textfiles/magazines/CURRENTCITIES/1996.7-3

                                   
                        _Current Cites_
                        Volume 7, no. 3
                           March 1996
                                    
                          The Library
               University of California, Berkeley
                  Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
                        ISSN: 1060-2356
 http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1996/cc96.7.3.html                
                             
			Contributors:
                                    
       	 Campbell Crabtree, John Ober, Margaret Phillips, 
       David Rez, Richard Rinehart, Teri Rinne, Roy Tennant


Editor's Note: Check out the new and improved search 
and retrieval capabilities on the Current Cites WWW 
entry page. This new method of searching the Current 
Cites archive retrieves individual citations, rather 
than entire issues. This enhancement was made possible 
thanks to Roy Tennant.  

Electronic Publishing 

Anderson, Greg, Rebecca Lasher, and Vicky Reich. "The 
Computer Science Technical Report (CS-TR) Project: 
A Pioneering Digital Library Project Viewed from a 
Library Perspective" Public Access Computer Systems 
Review 7(2) (1996). 
[http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v7/n2/ande7n2.html] 
-- Don't let the apparent focus of this article on 
computer science technical reports prevent you from 
reading this very informative description of a 
cutting-edge digital library project. The down-to-earth 
advice and information regarding production scanning, 
copyright issues, and other topics make this much more 
than simply another case history. Another thing that 
makes this article a must read is that it describes a 
*working* model for simultaneous searching of a 
physically distributed archive -- a model that is an 
essential one for creating digital libraries that 
encompass many collections and yet appear as one to 
the user. If you wish to know more, the article 
references have a number of good pointers, to which 
I would add the article in D-Lib  Magazine "Creating a 
Networked Computer Science Technical Report Library" 
by James Davis 
[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september95/09davis.html], 
which provides more technical detail. -- RT
 
Flohr, Udo. "Put the Space in CyberSpace" BYTE 21(3) 
(March 1996): 61-64. VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling 
Language) is an ascii language for describing space 
and objects to a computer. VRML documents are beginning 
to live on the Web alongside, and linked to HTML pages.
This article briefly describes VRML, gives a code sample 
and lists addresses for VRML sites for obtaining the 
available viewers and tools needed to create VRML. 
Everything you need to start exploring the virtual
worlds on the Internet except the bandwidth and high-end 
workstation. -- CJC

Multimedia and Hypermedia

Leary, Pippa. "Living in Sim" 21.C Scanning the Future: A 
Magazine of Culture, Technology, and Science (January 1996): 
20-25. [issn 1035-6754] -- Set apart from the host of 
multimedia CD-ROM titles (mostly combat games) aimed at 
teenagers, there exists a realm of titles in the multimedia 
CD-ROM industry that is a combination of game, music CD, and 
electronic novel. Pippa explores this niche, pioneered by 
Inscape Inc. with their title, "The Residents Freak Show," as 
most faithfully fulfilling the potential of this postmodern 
media without resorting to shoveling Hollywood content or 
vapid video games into it. This exploration into interactivity 
and interface will be useful for designing an engaging 
multimedia project of any type. The magazine also explores a 
number of other intriguing topics, from the longevity of media 
to the cultural nostalgia for rust in the face of ever-clean 
electrons. -- RR

Salamone, Salvatore. "Make Multimedia Happen" BYTE 21(3)
(March 1996): 65-90. -- A trio of articles describe concerns 
facing those planning multimedia projects. "What's the Story" 
by Salvatore Salamone looks at content development and 
traditional storyboarding techniques and evaluates multimedia 
storyboarding tools. "Multimedia over the Network" by Nathan J.
Muller is a technical view of competing datalink and network 
technologies for delivering time-sensitive multimedia content 
over LANs, WANs and the Internet. "Learn the Lingo" by Robert 
A. Delrossi describes the capabilities of and learning curves 
associated with multimedia development tools. Not to be 
overlooked in assessing the costs of undertaking a multimedia 
project are content development and the use of copyrighted
materials, as well as the software. -- CJC
 
Weinman, Linda. "Video Effects Software" New Media 6(4) (March
11, 1996): 59-68. [issn 1060-7188] -- Many of the best video 
effects seen in movies or television are not produced in 
high-end analog systems, nor in Lucas Studios, but on mid-range 
computer video editing workstations. While Hollywood still 
employs the former for many of the most spectacular special 
effects, the role is increasing for the small design house or 
in-house developer. This article is a thorough exploration of 
the possibilities, comparing current software packages for 
video effects, with implications for producers of digital 
content as well as those who re-print to film or video. -- RR


Networks and Networking

Halfhill, Tom R. "Inside the Web PC" Byte 21(3) (March 1996)
:44-56. [http://www.byte.com/art/9603/sec7/sec7.htm] -- The 
idea of a "Web PC" is a relatively new concept. Yet in less 
than a year it is one of the most talked about ideas in the 
computing industry. These PC's promise to be inexpensive 
($500 or so), flexible and powerful enough to compete with
today's established computing hardware. Four technologies--
fast and affordable network connections, fast and affordable 
microprocessors, platform-independent programming languages 
and lightweight operating systems--are key to the success of 
the Web PC. If these technologies coalesce the Web PC will 
likely become an attractive computing resource in markets 
where online computing is increasingly important but current
hardware costs prohibit growth. -- DR

