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Current Cities Volume 10 Number 04
_Current Cites_
Volume 10, no. 4
April 1999
The Library
University of California, Berkeley
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
ISSN: 1060-2356
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1999/cc99.10.4.html
Contributors:
Terry Huwe, Margaret Phillips,
Roy Tennant, Jim Ronningen, Lisa Yesson
Bilal, Dania, Jeff Barry & W. David Penniman. "A Balancing Act"
Library Journal 124(6) (April 1, 1999): 45-54. - This article is LJ's
annual picture of the automated systems marketplace. 1998 is depicted
as a year of partnerships, and the authors describe the ways in which
vendors and customers are working together to address such problems as
planning for new interfaces while living with old closed systems,
checking for Y2K readiness, and creating Web-based services. After the
overview, 27 vendors are profiled. Tables include microcomputer system
sales, server-based system sales, academic, school and public library
system sales and others. - JR
Coffman, Steve. "Building Earth's Largest Library: Driving Into the
Future" Searcher 7(3) (March 1999)
(http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/mar/coffman.htm). - Every once in a
while an article comes along that sparks your imagination, or provides
the missing piece to a puzzle, or spurs a moment of "ah-ha!" insight.
For me, this is just such a piece. In this article Coffman paints a
compelling vision of a library catalog system that is accessible,
convenient, personal, and _huge_. Using Amazon.com as his inspiration,
Coffman wonders why libraries can't band together and do something
similar, only better. I can't help thinking the same thing. Sorry,
patient Current Cites readers, you're going to have to read this one
yourself. I really can't do it justice in one paragraph, and frankly I
can't think of any librarian who shouldn't read this. If you think you
are such a person, drop me a line. I'd like to know why. - RT
Hedstrom, Margaret and Sheon Montgomery. Digital Preservation Needs
and Requirements in RLG Member Institutions Mountain View, CA:
Research Libraries Group, December 1998
(http://www.rlg.org/preserv/digpres.html). - This study commissioned
by the Research Libraries Group (RLG) was to determine the status of
digital archiving at its member institutions. Fifty-four libraries
responded, and fifteen participated in supplementary interviews. While
fully 98% of the responding libraries expect to be preserving digital
material by 2001 if they are not doing so already, almost half lack
"the capacity to mount, read, or access files on some of the storage
media they hold." The service most libraries look to consortia to
provide is the development of standards and best practices;
third-party vendors, on the other hand, are expected to provide
migration and conversion services. The report ends with
recommendations based on the findings of the survey for RLG, member
institutions, and service providers. - RT
Kiernan, Vincent. "An Ambitious Plan to Sell Electronic Books:
University Librarians and Press Officials See Promise and Possible
Pitfalls in the Concept" Chronicle of Higher Education 65(32) (April
16, 1999): A27. - A Colorado-based firm is embarking on a venture to
sell electronic books to university libraries, and some university
press officials say the new program is "the most promising experiment
with e-books yet." The product is called netLibrary
(http://www.netlibrary.com), and it already has 2,000 titles on its
list. Library officials are quoted in more cautionary tones, but
powerful agencies like CARL and OhioLink are charter customers. - TH
Kiernan, Vincent. "Two Big Libraries Abandon Home-Grown Software for
Commercial Products" Chronicle of Higher Education April 14, 1999. -
This article describes recent developments at the Library of Congress
and National Library of Medicine in cataloging policy. Both libraries
are shifting their cataloging activity to commercial products, hoping
to cut overhead and streamline work processes. Current arrangements at
LC can involve searches in as many as three databases to confirm
holdings and veracity, so the library is also trying to solve legacy
system challenges at the same time it is updating work practices. - TH
Seadle, Michael. "The Raw and the Cooked Among Librarians" Library
HiTech 16 (3-4) (1998): 7-11. - In this introduction to Library Hi
Tech's special issue on digital libraries, Seadle posits how
librarians can use anthropological methods and theories to examine
library systems in fresh, new ways. He notes that as our language has
yet to catch up to modern technology, we tend to gravitate towards
physical metaphors to describe digital artifacts, such as "electronic
library." While helpful in their familiarity, these metaphors can skew
user expectations and conceal new technology-based capabilities.
Seadle's observations are insightful and foreshadow the organizational
themes which dominate the electronic text and information technology
center profiles in this article series. - LY
Stokes, John R. "Imaging Pictorial Collections at the Library of
Congress" RLG DigiNews 3(2) (April 15, 1999)
(http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews3-2.html). - The Library
of Congress is one of the few institutions that has the resources to
outsource the digitization of a quarter of a million images. But
nonetheless, this account of such a project will likely be fascinating
to anyone who digitizes pictorial material. Judging from the
accompanying photographs, a phenomenal amount of work was accomplished
in what appears to be a space not much larger than an elongated
closet. But what is most fascinating are the decisions that were made
along the way and the reasons for them. There is little enough of this
kind of nitty-gritty information around, so digital librarians (and
those who aspire) should take a good look. - RT
Stubbs, Walter and Eric Wettstein. "U.S. GPO CD-ROMS: Blessing or
Curse?" Journal of Government Information 26(2) (March/April 1999):
131-163. - Federal legislators see it as a painless method of
streamlining government, and librarians know what headaches it can
cause: the push for a more electronic Depository Library System has
resulted in a Tower of Babel of Government Printing Office CD-ROMs.
The authors surveyed 205 federal depository libraries in 1996, with a
lengthy questionnaire about 156 CD-ROM titles. The statistics derived
can't be seen as overwhelmingly conclusive about much of anything,
because only 70 usable responses were received, and a lot has changed
in three years. However, this study sheds light on what librarians
found useful, why some disks were avoided like the plague, and if and
when the Web was preferred. Particular attention is paid to the
advantages and disadvantages of the many varieties of enabling
software required to run these disks. Comments from depository
librarians are included. - JR
Weibel, Stuart. "The State of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative,
April 1999" D-Lib Magazine 5(4) (April 1999)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april99/04weibel.html). - The effort to
define a basic set of metadata elements for Internet resource
discovery has been ongoing for years. In this report, the leader of
the Dublin Core effort describes the current state of affairs and
identifies six areas where participants are currently focusing their
efforts. The six areas are: formalization of a process for the Dublin
Core, standardization, HTML encoding, qualification mechanisms, the
role of RDF, and relationships to other metadata models. For those
wanting to follow this effort, either as an observer or a participant,
the references for this piece point to some essential current
resources. - RT
Young, Jeffrey R. "Three Research Libraries Plan Vast New Facility to
Store Little-Used Books" Chronicle of Higher Education April 6, 1999.
- Columbia, The New York Public Library and Princeton are pooling
resources to build a single off-site storage facility in the Bronx,
and it will be a big one. This article describes the project, which is
cast as a defining moment in inter-university collaboration on a very
large scale. Princeton's provost makes several insightful comments
about library planning, to wit, "In the past, [collection development]
has been an area where many universities sought to compete, rather
than cooperate with each other to provide the very best service."
Other joint initiatives, such as digitization of material, may follow
in time. - TH
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 10(4) (April 1999) ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright 1999 by the Library, University of California,
Berkeley. All rights reserved.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1999/cc99.10.4.html
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Editor: Teri Andrews Rinne, trinne@library.berkeley.edu
