textfiles/magazines/CURRENTCITIES/1994.5-11

                                     
                            _Current_Cites_
                            Volume 5, no. 11
                             November 1994
                                    
               Information Systems Instruction & Support
                              The Library
                   University of California, Berkeley
                      Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
                            ISSN: 1060-2356
                                    
                             Contributors:
                                    
       	                Margaret Phillips, Dave Rez, 
	         Richard Rinehart, Teri Rinne, Roy Tennant




Electronic Publishing


Clement, Gail. "Evolution of a Species: Science Journals 
Published on the Internet" Database 17(5) (October/November 
1994):44-54. -- An excellent overview of the current state 
of electronic science journals, including where they have 
come from and where they may be headed. Although focused 
entirely on science journals, many of the observations are 
also appropriate for journals in other disciplines. Clement 
includes a number of pointers to key electronic journal
resources. Sidebars include a list of current or planned 
electronic science journals, and informative case studies of 
specific titles. -- RT


Leslie, Jacques. "Goodbye, Gutenberg: Pixelating Peer Review is
Revolutionizing Scholarly Journals" Wired 2(10) (October 1994):
68-71. -- As time passes electronic scholarly journals are 
becoming more accepted by the academic community. Over the past 
few years approximately 450 new electronic journals have become 
available, at least 70 of which are scholarly. One reason 
publishing journals electronically has become so appealing 
recently is the rising cost of journal subscriptions. Cost, 
along with the increasing visual potential of electronically-
based documents has driven acceptance of electronic journals to 
an all-time high. -- DR



Multimedia and Hypermedia

 
Stefanac, Suzanne. "Multimedia Meets the Internet" New Media 4(11)
(November 1994):56-63. -- Can "multimedia" and "Internet" yet be 
mentioned in the same breath without the obligatory raised eyebrow? 
Well...not quite, but this article is a good overview of various 
projects and technologies that are already tackling the wideband/
narrowband schism. Many popular projects such as WWW browsers have 
already began to break down the barriers between what is a "network" 
application, and what a "multimedia" application. Other topics 
covered are ATM protocol, MBone, cable modems, and CD-ROM-assisted 
network services (where the service delivers a file code to the 
computer, which then opens the band-hogging Quicktime movie or
image off the local CD-ROM). The article is very useful in that it 
includes contact information in the forms or relevant URLs or phone 
numbers. -- RR
 
Wilson, David. "Teaching a Computer to Find and Retrieve Stored 
Images" Chronicle of Higher Education 40(7) (October 12, 1994): 
A20-21. -- One of the as yet unrealized promises of multimedia 
computing is to transform the image into something beyond a 
'dumb' object into an integral part of the structure of the data 
for both storage and retrieval purposes. Currently, images are 
helpless objects, dependent on attached text to serve any purpose 
other than mere illustration. Alex Pentland of the conceptual-
computing section of MIT's Media Laboratory has taken a first step 
toward liberating the digital image from its slavery to textual 
tags. Pentland has created a system whereby images can be searched 
visually; one starts with an image to finds 'hits' of similar 
images. His 'photobook' projects used faces as the experimental 
pool of images. And amazingly, when starting with one man's face 
and searching for similar ones, his system even found other photos 
of the subject's face when he was pictured wearing a false beard 
or with an altered expression. The implications for research in
medicine, art history, and any field dealing with images are 
exciting to say the least. -- RR
 


Networks and Networking


Bell, Gladys Smiley. "First Peoples and the Internet" College & 
Research Libraries News 55(10) (November 1994):633-635. -- This 
article is a guide to Internet resources for and about Native 
Americans and includes a selective list of electronic discussion
groups, ftp and gopher sites, UseNet newsgroups and other 
significant electronic resources.  -- MP


