_Current_Cites_ Volume 3, no. 8 August 1992 Library Technology Watch Program University of California, Berkeley Edited by David F.W. Robison ISSN: 1060-2356 Contributors: Teri Rinne, Vivienne Roumani, Lisa Rowlison, Mark Takaro, Roy Tennant --------------------------------------------------------------------- Hyper- and Multimedia Brandt, Richard "CD-I at SALT: A Review of the Tenth Conference on Interactive Instructional Delivery" CD-ROM Librarian 7(6) (June 1992):58-59. Despite the trend towards standardization of CD-ROM formats, developers continue to pursue a variety of paths in an attempt to woo consumers. The Society for Applied Learning and Technology annual meeting this year was quieter than usual, but the consensus seems to be that CD-ROM will be the platform of choice for the delivery of multimedia. Future increases in the capacity of CD-ROM (which are still being haggled over by Philips and Sony) may insure this trend. - MT Landow, George P. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. A timely look at trends in literary theory and hypertext systems development. The author analyzes virtual forms of reading, non-linear structures and the webs that are hypertext works. The model of a network which literary criticism has employed recently provides a framework for understanding the impact of new hypertext literature and texts newly adapted from the past. The new concepts of literature are sure to be influenced by the continuing evolution of hypertext works. - MT Rumsey, Eric "HyperCard for Bibliographic Instruction" Computers in Libraries 12(5) (June 1992):43-45. The Hardin Health Sciences Library at the University of Iowa developed a HyperCard-based tutorial for users to learn the Medline CD-ROM system. Developed in stages and carefully evaluated, the system has had a positive impact on this area of bibliographic instruction. Interestingly, the project may be one of the first to use a Macintosh program to shows users how to use a DOS-based application. - MT Wang, Joseph C. "Announcing tkWWW 0.2 Alpha" Originally posted on news@athena.mit.edu on August 5, 1992 and reposted on PACS-L@ UHUPVM1 as "A Tk Interface to World Wide Web 0.2 ALPHA" by Ernest Perez on August 10, 1992. The World Wide Web seeks to build an international network of hypertext links and thereby creating a multifaceted distributed database. This announcement concerns a toolkit for developers. A set of terminal browsers for the Web includes a simple tty interface. United States users can telnet eies2.njit.edu or telnet 128.235.1.43 and login as www to demo the World Wide Web. The demo provides an interesting view of networked hypertext. The new Tk interpreted toolkit supports the construction of X11 applications and will allow contributors to submit hypertext to the World Wide Web. Networks and Networking Clement, John "Surveying K-12 and Postsecondary School Networking Partnerships" EDUCOM Review 27(4) (July/August 1992):44-46. Clement provides us with some preliminary results from a survey of K- 12/Postsecondary partnerships begun in January of this year by himself and Ellen McHugh. The survey found that many institutions are assisting primary and secondary schools in networking and in a variety of ways, and the number is growing. - DR Drew, Wilfred. Not Just Cows: A Guide to Internet/Bitnet Resources in Agriculture and Related Sciences. Morrisville, NY: Morrisville College of Agriculture and Technology, 1992. Available via anonymous ftp at ftp.unt.edu filename AGRICULTURE- INTERNET.TXT or AGRICULTURE-INTERNET.WORDPERFECT51 (binary) and at hydra.uwo.ca in directory libsoft as filename agguide.txt or agguide.wp (binary). Drew has put together an excellent and up-to-date guide to agricultural information resources on the net in an easy to use format. Included here are descriptions of mail, ftp, and telnet servers, in addition to e-BBSs and other services along with clear access instructions. - DR Deutsch, Peter "Resource Discovery in an Internet Environment" Masters thesis, McGill University, 1992. Available via anonymous ftp from archives.cc.mcgill.ca in directory /pub/peterd as file thesis. This paper proposes a complex naming and file management system to facilitate "the act of discovering the existance [sic] of classes of resources, locating specific instances of such classes, and accessing these instances." Deutsch's scheme involves establishing unique publisher identifiers, file identifiers and information brokers (machines) that maintain and provide information to servers. The servers, in turn, maintain their own data on available files and answer queries from user access agents. Not exactly an easy read, but very interesting. - DR Kahin, Brian "Scholarly Communication Project: Computer Conferences Announced" posted on PACS-L@UHUPVM1 and NETTRAIN@ UBVM on July 29, 1992. 6 new discussion lists have been established by the Coalition for Networked Information as a joint project with the JFK School of Government. The lists cover joint authorship and ownership (OWNERSHIP); rights in computer conferencing (REPOST); derivative and iterative works (DERIV); control of dissemination (RESOURCES); site licensing (SITE-LICENSE); and international access (INTERNATIONAL). Subscription messages should be sent to LISTSERV@CNI.ORG (subscribe [listname] [your first name] [your last name]). You may subscribe to more than one conference in a message, and you should include background information about yourself. - DR King, Kenneth M. "The NREN Picture Becomes Clearer" EDUCOM Review 27(4) (July/August 1992):52-51. King, outgoing President of EDUCOM, takes a look at the some of the issues of the development the national information infrastructure with respect to the federal funding, private funding, and the NSF. This "letter" covers the major points without getting bogged down in the details. - DR "Online Services Experience Solid Growth Over Past 5 Years With More Forecast for the Near Future" EFFector ONline 3(1) (July 29, 1992). A new study just released indicates that the sales of online services have grown over 690% in the last 5 years, and the growth is expected to continue by 48% over the next five years. - DR Peters, Paul Evan "Network Navigating and Navigators" EDUCOM Review 27(4) (July/August 1992):40-42. Using the theme of the Spring 1992 meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information