208 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
208 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
_Current Cites_
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Volume 10, no. 5
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May 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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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1999/cc99.10.5.html
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Contributors:
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Terry Huwe, Margaret Phillips, Rick Rinehart,
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Jim Ronningen, Roy Tennant, Lisa Yesson
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Bosak, Jon and Tim Bray. "XML and the Second-Generation Web"
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Scientific American (May 1999)
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(http://www.sciam.com/1999/0599issue/0599bosak.html). - Two of the
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foremost authorities on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) have
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teamed up to provide a high-level overview of what it is and why it
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represents the next generation of the Web. You won't be able to create
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many XML documents based on what you learn here, but you will be able
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to use it to help explain XML and why it is so important to those who
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haven't run into it before. My one minor objection is the glibness
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with which they predict an "astonishing Internet growth rate" for the
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Resource Description Framework (RDF), which I think is being almost
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irresponsibly over-optimistic for a standard that appears to be about
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as fun as pulling teeth with pliers to implement. But chalk that up to
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a difference of opinion and you have an effective and authoritative
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introduction to this technology. I wouldn't drop it on my mother, but
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many of my colleagues should read it. - RT
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Coffman, Steve. "Reference as Others Do It" American Libraries 30(5)
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(May 1999): 54-56. - If I were you, I'd keep my eyes on this guy
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(Steve Coffman). Last month I reviewed an article of his that used an
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existing commercial system (Amazon.com) as an example of what
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libraries could collectively achieve (see Building Earth's Largest
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Library: Driving Into the Future"). Now he's at it again. Only this
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time he investigates customer call centers for what we may be able to
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learn about providing library reference service. Customer call centers
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typically have centralized staff, interactive voice response systems,
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automated call distribution, question analysis techniques,
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sophisticated software support, and training and monitoring. There are
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obviously differences between the mission and goals of customer call
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centers and library reference services, but there are nonetheless
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lessons that can be learned from this comparison. Coffman draws out
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some of those lessons and challenges us to rethink how we provide
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reference service in our libraries. - RT
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Everett-Church, Ray. "Why Spam is a Problem" OnTheInternet 5(3)
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(May/June 1999): 16-21. - At first I thought I didn't need this
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article to tell me why spam (unsolicited commercial email) is a
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problem -- I already know it is from personal experience (as do you,
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no doubt). But a quick glance at the piece showed me to be wrong.
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Everett-Church outlines six specific reasons why spam is a serious
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problem. And annoyance isn't one of them (I guess my list would have
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seven). His reasons are: cost shifting (making others pay your
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advertising costs, such as Internet service provider storage and
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delivery costs), fraud (in order to bypass spam filters, spammers will
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often take on other identities), theft (in as much as you may be
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paying the delivery or storage costs on their behalf), harm to the
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marketplace (a flood of messages places a load on the entire system),
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consumer perception (the annoyance and frustration caused by spam have
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caused consumers to view any request of their email address, even by
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legitimate businesses, with suspicion), and global implications (and
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here is where he gets fairly far afield, but the idea here is that the
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excesses of unscrupulous marketers will damage the growth of free
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speech and democracy around the world). Like I said, I'm already
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convinced that spam is a problem, but gosh, I guess I never knew just
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how much. An accompanying sidebar on spam law provides some basic
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information on recent legal developments and some useful links. - RT
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Garman, Nancy, ed. "Special Search Engine Section" Online 23(3) (May,
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1999) Miller, Kathy, managing ed. "Electronic Searching Tools and
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Methods in Flux" Computers in Libraries 19(5) (May, 1999)
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(http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/may/cilmag.htm) - Like the little
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flowers that bloom in the spring, bits of good search advice seem to
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be popping up all over. A bunch of research and ideas is bundled into
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these two themed issues, each with a slightly different focus: in
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Online, the emphasis is on understanding the workings of search
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engines for the benefit of both Web searchers and Webmasters, and in
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CIL we have search strategies for librarians working in our usual "yes
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there's the Web but that's not all there is" environment. For example,
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go to Online to delve into topics like results ranking and natural
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language processing, and CIL for more Webology plus articles about
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online catalogs and mental models for searching. By the way, after
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enjoying these big bouquets of info on the subject, go check out
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Search Engine Watch (http://searchenginewatch.com/) if you haven't
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before. The periodical literature may blossom and die away again, but
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this spot is consistent and current. - JR
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McKay, Sharon Cline. "Accessing Electronic Journals" Database 22 (2)
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(April/May 1999): 17-23.