DeLoughry, Thomas J. "For the Community of Scholars 'Being 
Connected' Takes On a Whole New Meaning" The Chronicle of 
Higher Education 40(10) (November 2, 1994): A25-A26. -- The 
emergence of online discussion groups and mailing lists as a 
means of scholarly communication has raised questions about 
the role of the Internet in academia. For example, having a 
high profile on the Internet has become the newest way, in 
some cases, to gain recognition for faculty seeking promotions. 
While statistics are still not available indicating how many 
college students and faculty subscribe to mailing lists, it is 
clear that in many cases more people can be reached by way of 
a mailing list than through an article in a journal. Following 
this article are several reviews of some of the more popular 
and more obscure mailing lists -- including a generous review 
of PACS-L. -- MP

Lewis, Peter H. "Companies Rush to Set Up Shop in Cyberspace" 
The New York Times (November 2, 1994): C1, C6. -- With its 
color photographs, sound clips, interactive diagrams and easy 
navigation, companies are starting to recognize the marketing 
potential of the World-Wide Web and are setting up their own 
"home pages" as a means of sharing information about themselves 
and their products. The author describes the development of both 
the Web and navigational software programs such as Mosaic in 
addition to outlining what a business needs to become "web worthy:" 
access to a server computer, fast telephone lines, and the ability 
to "tag" documents in hypertext markup language. The article 
includes references to the Elvis Presley home page, the White 
House home page and the now famous "On the Internet, no one knows 
your a dog" cartoon from the New Yorker. -- MP

Lewis, Peter H. "U.S. Begins Privatizing of Internet Operations" 
The New York Times (October 24, 1994): C1, C9. -- The National 
Science Foundation which administers a nationwide Internet 
backbone commonly known as the NSF Net has begun turning over 
many of its responsibilities to the private sector. Specifically, 
many regional Internet service providers have been scheduled to 
be disconnected from the NSF Net backbone and connected to new 
commercial network hubs in San Francisco, Chicago, Penssauken, 
N.J, and Washington. While some see the shift in administration 
as a way to bring about marketplace efficiencies to the Internet, 
others fear that a privatized Internet will not have the capacity 
for the large volume of traffic on the network. No one knows yet 
how the changes in the management of the Internet will effect the 
heaviest users of the Internet -- universities and research 
institutions -- who have benefitted most from government subsidies 
of the Internet. -- MP

 
Marchionini, Gary, Diane Barlow, and Linda Hill. "Extending 
Retrieval Strategies to Networked Environments: Old Ways, New Ways, 
and a Critical Look at WAIS," Journal of the American Society for
Information Science 45(8) (September 1994):561-564. -- This
evaluative article compares searching results from a WAIS
system and a Boolean-based retrieval system. As a result, they
identified some problems with WAIS.  Some of these include
an inadequate ranking algorithm, a relevance feedback mechanism
that does not allow the user to assign weights to terms, and
a "black box" effect for the user of sending a search in and not
having much of an idea about what determines what comes out.
Nonetheless, the authors point out some strengths of WAIS over
Boolean-based search systems, such as no query language to
learn, a higher likelihood of something being returned from a
search, and ease of use when using the workstation-based clients. 
-- RT

Wilson, David L. "Navigating the Web" The Chronicle of Higher 
Education 40(9) (October 26, 1994): A24, A28-A29. -- This report 
on a recent meeting to discuss ways to improve Mosaic, provides 
a good overview of some of the strengths and weaknesses of this 
hot new network browsing tool that has become so popular. While 
Mosaic is credited with the exponential growth that the World-Wide 
Web has seen in the last year, the program can be annoyingly slow 
to use and it provides no support for any kind of indexing which 
makes searching for resources on the Web almost impossible. It is 
best to think of Mosaic, say conference speakers, as a primitive 
tool compared to what will be available in a few years. --  MP
 


Optical Disc Technology


Adkins, Susan L. "CD-ROM: A Review of the 1993 Literature" 
Computers in Libraries 14(8) (September 1994):43-55. -- Adkins 
once again provides a well-written survey of the year in CD-ROM. 
The survey is organized into two sections. The first section 
concentrates on the developments in the industry, including the 
status of the CD market in various parts of the world and 
the development of CD-Recordable, multimedia, Kodak Photo CD, 
CD-I, and others. The second section is devoted to CD-ROM in 
the library market with a discussion on instruction, selection, 
pricing, networks, and other matters. The review concentrates 
on the professional journals most commonly used by librarians 
in their efforts to maintain current awareness. If you have but 
one article to read on CD-ROM this year, Adkins does not 
disappoint. [Note: The corresponding bibliography is cited 
below.] -- TR

