183 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
183 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
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_Current Cites_
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Volume 10, no. 6
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June 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/cc99.10.6.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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ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access. Task Force on
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Metadata Summary Report American Library Association, Association for
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Library Collections and Technical Services, Chicago: June 1999.
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(http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/tf-meta3.html). - This
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is the summary report of the American Library Association's ALCTS Task
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Force on Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access relating to
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four out of five of its charges (the fifth will be considered in light
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of the findings of of the first four). The charges consist of: 1)
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analyzing the resource description needs of libraries, 2) building a
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conceptual map of the resource description landscape and developing
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models for using metadata both inside and outside the library
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community, 3) devising a definition of metadata and investigating the
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interoperability of newly emerging metadata schemes with the
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cataloging rules and MARC format, and 4) recommending ways in which
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libraries may best incorporate the use of metadata schemes into
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current library methods. The fifth charge not covered in this report
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is "Recommending, as needed, rule revision to enable interoperability
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of cataloging (with AACR2) with metadata schemes." - RT
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Bosak, Jon. "XML Ubiquity and the Scholarly Community" Computers and
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the Humanities 33 (1-2)(April 1999):199-206. - This special issue of
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Computers and the Humanities provides selected papers from the 10th
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Anniversary Conference of the Text Encoding Intiative (TEI), a widely
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accepted standard interchange format for textual data. There's a
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little something for everyone in this issue from the history of TEI
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and the basics of XML, SGML and HTML, to current issues and trends for
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the TEI research community. The volume concludes with Jon Bosak's
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closing keynote address on the implications of XML for the scholarly
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community. In his conversational remarks, Bosak asserts that the
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promise of XML (extensible, human-readable, open, easy to use
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standards for providing content) may finally be possible because the
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goals of the scholarly community are becoming congruent with the
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incipient requirements of industry and commerce. In other words, the
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scholarly community will finally be able to deliver desired data, take
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advantage of much cheaper tools, provide richer experiences with
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scholarly publications, link databases and hire people who can be
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easily trained to make this happen. But Bosak cautions that to reach
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this promised land, the academic community must be ever vigilant about
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standards, and "shove vendors forward" who begin to stray off the open
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standards path. - LY
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The Eighth International World Wide Web Conference Toronto (May 11-14,
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1999) (http://www8.org/fullpaper.html). - For those unfamiliar with
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it, the International World Wide Web Conference is for Web
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researchers, mostly from universities and the private sector.
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Therefore, this collection of papers consists mostly of research
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findings regarding either cutting edge technologies (some of which may
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never go into production), how people are using the Internet, or new
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uses of existing capabilities. Although many of the papers will be too
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narrowly focused or impractical for those using and maintaining web
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sites on a daily basis, there are nonetheless some nuggets here for
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virtually anyone interested in web issues. - RT
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Pear, Robert. "NIH Plan For Journal On the Web Draws Fire" The New
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York Times (June 8, 1999): D1. - Harold Varmus, director of the
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National Institutes of Health, has proposed an electronic publishing
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operation called E-biomed that would allow NIH-sponsored scientists to
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disclose and disseminate the results of their research on the
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Internet. Publishing online would accelerate the exchange of
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biomedical research as well as increase the number of people with
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access to this information. Despite the fact that electronic
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publication of scientific research is already being done by many
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established scientific journals and through the Los Alamos National
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Labs which publishes physics and math pre-prints on its server
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(http://xxx.lanl.gov/), there is opposition to the NIH plan.
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Predictably, critics (mostly publishers and scientific societies) say
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that electronic publishing would allow scientists to bypass print
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journals thus circumventing the peer review process; it would also
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endanger print journals, they say, because most journals have a policy
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against publishing work that has been published elsewhere. The editor
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of the New England Journal of Medicine fears that if subscribers could
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get all their research free on the Internet, they would no longer
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subscribe to the print journal. The NIH counters that, as a
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publically-supported institution, they have an obligation to provide
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access to their information as quickly and inexpensively as possible.
