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Current Cities Volume 04 Number 08
_Current_Cites_
Volume 4, no. 8
August 1993
Information Systems Instruction & Support
The Library
University of California, Berkeley
Edited by David F. W. Robison
ISSN: 1060-2356
Contributors:
David B. Rez, Teri Rinne, Vivienne Roumani-Denn, Mark Takaro, Roy Tennant
_______________________________________________________________________
Electronic Publishing
Glaberson, William. "Creating Electronic Editions, Newspapers Try
New Roles" The New York Times 142(49,425) (August 16, 1993).
More and more print newspapers are beginning to aim at the online
home computer market by offering electronic versions of their
publications. Generally speaking the electronic medium is new to
newspaper publishers and questions about advertising and the
electronic newspaper's role in the media are yet to be answered.
There are those skeptics who remember the failed "videotext
systems" of the mid-1980's and worry that the same failure will
be repeated. However, the potential for expanded services
(community bulletin boards and increased local news) and the
ability to easily update and cross reference news stories has
many people excited. - DBR
Hyper- and Multimedia
Abernathy, Aileen. "Managing Your Media" MacUser 9(9) (September
1993):190-206. Database software packages for the cataloging of
image files are described and reviewed in this article which
includes a chart comparing the features of 8 recent releases.
Most programs will handle a variety of image formats, both still
and moving, and provide thumbnail views of the image files
themselves. Several offer a variety of indexes for searching and
users can define their own fields as well as use pre-established
fields. Programs of the type described are sure to be useful as
users seek ways to control growing image files. - MT
Nordgren, Layne. "Microsoft Encarta Multimedia Encyclopedia" CD-
ROM Professional 6(4) (July 1993):46-48. Microsoft's answer to
the multimedia encyclopedia products from Grolier and Compton's
is based on the Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia and includes
Webster's Concise Electronic Dictionary and a thesaurus. Users
will be able to search in the text by word, article title,
subject browsing, or through an atlas or timeline. Links to
related topics, combined with more than 7,000 images, over 800
color maps and 350 sound samples, including word pronunciations
and foreign language examples, will make this a competitive
product in the area of the multimedia encyclopedia. - MT
Dunley, Tim. "Microsoft Modular Windows: A Key Platform for
Multimedia CD-ROM Development" CD-ROM Professional 6(4) (July
1993):152-157. Describing a Microsoft Windows operating system
for the control of interactive multimedia that is open for third-
party development, scalable throughout the Windows family and
extensible for new devices or applications, this article details
the new modular approach taken in Microsoft's newest multimedia
authoring release. The user interface is designed for a
television as the display and the package has been optimized to
use less memory that Windows 3.1 through the use of a smaller set
of core routines. The open system approach will enable other
vendors to develop multimedia applications based on the modules
and authors should find working with the new system simpler and
easier than many other authoring kits. - MT
Holzberg, Carol S. "Let Your Fingers Do The Walking: CD-ROM
Encyclopedias" CD-ROM World 8(8)(September 1993):28-37. Holzberg
offers a roundup of multimedia encyclopedias providing a survey
and evaluation of 9 different products ranging from The Animals
from Software Toolworks to World Books' Information Finder. With
the growth in this segment of multimedia publishing, users both
young and old will gain new knowledge of the world and have easy
access to information that is presented in a timely manner and
often with sound and images to round out the view. - MT
Networks and Networking
"Answers to Clipper Questions" EFFector Online 5(14) (August 5,
1993) [should be available via anonymous FTP from ftp.eff.org as
/pub/EFF/newsletters/effector5.14 <URL=ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF
/newsletters/effector5.14>]. Responding to 114 questions sent to
President Clinton about the Clipper Chip proposal, John D.
Podesta, Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary, provides
answers to the questions. Highlights of the answers appear in
this article, while the entire response should be available at
the EFF FTP archive site in the directory /pub/EFF/legal-issues
<URL=ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/legal-issues/>. Among the
questions and answers: Q: Why is the key escrow scheme being
proposed? A: To provide security for US businesses while
preserving the ability to perform authorized wiretaps; Q: Is the
key escrow initiative compatible with constitutional rights? A:
The key escrow initiative does not require the user to create
"speech" nor does it infringe upon the content of the speech, so
it does not infringe upon 1st Amendment rights, as wiretaps would
need to be authorized, and the user does not know their own
escrowed keys, there is no 4th or 5th Amendment infringement.