Adkins, Susan L. "CD-ROM 1993: A Guide to the Literature" 
OCLC Systems and Services 10(2 & 3) (Summer/Fall 1994):68-85. 
-- Due to space constraints, Computers in Libraries was unable 
to run Adkins' "CD-ROM: Review of 1993 Literature" [see above] 
in tandem with the bibliography or Guide to the Literature, as 
was the practice in the past. As the popularity of CD-ROM 
increases, the annual review correspondingly increases in size 
and scope. This 400-item bibliography is cross-referenced with 
a subject index to facilitate use. -- TR 


Beiser, Karl. "Moving on Up: CD-ROM Upgrade Paths and Problems" 
Online 18(5) (September/October 1994):116-118. -- This article
seeks to provide very practical answers to questions such as
"When should the old be replaced by the new? How does one assess
the real-world benefits of acquiring newer hardware or software?
How can older and newer products be made to work together?" 
Although most hardware, software, and/or database upgrades offer
substantial benefits, many also include at least minor disadvan-
tages. According to Beiser, the key challenge is to "clearly
assess the strengths and weaknesses in the status quo, the value
of the enhancements offered and the impact of any negatives
associated with them." -- TR 

Nadeau, Michael. "When Worlds Collide" CD-ROM World 9(10) 
(November 1994):48-52. -- Nadeau explores the two worlds of 
CD-ROM and online services and the news ways in which they 
complement each other. In the early years of CD-ROM, these 
two worlds were often viewed as mutually exclusive. Today, 
CD-ROM is offered as a gateway to online services by a number 
of companies. CD-ROM can enhance text-based online services 
by providing rich multimedia content that would be expensive 
and intolerably slow to deliver over a modem. Touted as a 
perfect example of a CD-ROM/online product is Microsoft 
Complete Baseball. The CD-ROM almanac includes team and 
individual statistics while Microsoft provides daily online 
updates, strike-permitting. -- TR



General


"Cornell University's Albert R. Mann Library: A Prototype for 
Today's Electronic Library" Library Hi Tech 12(3) (1994):31-88. 
-- This special section of Library Hi Tech contains six articles 
that cover many of the aspects encountered in the metamorphosis 
from a traditional print-based "paradigm of the research library" 
to the emerging electronic library. As the first recipient of the 
ALA/Meckler "Library of the Future Award," the staff of Cornell's 
Mann Library is worthy of our attention. Specifically, this 
series includes articles on the full range of library operations, 
including public services, technical services, systems operations, 
preservation and collection development and their respective roles 
in the modern electronic library. -- DR



News Bits


For those who enjoy Wired magazine, rev up your WWW browsers 
and tune in to HotWired [http://www.hotwired.com/]. HotWired 
makes it clear however, that it is not just an online version 
of Wired magazine (that's found at [http://www.wired.com/]) and 
it justifies that statement by not duplicating content, and by 
taking full advantage of the WWW medium. Like Wired magazine, 
HotWired funds itself using the broadcast model, where it sells
advertising, which is posted at the top of its pages. So although
there is no fee, but you must register to become a member. Hot-
Wired is something of a cross between an online service and an 
online publishing forum. It includes a real-time chat area called 
The Piazza, and other content that follows the colorful, 
progressive tone set by Wired. By including some academic, as 
well as journalistic and commercial content, and free/subsidized 
access, HW poses an interesting working model for commercial 
ventures on the Internet. Since HotWired utilizes the latest 
technology, such as forms for registering and searching the content 
areas, you will need a WWW browser that supports forms at least 
(Mosaic for Mac 2.0.0 Alpha17 worked fine, available at 
[http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/MacMosaic/Alpha.html] -- RR
 


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Current Cites 5(11) (November 1994) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright (C) 1994 
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