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Current Cities Volume 12 Number 12
Current Cites
Volume 12, no. 12, December 2001
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2001/cc01.12.12.html
Contributors: [3]Charles W. Bailey, Jr., [4]Terry Huwe, [5]Shirl
Kennedy, [6]Leo Robert Klein, [7]Margaret Phillips, [8]Roy Tennant
Carlson, Scott. [9]"The Deserted Library" [10]Chronicle of Higher
Education 48(12) (November 11, 2001)
(http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i12/12a03501.htm). - Our numbers are
down: fewer students are coming to the library; circulation statistics
are falling; reserve loans have dropped dramatically. Needless to say,
electronic resources play an important role in this drama. Students
are using online databases and e-journals and, of course, Internet
services like [11]Ask Jeeves and [12]Google. Many library
administrators, in turn, are citing the explosion of e-resources as an
excuse to cut funding for print collections and space. On the other
side of the debate are librarians who value the library as an
important central space for the academic community. These are the
librarians who are in involved in building café's and creating ambient
wood paneled reading alcoves as a means of drawing more students to
their libraries. Others are bringing computer centers and writing
centers into the library. The library, it seems, is many things to
many people: for some it is the intellectual heart of the campus; for
others it website that provides access to hundreds of licensed
resources (don't forget to tell these people that not everything is
online); for others it's a good place to check e-mail; and let's not
forget the many undergraduates who think of the library a great place
to flirt and socialize. Can the library of the 21st Century be all
these things and more? - [13]MP
Deuze, Mark. [14]"Online Journalism: Modelling the First Generation of
News Media on the World Wide Web." [15]First Monday 6(10) (October 1,
2001) (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_10/deuze/). - The
author explores the impact of the Web on a longstanding and proud
profession. He argues that the Web is an entirely new medium and that
has had great impact on the consciousness of journalists. He
specifically focuses on the graphic interface of Web pages, which has
influenced readers, writers and designers. Web journalism has become
known as computer-assisted reporting (CAR), and is rapidly emerging as
a legitimate area of specialization. After charting the past decade of
"online journalism", which was dominated by an exploration of
"hyptertexuality", he identifies three strategies that journalists may
use to enhance the potential of journalism online: annotative
reporting, open source journalism and hyperadaptive news sites.
Information professionals will enjoy reading this overview of
journalism as a profession and the changes the Internet has wrought on
it. - [16]TH
[17]"Do You Own Your Mobile or Does It Own You?" [18]seethrugames:
your internet filter and webzine
(http://www.seethru.co.uk/games/quiz/mobiles/) - Drop it, Phone Boy,
and take this quiz, designed to measure your dependence on your
wireless phone (and give you a few cheap laughs). "Have you
ever...placed your phone on a restaurant table alongside cutlery like
it's some kind of participant in the meal? ...sneered at someone
else's handset because it's larger than your model, which conveniently
folds down into the size of a throat lozenge? ...reacted to a
momentary loss of reception in the same way as you might react to the
death of your parents, screaming incoherently into the handset even
though the other person clearly cannot and will never hear you?
...felt glad that the shitty greed-smeared telecoms companies have
lost billions?" You get the idea. - [19]SK
Duffy, Daintry. [20]"Why Do Intranets Fail?" [21]Darwin (November
2001) (http://www.darwinmag.com/read/110101/intranet.html) - A bad
intranet is worse than no intranet at all because "suboptimal
intranets can drain corporate coffers," according to usability guru
Jakob Nielsen, a source for much of the information in this article.
Not only is there an upfront expenditure for hardware, software and IT
time, Nielsen says, but there's a significant cost attached to the
time wasted by employees who are fruitlessly searching for the
information they need. And this isn't chump change, either. Nielsen
"estimates that if you multiply the number of people in the world
using intranets by the number of minutes they're wasting on them each
day, it's approximately a $1 trillion problem." At the dawn of
intranet time, these internal sites were built and maintained by
"small groups of techies, librarians and knowledge management
ideologues." But as Web publishing tools proliferated and became easy
to use, "people throughout the company started cranking out content
like crazy and posting it willy-nilly." Also, many intranets "became
the poor stepchildren of their companies' flashy Internet site."
