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Current Cities Volume 12 Number 06
Current Cites
Volume 12, no. 6, June 2001
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
ISSN: 1060-2356 -
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2001/cc01.12.6.html
Contributors: [3]Margaret Gross, [4]Terry Huwe, Shirl Kennedy, [5]Leo
Robert Klein, [6]Margaret Phillips, Jim Ronningen, [7]Roy Tennant
Bonett, Monica. [8]Personalization of Web Services: Opportunities and
Challenges" [9]Ariadne Issue 28 (June 2001)
(http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/personalization/). - Bonett begins
by describing what personalization is and the purposes for offering
personalization options for web sites. She uses commercial web sites
to illustrate different kinds of personalization, then briefly
discusses each specific method for providing personalization. In the
third section she highlights library examples of web personalization,
and finishes with a "challenges" section in which she outlines some
thorny issues (such as usability and ethics) that must be addressed.
The piece is illustrated with screen shot examples, all web site URLs
are provided, and many of the bibliographic references are available
online. - [10]RT
Brabazon, Tara. [11]"Internet Teaching and the Administration of
Knowledge" [12]First Monday 6(6) (June 4, 2001)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_6/brabazon/). - The author,
an Australian, assesses the impact on the Internet on universities in
a wide-ranging analysis that deconstructs the role of teachers,
classrooms and pedagogy in general. She makes the interesting point
that the "crisis" in university education purportedly triggered by the
Internet coincides with a dramatic increase in the enrollment of women
and minorities, including reentry students. Her analysis of the issues
surrounding teacher performance and quality in the classroom are very
well-stated, striking through the rhetoric surrounding attempts to do
"corporate makeovers" in the academy. - [13]TH
Bradford, Phillip G., Brown, Herbert E., and Saunders, Paula M.
[14]"Pricing, Agents, Perceived Value and the Internet" [15]First
Monday 6(6) (June 4, 2001)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_6/bradford/). - The authors
make the powerful but simple point that however innovative the
Internet is as a new delivery system for consumers, "perceived value"
will always trump price in determining how much, and what people will
want to buy. Dropping prices, of course, do have an impact on sales,
but it only goes so far. People make purchase decisions based on
value, and ultimately, value cannot be detached from commodity. This
article provides a useful background in what many might think of as
Economics 101. However, perhaps more e-commerce visionaries should
thought about perceived value, in recent years. - [16]TH
Freely, IP. [17]"Looking for a Job" [18]Netslaves
(http://www.netslaves.com/comments/992865072.shtml). - One version of
the dot-commer myth says that the young whippersnappers have always
been free to cash out bigtime, and that the idle ones have no bigger
worry than avoiding those little bits of croissant shrapnel on the
caf'e chairs where they rest their golden-IPO'd butts. News to the
contrary has spread fast: almost all of these newly unemployed people
are hurting. If you're one of the many librarians who are wondering if
they might be able to lure jobless programmers to their lower-paid but
more secure library jobs, you might want to taste the bitterness and
check out the "Netslaves: Undertakers of the New Economy" Web site.
The cited article (a posting, really, complete with sassy pseudonym)
is representative of what you can expect. Granted, at a site made for
venting you will encounter rude language, but that's natural given the
roller-coaster crash they've been through. Read about their sometimes
absurd experiences (the item about all of those Aeron chairs
[[19]http://www.netslaves.com/comments/989387319.shtml] bought with
venture capital bucks), fears (how about homelessness), and
generational humor (reader's poll: "When I go to hell I'll hear ...
Ice, ice, baby"). The site was started by Bill Lessard and Steve
Baldwin, authors of the book NetSlaves: True Tales of Working the Web,
which was published way back last year before dot-com turned to
dot-bomb. - JR
Gill, Tony. [20]"3D Culture on the Web" [21]RLG DigiNews 5(3) (June
15, 2001) (http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews5-3.html). -
Gill reminds us that the two-dimensional web is missing an important
dimension. Particularly important for cultural information, the third
dimension presents particular problems for depicting in a
two-dimensional space. Gill reviews the ongoing standards efforts as
well as existing applications for depicting and interacting with
three-dimensional representations of landscapes or objects. Although
we still seem to be some distance from achieving a robust, standard
markup language for three-dimensional information (with the best hope
being the XML-based X3D specification), at least you can experience
3-D objects on the web through using such plug-ins as Apple Computer's
QuickTime Virtual Reality (QuickTimeVR), which is available for both
MS Windows and the Mac. - [22]RT
Guglielmo, Connie. [23]"Microsoft Tries to Get Smart" [24]ZDnet
Interactive iWeek (June 11, 2001)
(http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/columns/0,4164,2772297,00.html).
