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                            _Current Cites_
                            Volume 6, no. 4
                              April 1995
                                    
               Information Systems Instruction & Support
                              The Library
                   University of California, Berkeley
                      Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
                            ISSN: 1060-2356
         [URL:http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ISIS/current-cites/]                       
                             
			     Contributors:
                                    
       	          John Ober, Margaret Phillips, David Rez,  
	         Richard Rinehart, Teri Rinne, Roy Tennant



Editor's Note: I am pleased to announce the official debut of the 
Current Cites World-Wide Web home page. Point your web browser at 
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ISIS/current-cites/ to find and search 
past issues of Current Cites. You can also establish a link to our 
latest issue. We will strive to add as much value to our webbed 
version of Current Cites, such as providing links to electronic 
copies of articles cited, authors' web pages when we know about 
them or can find them, and information on items mentioned in the 
cites. A special thanks to Current Cites founder, Roy Tennant, 
for his able management of this new resource.



Electronic Publishing


_Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic 
Discussion Lists_ Washington, DC : Association of Research 
Libraries, Office of Scientific and Academic Publishing, 1994. 
-- This fourth edition of the ARL directory of electronic 
journals has now become a standard reference source containing 
a comprehensive list of academically created and oriented 
serials on the Internet. From the 110 listings of journals and 
newsletters in the original 1991 edition, the newest edition has 
grown to include over 440 entries. The references to academic 
discussion lists is, understandably, more selective containing 
nearly 1800 listings; the editors have selected topics that are 
of primary interest to scholars, researchers and students. Of 
particular value in this volume are several reprinted articles 
on electronic publishing including Geoffrey Nunberg's article on 
"The Places of Books in the Age of Electronic Reproduction,"
Jean-Claude Guedon's "Why are Electronic Publications Difficult 
to Classify?," Birdie MacLennan's "Electronic Serial Sites: 
Collections, Resources, and Services on the Networks," Steve 
Outing's "List of Newspaper Publishers with On-line Services in 
Operation," and a bibliography by former Current Cites editor 
David F.W. Robison, "Bibliography of Articles Related to 
Electronic Journal Publications and Publishing." -- MP

Eaton, Flynnette. "Preservation Strategies for Electronic 
Records" Spectra 22(3) (Winter 1994-95):22-24. -- Eaton 
draws upon her experience at the U.S. National Archives 
and Records Administration to outline strategies that will 
be useful for any archivist or information systems manager 
in ensuring the longevity of their digital legacy data. 
Many aspects are covered in this useful article, from 
data-migration and disaster planning to physical media 
formats and software obsolescence. Spectra is a quarterly 
publication of the Museum Computer Network; online information 
is available at gopher://world.std.com -- RR
 

Multimedia and Hypermedia

Burger, Jeff. "The Making of Nightclub Earth" New Media 5(4) 
(April 1995):84-85. -- This article covers the technical details 
behind producing a video CD-ROM. Of primary interest however is 
the use of AppleMedia Tool and the QuickTime video format for 
Windows and Macintosh which was used to produce this cross-
platform multimedia CD-ROM. Some CD-ROMs duplicate both Mac and 
Windows file formats on a CD-ROM, delivering a bi-platform 
package, but using only half the disc for each. All the large 
media-objects on this CD-ROM are recorded only once, in 
QuickTime format, and only the retrieval tool is duplicated for 
each platform. -- RR
 

Networks and Networking

Archee, Ray. "Freenets: Community Access for All" Online Access 
10(4) (April 1995):43-49. -- In all of the excitement of World
Wide Web sites and technology leaps, the importance of truly 
public access to locally useful information is sometimes lost. 
This article relates the history and current vibrancy of 
community-based freenets. The article is useful in large part 
because of its list of 26 freenets. -- JLO

Bailey, Charles W., Jr. "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of
Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography" The Public-Access
Computer Systems Review 6(1) (1995). [URL:
http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v6/n1/bail6n1.html] -- Bailey has 
long provided good bibliographies on electronic publishing -- 
first focusing on electronic serials, now on scholarly 
electronic publishing. The Web version is recommended, as it 
makes appropriate links to online sources when available. -- RT

Caruso, Denise. "Digital Commerce" The New York Times 144 
(March 20, 1995):C9. -- A new biweekly feature in the New York 
Times business section, Caruso's column provides commentary and 
analysis of information technology. Her first column discusses 
the implications of a recent ruling by the Federal Communications 
Commission that could raise the cost of ISDN -- the relatively 
low-cost digital network service provided by local telephone 
companies that allows users to connect to the Internet.  The
recent ruling means that anyone who needs to increase the 
bandwidth provided through their ISDN lines in order to browse 
the Web more efficiently could face significantly increased rates 
for this service. The FCC's ruling will mean higher costs which 
could, in turn, make access to the Internet out-of-reach for an 
even greater segment of the population. -- MP

