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RAIN 826 Weekly Update: Technology (18)



First Monday 8/2002
A Metadata Approach to Preservation of Digital Resources: The University of North Texas Libraries' Experience
by Daniel Gelaw Alemneh, Samantha Kelly Hastings, and Cathy Nelson Hartman
Preserving long-term access to digital information resources is one of the key  challenges facing libraries and information centers  today. The University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries has entered into partnership agreements with federal and state agencies to ensure permanent storage and public access to a variety of government information sources. As digital resource preservation encompasses a wide variety of interrelated activities, the UNT Libraries are taking  a phased approach to ensure the long-term access to its digital resources. Formulation of preservation policy and creation of preservation metadata for electronic files and digital collections are among the most important steps. This paper discusses the issues related to digital resources preservation and demonstrates the role of preservation metadata in facilitating the preservation activities in general. In particular, it describes the
efforts being made by the UNT libraries to ensure the long-term access and preservation of various digital information resources.
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_8/alemneh/index.html


Infoworld 8/16/02
Copywrong
BY P.J.CONNOLLY
ONE OF THE SMARTER things the founding fathers wrote into the Constitution was the clause giving the federal government the power to issue patents and, ultimately, what we now know as copyrights. I certainly don't have any quarrels with the idea of intellectual property. Not surprisingly, I think copyright is a great thing, given that I write for a living.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/08/19/020819opsecurity.xml



Infoworld 8/16/02
Vendors tighten e-mail security
By Cathleen Moore
E-MAIL IS A critical link for transporting highly sensitive and confidential data,
but without effective policy control, these vital messages can take on a life of their own after being sent.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/ap/xml/02/08/19/020819apemail.xml


Infoworld 8/16/02
Mail policies made simple, seamless
By P.J. Connolly
ANYONE IN BUSINESS will confirm that it's one thing to create a policy and entirely another thing to enforce it. This is especially true when it comes to email.
Most enterprises have document retention policies, but applying them to e-mail, using the built-in tools of most message systems, is a Herculean task, even when relatively efficient change-distribution methods are employed.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/ap/xml/02/08/19/020819apomniva.xml


Information World 8/16/02
The big MMS picture
by Ephraim Schwartz
CURRENTLY, USERS HAVE a choice of e-mail, IM, and SMS (Short Messaging Service) on cell phones and some converged devices. Now, the industry, or most of it, is gearing up for another channel, MMS ( Multimedia Messaging Service). Some observers call MMS the follow-on to SMS. SMS, however, may never go away, considering its cost of 10 cents per message versus estimates of 30 cents per message with MMS.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/08/19/020819opwireless.xml

The (Jacksonville) Business Journal 8/19/02
e-copying takes off as business line for printer
Dolly Penland
The owner of Mail Masters Printing & Signs in Ponte Vedra Beach is spinning off
a new business. John D. Paulk IV originally envisioned e-mailcopyservice.com as a
way for small- to medium-sized businesses to save a trip to the printer.
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2002/08/19/newscolumn2.html



ComputerWorld 8/19/02
E-Mail Is Forever
By MARYFRAN JOHNSON
Remember the days when you used to worry about what was going into your "permanent record"? In grade school, that was the most deadly threat in the arsenal of irate schoolteachers. The offense might be as trivial as a string of tardies or as major as punching the principal. But once inscribed in your permanent record, it would follow you forever.
How many of us realize that corporate e-mail has effectively become our own self-created permanent record? And how many IT managers realize they're now in charge of it - forever?
Consider how much sensitive data is swarming around in your e-mail system today. Messages sent about employee performance, salary decisions, sales forecasts, customer complaints, price quotes, even merger and acquisition tactics. Not to mention trade secrets, product specs, customer bids or confidential customer agreements.
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/groupware/story/0,10801,73543,00.html


Information Week 8/19/02
Security systems generate an overload of information. New tools help manage it all more
effectively.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020816S0036


