Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Readings for 11-15 - 11-19
Digital Libraries: Challenges and Influential Work
Being a history major in undergrad, I always find it nice to have some background historical information on subjects. This article was very helpful in discussing the background history of digital libraries. Basically, the first initiative to look into digital libraries occurred in 1994 with the Digital Libraries Initiative (DLI-1), which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF.) From 1994 to 1999, 68 million dollars was given in the form of research grants to explore this new phenomenon. The most important aspect of digital libraries and their founding was the joint efforts of combining computer scientists and librarians. It was a process that saw many challenges, but there were also great benefits. For librarians and libraries in general, it brought the unique expertise of computer science into the field. This was extremely important because it allowed librarians to keep doing their work while society continued to push for digital technologies. It was also an opportunity for computer scientists to develop new systems (which satiated their desire for creativity), as well as providing for the public user sector.
Dewey Meets Turing: Librarians, Computer Scientists, and the Digital Libraries Initiative
This was another useful article in explaining the early works of computer scientists and librarians with regards to digital libraries. The article explained some of the reasons for why librarians and computer scientists started working together on digital libraries. The librarians obviously needed a technology face-lift in order to continue providing for the user community. It was necessary that they started looking into digital technologies in order to stay relevant in the community. Also, librarians saw this as a wonderful opportunity to bring in much needed funding for their programs. Computer scientists were excited because it presented them with the opportunity to create new things that would serve the public good. This, in turn, could bolster their credentials, which could lead to tenure and other opportunities. Although they ran into bickering problems, the core function of librarianship remains with the advent of digital technologies. Information must still be organized, collated, and presented to the public for use. Therefore, librarianship has not changed, just evolved into the new digital age.
Association of Researhc Libraries: Institutional Repositories
This article was very useful in explaining the role and positive benefits of institutional repositiories. The author basically argues that every higher-learning institution should look into institutional repositories for the benefits of its students, faculty, etc. Some of the benefits to institutional repositories include: housing works of faculty, housing works of students, including documentation of institution works and decisions, etc. Another key component of institutional repositories is to preserve the works of the institution and its members. By oeganizing and saving the information of an institution, it will be easier to access and research information about the institution in the future. However, there are three dangers the author points out about institutional repositories: 1. assertion of administration control over author's works, 2. the possible overloading of repositories with policy baggage and political platforms (using repositories to solely counter the publishing industry), and 3. the possibility of repositories being offered hastily without much commitment on the institutions' part.
Being a history major in undergrad, I always find it nice to have some background historical information on subjects. This article was very helpful in discussing the background history of digital libraries. Basically, the first initiative to look into digital libraries occurred in 1994 with the Digital Libraries Initiative (DLI-1), which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF.) From 1994 to 1999, 68 million dollars was given in the form of research grants to explore this new phenomenon. The most important aspect of digital libraries and their founding was the joint efforts of combining computer scientists and librarians. It was a process that saw many challenges, but there were also great benefits. For librarians and libraries in general, it brought the unique expertise of computer science into the field. This was extremely important because it allowed librarians to keep doing their work while society continued to push for digital technologies. It was also an opportunity for computer scientists to develop new systems (which satiated their desire for creativity), as well as providing for the public user sector.
Dewey Meets Turing: Librarians, Computer Scientists, and the Digital Libraries Initiative
This was another useful article in explaining the early works of computer scientists and librarians with regards to digital libraries. The article explained some of the reasons for why librarians and computer scientists started working together on digital libraries. The librarians obviously needed a technology face-lift in order to continue providing for the user community. It was necessary that they started looking into digital technologies in order to stay relevant in the community. Also, librarians saw this as a wonderful opportunity to bring in much needed funding for their programs. Computer scientists were excited because it presented them with the opportunity to create new things that would serve the public good. This, in turn, could bolster their credentials, which could lead to tenure and other opportunities. Although they ran into bickering problems, the core function of librarianship remains with the advent of digital technologies. Information must still be organized, collated, and presented to the public for use. Therefore, librarianship has not changed, just evolved into the new digital age.
Association of Researhc Libraries: Institutional Repositories
This article was very useful in explaining the role and positive benefits of institutional repositiories. The author basically argues that every higher-learning institution should look into institutional repositories for the benefits of its students, faculty, etc. Some of the benefits to institutional repositories include: housing works of faculty, housing works of students, including documentation of institution works and decisions, etc. Another key component of institutional repositories is to preserve the works of the institution and its members. By oeganizing and saving the information of an institution, it will be easier to access and research information about the institution in the future. However, there are three dangers the author points out about institutional repositories: 1. assertion of administration control over author's works, 2. the possible overloading of repositories with policy baggage and political platforms (using repositories to solely counter the publishing industry), and 3. the possibility of repositories being offered hastily without much commitment on the institutions' part.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Assignment 5 (Koha)
Here is the direct link to my virtual shelf/list:
http://upitt01-staff.kwc.kohalibrary.com/cgi-bin/koha/virtualshelves/shelves.pl?viewshelf=94
My username: RJS91
Name of virtual shelf/list: Notre Dame Football
http://upitt01-staff.kwc.kohalibrary.com/cgi-bin/koha/virtualshelves/shelves.pl?viewshelf=94
My username: RJS91
Name of virtual shelf/list: Notre Dame Football
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Muddiest Point for 11-1 - 11-5
Since technology is always evolving and changing, will HTML eventually become obsolete? Or would it just merely die off because other, more advanced programming languages are probably being developed as we speak?