Cerf, Vinton. "Life in a New World," OnTheInternet 1(1)
(March 1995):22-27. -- Cerf has been living in the "new world"
of the Internet longer than just about anyone, and in this
thoughtful piece he offers useful advice for keeping it a
civil place. He identifies three types of behavioral constraints
on Internet users: technical, legal, and moral. After a brief
history of the Internet relating to behavior constraints, he
deals mainly with moral constraints as "users of the
Internet bear personal responsibility for their own actions."
[By the way, this is the first issue of a new publication by
the Internet Society] -- RT
 
"Digital Libraries," Communications of the ACM 38(4)
(April 1995):22-96. -- Virtually the entire issue is devoted 
to this topic, with over 70 pages of text. Major sections
include general articles, supporting technologies,
projects, and initiatives. In the projects and initiatives
sections, Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) are provided
when appropriate. Some of the major articles include:


p. 23-28.


A Look at Assumptions Underlying Digital Libraries,"
p. 77-84.


Digital Libraries in Teaching and Learning," p. 67-75.


Library," p. 29-39.


Digital Libraries," p. 15-21;110.


Productivity," p. 85-96. -- RT
 
Dorcey, Tim. "The CU-SeeMe Desktop Videoconferencing
Software" ConneXions: The Interoperability Report 9(3)
(March 1995):42-45. -- Along with virtual reality, 
interactive video technologies promise to produce the next 
wave of hot Internet tools. CU-SeeMe is a tool for online 
videoconferencing on the Internet that is available today. 
This developer of CU-SeeMe describes the technology behind 
it, and even (briefly) the compression algorithm that allows 
the rapid transmission of such bandwith-intensive information.
Unfortunately the article does not include a screenshot of
a CU-SeeMe session. -- RT
 
Handley, Mark and Jon Crowcroft. "The World-Wide Web:
How Servers Work," ConneXions: The Interoperability Report
9(2) (February 1995):12-24. -- For those of us who wonder
exactly how the World-Wide Web works underneath what
we see, this is an enlightening article. In simple yet exact
language, such topics as proxy servers, the Common Gateway
Interface (CGI) forms processing, and server performance
are discussed. Examples and diagrams are also provided.
This article is not for the beginning Web user, but if you
feel ready to look under the hood you could do a lot worse
than this piece. [Article based on the forthcoming book
The World Wide Web: Beneath the Surf] -- RT

Kent, Peter. "Browser Shootout" Internet World 6(4)
(April 1995):46-59. [Also available at URL:
http://www.mecklerweb.com:80/mags/iw/v6n4/feat46.htm] 
-- Another contribution to this issue's focus on the 
World-Wide Web (a little too cutely titled "Webaganz"), 
Kent contributes a very useful comparison among the 
proliferation of Web browsers. His evaluative comparisons 
lead him to suggest that the stand-alone browsers 
InternetWorks and Netscape are front-runners. He helpfully 
summarizes the incorporation of browsers into suites of 
Internet tools as well as those incorporated into 
proprietary systems like Netcom's Netcruiser and The 
Pipelines Internaut. A sidebar explains Internet access 
without SLIP software, as with Slipknot and The Internet 
Adapter. -- JLO

Stoll, Clifford. _Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the
Information Highway_ New York: Doubleday, 1995. -- The
author of _The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze
of Computer Espionage_ takes on the hype and myth surrounding
the Internet. Since the Internet is often over-hyped, Stoll
has no problem finding targets, but he also makes up his own.
While some of his criticisms are as simplistic as 'if you
are in front of a computer you are not doing something
else' (with the 'something else' assumed to be of more value),
some are not as easy to criticize. His polemic can be redundant
and ill-informed at times, but it is also funny, entertaining,
and certainly controversial. This is the kind of book that
has already incited arguments, sometimes heated, and will
continue to do so for some time to come. Whether you agree
or disagree with what he has to say, if you are going to
argue about it -- read it. -- RT

Tennant, Roy. "The Virtual Library Foundation: Staff Training 
and Support" Information Technology and Libraries 14(1) 
(March 1995):46-49. [Also available at URL:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ISIS/ITAL.html] -- Current Cites' 
own Roy Tennant has penned a straightforward summary of the 
basic strategies for staff training and support of digital 
library initiatives. Along the way he makes a strong case 
for the necessity of staff development for the kinds of 
imaginative innovation that all information service agencies 
must seek. -- JLO

