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_Current Cites_
Volume 9, no. 2
February 1998
The Library
University of California, Berkeley
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
ISSN: 1060-2356
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1998/cc98.9.2.html
Contributors:
Christof Galli, Kirk Hastings, Terry Huey,
Margaret Phillips, Richard Rinehart, Roy Tennant
Jim Ronningen, Lisa Yesson
Digital Libraries
Arms, William Yeo. "Implementing Policies for Access Management" D-Lib
Magazine (February 1998)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february98/arms/02arms.html). - Virtually
any digital library will require methods by which it can control
access to content. Whether the content is commercial data for which a
licensing agreement stipulates only certain users may view it, or
internal collections such as electronic reserve material, libraries
will have a need to enforce access policies for digital objects. This
article outlines a sophisticated yet fairly simple architecture for
libraries to stipulate policies that can interact dynamically with
information about a particular user (and that user's _role_) and a
particular digital object (and that object's _attributes_) to derive
an appropriate _operation_ (for example, delivery or denial). This
piece reflects work that the Corporation for National Research
Initiatives (http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/) has been undertaking along
with the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/). - RT
Lamont, Melissa. "Managing Geospatial Data and Services" The Journal
of Academic Librarianship 23(6) (November 1997):469-473. -- This
article addresses three often neglected aspects of geospatial data
management: collection, description, and access of spatial data. The
author identifies federal, state, and local government agencies as
possible data resorces. She stresses the importance of standardized
metadata and points out that, besides appropriate computing
facilities, skilled staff and user-friendly interfaces, it is the the
essence in the successful delivery of GIS services in libraries. The
article emphasizes the ever increasing importance of web-based
geospatial data services. Not only does the web, as a convenient
remote access mechanism, mitigate increased demand on local resources,
it is also evolving into a prime source for information on GIS as well
as for geospatial data sets. Sites such as the Consortium for
International Earth Science Information Network (CIESN)
(http://www.ciesin.org) or Starting the Hunt: Guide to Online and
Mostly Free U.S. Geospatial and Attribute Data
(http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/hunt/index.html) are impressive
repositories for spatial data. Other sites such as GIS WWW Resources
List (http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/giswww.html) or Guide to GIS
Resources on the Internet
(http://library.berkeley.edu/UCBGIS/gisnet.html) provide links to GIS
related web sites. -- CG
Starr, Susan S. "Building the Collections of the California Digital
Library" Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship (Winter 1998)
(http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/98-winter/article2.html) - One of
the most interesting developments in libraries is happening at the
moment in California, but there is presently very little in print
about it. Thus this article is a welcome insight into some early
developments in the University of California's efforts to create a
California Digital Library. There is as of yet no publicly-accessible
Web site to point to, but the Executive Working Group Report
(http://sunsite.Berkeley.EDU/UCDL/title.html) that led to its
formation is available at http://sunsite.Berkeley.EDU/UCDL/title.html.
Also, a brief insight into the thinking of the man who runs the
operation can be found in "Visions and Intersections: A Conversation
with Richard E. Lucier of the University of California"
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february98/02editorial.html), which just
came out in D-Lib Magazine. - RT
Stephens, Denise. "Managing the Web-Enhanced Geographic Information
Service" The Journal of Academic Librarianship 23(6) (November 1997):
498-504. -- This article discusses the development of an
Internet-accessible collection of digital spatial data sets, the
creation of "canned" map images, the implementation of interactive
mapping tools, and the development of a collection of Internet-based
GIS reference materials at the Geographic Information Center (GIC)
(http://www.lib.virginia.edu/gic/) of the University of Virginia
Library (UVA). The Center has assumed the role of "data intermediary",
creating access mechanisms to a variety of geospatial data in many
different formats incompatible with widely used commercial GIS
systems. Aimed at, but not restricted to, a clearly defined primary
clientele consisting of students, faculty, and staff at UVA, GIC
developed not only interactive tools allowing for both the creation of
user-defined maps-on-the-fly (U.S.G.S. Digital Line Graph Data Browser
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/gic/spatial/dlg.browse2.html) and for
querying and retrieving data files mounted on FTP servers (Digital
Resources Catalog http://www.lib.virginia.edu/gic/catalog/) but also a
"Reference Desk" (http://www.lib.virginia.edu/gic/reference.html) web
page that assembles links to documents, sites, and databases that
answers to reference queries. The author points out that the
successful implementation of Web-based GIS services is based on UVA's
commitment to innovative service based on advanced technology and that
the Library's "ownership of the development process" was achieved by
building in-house technical expertise to develop web-to-application or
web-to-database interfaces. -- CG
Weibel, Stuart and Juha Hakala. "DC-5: The Helsinki Metadata Workshop"
D-Lib Magazine (February 1998)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february98/02weibel.html) - Faithful readers
of Current Cites will recognize the Dublin Core, which is probably our
best chance at creating a metadata (can you say "cataloging" boys and
girls?) standard that can serve a diversity of users and purposes.
