http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/ Recent content in Issue 23 on Ariadne Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/honduras/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/honduras/ Christmas eve we wrapped up a few simple presents, a couple of polystyrene aeroplanes, some puppets, an alphabet colouring book and a kite. We also wrapped up a clockwork Torch. Very useful around here. In the morning we were picked up by motor boat and driven over to the house. We left the hotel and passed through the village. Here the islanders all live on the coast. Since the tide doesn't rise much more than a few feet the houses are safely built on stilts, actually over the sea. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/broadband/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/broadband/ In the last issue of Ariadne I explored available streaming video on the web (Tiny TV, Ariadne issue 22, December 1999), looking at the phenomenon particularly according to the geographic and subject distribution of resources. Things are moving very fast: by the time the article was published the version of RealPlayer (G2) had been replaced, and my written map of available resources was much narrower than the range of materials which I knew to exist. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/pub-libs/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/pub-libs/ With the people's network drawing ever nearer, the issue of Internet training for librarians and users looms large for most library managers. In particular, the potential cost of providing such training, in pounds and hours is a real consideration for services. Most libraries with Internet terminals will find that staff are peppered with questions from users on a daily basis, ranging from "Why can't I find this page? to "How do I access this secure site? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/cartoon/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/cartoon/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/at-the-event/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/at-the-event/ Last year’s CLUMPS meeting took place in a large purpose built lecture theatre in the new British Library building at St Pancras. This was very handy for those of us arriving from Bath, since it is only 3 tube stops or so from Paddington to St Pancras/Kings Cross. This year the meeting is split into two events, and the first of these was arranged to happen at Goldsmiths College at New Cross in South East London. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/convergence/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/convergence/ The pastVideo games have been around for a lot longer than most people realise. Many people can remember playing games on their ZX Spectrum (1982), or even their cartridge-based Atari VCS (1978). However, before these systems came into being there had already been a decade of video game development, mostly based in the US and Japan. The first recognised games console was the Magnavox Odyssey [1] in 1972. This US-produced machine sold around 100,000 units in three years, and at the time was considered to be revolutionary. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/eevl/ariadne2.html Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/eevl/ariadne2.html BackgroundEEVL: the Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library, is the UK-based, free gateway to engineering information on the Internet.  It is part of the EMC Hub, which in turn is part of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN), a national initiative to provide effective access to high quality Internet resources for the UK learning and research communities..  EEVL is a JISC funded service. Recent newsThere seems to be quite a lot of news to report from the EEVL camp. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/eevl/emc.html Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/eevl/emc.html The Engineering, Mathematics and Computing Hub (EMC) is part of the national Resource Discovery Network (RDN), and has been in existence for seven months.  Of course, EEVL, the engineering gateway, has been operational for three-and-a-half years.  The EMC Hub can be viewed as a collection of gateways (which may eventually become portals) with technical facilities and some co-ordination provided by Heriot-Watt University, rather than a new gateway in itself.  The gateways in the Hub benefit greatly from the institutional support from Heriot-Watt University (EEVL), Cranfield University (who supply EEVL with records from their Aerospace and Defence Gateway, AERADE) and the University of Birmingham (MathGate). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/epress/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/epress/ The Electronic Publishing Resource Service (EPRESS)[1] is developing an online database system to aid the administration of electronic journals and make information available to a distributed Editorial team. Having identified labour as the greatest contributing cost toward electronic journal publication, EPRESS aims to reduce the burden by automating many of the functions of the Editorial Assistant and the publisher. This article demonstrates the scope of journal services and illustrates the ways in which the administrative chores are reduced to increase the efficiency of the publishing process. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/editorial/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/editorial/ Readers of this issue may have arrived expecting to read an article on the forthcoming DNER service; an article which was heavily trailed in issue 22. My apologies to you if you are among them. However, the pace of development of the DNER over the past few months has been so great that we decided, late in the editorial process, to postpone the publication of an article on the subject until issue 24. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/metadata/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/metadata/ "Interoperability is easy. It’s a piece of cake. Simply digitise (or create in digital form) a load of content and stick it on a web site. To let people find it, use this cool stuff called metadata. Basically, that means describing your stuff by writing a description of it inside some <META> tags." Erm… Wrong!!! The prevalence of this view — or views remarkably akin to it — is truly scary, even amongst the ranks of those such as readers of Ariadne, from whom we might reasonably expect better. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/planet-sosig/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/planet-sosig/ New Millennium, New SOSIGOn the 25th February 2000 SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway) officially launched its brand new service at a successful one-day event in central London. Speakers at the event included Annabel Colley, website producer for BBC’s Panorama and Chair of the Association for UK Media Librarians who spoke of the enormous contribution SOSIG has made to research, since its inception. “Used incorrectly, the Internet can be a huge time waster. