Saturday, November 28, 2009

12/1 Comments

http://rachelnashintroit.blogspot.com/2009/11/assignment-6-web-page.html?showComment=1259467830890_AIe9_BH-KY91r1j0clyEWHdnyXQbK5jXparOHx5UkXsVNUTqryVf20QqNjYvxoq07NdOcYX7p-wJr3YYD7kTntJAgo0SMKFeCH2wsOB_Y6wQ0vqCa-grz09GLCgmkfkJyQhioHSkfdF3Dn5Z_Ims0avP2uyaNHKBJIJcqbbwJ6lU0yY-iPZ1jQH3y-TR980Co3N2n6vl8UK85WYIRXPxrU_UoOjiqUlq6F23ne-6Ov4w9LkuDsgOsnM#c3483401740885381307


http://cac160.blogspot.com/2009/11/unit-12-reading.html?showComment=1259468031886_AIe9_BFHW6e9ytyBT3CCqN5aanPStd4enpEe8k-NkKlozSebwmI4H6AJXMZcI0yNF75ckZ-USEeTDxJjr5fEi6tP9NuTY9suU2fgX6AEYyydSh5f3RRAAd1kSOWeR3Dm67oYDl_ZZctnHUK7YppzTFgNiwCQxTUaYTe_EwDp4OLaNjD39GTfjK46JftcHMY0cPANJYxhFco1xasSeuDnd8eP6Cw72zy1nw#c5245842588816472496

Friday, November 27, 2009

12/1 Muddiest Point

I know that reference librarians have started to use IM to provide reference services but not much about RSS feeds in reference context. I wonder which is better at question-answer turn around?

12/1 Readings: Unit 12

Reichardt, R., & Harder, G. (2005). Weblogs: their use and application in science and technology libraries.
Science & Technology Libraries, 25(3), 105-116.
The article focuses on weblogs as tools for project management and as educational tools for reference and public service librarians. Reichardt and Harder chart the rise of weblogs from the mid nineties to their current use as social networking tools (focusing on weblogs automatic archiving tool as a way to streamline work). One issue raised by the article was attempts to utilize weblogs as tools to help librarians troubleshoot student problems and field reference questions. I thought the use of RSS feeds on student websites would be an interesting way to find up-to-date reference questions, but like the use of IM Ask-a-librarian services it all comes down to how much staff and time you have to answer questions promptly, especially at a large research university.

Charles Allan, "Using a wiki to manage a library instruction program: Sharing knowledge to better serve patrons"
C&RL News, April 2007 Vol. 68, No. 4

Allan also focuses on how online tools-use of wikis- streamline workflow and enhance project collaboration. The article goes further to instruct librarians how to utilize wikis for library instruction purposes; using wikis to provide information on how to search for resources on a library website and keep professor up to date on library technology. The author highlights how wikis can be used to store pertinent information over several semesters for (incoming) students.

Xan Arch, "Creating the academic library folksonomy: Put social tagging to work at your institution" C&RL News, February 2007 Vol. 68, No. 2

Xan's article focuses on the use of tags to find scholarly literature and uses del.ic.oius, Cite-u-Like and Connotea as examples of use of scholarly tagging. The article also gives tips on how to create content-consulting with subject specialist to create tags for the information. The article also highlights a problem in using tagging for scholarly research, namely the use of controlled vocabulary (use of lii.org) vs. user folksonomies. I think the use of both would be beneficial to the library-user definitions may vary greatly from those of the "experts"-bibliographers, librarians and subject specialists.

Jimmy Wales: “How a ragtag band created Wikipedia”
Goals of wikipedia: Free encyclopedia. Has free licensing model-Wales believes free licensing is cost-effective. Biggest languages German, Japanese, French. 1/3 of traffic to English language wikipedia. According to Wales, Wikipedia is more popular than the NYTimes, what does this say about where people get their information? The video reminds me of a debate I had with a chemistry major as an undergraduate. She espoused the idea that wikipedia was a great way to find information and was sanctioned by her professors as an adequate source. As someone in the humanities with a background in journalism, disagreed, namely because of issues with factual information on the site (anyone can edit). As far as citation of scholarly sources go, I think the schism is going to be between the "hard" science and social sciences.

Wales cites a major problem with Wikipedia-vandalism as a barrier to quality control. Wales cites a "neutrality policy" for wikipedia editors, but I wonder whether the ability to write factual entries suffers.



Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Sunday, November 22, 2009

11/24 Comments

http://brandonlocke.blogspot.com/2009/11/note-to-ta.html?showComment=1258932827755_AIe9_BHbWv7BbqGncsPcKKDo-9fGmmXRuGGN3FPSHqLgFjvO1QTInS3WuBnRMGpT4zRjH3vkLQ-5hFSKHrtR6Dbz5YJfWSfvZO9VppNPiM4upqeaIklnC84OkhY7jxFjWZr4HGZK3QxRgJEbAlq-tZZG-SQp6eYuI463wgxOwfbgKPDGeESwQ0gQ737qMYRnTV2qlNEZ9q8nlojFR8Frfl-Y_hZFzyiMTw#c8721162274410233994


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11/24 Muddiest Point

How much influence did OAI have in decreasing price barriers to implementing digital institutional repositories?

11/24 Notes

"Digital Libraries: Challenges and Influential Work"
The article describes the evolution of DLI-1 and DLI-2 projects through federal funding initiatives, and problems in information retrieval (heterogenous databases, OAI, hidden digital sources) that have faced such projects. Specialists have sought to transform digital collections into digital libraries that also have the tools that enable users to successfully retrieve information and navigate the libraries. The projects varied-focusing on interoperability among heterogenous libraries, digital object technology, documentation, processing and indexing, and integrated software.