Tropiano, Lenny and Dinah McNutt. "How to Implement ISDN"
Byte 20(4) (April 1995):67-74. -- More and more Internet 
trainers are acknowledging that Integrated Services Digital 
Network (ISDN) access through the local phone company is 
close-at-hand in most of the U.S. This article explains the 
availability and complexity of ISDN access, including a 
checklist of questions to ask an ISDN provider. A side-bar 
compares ISDN access with the fastest modems. All in all 
this  is a valuable read for those considering ISDN as 
another alternative to providing personal or organizational 
network access. -- JLO

Vacca, John. "The Net's Next Big Thing: Virtual Reality"
Byte 20(4) (April 1995):28. -- Vacca briefly explains the 
philosophy behind presenting Virtual Reality through the 
Internet via the emerging standard called Virtual Reality 
Markup Language (VRML). This may well be the next logical 
extension of Internet functionality and complements the 
announcement (at the Spring Internet World conference in 
San Jose, California) of Silicon Graphics VRML browser 
development. [URL:http://www.sgi.com/]. -- JLO

Weiss, Aaron. "Hop, Skip, and Jump: Navigating the 
World-Wide Web" Internet World 6(4) (April 1995):41-44. 
[Also available at URL: 
http://www.mecklerweb.com:80/mags/iw/v6n4/feat41.htm]
-- In typical Internet World style, Weiss provides a 
whirlwind tour of the major sources of well-organized 
directories of Web sites and of Web search tools. The 
search tools summary, which mentions the Jumpstation, 
the Webcrawler, LYCOS, WWW Worm, RBSE, and CUIs W3, 
is useful for its brief descriptions of the tool's 
embedded strategies and comparisons among tools. -- JLO

Wilson, David L. "Senate Bill Takes Broom to Internet" 
Chronicle of Higher Education 41(30) (April 7, 1995), A21. 
-- New legislation intended to spur growth on the National 
Information Infrastructure by deregulating the telecommuni-
cations industry has met with criticism from many Internet 
users because it includes restrictions on the distribution 
of obscene or indecent material. Both the Office of 
Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association as 
well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have expressed 
their opposition to the legislation and questioned the 
constitutionality of restricting free speech on the Internet. 
Those who otherwise support the legislation are hoping that 
the anti-pornography provisions will be altered by the time 
it comes up for vote later this year. -- MP
 

Optical Disc Technology


Desmarais, Norman. "How Fast is Fast?" CD-ROM Professional
8(3) (March 1995):119-121. -- Desmarais cautions librarians
against throwing their older CD-ROM drives onto the trash
heap. Since most library and information applications use
text almost exclusively (indexes, abstracts, and full-text)
rather than multimedia applications, single-speed CD-ROM
drives, which are now dirt cheap, should suffice. However,
since the increasingly popular multimedia titles require
double-speed to quadruple-speed drives for satisfactory
playback, few if any manufacturers will be producing 
single-speed drives. As librarians replace existing 
equipment with only multispeed drives to choose from, 
they should opt to put heavily-used and multimedia 
applications in the newer, faster drives while loading 
the text-only CD-ROM applications in the slower drives. 
-- TR 


Hudson, Barry J. "CD-ROM Network Access: Problems, Pitfalls
and Perils" CD-ROM Professional 8(3) (March 1995):98-108.
-- Although there are often many potential benefits assoc-
iated with shared access to CD-ROMs over a network, Hudson
argues quite convincingly, as the title suggests, that
shared access is not necessarily the best course to take
for every organization. Foremost reasons are the technical
and administrative obstacles associated with the successful
sharing of CD-ROMs. Quite simply, many CD-ROMs are just not
suited for LAN access. Hudson provides many examples and 
offers practical tips on how to determine the likely costs 
and benefits of shared access. Useful sidebars include
"(14) Questions to Ask Before Establishing a CD-ROM Server"
and "A Technical Compliance Checklist" which Hudson 
designed to assist server administrators in determining
a CD-ROM's fitness for use. If a title scores more than
40 penalty points on the checklist, it should not be 
considered for centralized support. -- TR  

Lieberman, Paula. "Multiple Disc CD-ROM Systems" CD-ROM
Professional 8(3) (March 1995):60-74. -- Lieberman provides
a concise overview of the plethora of multiple disc 
CD-ROM systems: CD-ROM towers, CD-ROM arrays, CD-ROM
servers, six-disc and 18-disc changer/jukeboxes, and
jukeboxes that can access anywhere from 100 to more than
1400 discs. A comprehensive multidisc vendor directory
accompanies the article. -- TR



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Current Cites 6(4) (April 1995) ISSN: 1060-2356 
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