Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Current Cities Volume 03 Number 08
_Current_Cites_
Volume 3, no. 8
August 1992
Library Technology Watch Program
University of California, Berkeley
Edited by David F.W. Robison
ISSN: 1060-2356
Contributors:
Teri Rinne, Vivienne Roumani, Lisa Rowlison, Mark Takaro, Roy Tennant
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Hyper- and Multimedia
Brandt, Richard "CD-I at SALT: A Review of the Tenth Conference
on Interactive Instructional Delivery" CD-ROM Librarian 7(6)
(June 1992):58-59. Despite the trend towards standardization of
CD-ROM formats, developers continue to pursue a variety of paths
in an attempt to woo consumers. The Society for Applied Learning
and Technology annual meeting this year was quieter than usual,
but the consensus seems to be that CD-ROM will be the platform of
choice for the delivery of multimedia. Future increases in the
capacity of CD-ROM (which are still being haggled over by Philips
and Sony) may insure this trend. - MT
Landow, George P. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary
Critical Theory and Technology. Johns Hopkins University Press,
1992. A timely look at trends in literary theory and hypertext
systems development. The author analyzes virtual forms of
reading, non-linear structures and the webs that are hypertext
works. The model of a network which literary criticism has
employed recently provides a framework for understanding the
impact of new hypertext literature and texts newly adapted from
the past. The new concepts of literature are sure to be
influenced by the continuing evolution of hypertext works. - MT
Rumsey, Eric "HyperCard for Bibliographic Instruction"
Computers in Libraries 12(5) (June 1992):43-45. The Hardin
Health Sciences Library at the University of Iowa developed a
HyperCard-based tutorial for users to learn the Medline CD-ROM
system. Developed in stages and carefully evaluated, the system
has had a positive impact on this area of bibliographic
instruction. Interestingly, the project may be one of the first
to use a Macintosh program to shows users how to use a DOS-based
application. - MT
Wang, Joseph C. "Announcing tkWWW 0.2 Alpha" Originally posted on
news@athena.mit.edu on August 5, 1992 and reposted on PACS-L@
UHUPVM1 as "A Tk Interface to World Wide Web 0.2 ALPHA" by
Ernest Perez on August 10, 1992. The World Wide Web seeks to
build an international network of hypertext links and thereby
creating a multifaceted distributed database. This announcement
concerns a toolkit for developers. A set of terminal browsers for
the Web includes a simple tty interface. United States users can
telnet eies2.njit.edu or telnet 128.235.1.43 and login as www to
demo the World Wide Web. The demo provides an interesting view of
networked hypertext. The new Tk interpreted toolkit supports the
construction of X11 applications and will allow contributors to
submit hypertext to the World Wide Web.
Networks and Networking
Clement, John "Surveying K-12 and Postsecondary School
Networking Partnerships" EDUCOM Review 27(4) (July/August
1992):44-46. Clement provides us with some preliminary results
from a survey of K- 12/Postsecondary partnerships begun in
January of this year by himself and Ellen McHugh. The survey
found that many institutions are assisting primary and secondary
schools in networking and in a variety of ways, and the number
is growing. - DR
Drew, Wilfred. Not Just Cows: A Guide to Internet/Bitnet
Resources in Agriculture and Related Sciences. Morrisville, NY:
Morrisville College of Agriculture and Technology, 1992.
Available via anonymous ftp at ftp.unt.edu filename AGRICULTURE-
INTERNET.TXT or AGRICULTURE-INTERNET.WORDPERFECT51 (binary) and
at hydra.uwo.ca in directory libsoft as filename agguide.txt or
agguide.wp (binary). Drew has put together an excellent and
up-to-date guide to agricultural information resources on the
net in an easy to use format. Included here are descriptions of
mail, ftp, and telnet servers, in addition to e-BBSs and other
services along with clear access instructions. - DR
Deutsch, Peter "Resource Discovery in an Internet Environment"
Masters thesis, McGill University, 1992. Available via
anonymous ftp from archives.cc.mcgill.ca in directory
/pub/peterd as file thesis. This paper proposes a complex
naming and file management system to facilitate "the act of
discovering the existance [sic] of classes of resources,
locating specific instances of such classes, and accessing these
instances." Deutsch's scheme involves establishing unique
publisher identifiers, file identifiers and information brokers
(machines) that maintain and provide information to servers.