The Miami Herald 8/19/02
Instant messaging isn't private
BY SHANNON HENRY
Washington Post Service
''I think Mark is doing the right thing by going into rehab,'' Tim Gordon, vice president of an online concierge service, typed quickly to a friend. Sitting at his office computer, Gordon was multitasking in cyberspace as usual, holding several instant-messaging conversations at once. And that's why he accidentally sent the message to a coworker, not to his friend.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/technology/3880861.htm



ComputerWorld 8/19/02
Web Caching
By RUSSELL KAY
Web caching is the practice of storing frequently requested - but infrequently changed - pages, images and other Web objects on a nearby server or even a user's PC.
Information from computers all over the world is available on the World Wide Web. But what happens when a server—or even an entire network - gets too many requests? Performance takes a major hit on that network.
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/websitemgmt/story/0,10801,73533,00.html


ComputerWorld 8/19/02
Web Caching Resources
Here's a list of Web sites, white papers and books with more information about Web caching.
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/websitemgmt/story/0,10801,73505,00.html



ComputerWorld 8/19/02
The Story So Far
By MITCH BETTS
There's no doubt that the accomplishments of Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Switzerland, were revolutionary. They created the four building blocks of the World Wide Web: HTML, the Web protocol HTTP, a Web server and a basic browser.
By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had set up a Next computer - an easy-toprogram, Unix-based black cube that was the brainchild of Steve Jobs - as the world's first Web server.
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/websitemgmt/story/0,10801,73525,00.html


ComputerWorld 8/19/02
Time for a Makeover!
By MATHEW SCHWARTZ
The phrase Web site makeover often implies a dramatic, brand-new look for a Web site. But take a tip from leading companies: Redesign is an ongoing journey, not a final destination. The big sites are always freshening up their design features, and whether the project is big or small, there are some universal rules to follow.
First, start by asking these three questions: Will the change benefit customers? Will it produce revenue? Will it reduce costs? "That's where having the biggest bang for the buck is—having that conversation," says Jared Spool, founding principal of User Interface Engineering in Bradford, Mass. "The next-biggest bang for the buck is figuring out how to measure that."
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/websitemgmt/story/0,10801,73529,00.html



Chicago Sun-Times 8/20/02
File-sharing application hums a new tune
http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-fin-xolox20.html



New York Times 8/22/02
Palmtops in the Operating Room
By IAN AUSTEN
WHEN nurses make rounds at the cardiovascular surgery unit of Miami Children's Hospital, there is one piece of medical equipment that is missing: the clipboard. Instead of writing information about the patients on pocket-size cards, nurses tap away on hand-held organizers.
As soon as the patient information is gathered, it moves by wireless modem through a network to a server elsewhere in the hospital, making it available through a password-protected Web site to doctors and other health care providers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/22/technology/circuits/22MEDI.html?



Government Technology 8/22/02
States Struggle With Online Records
D. Ian Hopper - AP Technology Writer - Aug 22, 2002 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) --
States have made significant progress in putting their court records online, allowing the public to examine criminal cases, lawsuits and divorces. However, all are struggling to develop privacy standards that keep pace with the technology, says a report released Wednesday.
The Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology said states are trying to
figure out how to balance the right to access public records with the risks of putting a battered wife's address on the Internet or posting uncorroborated child abuse allegations for all to see.
http://www.govtech.net/news/news.phtml?docid=2002.08.22-3030000000019671



BBC News 8/23/02
Losing touch with the past
Technology consultant Bill Thompson is worried about losing our digital history
This week space scientists and astronomers have been celebrating the 25th anniversary of the launch of two spacecraft - Voyager 2 on 20 August, and its twin, Voyager 1, 16 days later.
They were sent to Jupiter, Saturn and the other outer planets, and the coverage of the anniversary took me back to the sheer excitement of seeing what these far-distant planets really looked like.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2207297.stm



Business Week 8/26/02
Digital Archives
Today, you buy a house and get a deed on paper. It will probably still be readable a couple hundred years from now. But more and more records--legal, government, and
corporate--are being created as digital information that never exists on paper, and doesn't last nearly as long. If deeds become digital-only documents, will people still
be able to prove they own their homes two decades after they buy them?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_34/b3796643.htm



Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
pakurilecz@aol.com
Richmond, Va