The Digital Library from Information Superhighway to the Semiotic Web

The Digital Library from Information Superhighway to the Semiotic Web Suzanne C. Pilsk and Martin Kalfatovic Smithsonian Institution Libraries

The Scarecrow Dedicated Terminals vs. the Personal Computer

Dedicated Terminal Proprietary Single function Expensive The vendor’s dream machine

The Personal Computer Client/server paradigm Multi-use Open (as defined by Microsoft)‏ Can be expensive Bill Gates and Andy Groves’ dream machine

Munchkinland Early Internet Experiments

Finger Weather Conditions Checking the status of the Coke machine down the hall “ Finger” is a simple protocol used to retrieve information about users and return the information in a simple string

Anonymous FTP Transfer of large file sets that the user could reassemble Mastering the art of spelling “A-N-O-N-Y-M-U-S” Though still useful for various technical operations, as an “end-user” Internet experience, Anonymous FTP’s life is at an end

Telnet Fast, even with a “slow” Internet connection (the remember 2400 baud modem?)‏ Efficient (the telnet client was usually quite “lite”)‏ Blinking white letters on a black screen!

Gopher The first widely accepted Internet “publishing” tool Librarian friendly (who doesn’t love a strict hierarchy of information?)‏ Acronym friendly

LC MARVEL L ibrary of C ongress M achine A ssisted R ealization (of the)‏ V irtual E lectronic L ibrary

SI Library Gopher: SILENUS ? S mithsonian I nstitution L ibraries E lectronic N ode (of)‏ U seful S tuff

Rescue of the Tin Woodman: Libraries Go Online

Rescue of the Tin Woodman: Libraries Go Online Dewey to LC classification (ca. 1965)‏ Input of data into OCLC (1974)‏ GEAC (1984)‏ NOTIS – TELNET (1994)‏ Web access to the catalog (1996)‏ Horizon (1998-1999)‏

The Cowardly Lion Communication is King of the Jungle!

Communication is King Bulletin Boards : in the early days of the personal computer, one of the wonders of having a computer in your home was the ability to plug an acoustic coupler into the machine and snug your telephone handset into the device and connect to a bulletin board. Bulletin boards allowed communities to form around topics, buy and sell things

Email : the next step was direct communication with others in a nearly asynchronous manner. Soon the ubiquitous “@” became a regular part of our language. Communication is King

GEAC Mail : Many of our fist experiences with email were not the global email we’re used to today, but instead, in-house or system dependant “electronic messaging systems”. Communication is King

BITNet : BITNet hit the Smithsonian around 1988 and suddenly email went beyond the walls of the library (SI used that now primitive IBM system, PROFS, I still remember my BITNet email: libem071@sivm. Communication is King

Webmail : Now, with web accessible email, email systems are available on any web enabled PC, and of course, cell phones and PDAs Communication is King

Listservs : with “beyond the walls” email, the world of listserv where, again, communities could form simply by typing “sub me listserv x”. Communication became a “Push Technology” where people’s opinions, thoughts, questions, and even rants (remember “flame wars”?) came into our in box. Communication is King

BLOGS : and now, here we are again. How many of you have participated in some sort of BLOG? Once again we see the concept of the bulletin boards rising in the form of the BLOG. Communication is King

Deadly Poppy Fields of Jargon From Smithsonian Libraries On Display: Seed Catalogs

Deadly Poppy Fields of Jargon Firewall Surfing Link Link rot Burn Web Master Rip Zip and Unzip Online Java Googling Metadata 24/7 HTML XML Taxomony

Taxomony Merriam Webster Online 1) The study of the general principles of scientific classification : systematics 2) Classification; especially : orderly classification of plants and animals according to their presumed natural relationships Webopedia Taxonomy is the way it organizes its data into categories and subcategories, sometimes displayed in a site map InformationWeek Taxonomy-creation tools that scan documents and suggest logical categories based on common themes that occur across an organization's data

Deadly Poppy Fields of Jargon Cataloging Classification Thesauri Metadata Schemas Ontologies

Open = Not Supported Archives = Means “Repository” Initiative = Yet Not Ready Open Archives Initiative

Oh My! http://mapageweb.umontreal.ca/turner/meta/english/indexacroeng.html

The Emerald City of Oz Building and Maintaining the Library Website

The Library Website Mosaic marries graphics, text, and the hyper text transfer protocol Information becomes less linear and more relational Librarians become graphic designers (ack!)‏

The Library Website The “public site” The “library staff site” The “scholars’ portal” The “Intranet site” The “fully customizable with features that only I can find and find useful site”

The Search for the Wicked Witch Internet on Your Desk: A Long Hard Battle

Internet on Your Desk: A Long Hard Battle “ I don’t see why any one needs access to the internet at their offices or in the library because they can come to the central Smithsonian computer office and use it there. What would they be doing on this “internet”?”

Internet on Your Desk: A Long Hard Battle

The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible Taking Content Online

Taking Content Online The Library Catalog Citation Databases Full-text Databases Electronic Journals Digital Collections Digital Books Online Exhibitions

Taking Content Online ASCII text HTML SGML EAD XHTML XML

The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible You see Scarecrow, you always had content, you just need acronyms!

Library Science vs. Rocket Science Case Study: “Sewing Machines: Historical Trade Literature in Smithsonian Collections” - inches and centimeter mix up leads to confusion

Library Science vs. Rocket Science Case Study: NASA Mars Climate Orbiter (1999) - The peer review preliminary findings indicate that one team used English units (e.g., inches, feet and pounds) while the other used metric units for a key spacecraft operation.

The Magic Art of the Great Humbug The Changing Position Title

The Changing Position Title Deck Attendant Collections Improvement Assistant ILL Technician Reference Librarian Information Access Coordinator Digital Projects Librarian Head, New Media Office

The Changing Position Title Librarian Cataloger Information Specialist Metadata Specialist

Cybrarian Webmaster Knowledge Manager Metadata Mistress The Changing Position Title

Where’s Toto? Building the Digital Yellow Brick Road

The Digital Library from Information Superhighway to the Semiotic Web

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (14)

Similar to The Digital Library from Information Superhighway to the Semiotic Web (20)

More from Martin Kalfatovic (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

The Digital Library from Information Superhighway to the Semiotic Web

Editor's Notes