336 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
336 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
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Current Cites
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Volume 12, no. 9, September 2001
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Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
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The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
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ISSN: 1060-2356 -
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http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2001/cc01.12.9.html
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Contributors: [3]Charles W. Bailey, Jr., [4]Margaret Gross, [5]Shirl
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Kennedy, [6]Leo Robert Klein, [7]Margaret Phillips, Jim Ronningen,
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[8]Roy Tennant
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[9]Attributes of a Trusted Digital Repository: Meeting the Needs of
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Research Resources
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Mountain View, CA: Research Libraries Group, August 2001: 52p
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(http://www.rlg.org/longterm/attributes01.pdf). - Building on the
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foundation of the seminal report [10]Preserving Digital Information:
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Report of the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information, this
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paper seeks to define trusted digital repositories, identify their
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primary attributes, devise a framework for certifying repositories as
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trustworthy, identify the responsibilities of an archive compliant
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with the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model, and
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make recommendations for further work in this area. If this sounds
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like a daunting task, that's because it is. But the blue-ribbon group
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that wrote this paper is up to the challenge. The paper lays out the
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following attributes of a trusted digital repository: administrative
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responsibility, organizational viability, financial sustainability,
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technological suitability, system security, and procedural
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accountability. In each of these areas specific traits are identified
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that should be present in a trusted repository. The paper also
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discusses types of certification and processes by which certification
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may be revoked. This is a policy document, not a technical
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explication, and therefore a discussion of the OAIS reference model
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can be found in an appendix, as can a glossary of terms. This document
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is an important next step down the road leading to an effective
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digital preservation strategy. - [11]RT
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Bonett, Monica [12]"Personalization of Web Services: Opportunities and
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Challenges" [13]Ariadne Issue 28 (2001)
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(http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/personalization/). - In the last
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decade, we have witnessed the evolution of the World Wide Web, leading
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us from static pages, to interactive pages offering search and
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retrieval capabilities. The next level, to further engage the user, is
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that of customization and personalization. This article organized in
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four parts, begins by posing the question "Will personalised service
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become part of users' standard definition of good service?" To provide
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some answers, the author defines personalized service, drawing the
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distinction between personalization and customization. The latter is
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primarily user driven. This means that the user actively configures
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his web interface, creates a profile, and explicitly controls the
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content received. Conversely, personalization does not actively
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solicit user input. The user remains passive. Rather, the web content
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reacts to the known behaviour of the user or of a like-minded user
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group. Preferences are monitored, gauged, analyzed. These findings
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then result in catered content without active user contribution.
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Examples of customized content are [14]My Yahoo, and television
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listing services offering what the user has requested. Personalization
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features are exemplified by [15]Staples and [16]Amazon. Section 2
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examines the enabling technologies of customization and
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personalization. These include "fill-in profiles", "click-stream
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analysis" or web usage mining systems, collaborative filtering and
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cookies. Examples from the educational sector, most notably
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[17]MyLibrary at North Carolina State University Libraries are offered
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in the third section. The last section looks at challenges in
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establishing user needs, usability, i.e. good web design practices,
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ethics and privacy, building relationships and measuring success. The
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article concludes with a webliography of cited sites. For those of us
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involved in website management, this is a comprehensive treatment of
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both the potential and the caveats of tailoring sites to individual
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requirements. - [18]MG
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Bruno, Lee [19]"Assessing the Net's Structural Integrity" [20]Red
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Herring (September 5, 2001)
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(http://www.redherring.com/index.asp?layout=special_report_gen&doc_id=
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960020 096). - Though the Internet has grown exponentially over the
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past decade, it is still in a relatively early phase of its own
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evolution. Inevitably, new hardware and software upgrades to the
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Internet backbone will be ongoing over the next several years. However
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the listless economy almost certainly means less spending by network
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carriers. What spending there is will likely be centered on optical
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components that are compatible with "the ubiquitous ethernet
