Week 15: Reading Notes

1) Galen Gruman. “What cloud computing really means” InfoWorld, April 2008. http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/07/15FE-cloud-computing-reality_1.html

"Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities."

2) Explaining Cloud Computing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplXnFUlPmg&NR=1

-Google Docs is an example of cloud computing.

-"Cloud computing may bring an a return to centralized computing."

3) Thomas Frey. The Future of Libraries: Beginning the Great Transformation http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=120

"People who in the past visited libraries to find specific pieces of information are now able to find that information online. The vast majority of people with specific information needs no longer visit libraries. However, others who read for pleasure as example, still regularly patronize their local library."

-I disagree with this. Not only do people who read for pleasure visit their local library, but people who wish to find specific books (academic and otherwise), attend special events, learn a new language, get job and career advice--among other programs--also frequent their local library. Not everything can be placed online.

"A culture-based library is one that taps into the spirit of the community, assessing priorities and providing resources to support the things deemed most important. Modern day cultural centers include museums, theaters, parks, and educational institutions. The library of the future could include all of these, but individual communities will be charged with developing an overall strategy that reflects the identity and personality of its own constituency."

-I do agree with libraries having the potential, or the necessity, to become cultural centers, as many libraries already are. Large, urban public libraries already have the ability to be central to their communities, while smaller public libraries are often the only public place with the ability to celebrate an area's local heritage--without other cultural institutions nearby, such as a museum.

Week 13: Lab

http://liswiki.org/wiki/User:Hmg24

Week 14: Reading Notes

1) No place to hide site: http://www.noplacetohide.net/

After reading the final chapter to "No Place to Hide," noting the various types of data mining as an individual walks through New York City, I am intrigued with the concept of information being collected everywhere. A person never thinks about it much, living in such a digital society, but the capabilities are there. "It takes less and less effort each year to know what each of us is about" (O'Hara). A very telling thought, indeed.

2) TIA and data mining http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/

-Electronic Privacy Information Center
-Total "Terrorism" Information Awareness (TIA)
-TIA was developed as a tracking system, a means to track information about private data without warrants.
"In September 2003, Congress eliminated funding for the controversial project and closed the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office, which had developed TIA. This does not, however, necessarily signal the end of other government data-mining initiatives that are similar to TIA."

3) MyTurn: Protecting privacy rights in libraries, By Judah Hamer • September 24, 2008 http://greatlibrarynews.blogspot.com/2008/09/myturn-protecting-privacy-rights-in.html

This article applauds Vermont's law on stricter patron privacy policies and its necessity in libraries:
"In a library, the right to privacy means the right to open inquiry. Individuals must be able to seek information about any subject without fear of judgment, criticism or scrutiny of others. Freedom of speech is meaningless without the freedom to receive information; they are the underpinnings of a healthy democracy."

Week 13: Reading Notes

1) John Blossom (2009). What makes social media tick: seven secrets of social media. Content Nation, chapter 2. Wiley Publishing Inc. Blossom_Content_Nation_7_Secrets_Social_Media.pdf 

-user-generated content
-social v. collaborative publishing
-social media and branding/marketing

2) 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 Using a wiki to manage a library instruction program.htm 

-"Creating your own wiki is a fairly straightforward process. Commercial sites abound on the Internet that allow anyone to create a free wiki. Some of the best known sites are seedwiki (seedwiki.com), pbwiki (pbwiki org), jotspot (http://www.jot.com/), twiki.org (twiki.org), and Phpwiki (phpwiki.org). Like free but basic e-mail service, free wikis are lacking in bells and whistles but seem to suffice for most users' needs. The option to upgrade (for a fee) is always available. Find the company with the most user-friendly interface and create an account."
-"centralized resource collaboration tool"
-Wikis are in general very similiar to the popularity of Google Documents...shared, collaborative workspaces which allow multiple users to contribute simutaneously and see updates when logging back in. The wiki system software might be different, but the idea of how online collaboration continues to be explored is an interesting concept.

3) Xan Arch, “Creating the academic library folksonomy: Put social tagging to work at your institution” C&RL News, February 2007 Vol. 68, No. 2 http://www.mendeley.com/research/creating-academic-library-folksonomy/?mrr_wp=0.1

-social tagging = saving bookmarks online
-"A few libraries are trying out social tagging: the University of Pennsylvania (UP) was one of the first library adopters with its PennTags (tags.library.upenn.edu/). The site allows UP students, faculty, and staff to bookmark quality Web sites and records in UP's online catalog and share these resources with others. Additionally UP users can create and share "projects" or groups of links on a single site named for the topic."

4) Jimmy Wales: “How a ragtag band created Wikipedia” http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jimmy_wales_on_the_birth_of_wikipedia.html

-goal was to give a free encyclopedia to everyone on the planet
-how they manage quality control: neutral point-of-view policy
-wiki model is how they work, not "web anarachists"..."passion of the community is for the quality of the work, not the process used to generate it"
-wiki books projects..."freely licensed textbooks are the next big thing in education"

Week 11 Lab

Google Scholar query: "digital library 2008 ... 2012"

Web of Science query: "digital library" narrow terms to 2008 - 2012

Google Scholar query: "virtual reference 2008 ... 2012"

Web of Science query: "virtual reference" narrow terms to 2008 - 2012

Week 12: Reading Notes

1) David Hawking , Web Search Engines: Part 1 and Part 2 IEEE Computer, June 2006. http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/MC.2006.213 and http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/MC.2006.286

Part 1
GYM search engines - Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft
"Currently, the amount of Web data that search engines crawl and index is on the order of 400 terabytes, placing heavy loads on server and network infrastructure. Allowing for overheads, a full crawl would saturate a 10-Gbps network link for more than 10 days" (86)
"Engineering a Web-scale crawler is not for the unskilled or fainthearted. Crawlers are highly complex parallel systems, communicating with millions of different Web servers, among which
can be found every conceivable failure mode, all manner of deliberate and accidental crawler traps, and every variety of noncompliance with published standards." (88)

Part 2
Indexers can create a file in two phases: scanning and inversion
"Compression. Indexers can reduce demands on disk space and memory by using compression algorithms for key data structures. Compressed data structures mean fewer disk accesses and can lead to faster indexing and faster query processing, despite the CPU cost of compression and decompression." (88)
"The major problem with the simplequery processor is that it returns poor results. In response to the query “the Onion” (seeking the satirical newspaper site), pages about soup and gardening would almost certainly swamp the desired result." (90)
"A high priority for search engine operation is monitoring the search quality to ensure that it does not decrease when a new index is installed or when the search algorithm is modified." (90)

2) Shreeves, S. L., Habing, T. O., Hagedorn, K., & Young, J. A. (2005). Current developments and future trends for the OAI protocol for metadata harvesting. Library Trends, 53(4), 576-589.

OAI-PMH = Open Access Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (2001)
data providers or repositories = make metadata available
service providers or harvesters = selectively harvest metadata
Open Language Archives Community = creating a worldwide language resource
Extendible Repository Resource Locators = ERRoLs (allows an OAI repository to stand alone as a web application)
"Controlled vocabularies will become more important..." (587)

3) MICHAEL K. BERGMAN, “The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value” e p http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jep;view=text;rgn=main;idno=3336451.0007.104

Standard search engines cannot find websites in the "deep web"
"Public information on the deep Web is currently 400 to 550 times larger than the commonly defined World Wide Web."
"Legitimate criticism has been leveled against search engines for these indiscriminate crawls, mostly because they provide too many results"
"Serious information seekers can no longer avoid the importance or quality of deep Web information. But deep Web information is only a component of total information available. Searching must evolve to encompass the complete Web."