Readings for 11-8 - 11-13
An Introduction to the Extensible Markup Language (XML)
This article did a good job of explaining the basics of XML. Basically, from what I gather, XML is a subset of the Standard Generalized Markup Languare (SGML) that makes it easier to interchange structured documents over the Internet. XML files mark where the beginning and end of each parts of an interchanged document occurs. I thought the discussion on what XML allows users to do was important. (Ex. allows bringing multiple files together to form compound documents, allows the addition of editorial comments to a file, etc.) I thought one of the most important sections of the article was the discussion of what XML is not. It is not a predefined set of tags that can be used to markup documents, and it is not a standardized template for producing particular types of documents. A final note that I would like to touch on is the idea that XML sets out to clearly identify the boundaries of every part of a document, which is different than any other markup languare.
Extending Your Markup: An XML Tutorial
This tutorial was very good at providing the basic fundamentals of XML without getting overly technical. In this article, XML can be defined as a semantic language that lets people meaningfully annotate text. XML documents look a lot like HTML documents, but there are significant differences (Ex. different symbols and headings used for describing things.) The discussion on DTDs was very helpful. They basically define the structure of XML documents, and are easy to think of as context-free grammar. The most interesting part of the article, to me, was the addressing and linking section. Basically, in HTML documents, URLs only point to a document. In other words, they do not address specific information within the document. With XML, one can extend HTML's linking capabilities with three supporting languages: Xlink, XPointer, and XPath. This "upgrade," if you will, can make finding information within linked documents so much easier.
A Survey of XML Standards: Part 1
Although sometimes confusing, this article did present information about XML standards that were necessary in order to understand the general principles when using XML. Since this article deals mainly with the standards that are constantly being developed for XML, I would like to discuss the section about the many different standards organizations. For most standards organizations, the first thing to be addressed is a recommendation, which are suggestions for futher standardization. These recommendations usually become de facto standards in their own right. The recommendation becomes a working draft, which then becomes a candidate recommendation. The final step is for the candidate recommendation to become a proposed recommendation, which usually ensures its status as a full-blown standard after that. Some of the major standards organizations are the W3C, ISO, OASIS, IETF, and the basic XML community.
XML Schema Tutorial - W3Schools
The W3Schools tutorials are very good because they keep information to a minimum, while giving examples of what they are talking about in the text. Generally, an XML schems is an XML-based alternative to a Document Type Definition (DTD.) XML schemas describe structures of an XML document (just like a DTD.) The main reasons that XML schemas are better than DTDs is that they are extensible to future additions, they are richer and more powerful than DTDs, they are written in XML already, and they support data types. As mentioned earlier, the two most compelling reasons to switch to XML schemas over DTDs is because they are more powerful than DTDs and they are already written in XML (DTDs are not.) The future for XML schemas seems to be bright because on May 2, 2001, the W3C formally recommended that XML schemas should be used. This means that it will likely become the new standard.
This article did a good job of explaining the basics of XML. Basically, from what I gather, XML is a subset of the Standard Generalized Markup Languare (SGML) that makes it easier to interchange structured documents over the Internet. XML files mark where the beginning and end of each parts of an interchanged document occurs. I thought the discussion on what XML allows users to do was important. (Ex. allows bringing multiple files together to form compound documents, allows the addition of editorial comments to a file, etc.) I thought one of the most important sections of the article was the discussion of what XML is not. It is not a predefined set of tags that can be used to markup documents, and it is not a standardized template for producing particular types of documents. A final note that I would like to touch on is the idea that XML sets out to clearly identify the boundaries of every part of a document, which is different than any other markup languare.
Extending Your Markup: An XML Tutorial
This tutorial was very good at providing the basic fundamentals of XML without getting overly technical. In this article, XML can be defined as a semantic language that lets people meaningfully annotate text. XML documents look a lot like HTML documents, but there are significant differences (Ex. different symbols and headings used for describing things.) The discussion on DTDs was very helpful. They basically define the structure of XML documents, and are easy to think of as context-free grammar. The most interesting part of the article, to me, was the addressing and linking section. Basically, in HTML documents, URLs only point to a document. In other words, they do not address specific information within the document. With XML, one can extend HTML's linking capabilities with three supporting languages: Xlink, XPointer, and XPath. This "upgrade," if you will, can make finding information within linked documents so much easier.
A Survey of XML Standards: Part 1
Although sometimes confusing, this article did present information about XML standards that were necessary in order to understand the general principles when using XML. Since this article deals mainly with the standards that are constantly being developed for XML, I would like to discuss the section about the many different standards organizations. For most standards organizations, the first thing to be addressed is a recommendation, which are suggestions for futher standardization. These recommendations usually become de facto standards in their own right. The recommendation becomes a working draft, which then becomes a candidate recommendation. The final step is for the candidate recommendation to become a proposed recommendation, which usually ensures its status as a full-blown standard after that. Some of the major standards organizations are the W3C, ISO, OASIS, IETF, and the basic XML community.
XML Schema Tutorial - W3Schools
The W3Schools tutorials are very good because they keep information to a minimum, while giving examples of what they are talking about in the text. Generally, an XML schems is an XML-based alternative to a Document Type Definition (DTD.) XML schemas describe structures of an XML document (just like a DTD.) The main reasons that XML schemas are better than DTDs is that they are extensible to future additions, they are richer and more powerful than DTDs, they are written in XML already, and they support data types. As mentioned earlier, the two most compelling reasons to switch to XML schemas over DTDs is because they are more powerful than DTDs and they are already written in XML (DTDs are not.) The future for XML schemas seems to be bright because on May 2, 2001, the W3C formally recommended that XML schemas should be used. This means that it will likely become the new standard.
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