198 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
198 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
_Current Cites_
|
|
Volume 9, no. 11
|
|
November 1998
|
|
The Library
|
|
University of California, Berkeley
|
|
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
|
|
ISSN: 1060-2356
|
|
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1998/cc98.9.11.html
|
|
|
|
Contributors:
|
|
|
|
Terry Huwe, Margaret Phillips, Richard Rinehart,
|
|
Roy Tennant, Jim Ronningen, Lisa Yesson
|
|
|
|
|
|
DIGITAL LIBRARIES
|
|
|
|
Duguid, Paul. "Information and Libraries" Red Rock Eater News Service
|
|
(November 17, 1998) (reposted to DIGLIB and archived at
|
|
http://listserv.nlc-bnc.ca/cgi-bin/ifla-lwgate.pl/DIGLIB/archives/digl
|
|
ib.log9811/date/article-39.html). - Duguid uses a question facing the
|
|
San Jose State University Academic Senate, regarding whether to merge
|
|
the university library with the city's public library, to address
|
|
broader issues related to both print and digital libraries. In
|
|
particular, he takes to task computer scientists who assume to know
|
|
what goes on in libraries while accepting millions of dollars to build
|
|
digital versions. But the main point he makes is that obscuring, or
|
|
allowing to remain obscured, the differences between information
|
|
needs, information seeking behavior, and the clienteles doing the
|
|
seeking, can only lead to disasters -- whether they are of the digital
|
|
or institutional kind. - RT
|
|
|
|
Nunberg, Geofrey. "Will Libraries Survive?" The American Prospect (41)
|
|
(November-December 1998): 16-23
|
|
(http://epn.org/prospect/41/41nunb.html). - The title of this piece is
|
|
provocative but misleading. Nunberg ends up addressing not so much
|
|
whether libraries will survive at all, but rather in what form. But
|
|
that is a minor quibble about an article that is thoughtful,
|
|
informative, historically accurate, and in the end, compelling. As
|
|
those of us involved with creating digital libraries are well aware,
|
|
it is a time-consuming and expensive undertaking. Nunberg is aware of
|
|
this, and is also aware of the hidden impacts of dropping computers
|
|
into public libraries and expecting the library budget to absorb the
|
|
costs of their care. So although the munificence of the Gates Library
|
|
Foundation in connecting public libraries to the Internet is welcomed,
|
|
it is important for us as a society to realize it is but a beginning
|
|
step. Nunberg uses as his historical parallel the donation of almost
|
|
2,000 public library buildings by Andrew Carnegie a hundred years ago.
|
|
Carnegie's donation was limited only to the physical facility, leaving
|
|
not one dime to stock it with anything worth reading. That American
|
|
communities eventually rose to the challenge of making libraries out
|
|
of the donated shells is a tribute to the capacity of American
|
|
citizens to realize the importance of such a cultural and intellectual
|
|
resource. Now, Nunberg asserts, we face no less of a challenge as a
|
|
society. We can either rise to the challenge of providing the needed
|
|
funds to stock our digital libraries, or fail to realize its
|
|
importance. - RT
|
|
|
|
Pack, Thomas and Jeff Pemberton. "Intranet Management, Content
|
|
Development and Digital Gift Shop: The Cutting-Edge Library at The
|
|
Atlanta Journal-Constitution" Online 22(6) (November/December
|
|
1998):16-24. - At first glance, the library for a daily newspaper
|
|
would seem to be a special case - too special to interest anyone
|
|
outside. However, there are lots of ideas here for exploiting the full
|
|
potential of networked information systems in any organization where
|
|
information is the product. The News Research Services (NRS) staff at
|
|
the Journal-Constitution have developed their intranet to put current
|
|
and archival files on the desktops in the newsroom, and trained
|
|
reporters and editors to do some searching, which leaves NRS staff
|
|
free to delve into lengthier or deadline-pressured research. The
|
|
corporate Web site has become a profit center for the company thanks
|
|
to the staff's creative arrangements for marketing the articles and
|
|
photos for which the paper holds copyright. While the article's focus
|
|
is on innovative new projects, there is also adequate description of
|
|
how the staff fulfills its traditional mission of fact-finding for the
|
|
writers. They seem to do a fine job of it, and use their
|
|
resourcefulness to provide background information through such media
|
|
as custom intranet pages full of relevant data for anticipated hot
|
|
topics. But this brings up a quibble: we never get to hear from the
|
|
end users. Throughout the article, there's plenty from NRS staff and
|
|
management about how well things are going, but nothing from the
|
|
reporters and their editors. I expect some boosterism from
|
|
publications like Online, where the editorial policy seems to be
|
|
"information professionals congratulating information professionals,"
|
|
but it's a lot more convincing when we're allowed to hear from the
|
|
people served by the information professionals too. - JR
|
|
|
|
ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING
|
|
|
|
Bray, Tim. "Stretching the Document Concept" Web Techniques 3(12)
|
|
(December 1998): 43-46. - According to Tim Bray, who should know, the
|
|
Extensible Markup Language (XML) blurs the boundary between documents
|
|
and data. This blurring, Bray reasonably asserts, will lead to
|
|
interesting cominglings of document-centric users like humanist
|
|
scholars with data-centric users such as management information
|
|
systems (MIS) geeks. While bringing these two camps together in the
|
|
same room may not lead to the same kind of cataclysmic event as the
|
|
joining of matter and anti-matter would, it nonetheless may be
|
|
interesting. Bray thinks it is both inevitable and good that
|
|
document-centric people and data-centric people will be forced to come
|
|
together to share a common vocabulary and some common tools. So do I.