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/eevl/railway.html Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/eevl/railway.html The rail industry has been an enthusiastic adopter of the Internet with organisations initially developing their web pages to promote their products, services and technologies, and provide copies of annual reports and press releases. More recently, staff recruitment and e-commerce applications have started to appear. This review concentrates on English language sites and describes several key pages which can be used by surfers to explore the sector in more depth. The links discussed here form a part of my own collection of rail industry web addresses, which is recommended as first stop for an industry search [1]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/checkout-review/online-searching.html Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/checkout-review/online-searching.html To match the growing trend towards electronic resources and rapid resource discovery, librarians, perhaps the most traditional of resource discovery methods, need to embrace the world of online searching. A correctly executed search or series of searches can yield a number of useful results. But what is the correct way to perform an online search? It is this question that Forrester and Rowlands hope to answer in The Online Searcher’s Companion. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/oed-review/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/oed-review/ Cultural history, encyclopaedia, etymological record of the English language, spelling aid… The Oxford English Dictionary is a number of things, and now it is a web site. What was once evocative of dusty tomes, thumbed by wizened professors of English in the recesses of University libraries is embracing the information age and going online. But how can this, the most traditional of traditional works of literature, benefit from modern technology? An initial answer, in a word, is “revision”. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/checkout-review/stephenson.html Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/checkout-review/stephenson.html In the beginning...was the command line is a non-technical, comparative study of computer operating systems (OSs) from one man's personal viewpoint. That man is science fiction author, Neal Stephenson - styled 'the hacker Hemingway' by Newsweek. Stephenson set out to write an article for Wired magazine and so rich was the material that he ended up with a 150 page paperback, which is also available as a web essay. While it's great to have things available freely on the web, a piece this length on the screen is not easy on the eyes. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/search-engines/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/search-engines/ Ixquick and Multi search enginesBy now I’m sure that we’re all aware that just using one single search engine on its own isn’t a particularly effective way of searching the Web. Even the large search engines which index 200-300,000,000 pages hardly scratch the surface of the one billion or more pages that are currently publicly available. If you do find what you need with a single search engine, all well and good, but in many cases people are very often dissatisfied with that they get, and finish their search wondering if they have done all that they can to get everything possible. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/dovey/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/dovey/ In the not so distant past, if a group of libraries wished to offer a single online catalogue to their collections, they had to adopt a physical union catalogue model: i.e. they would have placed their catalogue records into a single searchable database. More recently there has been much work in virtual union catalogues, whereby the user interface offers integrated access to multiple catalogues as if they were a single catalogue. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/disinhe/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/disinhe/ WebCT’s interface is aimed at the non-programmer and allows easy organisation of media and resources for the delivery of web-based courses. It is very popular with academics throughout the world and UK Higher Education. However, because courseware development software is highly automated, and is a relatively new field, most courseware development software currently available has some accessibility difficulties. With the impending removal of the education exclusion from the Disability Discrimination Act and new Human Rights legislation, courseware that is produced using these products may become potentially illegal. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/oed-online/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/oed-online/ On 14 March 2000 the Oxford English Dictionary Online will be launched on the world-wide web at www.oed.com. On view will be the full text of the 20-volume hardcover dictionary - 60 million words describing nearly three-quarters of a million terms used in English over the past thousand years, illustrated by more than 2.4 million quotations - in a format developed for maximum accessibility. The arrival of what many have called ‘the world’s greatest dictionary’ on the world-wide web is important news for scholars and researchers working in universities and libraries throughout the world. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/web-focus/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/web-focus/ BackgroundUniversity web managers are busy people. University departments seem to have never-ending requirements for new services on the institutional web site. But, as we all know, it can be difficult to get the funding to buy expensive software products or extra staff to install and support free software. But is there an alternative approach to trying to do everything in-house? Nowadays the Web provides not only access to information resources, but also to applications. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/web-watch/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/web-watch/ BackgroundOn 10 February Phillip Simons sent the following query to the web-support Mailbase list: “Can anyone tell me if there is any way of detecting who is linking to a particular URL? We want to see who still has our old URL on their links pages.” [1]. The replies suggested a couple of approaches: looking at referer (sic) fields in server log files and using the link feature provided by a number of search engines to report on pages containing a link to a resource or web site. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/stubley/ Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/23/stubley/   Terminology appears to have played a large part in the work associated with virtual union catalogues. We have had three years of dealing with new and slightly odd terms and only time will tell whether or not the curious word ‘clump’ becomes established in the library lexicon or whether it is simply a minor blip in cataloguing, networking and service history. Rather like the term UKLDS.   Many readers will be too young to remember the UKLDS – United Kingdom Library Database System – an initiative begun in 1981 under the auspices of the CAG (Co-operative Automation Group) to consider the possibility of creating a centralised bibliographic database – a National Union Catalogue – for the UK.