This article is a report on the Fifth Dublin Core meeting, held in
Helsinki in the fall of 1997. The article also serves to bring us
up-to-date on the current status of the draft standard, in which we
discover that the frozen north served to freeze the 15 elements in
what is being called in typical DC style, the "Finnish finish". There
will be no more elements added or deleted to the core. Don't let that
fool you, though, as much work remains to specify what can be put into
those fields (content) and how (syntax). Those of you who would like
to participate can find everything you need to know at the Dublin Core
Web site (http://purl.org/metadata/dublin_core). - RT
Young, Jeffrey R. "A Community College Uses Windfall to Create a
Library without Books" Chronicle of Higher Education 64(20) (January
23, 1998) -- The title should be warning enough to seasoned readers:
it's a new library at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in
New York City, but it does have books. However it will also has
computers, lots of them. The new library, which will be a "virtual
library" in concept, is the result an unusually generous gift by
college landlord Miles Fiterman. Fiterman gave the college a building,
which will be designed to maximize the digital benefits-- along with
the print. The article goes on to describe how the campus is planning
to update its library services in the context of the digital
revolution, and it's interesting not only as a guide to the library's
planning process, but also as an analysis of library trends in
general. -- TH
Electronic Publishing
Grothkopf, U. "Bits and Bytes and Still a Lot of Paper: Astronomy
Libraries and Librarians in the Age of Electronic Publishing"
Astrophysics and Space Science 247 (1997):155-174
(http://www.eso.org/libraries/bits-and-bytes/bits-and-bytes.html). -
This wide ranging article serves as an interesting overview of
technologies and standards that are providing challenges and
opportunities for librarians trying to bring libraries into the new
millennium. Grothkopf touches on networking technology, digital
libraries, electronic publications, copyright and access control,
metadata, addressing, archiving, and the changing role of librarians.
Unfortunately, the addition of the word "Astronomy" may greatly limit
the audience unnecessarily, since there is almost nothing in the piece
that is of interest to only astronomy librarians. - RT
Mace, Scott, et.al.. "Weaving a Better Web" BYTE 23(3) (March
1998):58-68 (http://www.byte.com/art/9803/sec5/sec5.htm). - HTML 4.0
has barely been released, but to some of us it is dead on delivery.
