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_Current Cites_
Volume 9, no. 3
March 1998
The Library
University of California, Berkeley
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
ISSN: 1060-2356
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1998/cc98.9.3.html
Contributors:
Christof Galli, Kirk Hastings, Terry Huey,
Margaret Phillips, Richard Rinehart, Roy Tennant
Jim Ronningen, Lisa Yesson
Electronic Publishing
Guernsey, Lisa. "Company Offers Free Access to a Big Database, if
Libraries Give it $400,000" Chronicle of Higher Education 64(28)
(March 30, 1998):A30. -- Guernsey describes an unusual marketing move
by Chadwyck-Healey, a database publisher. The firm has pledged to make
ArhivesUSA searchable on the Web by anyone in the United States and
Canada, if it can raise $400,000 in funds from libraries by the end of
April. While this ultimately may be seen as an innovative strategy to
increase access, it is a tale with many strange elements. The
database, which was built from information that was given freely by
libraries to the publisher, would be given to the general
citizenry--but only if libraries will now pay a "fee" for value added
to their original "gift." The article is well-balanced, and quotes
both critics and supporters. Critics suggest that Chadwyck-Healey
might consider using profits from the database to give access to
libraries, instead of charging libraries. The scenario of
cash-strapped non-profits giving scarce funds to a profit-making
business must surely suggest that we are entering a brave new world of
information pricing. Perhaps we would be well-advised to check our
looking glasses lest we fall into them. Without doubt, it's an
experimental project, and one worth following, because it may indicate
the shape of future pricing strategies in the era of the net. -- TH
Pack, Thomas. "Visualizing Information: Visualization Systems Data
Management" Database 21(1)(February/March 1998): 47-49 -- This article
is a gentle reminder for information professionals about the
importance of information visualization, a relatively new technique
for analyzing search results from large, multivariate data sets.
Information visualization transforms data into graphic representations
to help viewers use their natural tools of observation and processing
to extract knowledge more efficiently. Traditionally used in
engineering and medicine, information visualization systems are
becoming increasingly popular in areas such as financial services
where they help decision makers interpret large, complex data sets.
Pack notes that there are still limitations for bringing effective
visualization systems to the Web, but believes this will likely change
with improvements in Web-based technologies and increased bandwidth.
-- LY
Infromation Technology and Society
Agre, Phil. "The Internet and Public Discourse" First Monday 3(3)
(March 2, 1998). -- Agre argues that the confusion about how to manage
legal and political expectations in cyberspace is rooted in a lack of
comprehension of the new medium. It's too easy to mistake
communication on the net with telephony, newspapers etc--therein lies
the problem. The medium is actually a "meta-medium": a set of layered
services that is built from flexible elements, and its properties
change to meet the desires of the author. To properly map legal and
political concerns to harness the power of the new beast, we need to
start anew and map the meta-medium to legal theories and social
conventions that capture its modus vivendi. If we do not, we risk
falling into the profitless trap of imposing the wrong conceptual
framework from other media. -- TH
Networks & Networking
Beall, Jeffrey "Guaranteed Hits" College & Research Libraries News
59(3)(March 1998):160-162. This practical article provides tips on how
index your site for Search engines to ensure that it will be retrieved
by a greater number of Web searchers. Among the strategies are 1)
visit the major search engines and look for the "Add URL" button or
it's equivalent (there are even Web sites that bring together all the
"Add URL" pages of the major search engines
(http://www.tiac.net/users/seeker/searchenginesub.html), 2) design
your site in such a way to increase the likelihood of its being
indexed accurately: don't include vital information exclusively in
graphics as these will not be read by search engines and place vital
information in larger font towards the top of the page, 3) use the
Dublin Core, a block of data in standard form that provides
information about your site in a way that is recognized by search
engines; as a standard for metadata, the Dublin Core is big in the
library community (for more information, see
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcdot and
http://www.ub.lu.se/metadata/DC_creator.html), 4) catalog your site
not only for your own online catalog but in one of the major
bibliographic utilities as well, 5) seek out specialized search
engines that focus on a particular discipline and then look for the
"Add URL" button. - MP
Jayne, Elaine and Patricia Vander Meer. "The Library's Role in
Academic Instructional Use of the World Wide Web" Research Strategies
(15)3 (Fall 1997):123-150. -- As academic librarians become experts in
doing more with less, they will need these skills in yet another area
critical to their mission: supporting the use of the Web in teaching
and learning. The authors argue that students and faculty will need
adequate training and guidance to take advantage of the instructional
benefits of the Web. They propose a collaborative approach between
academic libraries and computing centers to facilitate a Web
instructional program. While their collaborative program suggestions
may be fairly basic for institutions that have already initiated
efforts in this area, they do also provide valuable criteria for
demonstrating and constructing instructional Web sites and an
illustrative list of library-related and subject specific Web sites.
-- LY
Jones, Martha. "Online Resources for Writers" LJ Digital (April 1,
1998), Berinstein, Paula. "The Numbers Game: The Top 10 Sources for
Statistics" Online 22(2) (March 1998) -- Many writers, interested in
the fine art of verbal nuance, cringe at the idea of crude statistics.