- DFWR
Benford, Steve, et al. "GRACE: A System to Support the
Development and Use of Global Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
(CSCW) Applications" Internet Research 3(1) (Spring 1993):25-35.
Benford and his colleagues describe both the concepts and
implementation issues of a cooperative work system. Although the
system they are developing is designed around Open Systems
Interconnection (OSI), the conceptual model could be ported to
other networks, and is intended to support world-wide cooperative
work. - DFWR
Clarkson, Mark. "All-Terrain Networking" BYTE 18(9) (August
1993):111-116. Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is considered
the new panacea of networking, providing a seamless interface
between LANs and the public telephone network and high-speed,
high-bandwidth communications over common media. Clarkson
explains how ATM makes this possible by standardizing packet size
and thereby allowing for dynamic, very high-speed switching.
Although widespread implementation of ATM is not expected for
another 18 months, it can be used effectively in small-scale
implementations today. - DFWR
Dern, Daniel P. "Meeting the Challenges of Business and Public
End-Users on the Internet: What They Want, What They Need, What
They're Doing" Internet World 4(5-6) (June/July/August 1993):4-9.
Dern outlines the needs and desires of both individual, private,
and business Internet users (now numbered in the thousands).
While individuals want a simpler interface and new user training,
businesses are interested in stable and secure services. Dern
also predicts that we are approaching a another burst of new
connectivity, and consequent development of the network and
services for these new users. - DFWR
DeLoughry, Thomas J. "Promoters of Plan to Create a National
'Data Highway' Turn to 'Thorny' Policy Issues and Legal
Questions" The Chronicle of Higher Education 39(46) (July 21,
1993):A17, A20. While no big problems were solved, the
impressive part of a meeting on the National Information
Infrastructure at the Library of Congress was the list of
participants. The first hour of the meeting was presided over
by Vice-President Gore who pointed out that gigabytes of
information that is poorly organized will be useless. Other
participants included university, library, networking, and
entertainment representatives. - DFWR
Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Toward a New Public Interest
Communications Policy Agenda for the Information Age: A
Framework for Discussion" EFFector Online 5(13) (July 23, 1993)
[a complete copy of this paper is available via anonymous FTP
from ftp.eff.org as the file named /pub/EFF/papers/open-
platform-discussion-1993 <URL=ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/papers/
open-platform-discussion-1993>]. The EFF describes its 1993
open platform proposal to encourage the development of open
networking. The document calls for universal service, free
speech and common carriage, privacy and security of
communications, and the development of public interest
applications and services. The key is to be sure that the
emerging infrastructure that includes cable and telephone
services provides two-way, switched communications that gives
users the power to be both information providers as well as
information consumers. - DFWR
Kent, Stephen T. "Internet Privacy Enhanced Mail"
Communications of the ACM 36(8) (August 1993):48-60. Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM) offers Internet users the ability to
integrate various levels of privacy and security in their
communications without making big changes in the way they do
their work. Mail authentication does not require that
recipients employ PEM, though those users will not benefit from
PEMs authentication scheme. PEM has been designed to offer
various levels of security so that implementation can be effected
according to need and level of participation on the recipient's
part. PEM offers further flexibility by being able to employ
either public or private key encryption. - DFWR
MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K. and Hal R. Varian. Pricing the
Internet. Preliminary draft. April 1993 (current version: June
11, 1993). Available via anonymous FTP from
alfred.econ.lsa.umich.edu in directory /pub/Papers as
Pricing_the_Internet.1.ps.Z
<URL=ftp://alfred.econ.lsa.umich.edu/pub/Papers/ Internet.1.ps.Z>.
MacKie-Mason and Varian argue that in order to encourage efficient
use of network bandwidth and investment in increased capacity, it
makes sense to charge for packets according to priority and
congestion. In this scheme, the user sets the priority of their
data (e.g., low priority for email, but high for video
transmission) and offers a bid for the maximum price acceptable.