|
|
In any case, this piece provides an interesting insight to a possible
|
|
watershed event that may slip past almost unnoticed by those too busy
|
|
watching the XML hype machine roll on. - RT
|
|
|
|
Soojung-Kim Pang, Alex. "The Work of the Encyclopedia in the Age of
|
|
Electronic Reproduction" First Monday 3 (9) (September 9, 1998)
|
|
(http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_9/pang/) - The author
|
|
explores how the advent of e-text literature affects the "craft" and
|
|
everyday work of editing. He focuses on the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
|
|
which has actively navigated from print, to CD-ROM and to the World
|
|
Wide Web. He asserts that the digitization of the encyclopedia has
|
|
affected the structure of articles, and that it also has begun to
|
|
affect the character of editorial work, the responsibilities of
|
|
editors, and their relationships with authors, animators, and others.
|
|
This is a useful exploration of how Net innovations affect other
|
|
professions besides libraries. Soojung-Kim Pang goes beyond the usual
|
|
analyses of the fate of linear narrative, and copyright. - TH
|
|
|
|
NETWORKS & NETWORKING
|
|
|
|
Bambury, Paul. "A Taxonomy of Internet Commerce" First Monday 3(10)
|
|
(October 5, 1998)
|
|
(http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_10/bambury/) - Bambury offers
|
|
a clarifying piece that de-mystifies the terminology of the interplay
|
|
between commerce and the Internet. He utilizes an "empirically derived
|
|
classification system" (or taxonomy) of existing Internet business
|
|
models. His taxonomy has two main branches: "transplanted real-world
|
|
business models" and "native Internet business models." After
|
|
comparing the two modes of description, he evaluates the role of
|
|
business, governments, regulation and ideology. He asserts these two
|
|
branches of Internet commerce are at odds, and may not be able to
|
|
co-exist indefinitely. The aggressive nature of the real-world
|
|
business model tends toward domination, whereas the native Internet
|
|
economy and culture is "largely free, disintermediated, deep-rooted,
|
|
ecological, decentralized, radical and politically sophisticated."
|
|
Most likely, one or the other will prevail -- though we can always
|
|
hope for a hybrid or new entry. - TH
|
|
|
|
Raymond, Eric S. "Homesteading the Noosphere" First Monday 3 (10)
|
|
(October 5, 1998)
|
|
(http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_10/raymond/) - Despite a
|
|
grandiose (and frankly Rheingoldian) title, this critique of "hacker"
|
|
culture is really a rather interesting article. Raymond compares the
|
|
so-called "gift economy" of the Internet with the belief system of
|
|
property rights. He argues that there is a contradiction between the
|
|
official ideology defined by open-source licenses and hacker culture.
|
|
He examines the "customs" that regulate the ownership and control of
|
|
open-source software, and suggests that they imply an "underlying
|
|
theory of property rights homologous to the Lockean theory of land
|
|
tenure." He concludes with an analysis of the implications and the
|
|
need for better conflict resolution tools. - TH
|
|
|
|
Schwartz, Alan and Simson Garfinkel. Stopping Spam: Stamping Out
|
|
Unwanted Email & News Postings. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly & Associates,
|
|
1998. - These days there are only two kinds of people: 1) those who
|
|
have been victims of spam (unwanted, mass-distributed messages), and
|
|
2) those who are not on the Internet. Of the latter category, many are
|
|
less than three years old or are in a coma, and can hardly be blamed
|
|
for not being victimized like the rest of us. But hold the phone. Now
|
|
help is here, albeit of the "help yourself" variety. That is, as this
|
|
book so completely documents, there is no silver bullet for slaying
|
|
spammers. Rather, there are a variety of tricks and techniques which
|
|
may render one somewhat spam-proof, but they will hardly rid the
|
|
universe of these vermin. But if that's all you're after, then go to
|
|
it. And as for those of us who may not wish to spend several days
|
|
setting up various barriers to block this garbage, the beginning of
|
|
this book is an amusing (in a twisted sort of way, perhaps) and
|
|
thorough historical account of spam, dating back to the 1970's (yes,
|
|
Virginia, the Internet is indeed at least that old). Given the size of
|
|
the Internet these days, if misery loves company we've never had it so
|
|
good. - RT
|
|
_________________________________________________________________
|
|
|
|
Current Cites 9(11) (November 1998) ISSN: 1060-2356
|
|
Copyright © 1998 by the Library, University of California,
|
|
Berkeley. All rights reserved.
|
|
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1998/cc98.9.11.html
|
|
|
|
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized bulletin
|
|
board/conference systems, individual scholars, and libraries.
|
|
Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collections at no
|
|
cost. This message must appear on copied material. All commercial use
|
|
requires permission from the editor
|
|
|
|
All product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
|
|
respective holders. Mention of a product in this publication does not
|
|
necessarily imply endorsement of the product.
|
|
|
|
To subscribe to the Current Cites distribution list, send the message
|
|
"sub cites [your name]" to listserv@library.berkeley.edu, replacing
|
|
"[your name]" with your name. To unsubscribe, send the message "unsub
|
|
cites" to the same address.
|
|
|
|
Editor: Teri Andrews Rinne, trinne@library.berkeley.edu, (510)
|
|
642-8173
|