The servers, in turn, maintain their own data on available files
and answer queries from user access agents. Not exactly an
easy read, but very interesting. - DR
Kahin, Brian "Scholarly Communication Project: Computer
Conferences Announced" posted on PACS-L@UHUPVM1 and NETTRAIN@
UBVM on July 29, 1992. 6 new discussion lists have been
established by the Coalition for Networked Information as a
joint project with the JFK School of Government. The lists
cover joint authorship and ownership (OWNERSHIP); rights in
computer conferencing (REPOST); derivative and iterative works
(DERIV); control of dissemination (RESOURCES); site licensing
(SITE-LICENSE); and international access (INTERNATIONAL).
Subscription messages should be sent to LISTSERV@CNI.ORG
(subscribe [listname] [your first name] [your last name]).
You may subscribe to more than one conference in a message,
and you should include background information about yourself.
- DR
King, Kenneth M. "The NREN Picture Becomes Clearer" EDUCOM
Review 27(4) (July/August 1992):52-51. King, outgoing
President of EDUCOM, takes a look at the some of the issues of
the development the national information infrastructure with
respect to the federal funding, private funding, and the NSF.
This "letter" covers the major points without getting bogged
down in the details. - DR
"Online Services Experience Solid Growth Over Past 5 Years With
More Forecast for the Near Future" EFFector ONline 3(1) (July
29, 1992). A new study just released indicates that the sales of
online services have grown over 690% in the last 5 years, and the
growth is expected to continue by 48% over the next five years.
- DR
Peters, Paul Evan "Network Navigating and Navigators" EDUCOM
Review 27(4) (July/August 1992):40-42. Using the theme of the
Spring 1992 meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information as
the title of his synopsis of the meeting, Peters brings us the
highlights and key points of the event. Speakers included 4
people Peters describes as "pathfinders and pioneers in the area
of realizing the full promise of networks to advance scholarship
and intellectual productivity" (Vinton Cerf - CNRI, Brewster
Kahle - WAIS, Joyce Reynolds - USC, and George Strawn - NSF).
- DR
Polly, Jean Armour "Surfing the Internet: An Introduction" Wilson
Library Bulletin 66(10) (June 1992):38-42, 155. As stated in the
introduction, this article is intended to be a "nontechnical
introduction to Internet communications [and] is intended to show
how librarians and libraries can benefit from net connectivity."
Polly gives a basic description of the net, but then goes on to
list various networked resources for further information about
both the net as well as general information (including e-journals,
telnet and ftp sites, e.g. WAIS, WWW, Project Gutenberg, etc.).
- DR
Rotenberg, Marc "Proposed Privacy Guidelines for the NREN" Posted
on CPSR@GWUVM on July 30, 1992. This statement to NCLIS's Open
Forum on Library and Information Service's Roles in the NREN by
the Washington Director of the Computing Professionals for Social
Responsibility, presents both background and findings regarding
the great need to address privacy issues in the NREN arena.
According to the statement, the three main threats to privacy
on the net are commercialization, lack of legal protection, and
the governments current opposition to robust data encryption.
