Professional reading 1999/0004

Professional reading 1999/0004

Altmann, K.G. and Gorman, G.E., "The relevance of 'cited by leading journal' to serials management in Australian university libraries", Australian Library Journal, 48, 2 (1999): 101-116

Highlights the importance of Australian scientific journals to overall serial usage in a variety of disciplines in an Australian university library. It is deemed inappropriate for Australian academic libraries to base serial selection on the Cited by Leading Journal (CBLJ) approach, as this fails to lead to the selection of high-use Australian serials. The authors suggest that Australian university libraries would be better served by basing slection decisions on a combined Cited by Leading Australian Journal and CBLJ strategy.

Bosak, J., "XML ubiquity and the scholarly community", Computers and the Humanities, 33, 1/2 (1999): 199-206

This special issue of Computers and the Humanities provides selected papers from the 10th Anniversary Conference of the Text Encoding Intiative (TEI), a standard interchange format for textual data. Papers cover the history of TEI, the basics of XML, SGML and HTML, current issues and trends in TEI research, and a range of related topics.

Chau, M.Y., "Web mining technology and academic librarianship: human-machine connections for the twenty-first century", First Monday, 4, 6 (7 June 1999)

http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_6/chau/

Chau explores the nature of analysing and fulfilling information needs in a research environment, using Web mining as a means of exploring the challenges and opportunities that librarians face. She also presents contrasting scenarios, one of the utopian "if only" variety and one that showcases a more realistic wrestling match between person and machine. She concludes that the best ways for information professionals to stay abreast of rapidly shifting technologies is to regard themselves as members of invisible colleges, sharing brainpower and teaching skills to meet the challenge.

Chowdhury, N., "Dell cracks China", Fortune, 21 June 1999: 32-36

Describes how Dell has been able to open a market for its hardware in China by means of "direct selling".

Chowdhury, N., "Yahoo! Hello, Asia", Fortune, 21 June 1999: 45

Describes how Yahoo! is able to transmit its Web services to the Hong Kong cellular telephone operator SmarTone, providing Internet access via mobile phone.

Coffman, S., "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 article in the March 1999 issue of Searcher Coffman addresses some of the 250 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.

Coombs, M., "Web site design for public libraries: a marketing tool for the new millennium", Australian Library Journal, 48, 2 (1999): 117-127

Web site creation and maintenance are becoming commonplace in libraries. Some general, non-library sites are designed for a broad and undefined audience, and others are aimed at very specific audiences with particular purposes or problems. Library sites often try to do both by attempting to reach the general public and specific groups of users. Coombs discusses how this can be done effectively.

Doering, W., "Y2K for librarians: exactly what you need to do", Computers in Libraries, 19, 7 (1999)

http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jul/doering.htm

This article is a reassuring, step-by-step approach to a subject that has caused considerable concern among many information professionals. There is advice on how to approach the problem, lists of the types of things that may be affectedand what issues to bring up with your vendors. Read the Web version in order to take advantage of the links to the author's "Year-2000 Compliancy Inventory" and the many useful references.

Gorman, M., "Metadata or cataloging? A false choice", Journal of Internet Cataloging, 2, 1 (1999): 5-22

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: full MARC cataloguing; enriched Dublin Core records (the structuralist approach); minimal Dublin Core records (the minimalist approach); and 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.

Green, A., Dionne, J. and Dennis, M., Preserving the Whole: A Two-track Approach to Rescuing Social Science Data and Metadata, Digital Library Federation, Washington, DC, 1999

http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub83/pub83.pdf

Focuses on how to rescue statistical data from outdated formats and/or systems. This process, called "migration", is complicated and not often attempted. This early report from the DLF is important because it presents the state of play in this emerging field. A two-track approach is necessary because both the data and the metadata or descriptions of the data must be rescued, and each requires a different process.

Hodges, D. and Lunau, C.D., "The National Library of Canada's digital library initiatives", Library Hi Tech, 17, 2 (1999): 152-164

This article serves as a useful overview of the many digital library projects the NLC has begun in recent years. The high value the NLC places on collaboration and partnerships is evident from the large number of co-operative projects they have undertaken. Of particular note is their "virtual union catalogue" project, using Z39.50. Their trials and tribulations are particularly interesting and enlightening and should be required reading for any organisation considering a similar project.

Kovacs, D. (Ed.), "Special theme: electronic publishing in libraries", Library Hi Tech, 17, 1 (1999)

This theme issue of Library Hi Tech demonstrates that librarians have used the capabilities offered them (chief among them the Web) in creative and imaginative ways to solve the information needs of their users. We have further to go in this regard, but there are lessons from this collection of papers that can be applied to many library situations. One of the more interesting pieces was the summary of interviews of six academic chief information officers ("Librarians and information technologists: more alike than different? Interviews with CIOs"). Some of the interviewees oversee libraries, some do not, but all are in positions to influence if not guide decision making in their libraries.

Kraar, L., "The art of the e-deal", Fortune, 21 June 1999: 40-42

Describes how one entrepreneur, Charles Spackman based in Korea, has been able to expand a business offering Asian Internet services.

Petrazzini, B. and Mug, K., "The Internet in developing countries", Communications of the ACM, 42, 6 (June 1999)

http://www.acm.org/pubs/articles/journals/cacm/1999-42-6/p31-petrazzini/p31-petrazzini.pdf

For most of the world, Internet access is costly, and this article describes the current problems for Internet growth outside North America and Europe. Some topics addressed are the lack of low-cost regional IP backbones (e.g. monthly charges for circuits between Asia-Pacific countries are much higher than monthly charges between those countries and the US), and the limited availability of local call rates for dial-up services. This article is part of a valuable special section in the issue; in this case the section is titled "Emerging internet infrastructures worldwide". In it are articles on making the Internet less US-centric, Internet development and control in China, India and Haiti, deploying wireless data systems in Kenya and Thailand, and commentary on the potential global impact of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Phillips, M.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 ­ is an increasingly serious problem. The National Library of Australia sees a solution as involving two distinct processes: archiving (collecting the material to be preserved) and preservation (keeping the material accessible as technology changes). This article principally 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.

"The ROADS project exit strategy: ensuring the future of ROADS for its users", ROADS Development Newsletter, 9 (July 1999)

http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/roads/news/latest/futures/

The 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 Organisation 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.

Russell, K. and Sergeant, D. "The Cedars Project: implementing a model for distributed digital archives", RLG DigiNews, 3, 3 (15 June 1999)

http://www.rlg./org/preserve/diginews/diginews3.3html

The CEDARS Project http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/ was chartered by the UK Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/ to investigate issues regarding the long-term preservation of digital materials. Their work has focused on trying to develop a model for a distributed archival information system, based on the idea of packages. They propose three types of packages: submission, archival and dissemination. A digital object would be submitted to a repository as a submission package, which would then be processed for inclusion in the archive as an archival information package. For online delivery to users, a dissemination information package may be required. The dissemination information package would contain those delivery versions of the archival images.

"Web search engines: precision, power, and performance", Online, 23, 3 (May/June 1999)

http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OLtocs/OLtocmay4.html

This special section on Web search engines covers many aspects of these tools and provides charts detailing their 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.

Winter, K., "'MyLibrary' can help your library", American Libraries, 30, 7 (August 1999): 65-67

A number of libraries are beginning to experiment with systems that allow their clientele to set up their own interface to library collections and services. Often called MyLibrary systems, either as a concept or in actuality, these interfaces usually present a combination of pre-set features and customizable options. Winter profiles five library projects and one university-wide project, with interviews of system developers and the key functions of each. Web addresses of all the projects are provided.