221 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
221 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
Current Cites
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Volume 12, no. 8, August 2001
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Edited by Roy Tennant
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The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
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ISSN: 1060-2356 - http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2001/cc01.12.8.html
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Contributors: Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Margaret Gross, Terry Huwe, Shirl Kennedy
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, Leo Robert Klein, Jim Ronningen, Roy Tennant
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Adra, Eytan, and Huberman, Bernardo A. "A Market for Secrets." First Monday 6
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(8) (August 6, 2001) (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_8/adar/). - The
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authors describe a new kind of electronic system for private data that
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guarantees levels of privacy, anonymity and control for individuals. The unique
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element in their strategy is a means of maintaining privacy while introducing
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the capability for commercial groups to mine information and automatically pay
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individuals for their data. The idea depends on a novel procedure that enables
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data miners to contact the data owners anonymously. The technological platform
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is another bold attempt to create market mechanisms for consumer data while
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guaranteeing acceptable levels of privacy. - TH
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Bryar, J.V. (Jack) Taxonomies: the Value of Organized Business Knowledge (http:
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//www.newsedge.com/materials/whitepapers/taxonomies.pdf). This document is a
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white paper prepared for NewsEdge Corporation, an information provider based in
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Burlington,MD. Recently NewsEdge has been acquired by The Thomson Corporation.
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Taxonomies is a document developed as a commercial pitch for Newsedge products.
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The reader must look beyond the intent, and view the essay in the broader
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context of knowledge management schemes. Mr. Bryar has produced a clear and
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logical exposition. He presents several rules and key concepts for managing a
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large body of information. The document covers the use of thesauri, subject
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headings to facilitate information navigation and retrieval. There is one
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important difference, however, Mr. Bryar employs current information technology
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language to expound these fundamental themes. His first tenet, given the
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diversity of electronic document formats, is a compelling case for a common
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wrapper using meaningful tags. All indicators point to the use of the XML meta
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language. However, the application of XML does not resolve the problem of
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meaningful retrieval. Its use would result in a standardized presentation of
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documents, but still retrieval chaos. In order to facilitate information
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retrieval, and at the same time guarantee the pertinence of the yield, XML must
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be coupled with a meaningful taxonomy, based on the hierarchical arrangement of
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subject groupings. Within the subject groupings the researcher must be able to
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broaden or narrow the search, as well as find related lateral topics. The
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arrangement of subject hierarchies must be logical, consistent, and expansible.
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As most documents can be classified within more than one category, the
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topological arrangement should be internally consistent. Each broad category
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must be similarly subdivided using a standard schema. Searchers can anticipate
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the arrangement, navigate easily, and thereby retrieve relevant data.
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Additionally, a subject relevancy percentage or weighted system is highly
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effective. In summary, this white paper is an excellent recap of library
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science fundamentals, presented in the language of the new technology for
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today's information professional. - MG
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Calabia, Hector "New Virus Developed That Spreads Using Acrobat Files"
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Computerworld (August 8, 2001) (http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/
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0%2C4125%2CNAV47_STO62902%2C00.html). - Who'd have thunk it? Researchers have
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discovered a worm that infects PDF files "a format considered safe up to
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now." Yikes! Lurking as a player in this scenario is the usual suspect,
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Microsoft Outlook. The researchers say the worm uses Outlook to send itself
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hidden in a PDF file. When the recipient opens the file using Acrobat Reader, a
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game is launched that encourages the recipient to click on a picture of a
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peach. When he or she does so, a Visual Basic script fires off, activating the
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virus. Although the virus has not yet made it out of the laboratory in which it
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was created, it could be a harbinger of something really ugly, given the
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widespread popularity of Acrobat. - SK
