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User Studies of Commercial and Free Electronic Journals
No full textThe paper reports on initial findings from user studies of electronic journals in which users from six academic disciplines participated. Issues of access, content, layout and navigation are considered in addition to the perceived advantages and disadvantages of electronic journals. It is concluded that librarians should view electronic journals as an opportunity rather than a threat
Copysmart: A Trusted Monitoring System for Electronic Works andDocuments
No full textThe rapid development of digital technology and information networks enables a broad and easy dissemination of digital works and other electronic information. However, once published, it is difficult to control the access,usage, manipulation and distribution of digital materials. The easiness of reproduction of electronic information raises the problem of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). But beyond the necessity to ensure the protection ofdigital information and the associated rights owned by works originators and the various rightsholders, the need to have a full management of IPR is getting crucial. More and more, authors, publishers, fee collectingcompanies, producers, distributors ... are looking for tools which are able settle the utilisation conditions of their works and to provide them with information on the usage made of the works they offer in digital form onnetworks or on CD-ROM for example in order to get the reward corresponding to the exploitation of their works and to better market them. Several projects have been initiated in order to meet the needs related to IPR management. In 1992, the European Commission launched under the ESPRIT Programme, the CITED project (Copyright In TransmittedElectronic Documents) with the objective of defining a global model for IPR management. Based upon the CITED model, C0pySMART represents the industrialisation of CITED
The MeDoc Distributed Electronic Library - Accounting and Security Aspects
No full textThe MeDoc service provides access to a distributed full-text library for computer scientists over the Internet. Since the library provides commercial information products, accounting and security aspectsare of considerable importance in this electronic-publishing project.MeDoc has developed business, cost, and payment models suitable for electronic library services. The partners co-operating in the MeDoc service are users, providers and producers of information products.Their business interaction is based on trade as opposed to systems financed by advertising. The cost models offered to the users are various forms of subscription and "pay per view"-purchase. As paymentmodels both credit and debit models are considered suitable for the MeDoc service. Initially only registered users are admitted to the MeDoc library, so the users can be charged via accounts. Currently a clearing agency handles the actual invoice process for the MeDoc service. To secure the communication over the Internet within the MeDoc library, several existingimplementations of cryptographic algorithms have been evaluated against the MeDoc requirements analysis. Communication channels MeDoc are now secured by transparent encryption mechanisms based on SSL
Design by Example: A User-Centered Approach to the Specification of Document Layout
No full textDESIGNER is a layout specification system for generically coded documents. It is based on the paradigm design by example and the methodology of using layout objects to provide graphics artists with an ergonomically sound user interface for their trade. In this paper we introduce layout objects and present DESIGNER\u27S graphical user interface using some simple examples to explain the main ideas of our system
Putting Renaissance Women Online
No full textHumanities computing is on a roll. Multi-media, hypertext, online discussion groups: what had once been seen by many scholars as the preserve of a few strange types who carried outn unspeakably mechanical practices upon sensitive texts has expanded to include all kinds of people and all manner of things. As usual, the avant garde vies most for attention, with sound clips, full-motion video, and astonishingly processed images. A little away from the dazzle of the apparent front line, a quieter revolution has been taking place of equal orgreater significance. As recently as five years ago, projects which only existed to make primary documents available in electronic form provoked a mixture of curiosity, suspicion, and disdain in academics, and anxiety in librarians. Since then, the advance of newtechnology into the temples of humanities academe has reached critical momentum and the priests have no choice but to embrace it. In college and public libraries rows of computers appear like shrines to the gods of the ethernet as old-style reference and reading rooms get retasked into "e-text centers"1. Recognized now as the prophets and messiahs of that holyof holies, the Digital Library, electronic text projects have gained credibility and respectability. Old ones are treated with reverence, new ones spring up daily ; they are feted, feasted, even funded. We can measure the potential of this revolution by noting that capitalism got its foot in the door early in the shape of Chadwyck Healey
Using Multimedia Document Communication services on top of T.120 protocols
