Overview of content related to 'microsoft office'

Book Review: Getting Started with Cloud Computing

lisrw — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 22:42:54 +0000

Martin White reviews a collection of essays on cloud computing that attempts to clarify the technology and its applications for librarians and information professionals.

I will admit to having read very little in the way of fiction writing over the last half-century though perhaps as a chemist by training I do enjoy science fiction from authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Fred Hoyle. All were distinguished scientists, none more so than Fred Hoyle, who was Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at the University of Cambridge.

From Passive to Active Preservation of Electronic Records

editor — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Heather Briston and Karen Estlund provide a narrative of the process adopted by the University of Oregon in order to integrate electronic records management into its staff's workflow.

Permanent records of the University of Oregon (UO) are archived by the Special Collections and University Archives located within the University Libraries. In the digital environment, a new model is being created to ingest, curate and preserve electronic records. This article discusses two case studies working with the Office of the President to preserve electronic records.

Locating Image Presentation Technology Within Pedagogic Practice

editor — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Marie-Therese Gramstadt contextualises image presentation technology and methods within a pedagogic framework for the visual arts.

Open Repositories 2010

editor — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Philip Hunter and Robin Taylor report on the Open Repositories Conference held in Madrid between 6 -9 July 2010 at the Palacio de Congresos.

The air temperature in Madrid was around 37ºC when the Edinburgh contingent arrived in mid-afternoon on 5 July. The excellent air-conditioned Metro took us all the way into town - about 14km - for only 2 Euros. We were told later that the temperature during the preceding week had been about 21ºC, but by the end of the conference week we were enjoying 39ºC. The conference venue turned out to be opposite the Santiago Bernabeu stadium (home of Real Madrid), in Paseo de la Castellana.

A Pragmatic Approach to Preferred File Formats for Acquisition

editor — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Dave Thompson sets out the pragmatic approach to preferred file formats for long-term preservation used at the Wellcome Library.

This article sets out the Wellcome Library's decision not explicitly to specify preferred file formats for long-term preservation. It discusses a pragmatic approach in which technical appraisal of the material is used to assess the Library's likelihood of preserving one format over another. The Library takes as its starting point work done by the Florida Digital Archive in setting a level of 'confidence' in its preferred formats. The Library's approach provides for nine principles to consider as part of appraisal. These principles balance economically sustainable preservation and intellectual 'value' with the practicalities of working with specific, and especially proprietary, file formats. Scenarios are used to show the application of principles (see Annex below).

This article will take a technical perspective when assessing material for acquisition by the Library. In reality technical factors are only part of the assessment of material for inclusion in the Library's collections. Other factors such as intellectual content, significance of the material, significance of the donor/creator and any relationship to material already in the Library also play a part. On this basis, the article considers 'original' formats accepted for long-term preservation, and does not consider formats appropriate for dissemination.

This reflects the Library's overall approach to working with born digital archival material. Born digital material is treated similarly to other, analogue archival materials. The Library expects archivists to apply their professional skills regardless of the format of any material, to make choices and decisions about material based on a range of factors and not to see the technical issues surrounding born digital archival material as in any way limiting.

Why Worry about Formats?

Institutions looking to preserve born digital material permanently, the Wellcome Library included, may have little control over the formats in which material is transferred or deposited. The ideal intervention point from a preservation perspective is at the point digital material is first created. However this may be unrealistic. Many working within organisations have no choice in the applications they use, cost of applications may be an issue, or there may simply be a limited number of applications available on which to perform specialist tasks. Material donated after an individual retires or dies can prove especially problematic. It may be obsolete, in obscure formats, on obsolete media and without any metadata describing its context, creation or rendering environment.

Computer applications 'save' their data in formats, each application typically having its own file format. The Web site filext [1] lists some 25,000 file extensions in its database.

The long-term preservation of any format depends on the type of format, issues of obsolescence, and availability of hardware and/or software, resources, experience and expertise. Any archive looking to preserve born digital archival material needs to have the means and confidence to move material across the 'gap' that exists between material 'in the wild' and holding it securely in an archive.