When the network is congested, users would then be forced to pay
for data up to and including the price they bid. These fees would
then be applied to creating additional capacity. Since the
marginal cost of low priority packets and packets during non-peak
times is essentially nothing, these packets could be priced at
little or no cost. The pricing structure these authors have
devised is intended to address four types of network costs: "the
fixed costs of providing the network infrastructure," "the
incremental [or marginal] costs of sending extra packets," "the
social costs of delaying other users' packets when the network is
congested", and "the cost of expanding capacity of the network."
- DFWR
Mello, John P., Jr. "Future Communications" BYTE 18(9) (August
1993):94-106. Mello describes the convergence of computers and
telephony hardware and software and the increasing ability of
both computers and networks to handle multimedia objects. As
telephone-based services become more complex, it only makes sense
to provide users with a better interface than the 12 basic keys
available now. A number of computer manufacturers are teaming-up
with telephone manufacturers to develop new computer/phones or
"smartphones" for both desktop and wireless use. Novell and AT&T
have also released a product that links a PBX and Novell server
that allows data and services to be exchanged between the two
systems. As computer-based telecommunications become more
robust, the ability to share and manage multimedia objects in a
distributed environment also grows. Also included with this
article are sidebars on the entrance of cable TV systems into the
networking fray and emerging methods of mass data storage (by Bob
Ryan). - DFWR
Murray, Janet. "K12 Network: Global Education Through
Telecommunications" Communications of the ACM 36(8) (August
1993):36-41. K12Net is a network for K-12 students and
educators and is available through FidoNet and USENET. K12Net
offers activities in 19 curricula as well as a data and software
library. Topics range from intercultural discussions to
scientific experiments. A conservative prediction is that there
will be 3-4 million student users of K12Net by the year 2000.
- DFWR
Rotenberg, Marc. "Communications Privacy: Implications for
Network Designs" Communications of the ACM 36(8) (August 1993):
61-68. Rotenberg, Director of the Washington Office of Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility, begins this article by
describing the three areas of concern in communications privacy:
confidentiality, anonymity, and personal data protection.
Rotenberg then goes on to describe the major policy efforts to
protect users' rights, internationally and in various nations.
It is important to recognize that as the communications
infrastructure becomes unified, privacy concerns often need to
be addressed with a new perspective. See also, Tuerkheimer,
Frank M. "The Underpinnings of Privacy Protection"
Communications of the ACM 36(8) (August 1993):69-73, and
Hiramatsu, Tsuyoshi "Protecting Telecommunications Privacy in
Japan" Communications of the ACM 36(8) (August 1993):74-77.
- DFWR
Ruth, Stephen R. and Raul Gouet. "Must Invisible Colleges be
Invisible?: An Approach to Examining Large Communities of
Network Users" Internet Research 3(1) (Spring 1993):36-53.
Ruth and Gouet describe their study of network use by the
community of scientific researchers in Chile. Unlike most other
studies of network users, this one began with a large sample
(908 usable responses). Among the findings: scientists using the
networks claimed that the network made them more efficient, there
was no correlation between age and network usage, and women were
more likely to be network users than men. - DFWR
Sadowsky, George. "Network Connectivity for Developing
Countries" Communications of the ACM 36(8) (August 1993):42-47.
While the advantages of Internet access may be obvious in the
developed world, it is not always so in the developing one.