We're already looking past it to XML, the eXtensible Markup Language,
which promises to add much more power, flexibility, and reliability to
the Web. This article serves as a great introduction to XML and, to a
lesser degree, Dynamic HTML (DHTML). The online version of the article
links you through to some of the essential documents on XML. If you
are interested in the future of the Web, listen up. As the authors of
this article put it: "Although it will require developers and user to
retool, the migration to XML must begin. The future of the Web depends
on it." - RT
Okerson, Ann. "Copyright or Contract?" Library Journal 122(14)
(September 1, 1997):136-138. -- Uncertainty about making intellectual
property available without infringing copyright has vexed many
information managers. This piece contrasts copyright law, which is
general in nature and open to debate on many points, with licensing
agreements, which are specific in their wording and presumably
acceptable to all parties concerned. The author deftly summarizes the
protections and exceptions in copyright law, and shows how chinks in
this armor became gaping holes in the hail of arrows from digital
storage & transmission. Information owners and customers are turning
to contracts to regain some control. After an initial period of
paranoia, with proposed licenses so strict as to be virtually
unworkable, licensing for information resources has become a viable
way to avoid misunderstandings and courtroom appearances. However, the
wrinkles are not all ironed out yet - see Okerson's list of unresolved
issues. An unabashed advocate for licensing in libraries, she includes
a selection of online licensing resources headed by her LIBLICENSE
(http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.html) site. -- JR
Time and Bits: Managing Digital Continuity (February 1998)
(http://www.ahip.getty.edu/timeandbits/intro.html) -- This "document"
is actually the website for a conference that took place at the Getty
Information Institute this month. However, the website includes an
exhaustive set of links to related resources and will include the
conference proceedings soon. The conference grappled with the issue of
information preservation in the digital era. Many topics were covered,
from the need, desire, and feasibility of preserving digital
information for decades, centuries and even millenia, to some proposed
technological approaches for implementing such preservation. To be
sure, no one had "the answer", but the discussions and links
themselves will be very informative to anyone involved in information
preservation and access. -- RR
Z39.50 Draft Attribute Architecture (February 18, 1998)
(http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/orlando/output/attrarch.html) --
This draft document, hosted on the Library of Congress' website, and
announced by NISO (National Information Standards Organization
http://www.niso.org ) is fairly technical in nature. Nevertheless
anyone interested in the development of network standards for resource
discovery, Z39.50 is one act to follow. This document is the latest
draft of proposed improvments to this standard - including means to
integrate the recent proliferation of different Z39.50 profiles by
different user communities (GILS by the US Governemnt, CIMI by the
Consortium for the Interchange of Museum Information, etc.) -- RR
Networks and Networking
Cobb, David A. and Arlene Olivero. "Online GIS Service" The Journal of
Academic Librarianship 23(6) (November 1997):484-497. -- The present
article reviews a wide range of GIS related web resources in the
following five categories: geographic snapshots, spatial database
catalogs and libraries, map generators, map browsers, and real-time
maps and images. Each category is succinctly defined and reviews of
individual sites include title, URL, and a brief summary of the
services provided. Overall, the reviewed sites constitute a
representative sample of geographic information available on the web.
-- CG
Gould, Cheryl. Searching Smart on the World Wide Web: Tools and
Techniques for Getting Quality Results. Berkeley, California: Library
Solutions Press, 1998. -- Number 8 in Library Solutions Press Internet
Workshop series, this guide like the others in this series, is
designed as both a practical workbook for individuals as well as a
training model to be used by teachers. In this case, Cheryl Gould
takes on web searching. But it's more than about how to find stuff on
the web, it's about how to be a conscious evaluator of the web sites
and how to be "information literate." Taking a wholistic approach,
Gould's philosophy is that searching the web intelligently is not
necessarily a sequential process but requires knowledge of many
concepts that do not necessarily build upon each other. Each of the
eight chapters takes on a different concept -- from a first chapter
that gives an overview of what the Web is to later chapters on the
different types of search tools, how search tools work and how to
assess the quality of your results; depending on your level of web
savviness, you can start from the very beginning or skip around as
necessary. Each chapter includes exercises liked a guided online
excursion through Yahoo! or a mini-quiz that tests your understanding
of Boolean Logic or a worksheet to help you better evaluate web pages.
Included in the workbook is a disk that contains Netscape bookmarks
and Internet Explorer favorites for sites referred to in the volume.
