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_Current Cites_
Volume 10, no. 10 October 1999
The Library University of California, Berkeley
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
ISSN: 1060-2356
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1999/cc99.10.10.html
Contributors: Terry Huwe, Michael Levy, Leslie Myrick,
Margaret Phillips, Jim Ronningen, Lisa Rowlison,
Roy Tennant, Lisa Yesson
_Editor's Note:_ A hearty welcome to two new Current Cites
contributors who debut with this month's issue: Michael Levy,
Electronic Services Librarian at UCB's Boalt School of Law and Leslie
Myrick, who works on the SCAN Project in the Electronic Text Unit of
UCB Library Systems Office. And an even heartier welcome back to one
of Current Cites' original contributors, Lisa Rowlison, now
Coordinator of Bibliographic Services at California State University,
Monterey Bay.
American Association of Law Libraries. Committee on Citation Formats.
Universal Citation Guide Madison, WI: State Bar of Wisconsin, 1999. -
The question of how to cite court opinions, legislative materials and
administrative rules and regulations is crucial to the practice of
law. As the authors of the Universal Citation Guide (UCG) state in
their introduction "current citation rules were crafted for the gilded
age of the law book and this symmetry is disintegrating as computer
technology reshapes the legal record." After many years of work with
federal and state courts, the American Bar Association, and various
public interest organizations the American Association of Law
Libraries (AALL) has produced a comprehensive set of citation
principles that will allow for both medium and vendor-neutral
citation. By adopting the principles laid out in the UCG courts will
be able to provide a citation to a court case that is not dependent on
a particular legal publisher or a particular format of publication.
For court opinions this means using five data elements: case name,
year, court, opinion number and paragraph number. Thus far eleven
states have adopted uniform citation, the most significant being
Wisconsin. While the UCG isn't designed to be scintillating reading,
it is clearly explained and the rules relatively simple to follow.
It's overarching importance lies in the fact that it is the most
significant attempt to date to address citation in the digital medium
and to cut the ties of dependence on large legal publishers. While the
UCG isn't available in electronic form, a tentative draft (from 1998)
is available at: http://www.aallnet.org/committee/citation/ucguide.pdf
- ML
Besser, Howard. "Digital Image Distribution" D-Lib Magazine 5(10)
(October 1999) (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october99/10besser.html). -
This paper is a report on the UC Berkeley study The Cost of Digital
Imaging Distribution: The Social and Economic Implications of the
Production, Distribution, and Usage of Image Data
(http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Imaging/Databases/1998mellon/). The
purpose of the study was to explore such questions as "As we construct
new electronic information systems, what are the implications of
merging content and metadata from multiple sources? How do the costs
and services in a digital distribution scheme differ from those in an
analog one? What steps can we take to entice users who currently rely
upon analog resources to begin seriously employing digital resources?"
Specifically, the study focuses on the experiences of the Museum
Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL), which began in 1995. The
bulk of the paper describes a number of interesting findings from the
project and the subsequent analysis. Although Besser is an advocate
for digital imaging, he pulls no punches here in identifying key
problem areas and issues that require resolution. This paper is
essential reading for anyone interested in digital image collections.
- RT
Ensign, David. "West's Copyright Claim to Star Pagination Denied by
Second Circuit" AALL Spectrum 2(10) (July 1999): 12, 35.