Those of us in the developed world must be sensitive to local
needs when extolling the virtues of networking in the developing
world. Among the benefits available to such users: stable
communications both within their own country and internationally
as well as access to expertise around the globe. - DFWR
Snyder, Joel M. "Jack Kerouac Never Had to Worry About E-mail"
Internet World 4(5-6) (June/July/August 1993):2-4. Need to get
to your email while on the road? Snyder offers an extensive list
of options for keeping in touch, "from Moscow, Russia or Moscow,
Idaho." - DFWR
Stix, Gary. "Domesticating Cyberspace" Scientific American 269(2)
(August 1993):100-110. Stix provides a clear analysis of the
current situation in the development of the National Information
Infrastructure. The next few years should prove to bring quite a
few changes to the network. As digital and fiber technologies
are deployed, we should see both telephone companies of various
types and cable companies getting deeply involved. - DFWR
"Telecommunications Infrastructure Act of 1993 (S. 1086): A
Summary by the Electronic Frontier Foundation" EFFector
Online 5(13) (July 23, 1993) [available via anonymous FTP from
ftp.eff.org as /pub/EFF/newsletters/effector5.13 <URL=ftp://
ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/newsletters/effector5.13>]. The bill
before the US Senate would allow regional Bell operating
companies (RBOCs) to compete for local telephone and cable
services for both residential and business customers. The new
local carriers would still be required to support traditional
interconnection and universal access. One of the advantages of
this legislation is that, if it became law, RBOCs would be in a
better position to provide hand-off support for cellular
services between cellular service providers. The full text of
the bill is available via anonymous FTP from ftp.eff.org as file
/pub/EFF/legislation/infra-act-s1086 <URL=ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/
EFF/legislation/infra-act-s1086>. - DFWR
Weitzner, Daniel J. "The Clipper Chip, Key Escrow and the
Constitution" Networks & Policy 1(2) (Summer 1993):1, 4 [should
be available via anonymous FTP from ftp.eff.org]. Weitzner asks
whether the Clinton Administration's Clipper Chip proposal can
really satisfy the desires of law enforcement if the encryption
scheme is voluntary. What is to stop criminals from using
another, more secure encryption scheme? If the Administration
does in fact require that telecommunications in the United
States be encrypted only using the Clipper Chip, a number of
constitutional questions arise: does this violate the 4th
Amendment? do users of the system waive their 5th Amendment
rights? does this violate the 1st Amendment by prohibiting
certain types of speech (i.e., speech using another type of
encryption)? - DFWR
Wilson, David L. "Electronic Riches Are Free on the Internet, but
Some Worry About the Consequences" The Chronicle of Higher
Education 39(47) (July 28, 1993):A18, A20-A21. As the Internet
enters the public consciousness, and American campuses are
further strapped for cash, many wonder about the appropriateness
of the free lunch on the Internet. While there is a tremendous
amount of data available for no charge on the Internet, much of
it is made available with little or no marginal cost to the
information provider. Wilson predicts that access to this kind
of information will continue for a while, even as the pricing
structure of the network itself may change. - DFWR
Winner, Langdon. "How Technology Reweaves the Fabric of Society"
The Chronicle of Higher Education 39(48) (August 4, 1993):B1-3.
Winner writes in this opinion piece that technological advances,
when implemented on a wide scale, have a profound effect on
society. The danger now is that many changes to the US
infrastructure are in the making but decisions are being made
without popular participation. Winner uses emerging national
information infrastructure as an example of this failure to
involve the citizenry in the decision-making process. - DFWR
Optical Disc Technologies
Bennett, Hugh. "Photo CD: A Macintosh Primer" CD-ROM Professional
6(4) (July 1993):93-99. Bennett provides an overview of Kodak
Photo CD technology, describing the five different versions of
Photo CD (Photo CD Master, Pro Photo CD, Photo CD Portfolio,
Photo CD Catalog, Photo CD Medical), hardware/software
specifications (including the difference between single-session
and multi-session CD-ROM drives), and, last but not least,
explains just how far Apple has gone to incorporate Photo CDs
into the Macintosh environment. - TR
Flanagan, Patrick. "Talking CD-ROM with Arthur Herr" CD-ROM World
8(7) (August 1993):32-33. Arthur Herr is the inventor of the
Laserfile, a packaging alternative to the traditional jewel box
CD-ROM cases. Herr contends that the Laserfile is more durable,
easier to use, and more environmentally-friendly than jewel
box packaging. - TR
Folen, Doris R. and Laurie E. Stackpole. "Optical Storage and
Retrieval of Library Material" Information Technology and
Libraries 12(2) (June 1993):181-191. This article describes
the development of an optical disk storage system at the Ruth H.
Hooker Research Library and Technical Information Center of the
Naval Research Laboratory. The system consists of a Sony
autochanger, Sun minicomputer, Sun workstations, TDC scanners,
printers, personal computers, and various other peripherals.