This presents a number of problems: first, in the proliferation of file formats; second, in the use of proprietary file formats, and third, in formats becoming obsolete, either by being incompatible with later versions of the applications that created them, or by those applications no longer existing. This assumes that proprietary formats are more problematic to preserve as their structure and composition are not known, which hinders preservation intervention by imposing the necessity for specialist expertise. Moreover, as new software is created, so new file formats proliferate, and consequently exacerbate the problem.

Content Architecture: Exploiting and Managing Diverse Resources

editor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Jane Stevenson gives a personal view of the recent UK conference organised by the International Society of Knowledge Organization.

Book Review: Pro Web 2.0 Mashups

editor — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ralph LeVan looks at a comprehensive work on how to consume and repurpose Web services.

Raymond Yee has produced a comprehensive book on how to consume and repurpose Web services, even for Web sites that do not intentionally expose Web services. The book is broken into four sections; understanding how to use Web content, understanding Web services, combining the data from multiple services (mashups) and detailed examples of specific mashup opportunities.

Being Wired Or Being Tired: 10 Ways to Cope With Information Overload

editor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Sarah Houghton-Jan explores different strategies for managing and coping with various types of informational overload.

What is information overload? 27 instant messages. 4 text messages. 17 phone calls. 98 work emails. 52 personal emails. 76 email listserv messages. 14 social network messages. 127 social network status updates. 825 RSS feed updates. 30 pages from a book. 5 letters. 11 pieces of junk mail. 1 periodical issue. 3 hours of radio. 1 hour of television. That, my friends, is information overload.

Book Review: Web Accessibility

editor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Martin White reviews a book that provides advice for managers on how to ensure that Web sites, intranets and library services are fully compliant with guidelines and legislation on accessibility.

There are many books on Web accessibility but they tend to come at the subject from quite a narrow area of Web design. This is especially true of books published in the USA, a country which has quite limited Federal legislation on the need to implement accessible Web sites and intranets. It is a subject that should be of passionate interest to our profession in its commitment to providing access to information to all who request it. We not only have a duty under legislation to provide accessible access but, as the back cover of the book highlights, also a moral duty.

Discussions from KIDMM Mash-up Day

admin — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:40:19 +0000

In conjunction with his main article on The KIDMM Community's 'MetaKnowledge Mash-up, Conrad Taylor reports on discussions from KIDMM Mash-up Day.

Creative Commons Licences in Higher and Further Education: Do We Care?

editor — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Naomi Korn and Charles Oppenheim discuss the history and merits of using Creative Commons licences while questioning whether these licences are indeed a panacea.

Creative Commons [1] is helping to instigate cultural change: it is empowering rights holders with the knowledge and tools to decide under what terms they wish third parties to use their creations, whilst permitting users easy and user-friendly means to use content lawfully without the necessity of requesting permission.

Excuse Me... Some Digital Preservation Fallacies?

editor — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Chris Rusbridge argues with himself about some of the assumptions behind digital preservation thinking.

Excuse me...

I have been asked to write an article for the tenth anniversary of Ariadne, a venture that I have enjoyed, off and on, since its inception in 1996 as part of the eLib Programme, of which I was then Programme Director.

Some years ago I wrote an article entitled "After eLib" [1] for Ariadne. The original suggestion was for a follow-up "even more after eLib"; however, I now work for JISC, and that probably makes it hard to be objective!

In "After eLib", I wrote this paragraph about digital preservation:

Web Focus: Using Collaborative Technologies When on the Road

editor — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000

Brian Kelly argues that since conference delegates now expect to be able to read email on the road, there are additional technologies which might enhance our effectiveness when away from the office.

In today's networked environment conference delegates expect to be able to access their email when attending events away from their normal place of work. It is increasingly the norm to be given a guest username and password which can be used in PC areas, primarily to access email and the Web. However such facilities are not always flexible enough to support the changed working environment in which conference delegates may find themselves, such as being out-of-sync with local working hours during a conference on the other side of the globe.

Web Focus: Let's Get Serious about HTML Standards

editor — Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000

Brian Kelly encourages authors to treat compliance with HTML standards seriously.

If you talk to long-established Web authors or those responsible for managing large Web sites or developing Web applications intended for widespread use in a heterogeneous environment you are likely to find that the need for compliance with Web standards is well-understood.