No full textOne of the most relevant problems in electronic publishing is the interoperability between different systems in order to interchange multimedia information. Part of these problems could be solved by providing standardized multimedia document communication services, such as storing, distribution, manipulation, and even more complex ones such as joint presentation/viewing or joint synchronous editing. This paper deals with the technical issues of designing such services based on standardized protocols, such as the ITU-T 1.120 Recommendations. Attention is focussed on adding multipoint facilities to the document communication services taking advantage of the 1.120 Recommendations. The paper discusses how to use the facilities provided by the 1.120 Recommendations to design multimedia document communication services such as Joint Presentation/Viewing (PV) or Joint Synchronous Editing (SE), that run in heterogeneous environments. The fast development and penetration of the T.120 Recommendations make them an adequate platform on which to base other applications. The facilities of 1.120 cover, amongst other features, multipoint communication, token management, conference control, etc. The 1.120 multipoint communication Recommendations are the base for this design, and are described briefly. These services could be based only on MCS, but the paper discusses how to map the service onto the complete 1.120 specifications, which also include GCC. This provides a wide variety of conferencing management functions that facilitate the development of document communication services. The paper presents PV and SE, as examples, describing the rules to be followed during a PV or SE session. It also analyses the most relevant issues for the services: start-up synchronization, late joining, early leaving, co-ordination, update, closing and final document copy. These aspects may cause problems in the design and implementation.The proposed design uses the conferencing capabilities specified in GCC tosupport PV and SE services. The paper discusses how to solve the relevant issues of PV and SE using the facilities of GCC (and T.120, in general)
Summary of Track 1 Presentations
No full textAll speakers were necessarily concerned with some aspect of the transition from printed to electronic information. Some assumptions were explicit or implicit in most discussions. For example, the continued existence of a recognisable information chain was generally supposed. At least for the immediate future, this was seen - by most, but not all participants - as having a rather traditional structure. The chain starts with the author, who creates the information. It then passes via intermediaries (such as publishers, subscription agents and librarians) to the end-user. Another feature was the belief that electronic and printed material can be compared in a standard way. For example, a distinction can be drawn in both cases between content, presentation and handling. Moreover, these divisions apply not only to individual documents, but to the information system that provides them
Copysmart: a trusted monitoring system for electronic works and document
No full textThe rapid development of digital technology and information networks now permits a broad and easy dissemination of digital works and other electronic information. However, once published, it is difficult to control access, usage, manipulation and distribution of digital materials. The ease of reproduction of electronic information raises the problem of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). But beyond the necessity to ensure the protection of digital information and the associated rights owned by the work\u27s originators and the various rights-holders, the need to have a full management of IPR is getting crucial. More and more, authors, publishers, fee-collecting companies, producers, distributors, etc., are looking for tools which are able to determine the utilisation conditions of their works and to provide them with information on the usage, in order to get the reward corresponding to the exploitation of their works and to better market them. Several projects have been initiated in order to meet the needs related to IPR management. In 1992, the European Commission launched under the ESPRIT Programme, the CITED project (Copyright In Transmitted Electronic Documents) with the objective of defining a global model for IPR management. CopySMART represents the industrialisation of the CITED model
A Critical and Skeptical Overview of Electronic Publishing and Librarianship:Notes from the United States
No full textA strong case can be made that electronically published products pose a strong challenge to the practices and values of librarianship, and the United States is perhaps the best place to review and establish this. As I have written elsewhere, the pattern of shifting toward electronically published resources "is the one touted by the vast majority of our library leadership as the essential model if our institutions are to survive" and librarians are under considerable pressure to develop skills to accomodate them.\u27 The challenges posed by these new resources are not "the traditionalbarriers with which we have grappled, such as single usage of a single printed copy or the preservation problems of the codex. Rather, the essence of the shift in our profession is in redefining [it.]"2 This process of redefinition - driven in large part by electronically published resources - is not without serious problems, especially considered in light of the basic mission of libraries. In order to demonstrate this, this paper will proceed from a brief overview of the current technological status of the United States to an assessment of the environment and level of technological development in U.S. libraries. This will establish the basis of the argument that the United States and its libraries are a good case study. The paper will then move on to review three important areas where electronically published resources in American libraries pose a direct challenge to some of the basic ideas and values upon which modern librarianship is based. Thoseareas are preservation, the new economics of information purchasing, and intellectual differences between print and electronic resources. The paper will conclude with a summary analysis of these trends in American libraries