Muddy point class 12

I was just wondering when the final grades for the term will be posted on Courseweb.

Class 12 readings

Joseph E. Stiglitz "Intellectual-Property Rights and Wrongs"

I agree with Stiglitz's statement that "Ideas are the most important input into research, and if intellectual property slows down the ability to use others’ ideas, then scientific and technological progress will suffer."
I think that there is abalance to be considered with intellectual property laws. We need intellectual property laws to protect scientists' ideas. At the same time, if those laws are too strict, they may stifle further attempts in scientific research. Scientists should be able to use others' ideas in their research, as long as they give those ideas proper credit.

Clifford Lynch "Where do we go from here: the next decade for digital libraries"

I think that this article offers some very interesting perspectives on the future of digital libraries, patriculary in the area of preservation. Lynch writes, "how do you prove that your approach in fact will preserve data for a thousand years without having to wait that long?". I think that this is a very good question, and I agree with Lynch that it is one which should be investigated.

Muddy point class 11

I do not completely understand the Shibboleth process. Does this mean that the user only needs one user name and password for all resources that require authorization?

Week 11 readings

Arms "Implementing Policies for Access Management":
I agree with Arms that the technology for authenticating users can be frustrating, especially if the system requires a user ID and password. Many times, users forget their IDs or passwords, and then retrieving the information can be time-consuming.
Arms writes,"One question that frequently arises in access management is whether it is possible to agree on a standard set of attributes that will serve many different applications." This paper was published in 1998. I was wondering if any attribute standards for digital libraries have been created since then.

Lesk "Economics"
I agree with Lesk that it is cheaper for libraries to provide users access to journals online than to purchase paper subscriptions. However, a greater number of digital materials in a library's collection would mean that the library has to buy additional computers so that patrons can access those materials, which can be expensive.

Class 10 Muddy Point

This is not a question, but just a point I would like to make about whether Google Book Search will make physical libraries obsolete. I do not think this will be the case. We discussed in the beginning of class that 61.5% of households in the US have access to the internet, and this percentage is even lower in other countries. Until we truly have universal access, I think that libraries will remain a vital service to society.

Class 10 readings

1) "Social Aspects of Digital Libraries"
Agre, Philip E. "Research Topic for Social Aspects in Digital Libraries"
I agree with Agre's point that we need to place information usage "in the context of genres, activities, relationships, and subjective experiences". Information never exists in a bubble. To fully understand an individual's information need, one needs to understand the larger context of the information need.
Bikson, Tora K. "Identifying Real Information Needs and Developing Digital Libraries to Meet those Needs".
I agree that "User modifiable interfaces (including user-definable search templates) are available in other kinds of systems and should be extendable to digital libary systems". This is an important point because one interface may not be intuitive to all users.

2) Arms, William Y. "A Viewpoint Analysis of the Digital Library"
I agree with Arms' point that "A user who wishes to do serious work using online information will find that superficially similar services have deep semantic differences". The way that a library's online catalog searches for information is very different from the way that Google, for instance, searches for information. To ever truly to have interoperability among DL systems, there would have to be greater uniformity in the way that users use these systems to find information.

Class 9 readings

Kling and Elliott reading:
I do not understand what exactly Mosaic is. Does it work the same way as internet browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. It sees like Gopher would be confusing to use due to all the submenus.

Saracevic reading:
I agree with Saracevic's statement, "A major difficulty was establishing boundaries: what to include/exclude as to the first criterion? What falls under a 'digital library'" (2).
It is difficult to come up with an evaluation system for a digital library because digital libraries fall under such a broad scope.

Readings Class 8- Preservation

Rieger reading:
This is an interesting report because I have heard a lot about how digitization is a means of preserving print materials, but I have not heard a lot about what happens once the materials are digitized, and how companies such as Google will maintain long-term access to digital book collections.

Hedstrom reading:
I agree with Hedstrom that in order to preserve digital materials long-term, we will need systems that are self-sustaining and require little human maintanence. Another concern is that many digital library technologies will become obsolete. I also agree with Hedstrom's point that the preservation of digital materials will require new systems for identifying digital objects since current identifiers, such as PURLs, require updating to stay current.

Muddy Point class 7

I was wondering if there were any privacy issues with regard to Google Desktop. I would be worried about a corporation being able to view the personal information on my computer.

Access in Digital Libraries II readings

Miller article:
I agree with Miller's point that the success of Google lies in its simplicity. Users want to be able to type a query into a search box and quickly find relevant information, nat spend hours searching for it. The problem with Google, however, is that the search results may not always be relevant.
I also agree with Miller's point that the library catalog is no longer always a library's primary source of information.

"The Truth about Federated Searching":
I am having trouble understanding exactly what federated searching is. From this article, I understand that a federated search engine is a service that a library can subscribe to that will search all of the library's databases simultaneously. Is the Zoom! service in PittCat an example of a federated search engine?

Muddy Point Class 5

I was wondering if there hae been any efforts to create a controlled vocabulary for digital libraries, maybe using social tagging as the basis.

Week 4 readings

Witten Section 2.2:

I thought that the three objectives of the bibliographic system, finding, collocation, and choice, were interesting. Each objective is designed to make it easier for the end user to find and retrieve the information he/she is looking for. I agree with Witten's point that a successful didgital library is one that mimics a traditional library. The author writes, "helpful digital libraries need to present users with an image of stability and continuity, as though electronic documents were identifiable, discreet objects like physical ones" (49).

Gilliland reading:
The author briefly mentions automated metadata creation. I am curious about how this can be achieved. It seems that an object would need to be examined by a human to create metadata that best describes that object.
Gilliland writes about the broad scope of metadata extending outside of the traditional library catalog. For instance, I am creating metadata when I create tags for my favorite websites.

Flickr account link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43121485@N06/

Muddy Point Class 3

This may be a silly question, but I'm not sure I understand the difference between a DOI and a PURL. Is the only difference in appearance?

Week 3 Readings

Arms reading:
1. Structure vs. appearance of a digital document- These two concepts are very similar, but it seems the difference is that structure relates to the background organization of the document,while the appearance is how the document actually appears on the screen after it has been applied to a style sheet.

2. It is interesting that Arms brings up the difference between reading materials on a computer screen in contrast to reading a materials in print. This difference, I think, is one of the main reasons that print books have not become obsolete. Although digital materials have several benefits, such as that they can be viewed by multiple users at the same time and that they can be viewed instantly on one's computer, many people, myself included, still prefer to read print materials.

3. I thought that Arms' explanation of optical character recognition was very interesting. Since most documents being converted using optical character recognition programs still require proof-reading, I was wondering how long the entire conversion process typically takes.

Muddiest Point Class 2

I am a fast track student, and I am considering doing the digital library term project by myself. I was wondering how the fast track students who do the project alone will present their digital libraries. Also, I was wondering if those working alone would be graded differently from those working in teams, since one individual will not be able to produce as much as a three-person team.
Also, will there be any demonstrations in class about the process of creating a digital library collection? I have a few ideas for my collection, but I do not know where to start looking for materials.

Class 1 Muddiest Point

I was wondering about formatting guidelines for our assignments. Do you want our papers single or double spaced? If we cite outside sources, is there a particular citation format you want us to use?
Also, I am unclear about whether we are supposed to post about the first week's readings or not. I added this class late, so if we were supposed to post about week one readings, mine will be late.