Windows Explorer: The Index Server Companion

editor — Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:00:00 +0000

Brett Burridge describes the Index Server Companion, an application he has created that allows Microsoft Index Server to index content from remote websites and ODBC databases.

Microsoft's Index Server is a service supplied with the Windows NT 4.0 Server and Windows 2000 Server products. The service indexes HTML and other content residing on the file system. These indexed files may be queried using a number of techniques, but of particular relevance to web developers is the ability to build completely customised search facilities based on Active Server Pages (ASP) by making use of Index Server's Component Object Model (COM) objects.

Using the Web for Academic Research: The Reading Experience Database Project

editor — Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000

Alexis Weedon gives us some insight into a new web-based project designed to collate evidence for changing reading habits through history.

In literary criticism and cultural studies more attention is being paid to the reception of the text – who read it, who had access to it, how was it read – partly perhaps due to the interest in reader theory. Such questions are relevant to the study of the development of a literary canon, the study of popular literature, the transmission of ideas through society both today and in the past and the changing relations between the author, editor, producer and reader of the text.

Project GOLD: Supporting Distance Learning Students

editor — Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000

Derek Morisson describes an e-learning project which was the antithesis of the current trend towards multifunction, and invariably expensive, Virtual Learning Environments and sophisticated Managed Learning Environments.

In the Beginning

Way back in 1998 the University of Bath’s Centre for the Development of New Technologies in Learning became part of a three institution consortium responsible for the TLTP Phase 3 ‘Project GOLD’ [1]. GOLD stands for Guidance Online for those Learning at a Distance. The lead partner was the Royal College of Nursing Institute (the Higher Education arm of the RCN) supported by the Open Learning Foundation and the University of Bath.

Web Focus: Hot News From WWW10

editor — Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:00:00 +0000

Brian Kelly reports on the Tenth International World Wide Web Conference, held in Hong Kong on 1-5 May 2001.

Previous Web Focus articles have provided trip reports on the International World Wide Web conferences [1] [2] [3] and [4]. These reports have commented on the birth of new developments such as XML, RDF and WAP and the mobile Web. So what was hot from WWW10?

Well the weather certainly was hot - and very humid. The 1,200+ delegates were very appreciative of the air-conditioning in the Hong Kong Conference Centre, located on Hong Kong island, next to the harbour (see Figure 1).

Windows NT Explorer

editor — Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Brett Burridge introduces his regular column on Windows NT with a description of Site Server's search facility.

In this new column, I hope to bring users' attention to the value of employing Windows NT server technology within their institution. While Windows NT has its fair share of problems, there is no denying that the quality of server-side software available for this platform has improved enormously in the last 12 months.

Kicking off, this article examines the use of Microsoft's Site Server 3.0 [1] to provide a sophisticated web based search solution for your institution.

Unix and the Web: Providing Web Access to Your Email

editor — Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Brian Kelly introduces a regular column on Unix and Web issues by describing how a combination of Apache, PHP and IMP can make email folders available using a web browser.

Email Use at UKOLN

UKOLN is a small research group based at the University of Bath. Software used by UKOLN staff probably reflects staff usage through the University, and is probably not too dissimilar to usage at other UK universities - most staff use a PC running MS Windows 95 or Windows NT and use Microsoft Office applications, although there are a number who prefer Unix systems are make use of X-Windows or Linux on their PC.

Down Your Way

editor — Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:00:00 +0000

Sarah Ormes visits a public library in Huyton, Liverpool, England.

The Library Association Web Site

editor — Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:00:00 +0000

Alan Cooper and Finbarr Joy talk about the past, present and future of the Library Association Web Site.

Netskills Corner: Beneath the Surface of Your Web Pages

editor — Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:00:00 +0000

Brian Kelly looks beneath the surface of HTML pages and provides advice on the design of the underlying directory structure.

Pick up a book or read an article on HTML design and what will you find: advice on the use of graphics in Web pages, using tables and providing animation in your pages using technologies such as animated GIFs and client-pull or server-push, use of plug-in software, such as Shockwave, or programming environments such as Java and ActiveX.

There is, however, much more to the design of HTML pages than the appearance as seen by the end user. Of particular importance to the future maintenance of a large set of HTML pages is the underlying directory structure.