Particularly useful in this guide is the appendix which includes a
grid on that list the search features of the major subject directories
and search engines. -- MP
Kushigian, Nancy. "Researching Women's Lives and Issues: Contemporary
Women's Issues and Women 'R'" Database 20(6) (December 1997):19-26. --
As women's studies programs continue to develop and grow, the activist
and interdisciplinary nature of women's issues has posed difficult
challenges for scholarly research in this area. However, the recent
availability of two CD-ROM (and soon to be online) full-text databases
is good news for those interested in women's studies. In this feature
article, Nancy Kushigan provides a thorough review of Responsive
Database Systems' (RDS) Contemporary Women's Issues (CWI)and Soft Line
Information's Women 'R'. While Women 'R' receives high marks for its
more popular focus and coverage of ethnic and minority media, CWI is
the clear favorite. CWI is recommended for scholarly research as it
offers a greater range, variety and depth of source materials as well
as "beautiful" subject cataloging and a thesaurus - all at an
affordable price. This article also features a nice summary of
Internet-based resources on women's studies. -- LY
Lewis, Janice S. and June Chressanthis. "Internet Resources:
Investments and Personal Finance" College & Research Libraries News
59(2) (February 1998): 90-94 (http://www.ala.org/acrl/resfeb98.html).
-- This month's C&RL News guide to Internet resources is a selective
list of web sites that offer unique, objective data that the authors
consider to be most useful to investors, students, researchers and
individuals interested in personal financial issues. The annotations
are informative and evaluative. Items are listed under broad subject
categories like comprehensive sites (e.g. Invest-o-rama
http://www.investorama.com), Security and Exchange Commission filings
(e.g. U.S, Securities and Exchange Commission http://www.sec.gov),
financial news (e.g Business Wire http://www.businesswire.com), bonds,
retirement, tax information, credit, financial calculators and
associations. -- MP
Lin, Zi-Yu. "How to Use CJK Software to Read Chinese, Japanese and
Korean on the Web" Computers in Libraries 17(10) (Nov/Dec 1997):50-54.
-- We all know about language barriers, but some web masters are
encountering character barriers too. This short article is a primer on
the linguistics, character encoding and application software involved
in reading CJK on the web. There are conflicting and competing
encoding standards, as one might imagine; the explanations here
provide a useful reference when confronted with ISO-2022-GB, Big5, et
al. Knowing about them will be important when choosing application
packages! Four are described: AsiaSurf, Asian Viewer, AsianSuite 97,
and NJWIN CJK Multilingual Support System Version 1.5 for Windows
3.1/95/NT. Downloading and use instructions for each one are given in
sidebars. The author is looking at evaluation versions of shareware,
but plenty of direction is given for anyone who needs to go further
with fonts and functions. Some interesting web sites are suggested,
for the day when your new CJK add-ons are installed and ready to
pounce on some juicy content. -- JR
General
Blumenstyk, Goldie. "Western Governors U. Takes Shape as a New Model
for Higher Education" Chronicle of Higher Education 64(22) (February
6, 1998). -- "WGU" has 21 participating colleges and firms in 16
states (and the U.S. territory of Guam), but California is
conspicuously absent. This article describes the bare-bones structure
that has already taken shape, which has a solid funding base, a board
of directors, and a dream. It sounds like a great idea, but there are
some hurdles to cross. The biggest is how to obtain financial aid
under strict federal guidelines. Following fast on funding questions
is how to keep good fences with member colleges who are themselves
embroiled a swiftly changing educational marketplace. A surprise
issue: college administrators worry that W.G.U. will increase pressure
to invest in technology at a cost to other critical needs, and may
result in more large, impersonal courses. -- TH
Brand, Stewart. "Freeman Dyson's Brain" Wired 6.02 (February 1998):
130-177. -- "How would you build a 10,000 year library?" This question
caught my eye as I scanned Stewart Brand's interview with futurist
Freeman Dyson. As I began reading with great expectations, this
interview quickly evolved into an intellectual sparring match between
Brand (cofounder of Global Business Network and author of The Media
Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT) and Dyson (renowned for his work in
quantum electrodynamics). While their discussion focused more on
historic scientific breakthroughs, biotechnology and cosmic ecology
than libraries, Dyson does offer thought-provoking ideas such as the
abolition of the PhD system and the inevitability of returning to a
village culture. By the end, the most I could extract of Dyson's views
on the 10,000 year library was an appreciation for long term thinking
and the need for patience - this article serves as a good exercise in
both. -- LY
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 9(2) (February 1998) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright ©
1998 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley. _All rights
reserved._
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