www.fathom.com/), the business will not grant degrees or
   create courses, but will market courses developed by its members.
   Although fees will be charged for courses and some online content,
   much of the content of the web site will be available for free once
   the site opens later this year. - RT
   
   Floyd, Michael. "Blowing XML Bubbles" Web Techniques (March
   2000) (http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/03/xml/) - The hype
   surrounding XML has been ubiquitous enough to filter even into those
   circles which generally avoid structured text issues. Floyd explores
   the ever-expanding 'XML bubble' in a series of email interviews with a
   handful of representatives of some of the most pneumatic bubble
   blowers in the XML community: Reid Conrad from Extensibility, Bob
   Bickel from Bluestone Software, Coco Jaenicke from eXcelon, and Marie
   Wieck from the IBM Network Computing Software Division. The questions
   and answers explore: the roles and uses of XML (integration, exchange,
   content management) in the B2B and publishing communities, and whether
   the standard is seen to have fractured or aggregated different user
   communities; when XML might not be suitable (these evangelists were
   hard-pressed to find examples); what its limitations are; and a
   rundown of some of the most interesting innovative uses of XML the
   participants have come across. - LM

   Guernsey, Lisa. "Unplugged on Campus, but Always Connected" New York
   Times (April 20, 2000): Section D, p. 1 - Focusing on a small liberal
   arts college Mount St. Mary College in New York State, wireless
   technology and networks in the academic setting are seen as a
   relatively inexpensive means of providing network access. Wireless
   connectivity has so permeated the daily existence at this college that
   students, faculty and librarians are always connected, whether in the
   dorms, the library or the classroom. As with many schools, computer
   labs and offices had already been wired for high speed access but the
   problem was how to extend this to classrooms, dormitories and
   libraries without breaking the bank. Working with a company called
   Proxim the wireless network was installed, and students were given
   discounts for wireless adapter cards. The network consists of access
   points, or hubs, that are plugged into the existing network at a cost
   far less than a hardwired solution. With rapidly improving technology
   network speed is far greater than dial-up modems but still lags
   hardwired networks. - ML
   
   "The Next Chapter" 2600 17(1) (Spring 2000): p. 5-8. - We
   certainly wouldn't cite anything from 2600, the "hacker quarterly," as
   an endorsement of illegal hacking or as a validation of the more
   dubious claims made in its pages, but it's worth looking at because
   it's the single best source for learning about hacker ethics and
   attitudes. "The Next Chapter" is of interest because it includes,
   straight from the horse's mouth, typical arguments offered in defense:
   that hackers are benign investigators performing a service by
   uncovering ways to exploit security weaknesses, that freedom of speech
   overrides intellectual property protections, and that large media and
   communications companies are inherently tyrannical and deserve to be
   attacked. Specifically, it addresses the fact that the 2600 web site
   and others are being sued by the Motion Picture Association of America
   for publishing the deCSS code which can be used to defeat access
   controls on DVDs. (The essay isn't clearly attributed to "Emmanuel
   Goldstein," editor Eric Corley's pseudonym taken from Orwell's 1984,
   but I'm assuming it's his work since it fits the editorial pattern set
   in previous issues.) Other interesting pieces include a thank-you note
   from Kevin Mitnick to the readership, and of course many examples of
   the "how-to" articles which attract the attention of lawyers and FBI
   agents. If 2600 is new to you, it may help to know that it is
   something of an institution, having been in print since 1984, and is
   just one manifestation of a community that has employed Usenet, chat
   rooms, the web and other less obvious methods to stay connected. - JR
   