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Furthermore, E-biomed would have a governing board of scientists,
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editors and computer experts who would develop rules of operation for
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the site. - MP
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Petrazzini, Ben and Mugo Kibati. "The Internet in Developing
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Countries" Communications of the ACM 42(6) (June 1999)
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(http://www.acm.org/pubs/articles/journals/cacm/1999-42-6/p31-petrazzi
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ni/p31-petrazzini.pdf). - For most of the world, Internet access is a
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rare and costly thing, and this article describes the current problems
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and future challenges for Internet growth outside of North America and
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Europe. Some topics addressed are the lack of low-cost regional IP
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backbones (e.g. monthly charges for circuits between Asia-Pacific
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countries are much higher than monthly charges between those countries
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and the U.S.), the limited availability of local call rates for dialup
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services, and of course the inescapable facts of poverty and
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purchasing power (in Ghana, an account with Africa Online costs $50
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per month, which is almost twice the monthly income of most Ghanians).
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As is often the case with the CACM, our cited article is part of a
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valuable special section; in this case the section is titled "Emerging
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Internet Infrastructures Worldwide." In it are articles on making the
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Internet less U.S.-centric, net development and control in China,
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India and Haiti, deploying wireless data systems in Kenya and
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Thailand, and commentary on the potential global impact of the
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Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). - JR
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Russell, Kelly and Derek Sergeant. The Cedars Project: Implementing a
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Model for Distributed Digital Archives" RLG DigiNews 3(3) (June
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15,1999) (http://www.rlg./org/preserve/diginews/diginews3.3html). -
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The CEDARS Project (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/) was chartered by
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the UK Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib)
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(http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/ ) to investigate issues
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regarding the long-term preservation of digital materials. Their work
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has focused on trying to develop a model for a distributed archival
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information system, based on the idea of "packages". They propose
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three types of packages: submission, archival, and dissemination. A
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digital object would be submitted to a repository as a submission
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package, which would then be processed for inclusion in the archive as
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an archival information package. For online delivery to users, a
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dissemination information package may be required. For example, a
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collection of images stored in TIFF format may need to have JPEG
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versions for online use. The dissemination information package would
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contain those delivery versions of the archival images. - RT
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Stephenson, Neal. In the Beginning was the Command Line
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(http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html). - This longish (207Kb,
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59 page, freely downloadable in PC Zip or Mac Stuffit) essay can be
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summarized as an exploration of how we relate to operating systems and
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interfaces, but that doesn't do justice to the humor, tangential
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comments and insights which make this a great summer read for anyone
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interested in computers. The author is an experienced programmer whose
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first novel, Snow Crash, is a computer geek fave and whose latest is
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partially about cryptography. He's been intimate with Unix and Linux,
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Windows and the Mac and Be operating systems; his metaphors for those
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systems and the cultures that have grown up around them gave this
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reader many little epiphanies. (The car metaphor: the Mac OS is a
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sleek but untinkerably sealed European sedan, Windows is a hulking,
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unreliable station wagon that everyone buys because everyone else is
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buying it, Be is a Batmobile and Linux is a state-of-the-art tank
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available at a "dealership" consisting of yurts, tepees and RVs with
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salespeople who are giving it away and will come fix it for free). The
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essay is not just a bunch of cleverness - it's didactic and
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contentious. One of Stephenson's main arguments is that computer users
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have become much too GUI'd away from a real understanding of how their
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computers work. It's a convincing case made by a guy with a technical
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background and the imagination to come up with a good analogy between
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HTML and Ronald Reagan broadcasting a baseball game from a windowless
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room. - JR
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_________________________________________________________________
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Current Cites 10(6) (June 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/cc99.10.6.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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"[your name]" with your name. To unsubscribe, send the message "unsub
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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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