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_Current Cites_
Volume 10, no. 7
July 1999
The Library
University of California, Berkeley
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
ISSN: 1060-2356
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1999/cc99.10.7.html
Contributors:
Terry Huwe, Margaret Phillips,
Roy Tennant, Jim Ronningen, Lisa Yesson
Basch, Reva. "High AJeevers: Valet-Added Searching from Ask Jeeves"
Database 22(3) (June/July 1999): 28-34. - As libraries continue to
struggle with the most effective web interface to Internet and library
resources, the single, simple search box as online reference desk is a
tempting model. But who envisioned it would be staffed by a butler?
P.G. Wodehouse's caricature of a proper British butler is the host of
Ask Jeeves, a second generation search engine where users are
encouraged to submit a natural language query in a simple search box.
In this behind the scenes look at Ask Jeeves, Basch describes how
Jeeves accepts a natural language query and attempts to match it
against a list of known questions - about seven million as of early
1999 - in its knowledge base. Jeeves uses a proprietary parsing
technology called QPE (Question Processing Engine) that is based on
both semantic processing (understanding the meaning of words) and
syntactic processing (understanding parts of speech and how words are
used in context). Of course, the key element in this process continues
to be the humans on the six newspaper-style content desks who build
the knowledge base. Yet even with seven million "answers" Jeeves may
still send you down a few dark hallways. But it will be interesting to
see if one day this knowledgeable butler will give new meaning to
silver platter. - LY
Sheehan, Mark. "Faster, Faster! Broadband Access to the Internet"
Online 23(4) (July/August, 1999):18-26. Tilley, Scott. "The Need for
Speed" Communications of the ACM 42(7) (July 1999):23-26
(http://www.acm.org/pubs/articles/journals/cacm/1999-42-7/p23-tilley/p
23-tilley.pdf). - Ah, working from home. Whether that means more
flexibility or just more work, if you're doing it you'll probably want
the fastest affordable Internet connection. These two articles neatly
summarize the currently feasible options for increasing your flow:
56Kbps modems, cable modems, Integrated Services Digital Network
(ISDN), and Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL). Tilley's article in the
CACM describes his experiences with fast modems, DSL and cable. It's
helpful to learn what he had to do himself to get things to work, such
as running a test on his phone line to see if it could handle higher
speeds. Sheehan's article in Online is a more systematic overview, and
includes tables and sidebars which list costs, availability, predicted
vs. observed downstream and upstream speeds, etc. The sidebar titled
"Promises, promises" was certainly a cold shower ? it details mundane
problems which can drastically cut speed, e.g. phone wiring too close
to a dimmer switch, or the distance of your home from the telco's
central office, or who happens to be using your particular branch of
the cable system. (Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, there've been
stories in the local media about disgruntled cable Internet
subscribers who discovered they were sharing pipelines with
bandwidth-hog digital video developers). Sheehan also touches upon
broadband wireless and satellite possibilities. - JR
Coffman, Steve. "The Response to 'Building Earth's Largest Library'"
Searcher 7(7) (July/August 1999): 28-32
(http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jul/coffman.htm). - In this
interesting follow-up to his explosive article in the March 1999 issue
of Searcher (cited in the April 1999 issue of Current Cites), Coffman
addresses some of the 250-odd responses he received. The response has
been so dramatic to the idea put forward in his original article that
Information Today is devoting a day-long track to the idea in the
November 1999 Internet Librarian Conference they sponsor. For this
follow-up piece to make any sense to you, you should first be sure
you've read the original article. Whether you agree with him or not
(and I do), all librarians need to sit up and take notice. - RT
Gorman, Michael. "Metadata or Cataloging? A False Choice" Journal of
Internet Cataloging 2(1) 1999: 5-22. - In this thoughtful piece Gorman
considers the appropriate roles of MARC, AACR2, the Dublin Core, and
web search engines in making electronic resources more easily
discoverable. He ends with the assertion that we are not faced with a
dichotomy, but with an opportunity, and he proposes using the
four-pronged approach to resource discovery: 1) full MARC cataloging,
2) enriched Dublin Core records (what is also called the
"structuralist" approach), 3) minimal Dublin Core records (the
"minimalist" approach), and 4) full-text keyword searching via web
search engines. Those resources deemed the most valuable would get the
full-MARC/AACR2 treatment, while others would get progressively less
attention until reaching the mass of unselected resources available
through web search engines. - RT
Green, Ann, JoAnn Dionne, and Martin Dennis. Preserving the Whole: A
Two-Track Approach to Rescuing Social Science Data and Metadata,
Washington: Digital Library Federation, June 1999.
(http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub83/pub83.pdf). - This second
publication from the Digital Library Federation focuses on how to
rescue statistical data from outdated formats and/or systems. This
process, called _migration_ by those knowledgeable about digital
preservation matters, is complicated and not-often attempted (yet).
Thus this early report from the front lines of preservation is all the
more important. The two-track approach is necessary since not only the
data must be rescued, but also the metadata or descriptions of the
data, and each requires a different process. - RT
Phillips, Margaret E. "Ensuring Long-Term Access to Online
Publications" JEP: The Journal of Electronic Publishing 4(4) (June
1999) (http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/04-04/phillips.html). - The
problem of retaining access to digital material that may exist in only
one location -- and in the hands of a commercial enterprise that may
go bankrupt any day -- is enough to keep just about any librarian
awake at night. But if the National Library of Australia has their
way, librarians in Australia my soon be sleeping a bit sounder. From
the NLA viewpoint, there are two distinct processes: archiving
(collecting the material to be preserved), and preservation (keeping
the material accessible as technology changes). Since it is still
anyone's guess how best to handle the latter problem, this article
mainly describes how the NLA is dealing with the former issue.
Phillips discusses the collecting process (including identification of
material and comprehensive vs. selective collecting), metadata
management, quality control, access, permanent naming, and costs. - RT
"The ROADS Project Exit Strategy - Ensuring the Future of ROADS for
its Users" ROADS Development Newsletter Issue 9 (July 1999)
(http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/roads/news/latest/futures/). - Bringing a
project to a close is never an easy task, but in this case at least,
it appears that it doesn't have to mean the end of the ROADS. The
British Electronic Libraries (eLib) Programme is an ambitious
collection of projects that have sought to advance library technology
and technique into new areas of digital collections and services. One
of the more successful projects is the Resource Organization and
Discovery in Subject-based Services (ROADS) effort to create a set of
tools for building interoperable subject-based indexes to Internet
resources. Their software now serves a number of subject indexes well,
and provides a method by which to query these indexes simultaneously.
Therefore, the ROADS team is committing to some level of continuing
support despite the end of eLib funding. To do this, they are using
the Open Source model that has served so many other software
development projects well (can you say Linux?). - RT
"Web Search Engines: Precision, Power, and Performance" Online 23(3)
(May/June 1999): 20-
(http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OLtocs/OLtocmay4.html). - This
special section on web search engines covers many different aspects of
these tools, and provides some handy charts detailing their various
features. Included are programs you can install on your own server as
well as the huge indexes that attempt to comprehensively index the
web. Specific topics include results ranking, natural language
processing, meta search engines, features and commands, and the future
of search engine technology. Some of the articles are available online
at the Online web site. - RT
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 10(7) (July 1999) ISSN: 1060-2356_ Copyright (c) 1999
by the Library, University of California, Berkeley. All rights
reserved._
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Editor: Teri Andrews Rinne, trinne@library.berkeley.edu, (510)
642-8173