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Current Cities Volume 11 Number 04
_Current Cites_
Volume 11, no. 4, April 2000
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2000/cc00.11.4.html
Contributors: Terry Huwe, Michael Levy, Leslie Myrick,
Margaret Phillips, Jim Ronningen, Lisa Rowlison, Roy Tennant
Brown, John Seely, and Duguid, Paul. "Special Issue with Excerpts
from: The Social Life of Information" First Monday 5 (4) (April 3,
2000) (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_4/); Brown, John Seely
and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information, Boston, MA:
Harvard Business School Press, 2000. - The book has been on the New
York Times Bestseller list, and an early manuscript was published here
on First Monday a few years back. Now the netzine is publishing the
table of contents, introduction, and first three chapters for the
online audience to review. If you haven't browsed it in a bookstore,
take a look here, for free. Iconoclastic and unflinching in their
analysis, the authors skewer the many excesses of media hyperbole
about information technology and the Internet. A refreshing focus on
how people use -- and fail to use -- technology emerges from the text,
a universal dilemma that librarians have been speaking to for years.
An excellent read. - TH
Buehler, Marianne. "U.S. Federal Government CIOs: Information
Technology's New Managers - Preliminary Findings" Journal of
Government Information 27 (1) (January/February 2000): 29-45. -
"Elements of efficiency that customers can measure are the time they
spend standing in line or being placed on hold at the end of a phone
connection attempting to access information." But hasn't information
technology made all that go away? I'm sure you know from experience
(and inference from Buehler's quote above) that the revolution is far
from complete, and some government agencies have been among the most
recalcitrant. This article examines one aspect of recent Congressional
and Executive mandates for improvement: the employment of chief
information officers as agents for change. The Clinger-Cohen
Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-106)
and Clinton's Executive Order 13011 have been in effect long enough
that the author felt a survey was in order, and she reports on
compliance, the nature of the CIO position in practice, and impacts on
agency information policies. The oversight roles of the General
Accounting Office and the Office of Management and Budget are also
described. As systems analysts know, the organization is an integral
part of the problem, and can be part of the solution, too; these first
CIOs are in a position to address the "pervasive waste in government
IT spending and inexusably poor consumer-service systems" and take
action. - JR
Burk, Roberta. "Don't Be Afraid of E-Books" Library Journal 125(7)
(April 15, 2000): 42-45. - There has been a lot of hype lately about
e-books and how they are poised to transform the way in which we
purchase and read books. This article goes beyond the hype by
describing how one library has successfully added e-books and their
associated readers to their collection. Ebooks that do not require
specialized hardware (such as those offered by NetLibrary) are not
covered in this article. A sidebar highlights several types of
hardware- and software-based ebook systems. It is too early to tell
what impact these devices may have on libraries, but this article is
an important early report on how at least one library is being
successful at integrating this type of material into their array of
services. - RT
Carr, Sara and Vincent Kiernan. "For-Profit Web Venture Seeks to
Replicate the University Experience Online" The Chronicle of
Higher Education (April 14, 2000): A59-A60. - Five educational and
cultural institutions have come together to construct a for-profit web
site that seeks to recreate not just university courses, but also the
intellectual milieu of a university campus. Partner institutions
include Columbia University, the British Library, the Cambridge
University Press, the London School of Economics and Political
Science, the New York Public Library, and the Smithsonian
Institution's National Museum of Natural History, with possible
additional participants joining later.Called Fathom
(http://www.fathom.com/), the business will not grant degrees or
create courses, but will market courses developed by its members.
