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Current Cities Volume 12 Number 08
Current Cites
Volume 12, no. 8, August 2001
Edited by Roy Tennant
The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720
ISSN: 1060-2356 - http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/2001/cc01.12.8.html
Contributors: Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Margaret Gross, Terry Huwe, Shirl Kennedy
, Leo Robert Klein, Jim Ronningen, Roy Tennant
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Adra, Eytan, and Huberman, Bernardo A. "A Market for Secrets." First Monday 6
(8) (August 6, 2001) (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_8/adar/). - The
authors describe a new kind of electronic system for private data that
guarantees levels of privacy, anonymity and control for individuals. The unique
element in their strategy is a means of maintaining privacy while introducing
the capability for commercial groups to mine information and automatically pay
individuals for their data. The idea depends on a novel procedure that enables
data miners to contact the data owners anonymously. The technological platform
is another bold attempt to create market mechanisms for consumer data while
guaranteeing acceptable levels of privacy. - TH
Bryar, J.V. (Jack) Taxonomies: the Value of Organized Business Knowledge (http:
//www.newsedge.com/materials/whitepapers/taxonomies.pdf). This document is a
white paper prepared for NewsEdge Corporation, an information provider based in
Burlington,MD. Recently NewsEdge has been acquired by The Thomson Corporation.
Taxonomies is a document developed as a commercial pitch for Newsedge products.
The reader must look beyond the intent, and view the essay in the broader
context of knowledge management schemes. Mr. Bryar has produced a clear and
logical exposition. He presents several rules and key concepts for managing a
large body of information. The document covers the use of thesauri, subject
headings to facilitate information navigation and retrieval. There is one
important difference, however, Mr. Bryar employs current information technology
language to expound these fundamental themes. His first tenet, given the
diversity of electronic document formats, is a compelling case for a common
wrapper using meaningful tags. All indicators point to the use of the XML meta
language. However, the application of XML does not resolve the problem of
meaningful retrieval. Its use would result in a standardized presentation of
documents, but still retrieval chaos. In order to facilitate information
retrieval, and at the same time guarantee the pertinence of the yield, XML must
be coupled with a meaningful taxonomy, based on the hierarchical arrangement of
subject groupings. Within the subject groupings the researcher must be able to
broaden or narrow the search, as well as find related lateral topics. The
arrangement of subject hierarchies must be logical, consistent, and expansible.
As most documents can be classified within more than one category, the
topological arrangement should be internally consistent. Each broad category
must be similarly subdivided using a standard schema. Searchers can anticipate
the arrangement, navigate easily, and thereby retrieve relevant data.
Additionally, a subject relevancy percentage or weighted system is highly
effective. In summary, this white paper is an excellent recap of library
science fundamentals, presented in the language of the new technology for
today's information professional. - MG
Calabia, Hector "New Virus Developed That Spreads Using Acrobat Files"
Computerworld (August 8, 2001) (http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/
0%2C4125%2CNAV47_STO62902%2C00.html). - Who'd have thunk it? Researchers have
discovered a worm that infects PDF files "a format considered safe up to
now." Yikes! Lurking as a player in this scenario is the usual suspect,
Microsoft Outlook. The researchers say the worm uses Outlook to send itself
hidden in a PDF file. When the recipient opens the file using Acrobat Reader, a
game is launched that encourages the recipient to click on a picture of a
peach. When he or she does so, a Visual Basic script fires off, activating the
virus. Although the virus has not yet made it out of the laboratory in which it
was created, it could be a harbinger of something really ugly, given the
widespread popularity of Acrobat. - SK
Caplan, Priscilla. "Reference Linking for Journal Articles: Promise, Progress
and Perils." portal: Libraries and the Academy 1 (3) (2001): 351-356. -
Constantly changing URLs don't scale up well for article reference linking
purposes in today's complex electronic publishing environment. To deal with
this problem, publishers have adopted DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) as
stable article identifiers. To help publishers locate DOIs for articles in
journals published by other companies, CrossRef was established to allow for
DOI retrieval based on metadata, such as author name. However, a major issue
remains for libraries: once the DOI is known, how can the user be routed to an
accessible copy of the article given licensing restrictions? Caplan clearly
explains these "localization" issues and the roles that OpenURL and SFX could
play in their potential resolution. - CB
Crawford, Walt. "MP3 Audiobooks: A New Library Medium?" American Libraries
(August 2001): 64-66. - In his typically technically accurate and thorough yet
readable style, Crawford highlights a new technology that may turn out to be
the best thing to hit audio books since the cassette tape. While many of us
have heard of (or even used) MP3 files, they may be connected in our brain with
Napster and other applications for swapping and playing music. Crawford makes
us break that connection and consider the very real possibility (opportunity)
that the MP3 format may be useful for audio books as well. It isn't completely
smooth sailing, however, since there are technical issues that remain to be
resolved one of them being the ability to stop a book and return to that
location again ("bookmarking"). But should those issues be resolved, and the
use of the format grows, Crawford thinks it is a promising new medium for
libraries. - RT
Engle, Randall. "The Neo Sophists: Intellectual Integrity in the Information
Age." First Monday 6(8) (August 6, 2001) (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/
issue6_8/engle/). - The author presents a lengthy history of sophistry to make
several points about "mythmaking" and the Internet. This leads up to his
central premise, which is that today's spinmeisters from both industry and
cultural studies are engaged in a new and improved form of sophistry which is
blurring the lines between market-driven ideologies and objective perceptions
of technology and society. This article is generally interesting for its
broad-based analysis, but it's also helpful because it explores the tension
between commercial mindsets and pure academic research. - TH
Fraser, Janice Crotty. "Registration Revamp". WebTechniques (Sept. 2001).