- Yuks of the month award goes to this delightful piece written in
response to the controversy over Microsoft's proposed "Smart Tags".
"Smart Tags" are 3rd party links to services, many of them commercial,
which the next iteration of the Microsoft browser will automatically
add to a Web page prior to display. The Guglielmo piece looks at the
editorial implications of this in an especially well-crafted and
understated way. - [25]LRK
Hiltzik, Michael A. [26]"Birth of a Thinking Machine" [27]The Los
Angeles Times (June 21, 2001)
(http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/lat_cyc010621.htm). - With
the imminent release of Steven Spielberg's movie [28]A.I. (artificial
intelligence), this article describes a real A.I. project. For 17
years a team of scientists has been laboring to "teach" a computer
(nick-named "Cyc" for "encyclopedia") everything it might need to know
to think for itself. The "knowledge base" has grown to over 1.4
million assertions, "hundreds of thousands of root words, names,
descriptions, abstract concepts, and a method of making inferences
that allows the system to understand that, for example, a piece of
wood can be smashed into smaller pieces of wood, but a table can't be
smashed into a pile of smaller tables." That's small comfort to those
of us who remember all too well the fictional computer "HAL" from
Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Although Cyc is still likely
years from being used in practical applications, a small portion of
the Cyc knowledge base is scheduled to be released to the public this
summer under the name OpenCyc by [29]Cycorp, Cyc's inevitable
corporate parent. - [30]RT
Kennedy, Shirley Duglin. [31]"Web Design That Won't Get You Into
Trouble" [32]Computers in Libraries 21 (6), June 2001.
http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jun01/kennedy.htm). - Ms. Kennedy has
written a lively, thorough and thought provoking article about the
many ways web designers can unwittingly break the law. The article
could easily have been subtitled "Copyright, how do I infringe thee,
let me count the ways" (my apologies to R.B.). The author lists the
five rights granted by the Act to holders of copyright, Against this
list, she demonstrates how seemingly innocent acts such as linking to
a graphic on another's site may infringe copyright. Best to contact
the owner, and ask for permission before going ahead. Further examples
include creating a webpage of links to only selected portions of a
website, and deep linking. The latter refers to bypassing the home
page, and linking further into the website. Often home pages contain
advertising, thus avoiding these may mean lost revenue for the
website's owner. Further in the article, Ms Kennedy examines first
amendment issues. Throughout the article there are numerous URLs
presented, including a sidebar where all URLs in the article are
compiled and annotated. - [33]MG
Lynch, Clifford. [34]"The Battle to Define the Future of the Book in
the Digital World" [35]First Monday 6(6) (June 4, 2001)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_6/lynch/). - This sprawling
article lays out all of the issues driving the e-book development
process, complete with a lively and entertaining panoply of the
qualities one always associates with Clifford Lynch: humor, laconic
delivery, far-reaching conclusions, piercing questions, and an
intellect that cuts to the chase like a stiletto. Look no further for
a lucid analysis of e-book readers versus software, licensing to
consumers versus libraries, the role of libraries and their confusion
with e-books, the successes of libraries with electronic media versus
the lost opportunities, and so on. Lynch has always been a leader of
the pack in assessing the human impact of technology without
sacrificing a rigorous review of the technology. In short, this
article is required reading for anyone interested in e-books. The
section on libraries and e-books is a true gem - [36]TH
Powell, Andy. [37]"OpenResolver: A Simple OpenURL Resolver"
[38]Ariadne Issue 28 (June 2001)
(http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/resolver/). - [39]OpenURL is a
standard way to encode links for bibliographic resources that enables
richer linking services than is normally possible. It is designed to
solve one problem (the issue of sending the user to the copy of an
item you've licensed rather than to one you have not, also called the
"appropriate copy" problem) and provide opportunities for adding other
linking services (such as looking up other articles by the same
author). You'll need to read the piece to get the explanation of what
it does and how it works. The online demonstration, however, is where
you're more likely to "get it", so be sure to try it out. Kudos to
Powell for writing a clear explanation of OpenURL and particularly for
setting up such a great demonstration of how OpenURL works. - [40]RT
Reich, Vicky and David S.H. Rosenthal. [41]"LOCKSS: A Permanent Web
Publishing and Access System" [42]D-Lib Magazine 7(6) (June 2001)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june01/reich/06reich.html). - It's all too
easy to scoff at a digital preservation system named "Lots of Copies
Keep Stuff Safe" ([43]LOCKSS), but one would do best to keep scoffing
at a minimum until reading this article. LOCKSS is a project
spearheaded by Stanford to provide a method for libraries to preserve
an electronic journal by capturing and storing the bits in a redundant
and automatically reparable network cache. The system is currently in
a beta test with servers around the globe. But do not assume that by
storing the bits LOCKSS solves the digital preservation issue. LOCKSS
solves only the most tractable part of the digital preservation
problem -- keeping the bits around. Left for others to solve is the
much more difficult problem of what to do when the format the
information is in goes kaput (can anyone still open a WordStar file?).