Although fees will be charged for courses and some online content,
much of the content of the web site will be available for free once
the site opens later this year. - RT
Floyd, Michael. "Blowing XML Bubbles" Web Techniques (March
2000) (http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/03/xml/) - The hype
surrounding XML has been ubiquitous enough to filter even into those
circles which generally avoid structured text issues. Floyd explores
the ever-expanding 'XML bubble' in a series of email interviews with a
handful of representatives of some of the most pneumatic bubble
blowers in the XML community: Reid Conrad from Extensibility, Bob
Bickel from Bluestone Software, Coco Jaenicke from eXcelon, and Marie
Wieck from the IBM Network Computing Software Division. The questions
and answers explore: the roles and uses of XML (integration, exchange,
content management) in the B2B and publishing communities, and whether
the standard is seen to have fractured or aggregated different user
communities; when XML might not be suitable (these evangelists were
hard-pressed to find examples); what its limitations are; and a
rundown of some of the most interesting innovative uses of XML the
participants have come across. - LM
Guernsey, Lisa. "Unplugged on Campus, but Always Connected" New York
Times (April 20, 2000): Section D, p. 1 - Focusing on a small liberal
arts college Mount St. Mary College in New York State, wireless
technology and networks in the academic setting are seen as a
relatively inexpensive means of providing network access. Wireless
connectivity has so permeated the daily existence at this college that
students, faculty and librarians are always connected, whether in the
dorms, the library or the classroom. As with many schools, computer
labs and offices had already been wired for high speed access but the
problem was how to extend this to classrooms, dormitories and
libraries without breaking the bank. Working with a company called
Proxim the wireless network was installed, and students were given
discounts for wireless adapter cards. The network consists of access
points, or hubs, that are plugged into the existing network at a cost
far less than a hardwired solution. With rapidly improving technology
network speed is far greater than dial-up modems but still lags
hardwired networks. - ML
"The Next Chapter" 2600 17(1) (Spring 2000): p. 5-8. - We
certainly wouldn't cite anything from 2600, the "hacker quarterly," as
an endorsement of illegal hacking or as a validation of the more
dubious claims made in its pages, but it's worth looking at because
it's the single best source for learning about hacker ethics and
attitudes. "The Next Chapter" is of interest because it includes,
straight from the horse's mouth, typical arguments offered in defense:
that hackers are benign investigators performing a service by
uncovering ways to exploit security weaknesses, that freedom of speech
overrides intellectual property protections, and that large media and
communications companies are inherently tyrannical and deserve to be
attacked. Specifically, it addresses the fact that the 2600 web site
and others are being sued by the Motion Picture Association of America
for publishing the deCSS code which can be used to defeat access
controls on DVDs. (The essay isn't clearly attributed to "Emmanuel
Goldstein," editor Eric Corley's pseudonym taken from Orwell's 1984,
but I'm assuming it's his work since it fits the editorial pattern set
in previous issues.) Other interesting pieces include a thank-you note
from Kevin Mitnick to the readership, and of course many examples of
the "how-to" articles which attract the attention of lawyers and FBI
agents. If 2600 is new to you, it may help to know that it is
something of an institution, having been in print since 1984, and is
just one manifestation of a community that has employed Usenet, chat
rooms, the web and other less obvious methods to stay connected. - JR
Pack, Thomas. "Epublishing: Revolution or Virtual Vanity Press?"