(http://www.aallnet.org/products/pub_sp9907.pdf) - In this brief and
succinct article on recent copyright decisions regarding the West
Publishing Company (now West Group, part of Thomson Corporation),
Ensign explains the importance of "star pagination" in legal
publishing and the possible effects on the market for print and
electronic compilations of court decisions. Two recent opinions from
the Second Circuit have seriously undermined West's claims that their
use of star pagination and that the selection and arrangement of
prefatory information in court opinions is copyrightable. The ability
of other publishers ? especially those producing opinions in
electronic format ? to insert page numbers from West's National
Reporter System is crucial in having a viable competitive market in
legal publishing. With the Supreme Court refusing to hear appeals on
these two cases it would seem that a major blow has been given to one
of the behemoths of the legal publishing world. - ML
Hyman, Karen. "Customer Service and the 'Rule of 1965'" American
Libraries 30(9) (October 1999): 54-58. - Hyman puts forth an
intriguing and all-too-likely premise: "customer service, according to
the Rule of 1965, defines anything the library did prior to 1965 as
basic; everything else is extra." To back up her claim, she cites a
number of examples of the apparent application of this "rule" to
justify not offering new services. She also offers a "quiz" to see
whether you are applying this rule in your library. Hyman then
concludes with the following five things you can start doing today:
"1) Remember that the customer is not the enemy; 2) Create a climate
in your library that supports change; 3) Survey the environment
continuously; 4) Redirect resources; and, 5) Treat every customer like
a person." Hyman delivers a well-deserved kick in the tail, which I
hope will propel us into a better customer service posture and render
the "Rule of 1965" obsolete. - RT
Lee, Stuart D. Scoping the Future of the University of Oxford's
Digital Library Collections Oxford: Bodleian Library, University of
Oxford, 1999 (http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/scoping/). - Although this
report is for the internal use of Oxford University, "outsiders" can
benefit from it in a number of ways. The report provides a high-level
overview of some (but certainly not all) national and international
digital library initiatives and a thorough listing of Oxford-based
digital projects and collections. A significant portion of the paper
is devoted to findings from the interviews conducted of both on campus
staff and others active in digitization projects. Accompanying
appendices provide additional detail on these findings. The final part
of the paper is devoted to specific recommendations for better
coordinating and managing Oxford's digital initiatives, largely by
establishing Oxford Digital Library Services. Any organization, in
particular large universities, managing a diverse range of
digitization projects will likely find this report to be useful. - RT
Mappa Mundi (http://mappa.mundi.net) - There is a new breed of
cartologist out there "mapping the Web" in all its aspects; prominent
amongst them is Martin Dodge, the creator of a site aptly entitled An
Atlas of Cyberspaces
(http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/topology.html). Dodge is also a
regular contributor to a website which I am perhaps unfelicitously
naming this month's "Site/Cite for Sore Eyes," not only for its
drop-dead gorgeous graphics throughout, but also for its
cyber-cartographically-tinged content, served up in eminently
digestible portions. Patently a forum for Invisible Worlds Inc., the
developers (with Danny Goodman in the lead) of the EdgarSpace portal,
Mappa Mundi nevertheless addresses issues germane to any serious Web
navigator. A recent article on trace routes
(http://mappa.mundi.net/maps/archive/maps_004.html) will serve as a
case in point. The study of trace routes as a tool for keeping
networks running smoothly is a clear manifestation of the practical
side of mapping the net. The article in question is rather basic in
intent and structure: it essentially compares the performance of three
commercially available traceroute applications: GeoBoy, NeoTrace and
Visual Route. What is striking is the author's cyber-geographical
slant, and the added value lading the article itself (great
screen-shots) and the sidebars (links galore). One sidebar, for
instance, offers a chance to test-run a triangulating Web tracer from
Canberra, Australia to the Mappa Mundi server, which sits presumably
somewhere across the San Francisco Bay. The Map of the Month archives
are presently mapping aspects of the Web as disparate as Arpanet and
MUDs. - LM
McLoughlin, Glenn J. "Next Generation Internet and Related
Initiatives" Journal of Academic Librarianship 25(3) (May 1999):
226-229. - McLoughlin unpacks the Internet alphabet soup giving
historical perspective and current status to the many federal
computing and communications efforts. Included in his treatment are
the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, the National
Information Infrastructure (NII), the High Performance Computing &
Communications initiative (HPCC), the proposed Information Technology
for the 21st Century (IT2) program, as well as Internet2. The next
time you're waiting for a Web page to load at a snail's pace, consider
that the fiscal year 2000 budget request for IT2, HPCC, and the NGI
amounts to 1.8 billion dollars, which is to be distributed across six
primary agencies. McLoughlin's final question, "can the NCO [National
Coordinating Office] ensure that multiple federal computing and
communications efforts are effective and efficient, and serve the
national interest?"cuts to the heart of the matter, especially since
50 percent of the U.S. population will rely upon and access the
Internet in the year 2000. - LR
Medeiros, Norm. "Making Room for MARC in a Dublin Core World" Online
(23)6 (Nov. 1999).
