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Current Cities Volume 09 Number 01
_Current Cites_
Volume 9, no. 1
January 1998
The Library
University of California, Berkeley
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
ISSN: 1060-2356
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1998/cc98.9.1.html
Contributors:
Christof Galli, Kirk Hastings, Terry Huwe,
Margaret Phillips, Richard Rinehart, Roy Tennant
Jim Ronningen, Lisa Yesson
DIGITAL LIBRARIES
Crane, Gregory. "The Perseus Project and Beyond: How Building a
Digital Library Challenges the Humanities and Technology" D-Lib
Magazine (January 1998)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january98/01crane.html). - The Perseus
Project was one of the earliest large-scale digital library efforts
to be undertaken. Conceived and created before the explosion of the
World Wide Web, this ambitious interdisciplinary collection of digital
materials relating to Ancient Greece has become the project by which
others measure themselves. In this article the projects founder, Dr.
Gregory Crane, reflects on the last ten years and describes future
directions and goals. The article focuses on how the developers of
Perseus have tried to transcend the constraints of the printed
document by offering a completely integrated set of tools for the
navigation and analysis of interrelated texts, objects and scholarly
writings. Judging by their Web site, I would say that the project has
succeeded to a large extent. Dr. Crane then goes on to discuss how
such an effort can be a positive force for the scholarly comminutes
which they serve. A number of new and innovative careers have been
built around the project, and it continues to be an active arena for
the development of a "new generation of humanists". Looking forward to
the future, Dr. Crane explores ideas for new formats, expansion of the
project's subject coverage, and how Perseus might be a force for the
institutionalization of electronic scholarship. - KH
Crawford, Walt. "Paper Persists: Why Physical Library Collections
Still Matter" Online 22(1) (January 1998)
(http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/JanOL98/crawford1.html). - For
many years the library community has benefited from Walt Crawford's
reality checks. No technophobe, he analyzes information systems for
the Research Libraries Group. With this Online essay, he addresses an
audience which may see total digitization as imminent, but he gently
deflates that notion by citing examples of digital media limitations
and library usage patterns. He makes a convincing case that, for now
and the forseeable future, the value of online resources will beto
enhance and extend library collections. For those administrators and
others who demand that an argument be put succinctly, he offers the
simple phrase "and, not or" as a reminder that any good information
center will combine appropriate technologies, including the printed
page. - JR
Klemperer, Katharina and Stephen Chapman. "Digital Libraries: A
Selected Resource Guide" Information Technology and Libraries 16(3)
(September 1997): 126-131
(http://www.lita.org/ital/1603_klemperer.htm). - An excellent selected
guide to digital library resources for anyone wanting an overview of
digital library issues, draft standards, and technologies, as well as
strategies for staying current in the field (full disclosure: Current
Cites is mentioned). The sources cited here serve as good background
Main sections include general resources, bibliographies, retrospective
conversion and preservation, electronic publication of current
materials, initiatives to follow, listservs, conferences, journals,
and workshops. - RT
Lamont, Melissa and G. Ian Bowles. "Advancing the Digital Map
Library"Information Technology and Libraries 16(3) (September 1997):
121-124. - This article describes an innovative service wherein Web
users can select census data for the state of Pennsylvania and have a
thematic map created to their specifications. The Pennsylvania County
Mapper allows users to select a data set and a year, then a
subdivision of the data set, the variable to map, the type of data
classification, the number of data classes and the color. How this
service is constructed is discussed in the article, but basically the
three pieces are static HTML pages for setting up the map, a CGI
program written in Perl to translate the settings, and a script
written in Arc Macro Language to interact with ArcInfo, which draws
the map. This project demonstrates how current technologies can be
used to create innovative and useful library services. - RT
Lejeune, Lorrie. The Internet Public Library: Before Its Time" JEP:
The Journal of Electronic Publishing 3(2) (December 1997)
(http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/03-02/IPL.html). - This article
describes an innovative project to offer public library services to
the entire Internet. Growing out of a graduate school project, the IPL
soon took on a life of its own, complete with grant funding, staff,
and a burgeoning Web site and clientele. It is an interesting story,
and one that raises questions about how to support projects that serve
the common good when there is none of the tax structure in place that
normally supports such efforts. Needless to say, until new funding
models are created and realized, efforts such as this one may be
doomed to failure. How we can prevent this from happening is the
challenge set forth by this article. - RT
ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING
Gilpin, Kenneth N. "Concerns About an Aggressive Publishing Giant" New
York Times (December 29, 1997):C2. - Although buried in the business
section, this article on the aggressive business practices of Reed
Elsevier, one of the world's largest publishers of science journals,
is really more about the nature of scholarly communication and about
how consolidation among publishers is stifling competition and driving
up journal prices -- in other words, it's about the "Microsoft-zation"
of the science publishing industry. With Purdue University at the
lead, libraries and academic communities may be starting to fight
back; when Reed Elsevier's president offered to lock in the annual
increase in the price of 350 online publication to 9.5 percent, Purdue
University balked and ended up cancelling many of its Elsevier titles.
