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Current Cities Volume 08 Number 04
_Current Cites_
Volume 8, no. 4
April 1997
The Library
University of California, Berkeley
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
Acting Editor: Roy Tennant
ISSN: 1060-2356
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1997/cc97.8.4.html
Contributors:
Campbell Crabtree, Christof Galli, Kirk Hastings, Terry Huwe,
Margaret Phillips, David Rez, Richard Rinehart,
Teri Rinne, Roy Tennant
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY
Agada, John "Information Professionals in a Globally Networked
Society: An agenda for social skills." FID News Bulletin 46(12)
(December, 1996): 366-375. The author says that "...evaluation of
information repackaging services is based on the resolution of client
needs, rather than [just] on retrieval of documents...." . Indeed, the
importance of good communications skills is well-known in reference
and document delivery service, especially as the ever-shrinking globe
and its multitude of cultures offer us plenty of opportunities for
miscommunication. Agada argues that in order to respond, librarians
need to focus more on users and less on systems, and they need to
build new interpersonal skills to do so. - TH
Woodward, Jeannette "Retraining the Profession, or, Over the Hill at
40" American Libraries 28(4) (April 1997): 32-34. - There is probably
no greater challenge facing today's libraries than the need to retrain
the profession in the latest information technologies. This article
talks about this need, but more importantly, the personal and
institutional barriers to doing so. Woodward focuses her attention on
the large complement of older workers, whom she asserts the
institution may tend to pass over for training and who also may be
less motivated to learn. While she suggests some strategies for
overcoming these barriers, this is a war that can only be won by
individual battles in libraries across the land. What is at stake is
nothing less than the future of the profession. - RT
NETWORKS AND NETWORKING
Andrews, Whit. "Planning for Push" Internet World 8(5) (May
1997:45-52. Internet "push" technologies are getting a lot of press
these days, and it takes only a cursory explanation to understand why.
What would be better, from an advertising or publishing point of view,
then to have your message or publication automatically delivered to
your customer's desktop the instant it's ready? This article explains
push technology, discusses the major products, and compares them in a
sidebar. Although the commercial applications are obvious enough, one
wonders whether libraries or other organizations could use them to
provide current awareness services. - RT
Cortese, Amy. "Where the CyberAction Is: Your Hometown" Businessweek,
(3522) (April 14, 1997): 95-98. In an interesting twist, web service
providers are discovering a market for "city guides" that sell ad
space on the Internet. The hook is the simple fact that people do most
of their living, working and playing within fifteen miles of their own
homes, and they like web services that help them find the stuff they
want -- nearby. Billions of advertising dollars are spent on local
markets because of this, and geography-specific web sites are a hot
new medium that are giving the local paper a run for the money. But
don't write off the local paper just yet: many major dailies have
developed popular web sites and are in a position to keep city-guide
web services in their pocket. - TH
Engst, Tonya "The Internet Robot's Guide to a Web Site" BYTE 22(5)
(May 1997): 63-64. - If you manage a Web site, you need to know what
is in this article. Many of you may already know about and use a robot
exclusion file which limits the depths to which search engine robots,
crawlers, or spiders can plumb, but if you don't this article is a
quick and easy explanation of it. Engst also explains another
technique you can try if you are not the server administrator but
would like to limit robot access to your pages. - RT
Genesereth, Michael R. and Anna Patterson, editors. Proceedings for
the Sixth International World Wide Web Conference, April 7-11, 1997,
Santa Clara, California. Out of all the conferences related to the
World Wide Web, this is the one most oriented to research. Therefore
most of the papers are highly technical and somewhat speculative. Some
papers may describe the kernels of tomorrow's technology, while others
will remain only as evidence that some graduate students did indeed
stay off the streets and out of trouble for a time. How do you tell
the difference? I'll be darned if I know, but it sure can be
entertaining trying to figure it out! - RT
Hayes, Brian. "The Infrastructure of the Information Infrastructure"
American Scientist 85(3) (May-June 1997):214-218. -- Have you been
wondering where exactly in cyberspace those recent "router problems"
occur that have had you drumming your fingers while trying to download
the latest patch for your software? Then the present article may be
right on target. It describes how messages sent over the Internet are
broken up into packages and how they work their way through the layers
of the application, transport (Transport Control Protocol or TCP),
network (Internet Protocol or IP), data-link, and physical layers of
the "protocol stack". It examines how routers have to quickly move
these packages on and at the same time calculate the shortest route to
other nodes. Packages sent across networks go through "peering points"
called Network Access Points (NAP) or Metropolitan Area Exchanges
(MAE). In these NAP's and MAE's, which are owned by telephone
companies such as Sprint and Worldcom, state-of-the-art routers handle
traffic coming in from up to 100 networks over powerful data
transmission channels. The article concludes that the growing
bandwidth of these channels (soon 2.5 gigabits per second) will
require changes in the way routers process packages. - CG
Jenkins, Fred W. and Nancy Courtney "Internet Resources for Classical
Studies" College & Research Library News 58(4) (April 1997): 255-259.
