198 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
198 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
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_Current Cites_
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Volume 10, no. 1
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January 1999
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The Library
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University of California, Berkeley
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Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
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ISSN: 1060-2356
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1999/cc99.10.1.html
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Contributors:
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Terry Huwe, Margaret Phillips,
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Roy Tennant, Jim Ronningen, Lisa Yesson
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Editor's Note: Commencing with our tenth year of publication, Current
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Cites will no longer use subject/category headings. As the world of
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information technology has evolved over the past ten years, it is
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becoming increasingly difficult, and often times impossible, to assign
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our citations into one distinct category. More often than not,
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citations touch upon many categories; for example, a digital library
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article will often discuss electronic publishing and networking issues
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as well. We encourage the use of our Bibliography-On-Demand service,
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(http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/bibondemand.cgi) which
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enables readers to construct subject-specific bibliographies from the
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Current Cites database of bibliographic citations.
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_________________________________________________________________
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Buchanan, Leigh. "The Smartest Little Company in America" Inc. 21(1)
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(January 1999) (http://www.inc.com/incmagazine/archives/01990421.html)
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- I recommend the entire January issue of Inc. because it reflects the
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business world's concern with information overload and how to handle
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it; this particular article is cited because librarians need to know
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when they're being appreciated. Amid editorial comments about "taming
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the info beast" and "the unbearable glutness of being" we have this
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profile of a corporate librarian who is highly valued for her ability
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to confront the chaos and extract what's valuable. CEO Duncan
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Highsmith meets regularly with the librarian, Lisa Guedea Carreno, to
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draw upon her mastery of information systems and, more importantly,
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her ability to synthesize and make cognitive connections in ways that
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no software can. Highsmith felt that he had missed golden
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opportunities through ignorance of coming trends, and he uses the
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meetings with his librarian to ensure that never happens again.
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Developers of "push" personal information programs take note: this
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woman's skills are the yardstick against which your products will be
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measured. - JR
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Chilvers, Alison and John Feather. "The Management of Digital Data: A
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Metadata Approach" The Electronic Library 16 (6) (December, 1998):
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365-372. - If you're concerned and frustrated about the preservation
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of digital data, Chilvers and Feather remind you that you are not
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alone. This article is a preliminary report from their research on the
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role of metadata in helping organizations effectively preserve data.
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The authors use a case study approach, conducting semi-structured
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interviews with key players in the information community (including
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major data creators, and users in the science and financial services
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industries, along with libraries and archives). Not surprisingly, the
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initial interviews reveal that organizations face many challenges as
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they attempt to achieve long-term preservation of digital data. With
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little research on the longterm preservation of many digital record
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types, some key concerns include the variety of metadata formats, the
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prevalence of embryonic, fragmentary and variable organizational
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policies, and the lack of trust in 3rd party preservation. Their
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research also highlights the increased importance of selection
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mechanisms for long-term preservation. While the authors note that
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organizational goals drive the parameters for the preservation of
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digital data, they stress the need for a coordinated approach to
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metadata (or "super-metadata") which is the ongoing subject of their
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research. - LY
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Doran, Kelly. "Metadata for a Corporate Intranet" Online 23(1)
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(January 1999) :42-50. - Much of what we read about metadata, at least
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here in the groves of academe, is on the "megameta" level - policy and
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standards with a large scope. In contrast, this article is about an
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application of metadata to solve a common real-life problem: finding
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anything in an organization's forest of online resources, which
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sprouted haphazardly over many years. The author is an Electronic
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Information Specialist at Weyerhauser, which has thousands of
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employees scattered around the United States and Canada. She describes
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the development of a plan, a controlled vocabulary and a metadata
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generator program which data owners use to tag their documents with
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the HTML <META> tag (not XML; she explains why in a sidebar). Though
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the text of this article is not offered at the Online website, two
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related ones are offered there and in the magazine: "Metadata:
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Cataloging by Any Other Name"
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(http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL1999/milstead1.html) and
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"Metadata Projects and Standards"
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(http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL1999/milstead1.html#projects).