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(http://www.onlineinc.com/database/DB1999/mckay4.html) - If you have
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been charged with the daunting task of leading your organization
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through the maze of the electronic journal (e-journal) world <20> fear is
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not an unfounded response. While this article may not completely ease
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your anxiety or answer all your questions, it should help anticipate a
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few unexpected issues in your decision making. The initiated may not
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find too many insights here, but McKay does make some good points on
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reporting considerations and provides a brief profile of services from
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major subscription agencies. She also predicts that e-journals will
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eventually be ordered through a single subscription agent, like print
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journals today. Hopefully this will be good news to information
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professionals, as well as to subscription agencies such as the
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author's. - LY
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Members of the Clever Project. "Hypersearching the Web" Scientific
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American (June 1999)
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(http://www.sciam.com/1999/0699issue/0699raghavan.html). - This is a
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fascinating article on how research scientists are trying to do a
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better job of providing search tools for the Web. An IBM research team
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called the Clever Project is using mathematical analysis of links to
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identify Web sites that are "authorites" (the best sources of
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information) and "hubs" (collections of links to those locations) for
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any particular query. Also described briefly is similar work
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undertaken at Stanford University, which has resulted in the Google
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Web search engine. - RT
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Nardi, Bonnie A., and O'Day, Vickie. "Information Ecologies: Using
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Technology with Heart." Special Issue. First Monday 4 (5) (May 3,
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1999) (http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_5/nardi_contents.html).
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- First Monday offers substantial excerpts from Nardi and O'Day new
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book, published by MIT Press in January 1999 under the same name. The
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authors argue persuasively that "the common rhetoric about technology
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falls into two extreme categories: uncritical acceptance or blanket
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rejection." Such extreme positions leave poor choices for action and
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critical thinking about what we really want from technology. They
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sustain the myth that whatever technological changes come along must
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be accepted out of hand. Nardi and O'Day go on to stake out a "middle
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ground" where managers, technologists and plain old folks might build
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a better awareness of the complex, "organic" nature of both technology
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and information resources. The chapters excerpted here do not cover
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librarians, but in the book, an entire chapter is devoted to
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librarians and the library as an "information ecology." This article
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(and the full book) should be required reading for any information
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specialist who is concerned about the impact of technology. - TH
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Sperberg-McQueen, C.M. and B. Tommie Usdin, editors. Markup Languages
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MIT Press, ISSN 1099-6621
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(http://mitpress.mit.edu/journal-home.tcl?issn=10996621). - The first
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and second issues (Winter 1999, Spring 1999) of this new journal
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demonstrate a very useful resource for anyone managing information
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which uses SGML, XML, or may be deployed on the Web<65>which means many
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professionals in information science today. This journal has articles
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from international authors, and aims at an intermediate to advanced
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reader. The journal contains several articles per issue, along with
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book and article reviews. Articles range from the theoretical ("SGML
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for electronic publishing at a technical society: Expectation meets
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reality" by Sally Fahrenholz-Mann in issue 2) to the practical ("A new
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generation of tools for SGML" by R.W. Matzen in issue 1). High quality
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printing and helpful (essential?) illustrations round out the utility
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of this publication. - RR
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Tyckoson, David A. "What's Right with Reference" American Libraries
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30(5) (May 1999): 57-63. - In this piece, Tyckoson revisits the
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seminal article on modern library reference service by Bill Miller,
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"What's Wrong with Reference: Coping with Success and Failure at the
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Reference Desk" (American Libraries, May 1984, p. 303-306; 321-322).
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Tyckoson notes that the problems remain, and in fact may be even more
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true now than they were then. But he also casts a critical eye at the
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various attempts to solve these problems over the intervening years,
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which he asserts have largely failed. After running through each
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attempted reform and why it has failed, his conclusion is that
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reference service as we know it isn't broken <20> just under-supported.
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Give us more support, he says, and get out of the way. - RT
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Young, Jeffrey. "A Yale Professor's Software Aims to Bring Order to
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Your Hard Drive." Chronicle of Higher Education (May 21, 1999). - Yale
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University computer science professor's new operating system, called
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Lifestreams, has been reported on by Cites in the past (see
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/bibondemand.cgi?query=lifestr
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eams). Now, Gelertner is ready to go to market with a commercial
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product. Lifestreams offers users a visually-oriented display of files
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on their hard drives, eliminating the requirement of knowing directory
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paths. The visual appearance is strikingly similar to what Gopher on
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Macintosh looked like seven years ago, but this program is far more
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powerful and flexible. Lifestreams "rests on top" of MS Windows and
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lets users organize files and information in very personal and
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idiosyncratic ways, yet promises quick retrieval by weaving disparate
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items together by idea, theme, data bit or other indicators. "I don't
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ever want to see a directory again," explains Gelertner. The crucible
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of the marketplace will help determine if average users share
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Gelertner's wish. - TH
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_________________________________________________________________
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Current Cites 10(5) (May 1999) ISSN: 1060-2356
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Copyright (c) 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/cc99.10.5.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 me ssage
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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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