   Pack, Thomas. "Epublishing: Revolution or Virtual Vanity Press?"
   Econtent (April/May 2000): 52-56. - Pack offers yet another look
   at the double-edged sword that is e-publishing, and investigates some
   of the implications for information professionals of the
   e-self-publishing revolution. What, Pack asks, are the implications
   for libraries of the growing spate of e-publication? Is it merely
   adding to the problem of information overload? Without the traditional
   editorial vetting constraints on what gets published, how will
   librarians be able to sort the wheat from the chaff? On a more
   technical level, what issues will arise in the realm of e-cataloguing,
   e-ordering and e-purchasing? His focus here is on Fatbrain.com's
   eMatter initiative, which is poised to become a revolutionary forum
   for serialized works in the manner of Dickens' A Christmas Carol; all
   sorts of shorter works of non-fiction and fiction, how-tos, and
   technical manuals, among others. Fatbrain.com has also established
   itself as a place for published authors to offer out-of-print titles
   to which they hold copyright. Needless to say, scholarly publication
   is another can of worms altogether. Whereas the scientific community
   has taken swift advantage of scholarly web publishing consortia for
   expediting dissemination of time-sensitive findings and fostering
   interactive scholarship, humanities scholarship, despite generalized
   rankling over 2-to-3-year backlogs at some major print journals, seems
   slow to accept web publication as a viable standard. Pack's article
   addresses the familiar concern that in many cases the e-publishing
   process bypasses a certain level of critical vetting by agents,
   editors, scholarly readers and publishers. He explores how the eMatter
   initiative is facing this issue by striving to assure quality in its
   offerings and by educating its users to make intelligent choices. In
   the place of traditional critical vetting stands The Market, along
   with a "decency" criterion which proscribes hate language, slander and
   obscenity. Further, a proposed e-manuscript must run the gauntlet of
   the 4 Bs (i.e., that it is suitable for bathroom, bedroom, bus and
   beach). The Fatbrain.com website offers a standard box of tools for
   making critical choices, such as editorial promotion and highlighting
   of the highest quality material, dynamically sorted best-seller lists,
   along with offering reader reviews and author bios. It also backs up
   its transactions with a moneyback guarantee. - LM
   
   Trehub, Aaron. "Creating Fee-Based Online Services: A New Role for
   Academic Librarians" Library Hi Tech 17(4) (1999): 372-389. - In
   this overview of two fee-based services at the University of Illinois
   Library at Urbana-Champaign, Trehub makes a case for libraries and
   Librarians as "start-to-finish content creators." New opportunities
   opened up by the Internet and the web have allowed the University of
   Illinois to migrate the Bibliography of Slavic and East European
   Studies (ABSEES) and the Illinois Researcher Information Service
   (IRIS) into web-based subscription services. He outlines the basic
   ingredients necessary for a successful fee-based service, which
   including high quality content, adequate hardware and software,
   programming and systems support, administrative support, an
   advertising budget, skilled bibliographers and indexers and
   institutional commitment. Responding to the debate over fee vs. free
   services Trehub believes that fee services can augment and support
   traditional library services. While the case is forcefully made, the
   problem is that the IRIS database of federal and private funding
   opportunities, is subsidizing the more "traditional" bibliographic
   guide ABSEES. The question then remains whether something like ABSEES
   can survive in the marketplace without such outside financial
   assistance. In any case, such ventures for Trehub have the added
   benefit of promoting what has been dubbed "intellectually-based
   librarianship" and thereby raising professional status. - ML
   
   "Secure Your Data" Web Techniques (April 2000)
   (http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/) - April's Web
   Techniques features a handful of articles addressing various ways of
   stopping up those nasty security holes we inevitably open ourselves up
   to when we head for the net, whether as surfers, e-consumers,
   information technologists, or administrators. Aviel D. Rubin, in
   "None of Your E-Business"
   (http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/rubin/) , examines the
   web user's vulnerability to identity theft, surveillance and
   monitoring due to greatly enhanced means for the aggregation and
   cross-referencing of personal information amassed through snooping
   into email, cookies, e-business transactions (whether at e-bookstores,
   e-groceries, or e-pharmacies -- 50 packs of cigarettes in a month?
   what would your insurance provider think?). Rubin offers a few weapons
   to fend off e-salesmen, the boss, the system admin, or the hacker down
   the hall with a packet sniffer, including: using proxy servers, PGP
   encryption, certificates, secure channels, and clearing your cache.
   Lincoln Stein, in "Security in an 'Always On' World"
   (http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/webm/) , realized early
   that his new "Always On" DSL service translated to "Always Exposed".
   You may not have a server humming away in your basement, but if you
   do, this article is packed with good advice for hiding IPs, keeping
   your ports probe-free, and protecting your data behind firewalls. Matt
   Curtain, in "On Guard: Fortifying Your Site Against Attack"
   (http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/curtin/), outlines how
   to turn your web server into a bastion host, complete with a DMZ
   network (it's a war out there!), cryptography, and security patches.
   Chuck Newman in "Sharing Too Much: The Dangers of Hosting on
   Windows NT" (http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/newman/) ,
   shares what he learned about NT server security when he was able to
   hack into his ISP's entire file system using a humble File System
   Object. - LM
     _________________________________________________________________
   
              Current Cites 11(4) (April 2000) ISSN: 1060-2356
    Copyright <20> 2000 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley.
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