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standard." The package of stories in this special report examines the
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popularity of ethernet, the new IPv6 protocol that will succeed TCI/IP
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(now 20 years old!), and the Internet's huge core routers -- "the
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equivalent of post office mail-sorting centers" -- that move zillions
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of bits of data around the world 24/7. Also included are some brief
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profiles of key companies and related "whispers" from the venture
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capital community. - [21]SK
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Doctorow, Cory. [22]"Metacrap: Putting the Torch to Seven Straw-Men of
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the Meta-Utopia". (Version 1.3) (August 26, 2001)
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(http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm) - 'Why Johnny Can't
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Catalog' might be a more appropriate title for this strongly argued
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yet brief piece. Doctorow casts doubt on the ability (or even
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willingness of Joe Six-Pack content-creator to properly and honestly
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identify his online material. Librarians will be familiar with many of
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the author's complaints. - [23]LRK
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Eick, Stephen G. "Visualizing Online Activity" [24]Communications of
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the ACM 44(8) (August 2001) pp. 45-50. - Graphic representations of
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Web site structure and traffic can be useful when the site is quite
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complex, and/or there is a large amount of usage data gathered - which
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often go hand in hand. The author, CTO of a business which sells
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information visualization tools, examines problems that can be solved
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this way and the types of software (his own and others) that can do
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the job. He focuses on three such applications of visual aids: for
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users navigating a site, for site managers tracking user paths and
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flows, and for monitoring real-time site activity. He describes
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variations on the standard tree scheme such as hyperbolic trees, and
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other methods like 3D landscape representations, weaving in relevant
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consideration of things like scalability, user manipulability and
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screen display limitations. - JR
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Ellison, Craig [25]"Exploiting and Protecting 802.11b Wireless
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Networks" [26]ExtremeTech (September 4, 2001)
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(http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3396,s%253D1024%2526a%253D13880,
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00.asp ). - That new wireless LAN in your building is just the coolest
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thing, is it not? Unfortunately, many wireless networks that use the
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IEEE 802.11b standard are as leaky as decrepit old rowboats. The boom
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in 802.11b networks is largely due to WECA, the Wireless Ethernet
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Compatibility Alliance, which developed an interoperability standard
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called WI-FI (wireless fidelity). In order for a vendor's wireless
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networking products to sport the WI-FI logo, these items must pass
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some basic interoperability tests. While this has had the effect of
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making wireless networks easy to install and use, security issues have
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been pretty much ignored. In this article, a team of "war drivers"
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goes cruising around Manhattan, Jersey City and Silicon Valley using a
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laptop, a wireless LAN card, antennas and a "sniffer" program called
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NetStumbler. They discover firsthand -- by tapping in -- just how many
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insecure wireless networks are out there. Fortunately, the article
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provides advice and links to more information about protecting and
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securing those leaky 802.11b networks. If you're even marginally
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responsible for one of these things, this article is a must-read. -
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[27]SK
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Foster, Andrea L. "Libraries Criticize Federal Report on
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Digital-Copyright Law." [28]The Chronicle of Higher Education 48(3)
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(September 14, 2001): A39. - A US Coypright Office report
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([29]http://www.loc.gov/copyright/reports/studies/dmca/dmca_study.html
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) on the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act has come under fire by
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library advocates including the American Library Association. Congress
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required the Copyright Office to issue the report so that they as
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lawmakers can decide if there are flaws in the digital copyright law
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that need fixing. Critics argue that the report should have provided
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greater assurances to libraries and consumers on the rights to lend
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and archive digital materials. - [30]MP
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Harmon, Amy. [31]"Exploration of World Wide Web Tilts From Eclectic to
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Mundane". [32]New York Times (August 26, 2001)
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(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/technology/26ONLI.html). - The
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author explores a number of interesting issues all tied around the
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apparent phenomenon that people are visiting fewer sites nowadays. A
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typical user "knows what he wants and he mostly knows where to get
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it." This leads to a consolidation of sites garnering most of the
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traffic and, ultimately, to a less culturally diversified web. Does
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this point to the end of web surfing as we know it? The jury,
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thankfully, is still out. - [33]LRK
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Jewell, Timothy D. [34]Selection and Presentation of Commercially
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Available Electronic Resources: Issues and Practices. Washington, DC:
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Digital Library Federation, [35]Council on Library and Information
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Resources, 2001. ISBN 1-887334-84-X.