- DR
Tennant, Roy, John Ober and Anne G. Lipow. Crossing the Internet
Threshold: An Instructional Handbook. Berkeley, CA: Library
Solutions Press, 1993. This excellent guide to the Internet
serves two functions, it acts as an introduction to the net, its
services and resources, and is also an instruction kit for
trainers. In addition to describibg the full range of net
resources, the authors have provided exercises and copies of
overheads they have used in network instruction. For
information on ordering a copy, contact Anne Lipow at
alipow@library.berkeley.edu - DR
Optical Disc Technologies
Herther, Nancy "The Past, Present and Future of the Compact Disc,
Multimedia and the Industry: An Interview with Dr. Toshi Doi"
CD-ROM Professional 5(4) (July 1992):17-21. Sony Corporation
Director Toshi Doi is widely considered to be the father of both
the compact disc and digital audio. Much of this interview
focuses on the multimedia industry, specifically the
proliferation of multimedia formats. Doi predicts a healthy,
competitive future for the industry as long as a universal
multimedia format is established by 1995. - TR
Littlejohn, Alice "CD-ROM 1991: The Year in Review" CD-ROM
Librarian 7(6) (June 1992):18-57. Littlejohn presents a
comprehensive review of a robust year for the CD-ROM industry.
Nearly every topic germane to the industry is mentioned within
one of the six major categories: market, products, users,
technicalities, international scene, 1992 and beyond. Appended
to the 25-page review are over 300 bibliographic citations.
Required reading for CD-ROM industry watchers. - TR
General
Thinking Robots, an Aware Internet, and Cyberpunk Librarians /
R. Bruce Miller and Milton T. Wolf, editors. The citations below
are of a sampling of the articles in this thought provoking
collection. The Library and Information Technology Association
(LITA) plans to publish these articles along with the text of the
speeches at the 1992 President's program in a monograph this Fall.
More citations from this collection will appear in the next
issue of Current Cites.
o Cisler, Steve "The Canary on the Computer" pp.84-87.
Beginning with discussion of the vision of progress from eyes
ranging from the paranoid to those behind rose tinted glasses,
Cisler offers a review of the work of the two leading information
watchdog groups outside librarianship (though not without
librarians) the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Computing
Professionals for Social Responsibility. - DR
o Davidson, Howard L. "A Clear Vision of the Information"
pp. 77-78. Davidson, a Senior Research Physicist at Sun
Microsystems Laboratories, offers a rather radical vision of
the ultimate IR system: a computer that both uses a model of
the user's memory strategy and taps into the user's brain
directly. Read it to believe it. - DR
o Halbert, Martin "Knowbot Explorations in Similarity
Space" pp.65-69. Halbert lets us listen in on a conversation
about online retrieval that might take place in the year 2010
where users have knowbots conjure up 3-D graphical
representations of data. - DR
o Mason, Florence "Ethics and the Electronic Society" pp.
88-92. As networked information becomes more ubiquitous, ethical
concerns about information are changing. Mason covers some of
the concerns over ownership, control, access, and privacy of
information. She also proposes ethical guidelines for the modern
information professional. - DR
o Wallis, Roberta "Nanotechnology: The Library of Congress
in Your Pocket" pp. 33-37. A fascinating futuristic and somewhat
utopian view of what we might expect from the continuing
miniaturization of technology. The author cites the writings of
K. Eric Drexler in the field of nanotechnology and suggests that
information and learning may develop beyond present constraints
with the help of nanotechnology. - MT
Van Bergen, Marylin A. "Copyright Law, Fair Use, and Multimedia"
EDUCOM Review 27(4) (July/August 1992):31-34. Bergen provides a
brief and timely discussion of copyright law in the electronic
age. Some specific areas covered are fair use, derivative and
collective use, and the conflict between constitutional rights
of access and copyright controls. - DR
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Cites 3(8) (August 1992) ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright (C) 1992 by the Library, University of
California, Berkeley. All rights reserved.
All product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of
their respective holders. Mention of a product in this publication
does not necessarily imply endorsement of the product.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and
libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their
collections at no cost. This message must appear on copied
material. All commercial use requires permission from the editor,
who may be reached in the following ways:
drobison@library.berkeley.edu // drobison@ucblibra // (510)642-7600
-------------------------------------------------------------------