Econtent (April/May 2000): 52-56. - Pack offers yet another look
at the double-edged sword that is e-publishing, and investigates some
of the implications for information professionals of the
e-self-publishing revolution. What, Pack asks, are the implications
for libraries of the growing spate of e-publication? Is it merely
adding to the problem of information overload? Without the traditional
editorial vetting constraints on what gets published, how will
librarians be able to sort the wheat from the chaff? On a more
technical level, what issues will arise in the realm of e-cataloguing,
e-ordering and e-purchasing? His focus here is on Fatbrain.com's
eMatter initiative, which is poised to become a revolutionary forum
for serialized works in the manner of Dickens' A Christmas Carol; all
sorts of shorter works of non-fiction and fiction, how-tos, and
technical manuals, among others. Fatbrain.com has also established
itself as a place for published authors to offer out-of-print titles
to which they hold copyright. Needless to say, scholarly publication
is another can of worms altogether. Whereas the scientific community
has taken swift advantage of scholarly web publishing consortia for
expediting dissemination of time-sensitive findings and fostering
interactive scholarship, humanities scholarship, despite generalized
rankling over 2-to-3-year backlogs at some major print journals, seems
slow to accept web publication as a viable standard. Pack's article
addresses the familiar concern that in many cases the e-publishing
process bypasses a certain level of critical vetting by agents,
editors, scholarly readers and publishers. He explores how the eMatter
initiative is facing this issue by striving to assure quality in its
offerings and by educating its users to make intelligent choices. In
the place of traditional critical vetting stands The Market, along
with a "decency" criterion which proscribes hate language, slander and
obscenity. Further, a proposed e-manuscript must run the gauntlet of
the 4 Bs (i.e., that it is suitable for bathroom, bedroom, bus and
beach). The Fatbrain.com website offers a standard box of tools for
making critical choices, such as editorial promotion and highlighting
of the highest quality material, dynamically sorted best-seller lists,
along with offering reader reviews and author bios. It also backs up
its transactions with a moneyback guarantee. - LM
Trehub, Aaron. "Creating Fee-Based Online Services: A New Role for
Academic Librarians" Library Hi Tech 17(4) (1999): 372-389. - In
this overview of two fee-based services at the University of Illinois
Library at Urbana-Champaign, Trehub makes a case for libraries and
Librarians as "start-to-finish content creators." New opportunities
opened up by the Internet and the web have allowed the University of
Illinois to migrate the Bibliography of Slavic and East European
Studies (ABSEES) and the Illinois Researcher Information Service
(IRIS) into web-based subscription services. He outlines the basic
ingredients necessary for a successful fee-based service, which
including high quality content, adequate hardware and software,
programming and systems support, administrative support, an
advertising budget, skilled bibliographers and indexers and
institutional commitment. Responding to the debate over fee vs. free
services Trehub believes that fee services can augment and support
traditional library services. While the case is forcefully made, the
problem is that the IRIS database of federal and private funding
opportunities, is subsidizing the more "traditional" bibliographic
guide ABSEES. The question then remains whether something like ABSEES
can survive in the marketplace without such outside financial
assistance. In any case, such ventures for Trehub have the added
benefit of promoting what has been dubbed "intellectually-based
librarianship" and thereby raising professional status. - ML
"Secure Your Data" Web Techniques (April 2000)
(http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/) - April's Web
Techniques features a handful of articles addressing various ways of
stopping up those nasty security holes we inevitably open ourselves up
to when we head for the net, whether as surfers, e-consumers,
information technologists, or administrators. Aviel D. Rubin, in
"None of Your E-Business"
(http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/rubin/) , examines the
web user's vulnerability to identity theft, surveillance and
monitoring due to greatly enhanced means for the aggregation and
cross-referencing of personal information amassed through snooping
into email, cookies, e-business transactions (whether at e-bookstores,
e-groceries, or e-pharmacies -- 50 packs of cigarettes in a month?
what would your insurance provider think?). Rubin offers a few weapons
to fend off e-salesmen, the boss, the system admin, or the hacker down
the hall with a packet sniffer, including: using proxy servers, PGP
encryption, certificates, secure channels, and clearing your cache.
Lincoln Stein, in "Security in an 'Always On' World"
(http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/webm/) , realized early
that his new "Always On" DSL service translated to "Always Exposed".
You may not have a server humming away in your basement, but if you
do, this article is packed with good advice for hiding IPs, keeping
your ports probe-free, and protecting your data behind firewalls. Matt
Curtain, in "On Guard: Fortifying Your Site Against Attack"
(http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/curtin/), outlines how
to turn your web server into a bastion host, complete with a DMZ
network (it's a war out there!), cryptography, and security patches.
Chuck Newman in "Sharing Too Much: The Dangers of Hosting on
Windows NT" (http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/04/newman/) ,
shares what he learned about NT server security when he was able to
hack into his ISP's entire file system using a humble File System
Object. - LM
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 11(4) (April 2000) ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright © 2000 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley.
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