Paepcke, A. et al. (July/August 2005). Dewey meets Turing: librarians, computer scientists and the digital libraries initiative. D-Lib Magazine. 11(7/8).

The author highlights the role that DLI had in forming a partnership between computer scientists and librarians. At the beginning of the relationship, both believed the relationship would give them something they needed: computer scientists thought of it as a way to validate their research, librarians, who saw more funds going into science and technology, a way to access much needed funds.
The increasing importance of the WWW, brought a downside-publishers became interested in commercialization of the resources, which led to restriction to information that both groups though would remain free to access. This restricted scholarly input and communication and still remains a major issue. Two of my papers in Understanding Info focused on copyright, intellectual property law and scholarly publishing and it is astonishing to see how much commercialization by publishers has affected patrons access to resources.

Lynch, Clifford A. "Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age" ARL, no. 226 (February 2003): 1-7.

Lynch focuses on the development of institutional repositories and their effects on scholarly communication. He highlights OAI in decreasing price barriers and uses D-Lib (developed by MIT) as in example of a successful institutional repository. Unlike the other articles, Lynch also devotes a section to potential problems to look out for in developing an institutional repository-namely the creation of administrative policy that determines how and when people can publish their research. The author also brings into focus budgetary concerns, such as planning for long-term preservation and making sure their is money allotted for the repository so scholars can still access it.

Monday, November 16, 2009

11/17 Comments

http://erinlis2600.blogspot.com/2009/11/week-9-notes.html?showComment=1258427883504_AIe9_BFSKeRisteoSoBmNPzoHZrTdUmPnC8WugKrV2S-QbaGbvfDxQ2s-vkjVvua8L-HGXI3202oanM37NnlGwRm36qFPKM0mLv3mY3iGKQUUAuvBwQQ9U1uwdjw_veoh8Cc1i8Jx8hLFA9cpPtD2xLm7OEZlLmxZy7mk4mlI64XPtnuaAvHOqz2bIzruM25io8V7PpZkdXmKUy2xrmhsBbgpGAOgWStNA#c3648192432465760252

http://2600infototechnology.blogspot.com/2009/11/10th-readings.html?showComment=1258428080400_AIe9_BHVIPuvm7suo_NqHB4R41ZgMUSLw2qVyV7XZdvtvWvmpS26CxfwqZCMaIMixVt6L2cCXd45pmkQ_hb2biisJIhJxq5rAL1yzEknsaBHChNlnJyMIba7OIE4JMvwbcTTv1fztCoM_XSYjKWARG4RfWIxBkw6NGQPTLVI5c0eY0Hzthk-KfX1kNw-lnZjBPMzfsBVQae-Vww6WFWiLr43oi0cUF8EoMrv7xtxI16mxiWafS_6hZs#c6112397551413699809

Friday, November 13, 2009

11/17 Muddiest Point

How do limits in scalability affect the Google search engine in retrieving deep web documents?

11/17 Week Notes

David Hawking , Web Search Engines: Part 1 and Part 2 IEEE Computer, June 2006.

Could not access article through Blackboard, Google Scholar, or PittCat.

Current Developments and Future Trends for the OAI Protocol for Metadata
Harvesting


OAI-PMH was created to increase interoperability of metadata. First formatted fore e-print archives, it quickly gained use in museums and libraries, which used OAI-PMH for metadata harvesting. Now, Open access systems such as D-Space and Contentdm (OCLC) package OAI with their products. The Protocol of Metadata Harvesting works by faciliating different types of metadata based on common standards, such as HTML or Dublin Core.

MICHAEL K. BERGMAN, “The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value”
The article focuses on the "deep web" online sources and sites whose information is only accessible by direct query. One caveat of the deep web is that many web search engines do not have the capability to successfully retrieve information from these sites. Another problem is that answers can only be retrieved one at a time.

Deep web documents are 27% less sizable than surface web documents, but have a greater diversity of web sources.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Assignment 5: Koha Assignment

http://upitt04-staff.kwc.kohalibrary.com/cgi-bin/koha/virtualshelves/shelves.pl?viewshelf=55

Friday, November 6, 2009

11/10 Comments

http://bombrisk-lis2600.blogspot.com/2009/10/week-9-notes.html?showComment=1257561681067#c1286766924198393032


http://2600infototechnology.blogspot.com/2009/11/9th-readings.html?showComment=1257561841803#c5416469577232583694

11/10 Muddiest Point

How many pages use XML vs. DTD?

11/10 Week 9 Notes

Martin Bryan. Introducing the Extensible Markup Language (XML)
XML is a subset of SGTML. Unlike other markup languages, XML indetifies every part of a document. XML operates on the foundation that documents are a series of entities and each entitie contains one or more "logical elements." Each of the elements has attributes.
"XML provides a formal syntax for describing the relationships between the entities, elements and attributes that make up an XML document, which can be used to tell the computer how it can recognize the component parts of each document."

Uche Ogbuji. A survey of XML standards: Part 1. January 2004.
The document consist of a brief history of XML (start in Unicode) and provides several links to XML tutorials.

Extending your Markup: a XML tutorial by Andre Bergholz
Good XML documents start with a prologue and contain one element.
DTD-defines the structure of XML documents. DTD lets a user specify the tags used, order of tags, and the attributes associated with each tag.
Developments in XML: Resource Description Framework (RDF)-integrates metadata activities.
Document Object Model (DOM)-allows programs to access and update content.

XML Schema Tutorial
XML Schema -and XML alternative to DTD. Language known as XSD.