(For more on the burgeoning grassroots efforts to fight back against
the publishing industry, see a letter by Professor Rob Kirby of the UC
Berkeley mathematics department:
http://math.berkeley.edu/~kirby/journals.html.) - MP
Rosenblatt, Bill. "Solving the Dilemma of Copyright Protection Online:
The Digital Object Identifier" JEP: The Journal of Electronic
Publishing 3(2) (December 1997)
(http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/03-02/doi.html). - Publishers have
long desired a standard way that individual intellectual objects
(journal articles, for example) can be uniquely identified without
using a physical address (which is what a Uniform Resource Locator or
URL is). Books have International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) that
perform this role for printed books, but a similar system was needed
that provides the same service but in a networked environment and for
a much broader range of material. This article describes the process
that the publishing community went through, and the outcome of their
efforts in the form of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Rosenblatt
gives us a good start, but I wish he had provided more links to the
resources that are required to truly understand how these are
constructed. For example, he repeatedly refers to the Serial Item and
Contribution Identifier (SICI, more information at
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/SICI/) as a part of the syntax of the DOI,
and yet neglects to mention where one can go to figure out how one
should be constructed. Nonetheless, this article is a useful
introduction to both the reasons for, and the use of, this object
identifier. - RT
Schad, Jasper C. "Scientific Societies and Their Journals: Issues of
Cost and Relevance" The Journal of Academic Librarianship 23(5)
(September 1997):406-407. - It seems that for-profit publishers are
not the only ones to blame for the rising cost of journals (see cite
for Gilpin in this issue). In this perspective piece, Schad questions
the publishing motives of scholarly societies. For instance, the
American Chemical Society states that one of its top priorities in
publishing a journal is to preserve the archival record of research in
their disciplines. Another spin on this motive might be that journals
published by scholarly societies are simply a service for scientists'
quest for tenure, promotion and grants and as such, some of what is
published in these journals may be of archival use but may not
necessarily be of use to currently active scholars. Yes, scholarly
societies should continue to publish journals since journal literature
is an important part of scholarly communication; journal prices could
be reduced, however, if they were downsized and were to publish only
the best of the professions' scholarship. Schad goes on to suggest
that if scientific societies want to continue to preserve an archival
record of research in their discipline, they can do so cheaply by
providing access to this material in electronic form. - MP
Turner, Judith Axler. "Pioneering an Online Newspaper: Lessons from
the Chronicle" JEP: The Journal of Electronic Publishing 3(2)
(December 1997) (http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/03-02/chronicle.html).
