I have often found myself extremely frustrated at the prospect of retrieving esoteric information because of how widely distributed I have found scholarly information to be. I do, despite my frustration, also share the belief that "seamless federation across distributed heterogeneous resources remains the holy grail of digital library work". In other words, this article has revealed to me the extent to which I am able to overlook the drawbacks of concepts such as open access and widely available information for everyone because of how much I enjoy the benefits. I also have new-found respect and the desire to adulate the NSF.
2. Paepcke, A. et al. (July/August 2005). Dewey meets Turing: librarians, computer scientists and the digital libraries initiative. D-Lib Magazine. 11(7/8). http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july05/paepcke/07paepcke.html
I wonder how Melville Dewey would have actually reacted upon encountering a Turing Machine. This article traces an interesting history of the WWW as well as google and other search engines. It does, however, surprise me that library dependency on all things IT is not a more widely understood dependency. The librarians I have known in the past (and read about, my current employment is a huge exception to the following statement) have been at odds with technology people. As a future librarian, I understand that it is my task to utilize the benefits of IT in order to advance my own field.
3. Lynch, Clifford A. "Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age" ARL, no. 226 (February 2003): 1-7. http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br226/br226ir.shtml
I like to think that I currently attend an institutional repository because suich is definitely the place I would like to be. I think that the ideas expressed in this article show how academic institutions have not been utilized to their full potential. It seems as though they are performing tasks that may have been very well suited for libraries. It is the obli9gation of such universitities as the ones mentioned in the article to advance scholarly communication in any way technologically possible.
Muddiest Point
What is still difficult for me to understand regarding the latest "hand on point" is, firstly, how am I to record the outcome of my search for futurte discussion? Secondly (and MKUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY) I am interested to know how I can see the process of adding more terms lessens the number of retrieved documents in a search. I would actually like to see the number of documents decrease as I enter terms. Of course, I am just curious. Is there any way (technologically) that I can see this in action?
3 comments:
Federated searching does seem like an amazing tool, but it is hard for me to believe it works. How much room for variation in the Dublin Core affects results?
Your muddiest point is interesting. I haven't done it yet and curious that the more terms you used, the more hits you got.
I was confused at first about what federeation was and what it meant to libraries and other institutions. Your notes helped me a bit to understand what federation means. I believe that federation would be a great way to shre information, if it worked.
i know exactly what you mean about librarians being at odds with the IT folks. Every time we tried to implement a new software or system in the library where I used to work people would go insane. It was brutal. There would be seemingly endless discussions about "why" we needed to upgrade or change software. ugh! while i am no tech genius i do want to learn more about all the possibilities!
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