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Caplan, Priscilla. "Reference Linking for Journal Articles: Promise, Progress
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and Perils." portal: Libraries and the Academy 1 (3) (2001): 351-356. -
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Constantly changing URLs don't scale up well for article reference linking
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purposes in today's complex electronic publishing environment. To deal with
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this problem, publishers have adopted DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) as
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stable article identifiers. To help publishers locate DOIs for articles in
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journals published by other companies, CrossRef was established to allow for
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DOI retrieval based on metadata, such as author name. However, a major issue
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remains for libraries: once the DOI is known, how can the user be routed to an
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accessible copy of the article given licensing restrictions? Caplan clearly
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explains these "localization" issues and the roles that OpenURL and SFX could
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play in their potential resolution. - CB
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Crawford, Walt. "MP3 Audiobooks: A New Library Medium?" American Libraries
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(August 2001): 64-66. - In his typically technically accurate and thorough yet
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readable style, Crawford highlights a new technology that may turn out to be
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the best thing to hit audio books since the cassette tape. While many of us
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have heard of (or even used) MP3 files, they may be connected in our brain with
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Napster and other applications for swapping and playing music. Crawford makes
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us break that connection and consider the very real possibility (opportunity)
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that the MP3 format may be useful for audio books as well. It isn't completely
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smooth sailing, however, since there are technical issues that remain to be
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resolved one of them being the ability to stop a book and return to that
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location again ("bookmarking"). But should those issues be resolved, and the
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use of the format grows, Crawford thinks it is a promising new medium for
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libraries. - RT
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Engle, Randall. "The Neo Sophists: Intellectual Integrity in the Information
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Age." First Monday 6(8) (August 6, 2001) (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/
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issue6_8/engle/). - The author presents a lengthy history of sophistry to make
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several points about "mythmaking" and the Internet. This leads up to his
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central premise, which is that today's spinmeisters from both industry and
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cultural studies are engaged in a new and improved form of sophistry which is
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blurring the lines between market-driven ideologies and objective perceptions
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of technology and society. This article is generally interesting for its
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broad-based analysis, but it's also helpful because it explores the tension
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between commercial mindsets and pure academic research. - TH
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Fraser, Janice Crotty. "Registration Revamp". WebTechniques (Sept. 2001).
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(http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/09/crotty_fraser/). - So much of
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web development is a balancing act: Marketing wants this, Systems wants that.
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Libraries are no exception. Wading through the tangle of conflicting priorities
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at Netscape back in 1996 was designer Janice Crotty Fraser whose half-year-long
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struggle to make Netscape's registration process less of a headache for the
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user is here chronicled. - LRK
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Lewis, Peter "OK, So You Need a Laptop" Business 2.0 (August 2001) (http://
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www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,16716,FF.html). - Due to the stagnant
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economy, this is a really good time to buy any kind of computer. If you've got
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your eyes on a laptop, Lewis can help you choose one that is appropriate for
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you. The key question, he says, is "How much laptop do you really need?" Which,
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of course, depends on how you are going to use the machine. Do you need a
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full-blown desktop replacement or a light-as-a-feather portable that will not
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weigh you down as you dash between gates at the airport. How much of a factor
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is cost? Which accessories should you consider? Whatever your needs, Lewis
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encourages buying a machine with at least 128 megabytes of RAM and a 10
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gigabyte hard drive. See which models he recommends and why. - SK
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Lieberman, Henry, Christopher Fry and Louis Weitzman. "Exploring the Web with
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Reconnaisance Agents." Communications of the ACM 44(8) (Aug. 2001) : 69-75. -
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Intelligent Agents can't live with them, can't live without them. That's the
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feeling the wary reader will probably come away with after going through this
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discussion of two approaches to finding relevant information on the Web.