- [44]RT
Schaffner, Bradley L. "Electronic Resources: A Wolf in Sheep's
Clothing?" [45]College & Research Libraries 62 (3) (May 2001):
239-249. - Schaffner's thesis statement on e-resources in libraries:
electronic resources should complement rather than replace other
formats. While he acknowledges the many advantages of electronic
resources (full-text searchability, remote accessibility, etc.), he
cautions that there are also many misconceptions about e-resources
(that everything is available online, that they are cheaper and that
they are can be more efficiently administered). These misconceptions
mean that politicians and administrators (the ones who ultimately
control libraries' purse strings) are eager to prioritize funding for
virtual libraries over the budgetary needs of traditional library
collections and staffing. The article also discusses the impact of
electronic resources on research and includes the obligatory
librarian's lament about the inability of many researches to
effectively evaluate the resources they find on the Web. - [46]MP
Specter, Michael. "The Doomsday Click" [47]The New Yorker (May 28,
2001):101-107 - It's true what they say about The New Yorker: it's not
as serious as it used to be, Condé Nast is refashioning it (emphasis
on fashion) into a "lifestyle" publication, and in the national market
for mass media it's the publicist's friend. But interesting info tech
articles will show up in the darndest places. The title of this one
and the accompanying illustration are certainly alarmist enough to
cause some doubts, but the author has some good stories to tell about
his experience as a 'bug collector' with most of the major worms and
viruses archived on his hard drives. He relates his encounters with
people such as Peter G. Neumann who are certain that a catastrophic
net attack could happen any time, and describes his hands-on sessions
with hackers in Amsterdam. In that last tale, the eye-opener for the
general reader and maybe for some systems veterans, too, is the ease
with which malicious code can be launched. "Skriptkiddies" or anyone
else for that matter can send a virus down the pipes by simply
following a recipe or filling out an online form. If you have the
computer skills to order a t-shirt from J.Crew, then you also have the
skills to cause some serious trouble. The article is part of the
"Digital Age" issue. Please, I beg of you, take a look at the piece
about the ubiquity of PowerPoint, in which some of the repercussions
of overuse are revealed. For example, one mom's decision to include a
PowerPoint presentation in a family meeting about household chores
didn't go over too well with the kids. - JR
Tognazzini, Bruce. [48]"How to Deliver a Report Without Getting
Lynched" [49]AskTog (May 2001)
(http://www.asktog.com/columns/047HowToWriteAReport.html). - Not
getting lynched is probably high on most people's agenda. It's
particularly high for those of us active in technical areas where
reputations for articulate self-expression and sensitivity are not
always the best. Here then in this short piece, interface veteran
Bruce Tognazzini -- Tog -- reminds us that we'll sooner win people
over with a spoonful of sugar than with a jigger of vinegar. The
interchange between readers and Tognazzini following the piece is also
worth looking at -- particularly where Tognazzini is reminded that he
isn't always so diplomatic himself. - [50]LRK
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 12(6) (June 2001) ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright © 2001 by the Regents of the University of California All
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References
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17. http://www.netslaves.com/comments/992865072.shtml
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