Large portions of the library's collection, including an
impressive technical report collection numbering over 140,000,
are stored on twelve-inch optical discs. Plans for remote access
to the collection over the campus network are currently underway.
- TR
Guenette, David R. "Have CD-ROM, Will Travel: Different Ways to
Have CD-ROMs on the Go" CD-ROM Professional 6(4) (July 1993): 28-
39. Guenette describes in detail various solutions for on-the-go
CD-ROM access. Among the options covered are the permanent
connection of a notebook computer to a CD-ROM drive; tiny parallel
port-to-SCSI adapters for adding a portable computer to your
laptop; portable CD-ROM drives that integrate connectors and power
supplies in easy-to-carry cases; and customized portables or
luggables that have the room (along with the weight) to add full-
size controller cards and CD-ROM drives. - TR
James, Jonathan K. "CD-ROM in the Information Marketplace: A
Comprehensive Study from UMI" CD-ROM Professional 6(4) (July
1993):102-105. This article presents the results of UMI's annual
study to track the use of CD-ROMs in the library industry,
monitor market share levels, and identify trends. Among the key
findings highlighted is that the use of CD-ROM is approaching
saturation in academic and public libraries; the use of CD-ROM
in high school and corporate library environments is growing
rapidly. Use of CD-ROM networks in academic and corporate
libraries is expected to triple by 1994, while doubling in public
libraries. Interestingly, this article also notes that database
tape licensing is also expected to increase nearly threefold by
1994. From a product development standpoint, the author points
out that vendors need to create CD databases that are easily
networkable and have a tape format to satisfy this growing need.
From an information professional standpoint, librarians need to
make intelligent decisions regarding the best-suited database
formats and configurations. - TR
Kalstrom, Dave. "Archive Project Preserves Columbus Documents
Optically" CD-ROM Professional 6(4) (July 1993):135-141. This
article chronicles the celebrated and ambitious scanning project
currently underway at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville,
Spain. The Archivo collection includes over 90 million pages of
historic written documents housed in over five and one-half miles
of shelving. To improve access and preservation of the
deteriorating collections, a computerized archiving system
involving optical disc storage technology has been developed.
Kalstrom describes the institution, the collection, and the
system itself, which includes a user management system, text
database, and an image storage system. - TR
Sylvia, Margaret. "Networking Your CD-ROMs: A Texas Tale" CD-ROM
World 8(7) (August 1993):34-40. Sylvia describes how the
installation of a CD-ROM network at St. Mary's University
Academic Library has created a revolution in the way students and
faculty do research. Although the student population is only
4,000, log-ons to the network number over 1,000 per week during
the regular semester. - TR
General
Krumenaker, Larry. "How to Build a Library Without Walls"
Internet World 4(5-6) (June/July/August 1993):9-12. Virtual
libraries are being developed at a number of institutions and
Krumenaker describes four of these projects: Columbia
University's Project JANUS, CORE (Chemistry Online Retrieval
Experiment), Carnegie Mellon and Elsevier's TULIP project,
and the Naval Research Laboratory library. Almost all of
these projects include both searchable ASCII (with or without
SGML) as well as bitmapped images. - DFWR
Correction
In two past issues of Current Cites, an author's name was
misspelled. Here are the corrected citations:
Bauwens, Michel. "Corporate Cybrary Networks: An Idea Whose
Time has Come" Internet Business Journal 1(1) (June/July
1993):25-28.
Bauwens, Michel. "The Emergence of the 'Cybrarian': A New
Organisational Model for Corporate Libraries" Business
Information Review Journal 9(4) (April 1993):65-67.
Originally cited under the working title: "Cybrarian's
Manifesto."
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Current Cites 4(8) (August 1993) ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright (C) 1993 by the Library, University of
California, Berkeley. All rights reserved.
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[URL=ftp://ftp.lib.berkeley.edu/pub/Current.Cites]. This message
must appear on copied material. All commercial use requires
permission from the editor, who may be reached in the following
ways:
drobison@library.berkeley.edu // drobison@ucblibra // (510)643-9494
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