It's precisely because most writers don't consider themselves "numbers
people" that I offer the second citation paired with the first, just
to encourage a little horizon broadening. Berinstein's ranking of
statistical sites starts with the single most useful source for
residents of the U.S., the Statistical Abstract of the United States,
and continues with other sources which are rich in domestic and
foreign figures. She also offers strategies for navigating this
quantitative sea. Jones has reviewed Web sites which can help with the
craft of writing and with getting published, and may create a sense of
community for lonely scribes. Her top pick is Inkspot, for its breadth
and organization. Zuzu's Petals Literary Resource Homepage is singled
out as particularly good for poets. So visit each other's web pages,
and maybe you counters and conjurers will understand each other a
little better. Okay? Big hug. -- JR
Mace, Scott, et.al. "Weaving a Better Web" BYTE 23(3)(March
1998):58-68. -- The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is likely to
revolutionize the Web. That's a big claim, but I'm not the only one
who thinks that. For example, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, and
Netscape are all lining up behind it. John Bosak from Sun is the
father of XML, Microsoft is pushing it like crack, and Netscape
recently announced support for it in their upcoming 5.0 version of
their browser. This feature article in BYTE and its accompanying
sidebars is an excellent introduction to XML as well as related draft
standards and software. XML provides an infrastructure to solve many
of the current problems with the Web, from better linking methods to
powerful data structures. Web managers who ignore XML will do so at
their peril. -- RT
Nims, Julia K. and Linda Rich. "How Successfully Do Users Search the
Web?" College & Research Libraries News, 59(3)(March 1998):155-158. --
Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall to observe how people
search for information the Web? That's just want Nims and Rich from
Bowling Green State University did with the help of the McKinley
Search Voyeur Web site. Although their goal was to find out the common
pitfalls of searchers in their institution so that they could adjust
their Web instruction accordingly, spying on their own users was
neither technically possible nor ethically appropriate. It is perhaps
no surprise that a large number of the searches they spied on were
sex-related; it is also no surprise that many of the searches seemed
poorly planned. Among the types of "mistakes" they encountered were:
one-word searches (e.g. "women" or "computer"); inclusion of stop
words; typing errors (the frightening thing is that users who
mispelled words often retrieved large search results!); entire or
partial URLs (what seemed to be happening was that users who wanted to
go to a specific site were doing a search on the URL rather than just
entering it into the location box); exclusion of Magellan search
suggestions (very few of the searches seemed to take advantage of
certain Magellan features such as using operators like "not" or "or"
or placing quotes around a certain phrase; this indicates that users
do not seem to be reading the help documentation before doing their
searches). Obviously there are limitations to a study like this
because a voyeur cannot really know what the the intent of the
searcher is or whether or not the searcher is satisfied with the
results. The mistakes observed here are many of the same mistakes that
patrons have always been making on online systems; the difference is
that the problems are magnified within the Web environment. -- MP
Rosenfeld, Louis and Peter Morville. Information Architecture for the
World Wide Web Cambridge, MA: O'Reilly & Associates, 1998. - We've all
seen the problem -- Web sites with no discernible organizational
paradigm, uses of technology that border on a federal offense, and
just plain bad site design. Now those site designers have no excuse.
If they don't know what they're doing, here's the book to tell them
how. In under 200 pages, Rosenfeld and Morville (columnists for Web
Review and principals with Argus Associates) cover such essential
concepts as organization, navigation, searching, and labeling systems
as well as much more. There is enough here to help all Web managers,
no matter if we already believe ourselves to be competent in creating
and managing our sites. Because mostly we aren't as good as we may
think. If you manage a Web site, you owe it to your users to study
this book. And some of you should be shackled to your servers until it
sinks in. Still need convincing? See the sample chapter
(http://webreview.com/wr/pub/98/03/06/feature/index.html) for a taste.
- RT
Summers, Ed. "Gateways to Social Work/Welfare on the Net" College &
Research Libraries News, 59(3) (March 1998):163- 167. -- This month's
C&RL News list of Internet resources is a selected list that
introduces gateways to social work information on the net as well as
provides links to social work organizations, e-journals, and
education/employment resources. -- MP
Watters, Carolyn, Marshall Conley and Cynthia Alexander. "The Digital
Agora: Using Technology for Learning in the Social Sciences"
Communications of the ACM 41(1)(January 1998):50-57. -- The "digital
agora" at Acadia University is a Web-based system which, according to
the authors, encourages collaborative analysis of social problems.
Students enrolled in introductory political science, peace studies and
international politics courses work through Web pages to read, write
responses, pull together research and reach consensus after
negotiation on group efforts. The focus of the article is on the
interweaving of curriculum with site organization and functions; do
not look here for much criticism of the effectiveness of Web-based
learning systems. The authors do allow that Web resources may be "only
rudimentary as tools for facilitating the understanding of the
complexity of issues, the formulation of strategies dealing with these
issues, and finally, the communication of ideas," which are some
pretty serious reservations. But that topic is dropped like a hot
potato, and the emphasis remains on implementation issues. The first
line of the article states proudly that "Acadia University is the
first laptop university in Canada," and this is recommended reading
for anyone pondering programs for an equally fortunate student body.
It's helpful to read it in the context of the January issue, themed
"Computers Across Campus," which has several pieces about programs
which require students to explore the possibilities of info tech. --
JR
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 9(3) (March 1998) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright © 1998
by the Library, Univer sity of California, Berkeley. _All rights
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