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(http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub99/pub99.pdf). - With a focus on
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the practices of [36]Digital Library Federation members, Timothy
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Jewell investigates how research libraries select, finance, license,
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provide access to, support, and track the use of commercial electronic
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resources. Special attention is paid to consortial purchasing
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arrangements and emerging systems for managing electronic resources
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(Appendix B provides details about the functions and data elements of
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existing or planned systems at selected libraries). Suggested
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electronic resources practices are identified in the conclusion.
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Appendix A provides links to relevant supporting documents and Web
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pages for the major sections of the report. - [37]CB
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Lewis, Geoff. "Metaphorical Mayhem" [38]Brill's Content (Fall 2001)
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pp. 65-69. - Are you, too, responsible for the dotcom collapse? The
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author, tongue in cheek, takes responsibility because (like so many of
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us who've written about the Internet) he chose metaphors which quickly
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acquired verisimilitude and helped raise expectations beyond any
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reasonable level. Business writer Lewis confesses that, in his efforts
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to clarify a complex situation, he relied upon certain catchphrases
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which you just might recognize. He neatly includes four such gems in
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one sentence: "In the Internet 'gold rush,' a company had to move at
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'Internet speed' to secure 'first-mover advantage' in its corner of
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the 'new economy.'" This is a rueful lesson in how "years of
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hyperbolic one-upmanship" encouraged the kind of wishful thinking that
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left common sense behind in the dust of the old new fronti -- oh,
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sorry. - JR
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Lynch, Clifford A. [39]"Metadata Harvesting and the Open Archives
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Initiative" [40]ARL Bimonthly Report 217 (August 2001)
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(http://www.arl.org/newsltr/217/mhp.html). - We have reported on the
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[41]Open Archives Initiative in [42]previous issues of Current Cites.
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In this piece, Lynch focuses on the OAI mechanism for harvesting
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metadata from OAI-compliant archives to create centralized search
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services, the Open Archives Metadata Harvesting Protocol. His overview
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is purposefully non-technical, since those wishing more technical
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information can find such on the Open Archives web site. Rather, Lynch
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provides an excellent and thorough high-level view of how it came
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about, how it operates, possible uses of it, remaining issues, and
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future directions. Thankfully this article is freely available online,
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since many more people than would normally read the ARL Bimonthly
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Report should read this very informative piece on a new technology
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that is like to be very useful to a large variety of digital library
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services. - [43]RT
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Manuel, Kate. "Teaching an Online Information Literacy Course."
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[44]Reference Services Review 29(3) (2001): 219-228. - Honest
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appraisal of a distance education initiative that didn't live up to
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expectations. The experiment here was teaching information literacy at
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CSU Hayward to a class of 13 distance learners, only two of whom
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eventually finished on time. The author doesn't flinch from cataloging
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a whole slew of problems. These range from difficulties that students
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had with the medium to questions of whether the medium itself was
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appropriate given the student demographic and subject. The author
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concludes that at least in this instance, "the medium interfered with
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the message". - [45]LRK
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Peterson, Karrie, Elizabeth Cowell, and Jim Jacobs. "Government
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Documents at the Crossroads" [46]American Libraries 32(8) (September
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2001): 52-55. - Peterson, et.al. sound a warning that the massive move
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by the U.S. government from the distribution of print documents to
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electronic publication carries with it serious dangers. In the past,
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the federal government distributed paper copies of government
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publication to 1,350 libraries for free. But the Government Printing
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Office recently decided to save money by stopping the print
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distribution of most government documents in favor of electronic
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publication on the web. Although there are benefits to such a move,
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the authors point out problems as well, among them: when government
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servers go down, the documents are completely inaccessible; when the
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government controls the only authentic copy of a document, there is
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nothing to prevent tampering with it; and who will enforce the
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preservation of documents an agency decides to remove from its web
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site? Underlying these issues is an even more important one -- we are
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moving from a society that has possession and control over government
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information to one in which the government solely controls it. Is this
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in the best long-term interests of a free and democratic society?