as the title of his synopsis of the meeting, Peters brings us the highlights and key points of the event. Speakers included 4 people Peters describes as "pathfinders and pioneers in the area of realizing the full promise of networks to advance scholarship and intellectual productivity" (Vinton Cerf - CNRI, Brewster Kahle - WAIS, Joyce Reynolds - USC, and George Strawn - NSF). - DR Polly, Jean Armour "Surfing the Internet: An Introduction" Wilson Library Bulletin 66(10) (June 1992):38-42, 155. As stated in the introduction, this article is intended to be a "nontechnical introduction to Internet communications [and] is intended to show how librarians and libraries can benefit from net connectivity." Polly gives a basic description of the net, but then goes on to list various networked resources for further information about both the net as well as general information (including e-journals, telnet and ftp sites, e.g. WAIS, WWW, Project Gutenberg, etc.). - DR Rotenberg, Marc "Proposed Privacy Guidelines for the NREN" Posted on CPSR@GWUVM on July 30, 1992. This statement to NCLIS's Open Forum on Library and Information Service's Roles in the NREN by the Washington Director of the Computing Professionals for Social Responsibility, presents both background and findings regarding the great need to address privacy issues in the NREN arena. According to the statement, the three main threats to privacy on the net are commercialization, lack of legal protection, and the governments current opposition to robust data encryption. - DR Tennant, Roy, John Ober and Anne G. Lipow. Crossing the Internet Threshold: An Instructional Handbook. Berkeley, CA: Library Solutions Press, 1993. This excellent guide to the Internet serves two functions, it acts as an introduction to the net, its services and resources, and is also an instruction kit for trainers. In addition to describibg the full range of net resources, the authors have provided exercises and copies of overheads they have used in network instruction. For information on ordering a copy, contact Anne Lipow at alipow@library.berkeley.edu - DR Optical Disc Technologies Herther, Nancy "The Past, Present and Future of the Compact Disc, Multimedia and the Industry: An Interview with Dr. Toshi Doi" CD-ROM Professional 5(4) (July 1992):17-21. Sony Corporation Director Toshi Doi is widely considered to be the father of both the compact disc and digital audio. Much of this interview focuses on the multimedia industry, specifically the proliferation of multimedia formats. Doi predicts a healthy, competitive future for the industry as long as a universal multimedia format is established by 1995. - TR Littlejohn, Alice "CD-ROM 1991: The Year in Review" CD-ROM Librarian 7(6) (June 1992):18-57. Littlejohn presents a comprehensive review of a robust year for the CD-ROM industry. Nearly every topic germane to the industry is mentioned within one of the six major categories: market, products, users, technicalities, international scene, 1992 and beyond. Appended to the 25-page review are over 300 bibliographic citations. Required reading for CD-ROM industry watchers. - TR General Thinking Robots, an Aware Internet, and Cyberpunk Librarians / R. Bruce Miller and Milton T. Wolf, editors. The citations below are of a sampling of the articles in this thought provoking collection. The Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) plans to publish these articles along with the text of the speeches at the 1992 President's program in a monograph this Fall. More citations from this collection will appear in the next issue of Current Cites. o Cisler, Steve "The Canary on the Computer" pp.84-87. Beginning with discussion of the vision of progress from eyes ranging from the paranoid to those behind rose tinted glasses, Cisler offers a review of the work of the two leading information watchdog groups outside librarianship (though not without librarians) the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Computing Professionals for Social Responsibility. - DR o Davidson, Howard L. "A Clear Vision of the Information" pp. 77-78. Davidson, a Senior Research Physicist at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, offers a rather radical vision of the ultimate IR system: a computer that both uses a model of the user's memory strategy and taps into the user's brain directly. Read it to believe it. - DR o Halbert, Martin "Knowbot Explorations in Similarity Space" pp.65-69. Halbert lets us listen in on a conversation about online retrieval that might take place in the year 2010 where users have knowbots conjure up 3-D graphical representations of data. - DR o Mason, Florence "Ethics and the Electronic Society" pp. 88-92. As networked information becomes more ubiquitous, ethical concerns about information are changing. Mason covers some of the concerns over ownership, control, access, and privacy of information. She also proposes ethical guidelines for the modern information professional. - DR o Wallis, Roberta "Nanotechnology: The Library of Congress in Your Pocket" pp. 33-37. A fascinating futuristic and somewhat utopian view of what we might expect from the continuing miniaturization of technology. The author cites the writings of K. Eric Drexler in the field of nanotechnology and suggests that information and learning may develop beyond present constraints with the help of nanotechnology. - MT Van Bergen, Marylin A. "Copyright Law, Fair Use, and Multimedia" EDUCOM Review 27(4) (July/August 1992):31-34. Bergen provides a brief and timely discussion of copyright law in the electronic age. Some specific areas covered are fair use, derivative and collective use, and the conflict between constitutional rights of access and copyright controls. - DR ------------------------------------------------------------------- Current Cites 3(8) (August 1992) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright (C) 1992 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley. All rights reserved. All product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Mention of a product in this publication does not necessarily imply endorsement of the product. Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collections at no cost. This message must appear on copied material. 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