(http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OLtocs/OLtocnov4.html) - Among
librarians there has been debate about whether the MARC
(Machine-Readable Cataloging) format should be replaced, since it was
created to mimic in computer form something which is nearly obsolete
now: the library catalog card. New methods of resource description
have evolved since MARC was designed, but Medeiros points out that the
millions of MARC records in online catalogs today aren't going to go
away as simpler descriptive formats such as Dublin Core Metadata are
implemented for information retrieval, and that MARC will continue to
be useful, even in some cases for the description of Internet
resources (which is Dublin Core's raison d'etre). He examines the
nature of MARC and Dublin Core, contrasts their uses, and describes a
developing environment in which they peacefully coexist: the
Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC), an OCLC-sponsored
project. Participants build the database by contributing records in
whichever of the two formats is most appropriate for the level of
detail needed. - JR
Moglen, Eben. "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of
Copyright" First Monday 4(8) (August 2, 1999)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_8/moglen/). - Moglen, a law
professor at Columbia, exercises an insouciant wit in poking holes in
the existing concepts of intellectual property. Importantly, he
focuses mainly on "real" software: operating systems, and application
programs and the like. He declares, "In the digital society, it's all
connected. We can't depend for the long run on distinguishing one
bitstream from another in order to figure out which rules apply. What
happened to software is already happening to music. Their recording
industry lordships are now scrambling wildly to retain control over
distribution, as both musicians and listeners realize that the
middlepeople are no longer necessary." He may have a point, but
"bricks and mortar" businesses have done well on the Net, and the
"gift economy" of donated labor hasn't hit my neighborhood record
store. - TH
Okerson, Ann. "The LIBLICENSE Project and How it Grows" D-Lib Magazine
5(9) (September 1999)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september99/okerson/09okerson.html) - Under
the aegis of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR),
a team of librarians, lawyers and web designers at Yale University
Library has launched the LIBLICENSE project
(http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml), a site bristling
with tools to arm librarians and other purchasers and purveyors of
electronic resources against a proliferating and confusing array of
economic and business models for licensing agreements. This is an
impressive repository of information which seeks to "de-mystify" and
expedite the process of securing the best possible licensing deal, as
well as to pave the way for the eventual standardization of electronic
licensing agreements. The user will find well-researched sections
covering licensing vocabulary (and its judicious deployment), terms
and descriptions, as well as bibliography, and links to other
licensing sites. Flying in the face of those who might seek to keep
such legal arrangements closeted and esoteric, the LIBLICENSE site
maintains a page with copious links to actual licenses from both
publishers and authors, as well as a page devoted to model national
site licenses. The second phase of the grant has underwritten the
creation of LIBLICENSE software, freely downloadable, which provides a
sharp-looking "Integrated Development Environment" for creating one's
own license, replete with reference material and a panoply of options
promising to address with the click of a button everything from
Authorized Users to Warranties. - LM
Olsen, Florence. "Archivists Struggle to Preserve Crucial Records as
Paper Gives Way to Pixels" Chronicle of Higher Education 45(9)
(October 22, 1999): A63. - This article provides a good summary of the
dilemma facing archivists, who want to preserve e-information for its
value as primary material. The ephemeral nature of digital information
poses a serious problem over the long term, but that's not news. The
news is that archivists and information technology managers may have
discovered that they both exist in the same world and have related
problems and solutions to share. One can only hope that long term