(http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/09/crotty_fraser/). - So much of
web development is a balancing act: Marketing wants this, Systems wants that.
Libraries are no exception. Wading through the tangle of conflicting priorities
at Netscape back in 1996 was designer Janice Crotty Fraser whose half-year-long
struggle to make Netscape's registration process less of a headache for the
user is here chronicled. - LRK
Lewis, Peter "OK, So You Need a Laptop" Business 2.0 (August 2001) (http://
www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,16716,FF.html). - Due to the stagnant
economy, this is a really good time to buy any kind of computer. If you've got
your eyes on a laptop, Lewis can help you choose one that is appropriate for
you. The key question, he says, is "How much laptop do you really need?" Which,
of course, depends on how you are going to use the machine. Do you need a
full-blown desktop replacement or a light-as-a-feather portable that will not
weigh you down as you dash between gates at the airport. How much of a factor
is cost? Which accessories should you consider? Whatever your needs, Lewis
encourages buying a machine with at least 128 megabytes of RAM and a 10
gigabyte hard drive. See which models he recommends and why. - SK
Lieberman, Henry, Christopher Fry and Louis Weitzman. "Exploring the Web with
Reconnaisance Agents." Communications of the ACM 44(8) (Aug. 2001) : 69-75. -
Intelligent Agents can't live with them, can't live without them. That's the
feeling the wary reader will probably come away with after going through this
discussion of two approaches to finding relevant information on the Web.
Finding this information, say the authors in this issue of CACM devoted to
visualization, is a joint undertaking between human user and computer. Just how
far the collaboration will go however, is open to question: Even at this early
stage, where it works as at Amazon where items are presented to the user
based on prior likes/purchases it's a useful tool. On the other hand, in an
online world where just to take one example paid advertising masquerades as
search results, purity of motives even for an automated agent can't be taken
for granted. - LRK
McGillis, Louise and Elaine G. Toms. "Usability of the Academic Library Web
Site: Implications for Design" College & Research Libraries 62(4) (July 2001):
355-367. - How one can truly know the many ways in which all types of library
users may fumble around with academic library websites is still elusive. In
this case, the authors know what a small group of 33 participants did, but they
were volunteers, had a familiarity with the library, and probably had some
degree of interest in online access (as opposed to people who'd only use it
kicking and screaming when there's no other alternative). They gained insight
into their pool's reactions to particular problems many of us have wrestled
with in designing sites: Where to start? How to avoid library jargon? Does the
site uselessly mimic the library's bureaucracy or the patterns of the physical
collection, when the more appropriate arrangement would be to place the online
tasks to be accomplished first and foremost? The reactions of these particular
testees, interesting as they are, represent just a subset of potential users,
and we need to figure out how to hear from those who don't speak up. - JR
Nellhaus, Tobin. "XML, TEI, and Digital Libraries in the Humanities." portal:
Libraries and the Academy 1 (3) (2001): 257-277. - DTD, EAD, RDF, SGML, TEI,
XLink, XML, and XSL. If you are asking yourself what does this technical
gobbledygook mean and why should I care, this article is for you. Using
examples from theater and drama studies, Nellhaus provides a concise and lucid
overview of these increasingly important topics that does not require the
reader to be an expert in markup language esoterica. When you're done with the
article, bake your own TEI DTD using The Pizza Chef: A TEI Tag Set Selector
(http://www.tei-c.org/pizza.html) or go to one of the other recommended Web
sites, such as XML.com (http://www.xml.com/), to learn more. - CB
Nelson, Matthew G. "Wireless Goal: Don't Get Whacked" Information Week (July 9,
2001) (http://www.informationweek.com/thisweek/story/IWK20010705S0013). --
"Whacking," we learn in this article, is the wireless equivalent of hacking
"usually done by a person who's in the right place at the right time with the
right kind of radio transceiver." It's emerging as a large problem for IT
security folks as wireless networks become the latest must-have enterprise
technology. Although some people feel wireless networks are inherently less
secure than their wired counterparts, locking down a wireless network isn't all
that different than protecting wired ones. User authentication, data integrity
and security to prevent data interception are the key concepts. - SK
Pfahl, Michael, "Giving Away Music to Make Money: Independent Musicians and the
Internet." First Monday 6(8) (August 6, 2001) (http://www.firstmonday.org/
issues/issue6_8/pfahl/). - Pfahl assesses the current state of Internet-based
music and its impact on the full distribution chain from artist to consumer.
Unlike many of the more prominent analyses of file-sharing programs that we've
seen in recent months, he analyzes the production and distribution shifts from
the perspective of independent musicians. No one has felt the impact of music
on the Internet more than the independent musician, he argues, and the
recording industry has dominated the production and distribution of music for
many years. He proposes an alternative strategic plan for successful Internet
commerce that would be based on artists giving away all of their music for free
via the Internet. His plan sounds radical, and it is, and this reflects his
understanding of the essentially subterranean relationship that thrives between
a band and its fans, and how elusive this relationship remains for Music, Inc.
- TH
Streitfeld, David. "E-books Solving a Problem Consumers Don't Have." Chicago
Tribune (Aug. 9, 2001) (http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/
chi-0108090012aug09.story) . - Tittle-tattle courtesy of the Chicago Tribune on
the woes of e-books as seen through the eyes of some unhappy authors. Includes
the noble sentiment: "If it's going to be a failure, it might as well be a huge
failure." - LRK
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Current Cites 12(8) (August 2001) ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright © 2001 by the Regents of the University of California All rights
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