Common pitfalls of intranet development include insufficient planning,
ignoring the end user, lack of organization, no one in charge and
disconnect by higher management. Article includes a sidebar on the
costs of running an intranet. - [22]SK
Entlich, Richard. [23]"FAQ: Image Search Engines" [24]RLG DigiNews
5(6) (December 2001)
(http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews5-6.html#faq). - Everyone
loves images. The web wasn't anything until images came along, then it
was an overnight success. So how does one find a specific image on the
web? By using one of a burgeoning number of image-focused search
engines. These search engines are simply optimized versions of typical
web indexes, with crawlers that go around sucking down web content and
indexing it. But with image search engines, they focus on images only,
and the web page text that may describe them. As information
professionals, we know that this is a clumsy approach at best, but as
the author puts it, until more sophisticated methods become available,
the tools profiled here will "have to suffice." Seven search engines
are thoroughly tested in this review article, with [25]Google's Image
Search (http://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en) being the highest rated. -
[26]RT
Hillesund, Terje. [27]"Will E-books Change the World?" [28]First
Monday 6(10) (October 1, 2001)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_10/hillesund/). - Hillesund
argues that to chart the fortunes of e-books, it's necessary to study
the impact of networks and information technology on society. He
explores "what e-books are" by studying book production processes and
other features of the print artifact. One key difference is that while
e-books are often regarded as a single digital object, they are in
fact "diffuse", ported to different platforms in bits and pieces-a
characteristic that has unexpected impact on readers and marketing
plans. Much of his analysis predates recent setbacks for the budding
e-book industry and its main players, but this article remains a very
overview. - [29]TH
Kenney, Anne R., editor. [30]"Editor's Interview: Collaboration
Between RLG and OCLC with Digital Archiving Initiatives" [31]RLG
DigiNews 5(6) (December 2001)
(http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews5-6.html#interview). -
Digital preserveration is, as anyone with even only a passing interest
in the topic knows, a headache-inducing problem. Just keeping the bits
around is a big enough problem, what with formats coming and going
with a rapidity not seen since the days of eight-track tapes (anyone
remember the 5 1/4" floppy?). Add to that the problem of moving data
from one proprietary format (such as WordStar) to another (such as MS
Word), and you should start watching those with such responsibility
for suicidal tendencies. Some in the field are convinced that the only
reasonable solution to such problems is the creation of centralized,
cooperatively-supported digital repositories charged with preservation
responsibility. Efforts such as those described in this interview, by
OCLC and RLG, two of the most significant U.S. cooperative library
organizations that exist, are essential to such solutions. OCLC is
taking the lead in the realm of preservation metadata, building on
previous experience with such efforts as CORC and the Dublin Core. RLG
is leading the charge in defining the attributes of a digital archive.
Together, they hope to help libraries come up with some essential
pieces of the digital preservation puzzle. This interview gives us a
glimpse into how they are approaching this effort. - [32]RT
Lessig, Lawrence. [33]"The Internet Under Siege" [34]Foreign Policy
(November/December 2001)
(http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_novdec_2001/lessig.html) -
Although the Internet was "made in the USA," it's been widely
acknowledged as a vehicle with the potential to promote information
sharing and increase cultural understanding worldwide. Alas, says
Lessig, the so-called "Internet Revolution" is dead. What killed it?
"A series of new laws and regulations" which, "under the guise of
protecting private property," are "dismantling the very architecture
that made the Internet a framework for global innovation." Lessig, in
this article, explains how "courts and corporations are attempting to
wall off portions of cyberspace," and examines the undesirable effects
resulting from this. Examined herein are online music sharing, the
DMCA, and WIPO's role in ensuring that this balkanization of
cyberspace becomes more and more of a worldwide phenomenon. - [35]SK
[36]Pew Internet & American Life Project. [37]"Press Release: The
Dot-Com Meltdown and the Web." (November 14, 2001)
(http://www.pewinternet.org/releases/release.asp?id=32). - The
intention of this survey was to gauge the effect of the "dot-com
meltdown" on average Americans. The short answer is not much. Indeed,
most look at the event as a "benefit to the online world". Perhaps
most significant however is the great reluctance of U.S. web surfers
to pay for content which hitherto they've been getting for free. 17%
reported being asked to pay for services they previously got for free
and of that 17%, a mere 12% were willing to foot the bill. The others
either found alternatives or did without. - [38]LRK
Poe, Marshall. "[39]Note to Self: Print Monograph Dead; Invent New
Publishing Model." [40]The Journal of Electronic Publishing 7
(December 2001) (http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/07-02/poe.html). -
Harvard professor Marshall Poe had a problem: academic publishers
loved his book (one called it "an incredible achievement"), but none
of them would publish it. Given the economics of scholarly print
publishing, no one could afford to publish a monograph titled [41]The
Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century: A Quantitative Analysis of
the "Duma Ranks," 1613-1713, which Poe estimates might only be of
interest to 200 readers in the next two centuries. Remarkably, Poe did
not give up. Instead, he conducted an informal peer review process
with experts in the field and made revisions. Next, he fired up
Microsoft Word and formatted his manuscript as an electronic book.
Concerned about universal access issues, he then converted it to the
Adobe Acrobat format. Next, he let specialists know it was available
by posting a message to the Early Slavic Studies list, and he e-mailed
it to journals for review. Finally, he investigated print-on-demand
options, and he talked to librarians about whether the e-book could be
added to the collection of the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard.