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Although Peterson, et.al. argue persuasively that librarians must be
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involved in helping to shape federal policy on the publication and
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distribution of government information, they unfortunately do not
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suggest a specific solution. I would have found it instructive, for
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example, to know what problems prevent libraries from offering to
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support an electronic depository program, wherein electronic copies of
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government documents are deposited with numerous libraries upon
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publication, as they were in the print program. - [47]RT
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Pitschmann, Louis A. [48]Building Sustainable Collections of Free
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Third-Party Web Resources Washington, DC: Digital Library Federation,
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Council on Library and Information Resources, June 2001, 44p. ISBN
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1-887334-83-1 (http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub98abst.html). - As
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Pitschmann states in the introduction, "the purpose of this report is
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to identify and synthesize existing practices used in developing
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collections of free third-party Internet resources that support higher
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education and research." And an admirable job of it he does. He covers
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identification, evaluation, selection, access, management,
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multilinguality, user support, organizational, and financial issues.
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After several years of creating subject gateways to Internet
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resources, various projects have gained sufficient experience that
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this synthesis from the DLF and CLIR is both welcome and timely. -
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[49]RT
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_________________________________________________________________
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Current Cites 12(9) (September 2001) ISSN: 1060-2356
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Copyright <20> 2001 by the Regents of the University of California All
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rights reserved.
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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. All product names are trademarks
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or registered trade marks of their respective holders. Mention of a
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product in this publication does not necessarily imply endorsement of
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the product. To subscribe to the Current Cites distribution list, send
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the message "sub cites [your name]" to
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[50]listserv@library.berkeley.edu, replacing "[your name]" with your
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name. To unsubscribe, send the message "unsub cites" to the same
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address.
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References
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1. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/imagemap/cc
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2. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
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3. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm
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4. http://www.cam.org/~mgross/mgross.htm
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5. http://web.tampabay.rr.com/hooboy/
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6. http://patachon.com/
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7. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/autobiography/mphillip/
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8. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
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9. http://www.rlg.org/longterm/attributes01.pdf
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10. http://www.rlg.org/ArchTF/
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11. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
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12. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/personalization/
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13. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/
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14. http://my.yahoo.com/
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15. http://www.staples.com/
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16. http://www.amazon.com/
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17. http://my.lib.ncsu.edu/
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18. http://www.cam.org/~mgross/mgross.htm
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19. http://www.redherring.com/index.asp?layout=special_report_gen&doc_id=960020096
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20. http://www.redherring.com/
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21. http://web.tampabay.rr.com/hooboy/
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22. http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm
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23. http://patachon.com/
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24. http://www.acm.org/cacm/
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25. http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3396,s%253D1024%2526a%253D13880,00.asp
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26. http://www.extremetech.com/
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27. http://web.tampabay.rr.com/hooboy/
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28. http://www.chronicle.com/
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29. http://www.loc.gov/copyright/reports/studies/dmca/dmca_study.html
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30. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/autobiography/mphillip/
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31. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/technology/26ONLI.html
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32. http://www.nytimes.com/
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33. http://patachon.com/
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34. http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub99/pub99.pdf
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35. http://www.clir.org/home.html
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36. http://www.diglib.org/
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37. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm
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38. http://www.brillscontent.com/
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39. http://www.arl.org/newsltr/217/mhp.html
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40. http://www.arl.org/newsltr/
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41. http://www.openarchives.org/
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42. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/bibondemand.cgi?query=open+archives+initiative
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43. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
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44. http://gottardo.emerald-library.com/vl=17794337/cl=18/nw=1/rpsv/cw/www/mcb/00907324/contp1.htm
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45. http://patachon.com/
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46. http://www.ala.org/alonline/
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47. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
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48. http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub98abst.html
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49. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
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50. mailto:listserv@library.berkeley.edu
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51. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Admin/copyright.html
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52. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/
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