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Kudos to the editors of Online for including three articles on
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metadata in a special section devoted to intranets, because it makes
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the point that without data about your data, you're lost in the woods
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without a compass. - JR
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Guernsey, Lisa. "California State U. Tries to Create a New Way to Buy
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Online Journals" Chronicle of Higher Education 65 (20) (January 22,
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1999): A18. - This article describes California State University's
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statewide initiative to create a digital library of electronic
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journals. CSU has announced a request for proposals to attract the
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attention of large publishers who will bid on the opportunity to
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provide e-journals. Although CSU hope to be able to "pick and choose,"
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there remains some concern about blanket coverage. For example, even
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if all offerings from UMI, Gale and Information Access Co. were
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included, a full 30 percent of the university's journal titles would
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not be covered. To fill the gap, many smaller licenses would be
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needed. - TH
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Lankes, R. David Building and Maintaining Internet Information
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Services: K-12 Digital Reference Services Syracuse, NY: ERIC
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Clearinghouse on Information & Technology, 1998. - This volume is the
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doctoral dissertation of the co-founder of the famous "AskERIC"
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service (see http://ericir.sunsite.syr.edu/), David Lankes. Lankes
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has been involved with providing digital reference service for some
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time, and therefore is no stranger to the issues involved. But the
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usefulness of this volume does not rest on his experiences alone, but
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the accumulated experiences of many individuals and organizations
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presently offering digital reference services. Lankes thoroughly
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surveyed the field, interviewed the practitioners, and mapped their
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process of question answering. These models of interaction were then
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boiled down to a standard model for this kind of service. This
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thorough and thoughtful treatment of this topic will no doubt form the
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foundation of the literature in this emerging field for some time to
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come. - RT
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Lipow, Anne G. "Serving the Remote User: Reference Service in the
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Digital Environment" Proceedings of the Ninth Australasian
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Information Online & On Disc Conference and Exhibition, Sydney, 19-21
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January 1999
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(http://www.csu.edu.au/special/online99/proceedings99/200.htm). - If
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you are a librarian, read this keynote speech. If have anything to do
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with providing library reference service, commit it to memory. Lipow
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makes a compelling case for rethinking how we provide assistance to
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library users, and advocates that we should provide reference service
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to information seekers "at the place where they are when they have a
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question." The fact that information seekers are increasingly
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somewhere outside a library when they get stuck is the problem, and
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Lipow asserts that we must get better -- much better -- at serving
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their needs. Lipow's perceptions of the problems and the possible
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solutions she describes have partly emerged from an effort spearheaded
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by the Library of Congress to address the issue of providing
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appropriate reference service in a digital environment. Even if you
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don't agree with her suggested solutions for providing "in-your-face
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reference service" you owe it to yourself and the profession to
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consider carefully the implications of not implementing what she (and
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others) suggest. I have, and I can assure you it isn't pretty. - RT
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Proceedings of the Ninth Australasian Information Online & On Disc
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Conference and Exhibition, Sydney, 19-21 January 1999
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(http://www.csu.edu.au/special/online99/proceedings99/). - The
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proceedings of this conference are a treasure-trove of reports on
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interesting projects and think-pieces on important topics (see the
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citation in this issue for "Serving the Remote User"). Australia is
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blessed with a cadre of professional librarians on the cutting edge of
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technological change, and these proceedings exhibit some small part of
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what they are accomplishing, often with very little attention from the
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rest of the world. You will also find some presentations from token
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Americans as well (Anne Lipow, Peter Lyman, Greg Notess, Marydee
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Ojala, and others). - RT
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Stalder, Felix. "Beyond Portals and Gifts: Towards a Bottom-up
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Net-economy" First Monday 4 (1) (January 4, 1999)
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(http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_1/stalder/) - Stalder argues
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that the Internet is a victim of its own promise: the liberation of
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information. He views the vaguely utopian rhetoric that drives much
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popular thought about the Internet as "a strange hybrid of 60's
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progressive libertarianism and 90's aggressive venture capitalism."
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The slogan "information wants to be free" still shapes the dynamics of
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online content consumption and production, which has caused Internet
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portals to shift their revenue strategy from "selling to the audience"
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to "selling the audience." Moreover, much of the activity that occurs
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on the Internet is non-economic, such as providing directions or
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cooking recipes; Stalder regards this kind of activity as
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fundamentally social, and so it eludes economic formulae and notions.
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- TH
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_________________________________________________________________
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Current Cites 10(1) (January 1999) ISSN: 1060-2356
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Copyright © 1999 by the Library, University of California,
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Berkeley. All rights reserved.
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1999/cc99.10.1.html
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Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized bulletin
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board/conference systems, individual scholars, and libraries.
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Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collections at no
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cost. This message must appear on copied material. All commercial use
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requires permission from the editor
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All product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
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respective holders. Mention of a product in this publication does not
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necessarily imply endorsement of the product.
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To subscribe to the Current Cites distribution list, send the message
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"sub cites [your name]" to listserv@library.berkeley.edu, replacing
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cites" to the same address.
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Editor: Teri Andrews Rinne, trinne@library.berkeley.edu, (510)
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642-8173
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