- In this piece the editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education
describes the process and the lessons learned from moving a print
publication to the Internet. As a pioneer (Academe Today was one of
the earlier online publications), they learned a lot, and this article
shares a good deal of that experience in an informative and engaging
way. What they learned about online user behavior is well worth the
time it takes to read the article. But then you get to the "missed
opportunities" section, in which Turner shares her regrets. Now this
is candid and informative stuff, and not to be missed. Her ending
section is titled "Pioneers Are the Ones with Arrows in their Backs",
but because of the lessons learned from pioneers like Turner's outfit,
those who follow in their footsteps will have a much better
opportunity to dodge them. - RT
NETWORKS & NETWORKING
Devlin, Brendan. "Conceptual Models for Network Literacy" The
Electronic Library 15(5) (October 1997):363-368. - Devlin uses
cognitive science concepts to present a conceptual model for general
information retrieval and guidelines for when to use the Internet in
research. The eight step conceptual model can be summarized in four
phases: (1) identify information in the form of a question, (2)
classify the type of question (ready reference, known item, subject
specific, or research), (3) develop asearch strategy and (4) assess
results. When considering the Internet, Devlin concludes that the
Internet should only be chosen if the question is unlikely to be
answered elsewhere, if other sources have proved unsuccesful or if a
comprehensive source is required. While there is little assessment of
specific search tools or strategies, this article does provide a
preliminary framework for the information retrieval process and for
assessing the Internet as a research resource. - LY
Knight, Lorrie A. "Locating Public Domain Images" College & Research
Libraries News 59(1) (January 1998):11-13
(http://www.ala.org/acrl/resjan98.html). - A concise list of public
domain image collections available on the web, this may be the only
resource that web developers need consult to find images for
incorporating into their sites. Listed here are references to thematic
image collections like the Library ClipArt Collection
[http://www.netins.net/showcase/meyers/library_clipart/clipart.html],
government sites like the NASA Photo Gallery
[http://www.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/index.html] and image archives like
The Clip Art Connection [http://www.ist.net/clipart/]. When using
images from these sites, as the author advises, just remember to abide
by the appropriate rules of copyright. - MP
Press, Larry. "Tracking the Global Diffusion of the Internet"
Communications of the ACM 40(11) (November 1997):11-17. - So many
unsubstantiated claims are made about Internet growth and usage, it's
tempting to simply dismiss all estimates. However, when you need to
know more than that it's just really really big and really really
busy, this article names the organizations that are making responsible
efforts to track and quantify, and gives a URL for each. From veteran
net-watchers like John Quarterman's Matrix Information and Directory
Services to the newly formed Cooperative Association for Internet
Data Analysis, each organization's function and methods are
described. The article appears in an issue themed "Computational
Infrastructure: Toward the 21st Century," and there are several
related pieces which depict the evolving infogrid. - JR
"Special Issue: The Best Library-Related Web Sites" Library HiTech
15(3-4) (1997) (http://www.pieranpress.com/). - The articles in this
special issue are from the site managers of the winners of the "Best
Library-Related Web Sites Contest." If one overlooks the flawed
contest itself, the articles represent an interesting mix of
experiences in setting up and managing a diverse range of
library-related Web sites. Some of these sites are clearly
well-deserved of their reward, and are setting the standards by which
others should aspire (for example, the OhioLink site at
http://www.ohiolink.edu/). Some well-deserved sites are unique in what
they do and will likely not have many competitors (such as the
Internet Scout Report at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/). They
all have stories to tell, and you can pick and choose among them to
find the ones that best meet your needs or pique our interest. - RT
GENERAL
Bronson, Po. "Is the Revolution Over? Report from Ground Zero: Silicon
Valley" Wired 6.01 (January 1998):99-112. - If you aren't completely
tired of hearing the Wired digerati proselytize about the ongoing
digital revolution, you may want to pick up Wired's 5th Anniversary
issue "The State of the Planet-1998." In particular, Po Bronson's
journey into Silicon Valley - the epicenter of the new economy - is
revealing and entertaining. Bronson's stories of knowledge workers in
the Valley depict the new "total dedication model": no longer to the
company but to the dream of transforming the world through technology.
While Bronson is clearly an insider, he doesn't seem to take it all
too seriously and the result is a generally optimistic, good read. -
LY
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 9(1) (January 1998) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright ©
1998 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley. All rights
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