Poe says that "the old model--big university press, big print run, big
publicity campaign, big losses--is deader than Elvis." He may be
right, but, glancing at his [42]home page, I notice that the monograph
is now "forthcoming from the Finnish Academy of Science." However, if
this is what it takes to get a scholarly book published, how many
other faculty members will have the vision, technical skill, and
determination to follow his lead? It's a pity that research
universities can't afford to support small, fully subsidized technical
support units to help faculty members like Poe publish freely
available e-books and to arrange for print-on-demand production of
conventional books on a cost-recovery basis. - [43]CB
Rainey, Rebecca Fairley. [44]"Eclipsing the Sunshine of E-Government"
[45]Online Journalism Review (November 7, 2001)
(http://ojr.usc.edu/content/story.cfm?request=661) - "Without
question," says the author of this look at the current issues facing
e-government, "government leaders have largely embraced the Internet."
However, she points out, they've run into a number of obstacles that
are keeping online government from fulfilling its potential. These
include financial issues (how to pay for e-government in an era of
shrinking budgets, and whether charging fees is an answer); political
issues (including a major one involving the FirstGov search engine,
created through a nonprofit organization backed by Inktomi and Sun
Microsystems, which forbids advertising on sites that link to it and
may mean an unfair advantage when the renewal contract comes up for
bid); and the implications of GovNet, a proposed private network for
government entities that is separate from the existing Internet. While
these issues represent significant challenges, e-government has
achieved a high level of public acceptance, and "both government
agencies and the public are ready for better Internet services." -
[46]SK
Starling, Andrew. [47]"Usability and HTML Forms." [48]Internet.com
(December 11, 2001)
(http://ecommerce.internet.com/how/build/article/0,,10362_938071,00.ht
ml). - The filling out of forms on the Internet and the frustration
derived therein is rapidly becoming an almost universally shared
experience among web users, much like waiting in line at the
Department of Motor Vehicles. Needless to say, quite a literature has
developed on how to make these experiences more user-friendly. By far,
one of the most important factors is, as the author puts it, "the less
you ask for, the greater the chance of completion". The author brings
up many other good points. This includes the kind of expertise
required to write error messages when something isn't correctly filled
out: "Ideally, the same person who writes the company's groveling
apologies for major foul-ups should be brought in to edit programmers'
attempts at error messages, which will rarely hit the right tone." -
[49]LRK
Stewart, Bruce. [50]"An Interview with David Flanagan." [51]O'Reilly
Network (December 4, 2001)
(http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2001/12/04/flanagan.html).
- O'Reilly books become so familiar to web developers that often
they're referred to simply by the animal appearing on the cover. In
the case of David Flanagan's book "JavaScript : The Definitive Guide",
that would be a rhino. The 4th edition of this key tome has just been
published and the author takes this opportunity to touch on some of
the changes both to JavaScript and to his book. "Some developers", he
confesses, "can get by with just a cut-and-paste or cookbook knowledge
of JavaScript, but in the long run, I think it is worth taking the
time to learn the language." - [52]LRK
Wiggins, Richard W. [53]"The Effects of September 11 on the Leading
Search Engine." [54]First Monday 6(10) (October 1, 2001)
(http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_10/wiggins/). - The author
explores how people turned to the Internet for news and information on
the day of the apparent terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He
showcases how the leading search engine, Google, fared in the days
following in the eyes of its users. Google uses "search is king" as a
motto, and has remained a search-focussed site style rather than a
human-generated "portal" with added interactive features. Yet the days
that followed the attack saw the pursuit of news and "community"
dominating the search logs. Google focused on links to breaking news
and cached news from different sites, essentially steering users to
primary new sources instead of recreating them. Within days of the
event, traffic on this section of Google grew vastly. The author
forecasts that this feature will remain live on Google-pushing it more
in the direction of a "portal" instead of a metasearch site. - [55]TH
Youngs, Karla. [56]Managing the Digitisation of Library, Archive and
Museum Materials London: [57]National Preservation Office, 2001
(http://www.bl.uk/services/preservation/dig.pdf). - This brief
pamphlet (24 small-format pages) gives a broad overview of managing
digitization projects. Topics covered include justifying the project,
selecting materials, scoping the project, planning and managing it,
and preserving the digital images (OCR is not addressed). As an
overview of the process, this publication is most relevant to anyone
who does not require an in-depth knowledge of these topics, or as a
very beginning foray into these issues for someone who does. The brief
bibliography points to some essential resources that can provide much
more detail on these topics. - [58]RT
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 12(12) (December 2001) ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright © 2001 by the Regents of the University of California All
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