Classicists were among the first scholars to take advantage of new
information technologies, and this month's C&RL News list of Internet
resources lists some of the important electronic resources the they
have developed. Most of the items on the list are Web-based (including
specialized and general web sites, association homepages, directories,
electronic journals, and electronic text repositories). There is,
however, an extensive list of discussion groups and listservs. - MP
McGraw, Gary and Edward Felten "Avoiding Hostile Applets" BYTE 22(5)
(May 1997): 89-92. If you use the Web then you are open to possible
attacks from sites that serve malicious Javascript, ActiveX, or Java
code. This article discusses the four classes of attacks and how Java
tries to prevent such shenanigans. Even if you aren't curious about
the internal workings of Java, the page on strategies you can take to
protect yourself from hostile attacks is well worth your time. - RT
Wang, Chih "Global networking, Internet and the Global Information
Infrastructure (GII)" FID News Bulletin 46(12) (December 1996):
356-363. Wang, a professor at the University of Guam, summarizes the
development of wide area networks in the United States, and then
provides an overview of networking initiatives around the globe. He
devotes special sections to major nations (like Russia) and areas
(like Asia, Africa and Europe). He then proposes a general plan for a
"global information infrastructure" which would address cultural,
economic and social issues in various regions. FID, the International
Federation for Information and Documentation is sponsoring dialogue
about global networking, and Wang references the "Tokyo Resolution of
1994" that FID drafted to improve coordination. - TH
GENERAL
Hurwicz, Mike "Cheaper Computer, Part 2: PCs Strike Back" BYTE 22(5)
(May 1997): 81-88. "Thin clients," "network computers," (NCs) "Java
stations" or whatever you want to call them have been getting a lot of
press lately. In this "less is more" world, computer users would have
minimalist workstations that run only the pieces of code they need for
specific tasks, which would be delivered via the network to their
desktop as they need it. Since such machines can do just fine, thank
you, without Microsoft Windows or Intel processors, it was only
inevitable that those companies would come up with their solution to
the problem that NCs were designed to solve. The solution from their
perspective is a "NetPC" that is much like today's PC but with some
flexibility removed. Ignore the sidebar "PCs vs. NCs," as it is
stacked to make NetPCs look good and NCs not (why, for example, did
they not compare price, which is likely to be one of the most
important of criteria for comparison?). - RT
Young, Jeffrey R. "New Metaphors For Organizing Data Could Change the
Nature of Computers." Chronicle of Higher Education 63(30) (April 4,
1997): A19-A20. Ever felt like you were at odds with computer
operating systems, that in fact, they seem to make information
retrieval harder? You're not alone. This article profiles interesting
new research at Yale and other universities that tries to take
advantage of human memory patterns. The Yale program, "lifestreams",
stores documents of every type in a searchable "stream" according to
when they were created or received. It turns out that this makes
intuitive retrieval much easier for people. Interestingly, the
on-screen program looks very similar to a Macintosh Hypercard "stack".
The various researchers profiled here believe that the desktop is way
overdue for improvement, and that the information-space we use should
break free of the page metaphor. If you're interested, take a look at
the Yale program, which is on the Web at
http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/freeman/lifestreams.html. - TH
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 8(4) (April 1997) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright (C) 1997 by
the Library, University of California, Berkeley. All rights reserved.
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