partnerships between preservationists and technologists will yield
some solutions before the ephemera is marooned in outmoded operating
systems, or other subdirectories in the multi-platform dust bin of
history. - TH
O'Reilly, Tim. "Where the Web Leads Us" xml.com (October 6, 1999)
(http://www.xml.com/pub/1999/10/tokyo.html) - For the latent mark-up
code-monkey in all of us there is xml.com (http://www.xml.com), where,
interspersed amongst hard-core technical articles archived on the
site, there are plenty of useful "how-to's" for beginners or the
curious. I would single out any of Norm Walsh's contributions, e.g. "A
Technical Introduction to XML"
(http://www.xml.com/pub/98/10/guide0.html), or Tim Bray's interactive
annotated XML 1.0 spec
(http://www.xml.com/xml/pub/axml/axmlintro.html). In a similarly
didactic vein, the October 6th issue of xml.com offers a version of a
recent talk given at Linux World by publisher Tim O'Reilly, addressing
how Open Source protocols and tools (TCP/IP, SMTP, BIND, Apache,
HTML/SGML/XML, Perl, Unicode) will continue to shape the future of the
Web. The message is schematically simple: O'Reilly traces the
evolution of the computer/IT industry through a series of paradigm
shifts, first unleashed when IBM released the specs for the PC: from
hardware to software to what he labels infoware, i.e.
information-heavy sites such as Amazon.com or E*Trade, which marry
powerful backends to deceptively rich and simple user interfaces. This
article is also a cautionary tale: lest we dance too ebuliently in the
wake of victories over Goliath, Microsoft has indeed exhibited some
Hydra-like tendencies in its ability to come back and create
applications which target specific open source markets, such as ASP as
a response to Perl/CGI or Exchange Server over against Sendmail. In
another vein, when the "next killer app" is so heavily entrenched in
the open source software which makes the Web possible, we may even
find ourselves facing a new type of proprietary infoware giant and
empire. - LM
Prinsen, Jola G.B. and Hans Geleijnse. "The International Summer
School on the Digital Library" D-Lib Magazine 5(10) (October 1999)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october99/prinsen/10prinsen.html). - In a
field that is in the midst of inventing itself (digital
librarianship), there are few opportunities for instruction and
(re)training of working professionals. The most notable exception is
the International Summer School on the Digital Library, offered for
the past four years at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. In an
interesting and apparently effective fashion, the Tilburg University
Library and Computer Centre jointly launched a commercial venture
(Ticer, at http://www.ticer.com/) to manage the school. But what is
really interesting are the things they've learned. For example, they
found that participants have wanted more opportunity for discussion
despite the increase of group work and discussion sessions each year.
They also found, not surprisingly, that the participants were more
technologically aware and adept each successive year. In addition, as
technical problems recede in the face of an increasing diversity of
"off the shelf" solutions, manager and organizational issues become
more pressing. This is also reflected in the attendance, with the
largest single group being composed of managerial staff (60% hold
middle or upper management positions). - RT
Tidwell, Alan. "The Virtual Agora: Online Ethical Dialogues and
Professional Communities" First Monday 4 (7) (July 5, 1999)
(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_7/tidwell/). - Tidwell draws
an analogy between digital forums and the Greek agora, or marketplace,
which was where citizens met to discuss and debate topics of
importance. He asserts that the Net is a new agora, giving voice to
many, and replicating the raucous culture of public debate that was
far more unruly in Greek city states than in most forms of modern
discourse. He extends the metaphor by focusing on the use of Web
technology in fostering and sustaining ethical debates between
professional communities. - TH
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 10(10) (October 1999) ISSN: 1060-2356
Copyright (c) 1999 by the Library, University of California,
Berkeley. _All rights reserved._
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