Kimmel, Stacey. "Robot-Generated Databases on the World 
Wide Web" DATABASE 19(1) (February/March 1996): 41-49. 
-- This article serves as a good introduction to robot-built 
Web databases as well as a source of more detailed information 
about specific search tools. But its usefulness is marred 
slightly by some currency problems (No mention of the current 
best search tool Alta Vista at http://altavista.digital.com,
old addresses for some tools, etc.) that no doubt are the 
fault of a long publishing timeline for this print publication 
(publishers take note!). I also would have preferred leaving 
out some of the less useful tools entirely, which seem to be 
more of a waste of time these days than anything. But the 
in-depth information about tools such as Lycos and Open Text, 
as well as the excellent bibliography (including pointers to 
some of Martijn Koster's essential resources on Web robots) 
make this article a good read for Web searchers. -- RT
 
Kunze, John A. and Brian N. Warling. "Recent Developments 
in GALEN II: Evolution of a Digital Library for the Health 
Sciences" D-Lib Magazine (March 1996) 
[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march96/03galen2.html] -- A brief 
but interesting report on using the Web Common Gateway 
Interface (CGI) to provide Web client access to a Z39.50 
database. Other programs create HTML response pages 
on-the-fly and convert MARC records retrieved from the 
database into HTML suitable for display or text for 
downloading. The article left me wanting much more, 
especially the source code for the programs to which 
they refer, but I imagine that personal contact would be 
a better way to request such things anyway. -- RT

Merrill, Deane W., et al. "1990 U.S. Census LOOKUP: Mining a 
Mountain of Data" D-Lib Magazine (March 1996)
[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march96/merrill/03merrill.html] 
-- The subtitle is descriptive of what this article is about. 
There is a "mother lode" of information deeply buried within 
a mountain of U.S. Census data. What this article presents 
and discusses is an important project to make this resource 
easily available to World Wide Web users through an easy to 
use interface. -- RT
 
Notess, Greg R. "News Resources on the World Wide Web" 
DATABASE 19(1)(February/March 1996): 12-20. -- A good 
overview of Web news resources, with all the appropriate 
pointers and liberally sprinkled with screenshots. Notess 
also gives some good advice regarding the best sources to 
use for different types of news. The one unfortunate aspect 
to this article is that the publication delay of print 
articles has already dated this piece. The announcement of 
the PointCast Network [http://www.pointcast.com/] has 
introduced a new paradigm for getting news from the Web, 
and Notess' article does not mention it (through no fault of 
his own). -- RT

Robinson, Kara L. "People Talking to People: Making the Most 
of Internet Discussion Groups" Online 20(1) (January/February 
1996): 26-32. -- For anyone that has ever been confused about 
how to deal with e-conferences (known to many as listservs) 
this piece is a wonderful resource for information and 
reference. Robinson provides an overview of e-conferencing
and then offers strategies for discovering and choosing 
e-conferences that fit your interests. She details protocols 
that drive the e-conference software and proposes tactics for 
coping with the escalation of e-mail that follows. -- DR

Strom, David. "Top Ten Interesting Trends on and Around the 
World-Wide Web" ConneXions 10(2) (February 1996): 9-13. 
[http://www.strom.com/pubwork/webtrends.html] -- An amusing 
piece that also has the added benefit of being insightful
and informative. Throw in the pointers in the references 
(to both digital and wood pulp sources) and you have a 
winner. -- RT


Optical Disc Technology

Beiser, Karl. "A CD-ROM Spin on the World Wide Web" 
DATABASE 19(1) (February/March 1996): 97-100. 
-- Predicting that the Web may be more significant as
a medium of information, promotion, and user support
for CD-ROM technology than as a replacement, Beiser
outlines a variety of Web sites likely to be useful 
to library and information professionals who work with
the technology. Check out Beiser's "Libraries & CD-ROM"
web site [http://www.state.me.us/msl/cdrom.htm] to link
to the most valuable CD-ROM sites on the web. Among the
categories covered: hardware, user groups, conferences,
publications, vendors, standards, compression 
technologies, CD-R and PhotoCD, and search engines and
strategies. -- TR 


General
 
Shapiro, Jeremy J. and Shelley K. Hughes. "Information 
Technology as a Liberal Art: Enlightenment Proposals 
for a New Curriculum" EDUCOM Review 31(2) (March/April 
1996): 31-35. [http://www.educom.edu/educom.review/
review.96/mar.apr/shapiro.html] -- Shapiro and Hughes 
argue for a broad definition of information literacy, to 
encompass not just the ability to use information 
technology (which they call tool literacy) but also 
another six types of information literacy: resource 
literacy, social-structural literacy, research literacy, 
publishing literacy, emerging technology literacy, and 
critical literacy. This broad view of information literacy 
forms the foundation from which they promote the 
development of an information literacy curriculum that is 
thoughtful and multi-dimensional. -- RT

Brook, James & Ian Boal, editors. _Resisting the Virtual 
Life: The Culture and Politics of Information_ San 
Francisco: City Lights Books, 1995. [ISBN 0-87286-299-2]  
-- This collection of essays examines the effect of 
technology on culture and on the human mind. It is critical 
in the sense of inquiry, not of judgment (though informed 
judgment is often be the conclusion), and many of the writers 
you may recognize as harbingers of new technology in the 
areas of library science, the arts, and, of course literary 
theory. The book is divided into sections discussing 
technology as it relates to the community, the body, work, 
and daily life. -- RR
 

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Current Cites 7(3) (March 1996) ISSN: 1060-2356 
Copyright (C) 1996 by the Library, University of 
California, Berkeley.  All rights reserved.

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