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Finding this information, say the authors in this issue of CACM devoted to
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visualization, is a joint undertaking between human user and computer. Just how
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far the collaboration will go however, is open to question: Even at this early
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stage, where it works as at Amazon where items are presented to the user
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based on prior likes/purchases it's a useful tool. On the other hand, in an
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online world where just to take one example paid advertising masquerades as
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search results, purity of motives even for an automated agent can't be taken
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for granted. - LRK
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McGillis, Louise and Elaine G. Toms. "Usability of the Academic Library Web
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Site: Implications for Design" College & Research Libraries 62(4) (July 2001):
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355-367. - How one can truly know the many ways in which all types of library
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users may fumble around with academic library websites is still elusive. In
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this case, the authors know what a small group of 33 participants did, but they
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were volunteers, had a familiarity with the library, and probably had some
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degree of interest in online access (as opposed to people who'd only use it
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kicking and screaming when there's no other alternative). They gained insight
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into their pool's reactions to particular problems many of us have wrestled
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with in designing sites: Where to start? How to avoid library jargon? Does the
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site uselessly mimic the library's bureaucracy or the patterns of the physical
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collection, when the more appropriate arrangement would be to place the online
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tasks to be accomplished first and foremost? The reactions of these particular
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testees, interesting as they are, represent just a subset of potential users,
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and we need to figure out how to hear from those who don't speak up. - JR
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Nellhaus, Tobin. "XML, TEI, and Digital Libraries in the Humanities." portal:
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Libraries and the Academy 1 (3) (2001): 257-277. - DTD, EAD, RDF, SGML, TEI,
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XLink, XML, and XSL. If you are asking yourself what does this technical
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gobbledygook mean and why should I care, this article is for you. Using
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examples from theater and drama studies, Nellhaus provides a concise and lucid
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overview of these increasingly important topics that does not require the
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reader to be an expert in markup language esoterica. When you're done with the
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article, bake your own TEI DTD using The Pizza Chef: A TEI Tag Set Selector
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(http://www.tei-c.org/pizza.html) or go to one of the other recommended Web
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sites, such as XML.com (http://www.xml.com/), to learn more. - CB
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Nelson, Matthew G. "Wireless Goal: Don't Get Whacked" Information Week (July 9,
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2001) (http://www.informationweek.com/thisweek/story/IWK20010705S0013). --
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"Whacking," we learn in this article, is the wireless equivalent of hacking
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"usually done by a person who's in the right place at the right time with the
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right kind of radio transceiver." It's emerging as a large problem for IT
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security folks as wireless networks become the latest must-have enterprise
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technology. Although some people feel wireless networks are inherently less
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secure than their wired counterparts, locking down a wireless network isn't all
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that different than protecting wired ones. User authentication, data integrity
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and security to prevent data interception are the key concepts. - SK
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Pfahl, Michael, "Giving Away Music to Make Money: Independent Musicians and the
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Internet." First Monday 6(8) (August 6, 2001) (http://www.firstmonday.org/
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issues/issue6_8/pfahl/). - Pfahl assesses the current state of Internet-based
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music and its impact on the full distribution chain from artist to consumer.
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Unlike many of the more prominent analyses of file-sharing programs that we've
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seen in recent months, he analyzes the production and distribution shifts from
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the perspective of independent musicians. No one has felt the impact of music
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on the Internet more than the independent musician, he argues, and the
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recording industry has dominated the production and distribution of music for
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many years. He proposes an alternative strategic plan for successful Internet
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commerce that would be based on artists giving away all of their music for free
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via the Internet. His plan sounds radical, and it is, and this reflects his
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understanding of the essentially subterranean relationship that thrives between
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a band and its fans, and how elusive this relationship remains for Music, Inc.
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- TH
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Streitfeld, David. "E-books Solving a Problem Consumers Don't Have." Chicago
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Tribune (Aug. 9, 2001) (http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/
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chi-0108090012aug09.story) . - Tittle-tattle courtesy of the Chicago Tribune on
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the woes of e-books as seen through the eyes of some unhappy authors. Includes
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the noble sentiment: "If it's going to be a failure, it might as well be a huge
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failure." - LRK
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Current Cites 12(8) (August 2001) ISSN: 1060-2356
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Copyright <20> 2001 by the Regents of the University of California All rights
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reserved.
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Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized bulletin board/
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conference systems, individual scholars, and libraries. Libraries are
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authorized to add the journal to their collections at no cost. This message
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must appear on copied material. All commercial use requires permission from the
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editor. All product names are trademarks or registered trade marks 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. To subscribe to the Current Cites
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distribution list, send the message "sub cites [your name]" to
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unsubscribe, send the message "unsub cites" to the same address.
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