Information Retrieval List Digest 077 (August 6, 1991) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/irld/irld-077 IRLIST Digest August 6, 1991 Volume VIII, Number 34 Issue 77 ********************************************************** I. NOTICES A. Meeting Announcements/Calls for Papers 1. 1992 ASIS Mid-Year Meeting: Call for Papers C. Miscellaneous 1. User Interface Strategies '92 II. QUERIES A. Requests for Information 1. WAIS (response to request for information) 2. Courseware ********************************************************** I. NOTICES I.A.1. Fr: Clifford Lynch Re: 1991 ASIS Mid-Year Meeting 1992 ASIS Mid-Year Meeting May 27-30, 1991, Albuquerque Hilton, Albuquerque, NM Preliminary Call for Papers NETWORKS, TELECOMMUNICATIONS, AND THE NETWORKED INFORMATION RESOURCE REVOLUTION Networks are creating a revolution in the world of information access, dissemination, and retrieval. The past two years have produced such major accomplishments as the massive expansion of the Internet, the initiative for the National Research and Education Network (NREN), the formation of the Coalition for Networked Information, and the long-awaited field trials of the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) technology by the common carriers. The global span of today's networks is making international data interchange commonplace. Suddenly, information-intensive organizations -- libraries, corporations, government -- and individual information professionals, must confront an expanded range of policy, economic, and technical issues, which include: --Mounting information resources on networks --Providing and managing access to networked information --The transformation of scholarly communication --Intellectual property lawand constitutional protections in a network setting --Equality and changing economics of information access --Validity and reliability of networked information --The rise of global networks and applications implications of these networks as global marketplaces for transborder data flow and as a means of international cooperation The theme of the 21st ASIS Mid-Year Meeting is the exploration of the issues and the implications of computer-communications networks and the networked information resources revolution for all information professionals. The 1992 Mid-Year Meeting will be somewhat of a departure from recent ASIS Mid-Year Meetings. We hope to provide, for the first time, a connection to the Internet from the conference site, giving conference participants access to the network and permitting demonstrations of networked information technologies. Contributed papers will be fully refereed and published in a proceedings volume. ASIS also expects to publish a book of invited papers which expand conference themes. A major tutorial on networking technology will be offered prior to the conference. This should provide an excellent opportunity for conference attendees to become familiar with both basics and recent developments, and to enrich their experience at the conference. Contributed papers, session proposals, or demonstration proposals are welcome on all aspects of networked information and the supporting telecommunications and policy infrastructure, including sessions on applications experiences and assessments of the human or economic effects of networks. Among the topics that might be addressed are: --Networking technology --Workstations and user interfaces --The impact and benefits of networks on organizations --Information retrieval in a network environment --Policy issues in a network environment, including: -access to public information -public access to networks -international access problems --Global competitiveness issues --Changing economics of information access and document delivery --The scholarly communication system transfigured by the network --Databases and information resources in a network environment --Multimedia issues in networks --Protocols and standards for networked information --Visualization and virtual reality technology --The use of networks as information marketplaces Proposals for panels, demonstration sessions, or other special sessions are due August 15, 1991. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by December 1, 1991. For contributed papers, intents to submit (including title and a 250-word abstract) must be received by September 1, 1991; draft papers must be received by December 1, 1991. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by January 1, 1992, and camera-ready papers must be received by February 1, 1992. All submissions/proposals should include the following information in addition to any requirement discussed elsewhere: --Name, job title, company, and full address of each presenter --Telephone, fax, and E-Mail address (if available) for each presenter --A biographical sketch of each presenter (50 words max.) --The amount of time required for the presenter (in 30 min. increments) --A session description (no more than 50 words) to serve as the basis for the description to appear in promotional materials PLEASE NOTE: Submissions/proposals that do not include the above will be returned for completion. Send all proposals to: Dr. Clifford A. Lynch, 1992 ASIS Mid-Year Program Chair Director of Library Automation University of California Office of the President 300 Lakeside Drive, 8th floor Oakland, CA 94612-3550 Phone: (415) 987-0522 BITNET: CALUR@UCCMVSA.BITNET INTERNET: LYNCH@POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU Fax: (415) 839-3573 ********** I.C.1. Fr: Ben Shneiderman Re: Introduction to Wide Area Information Servers by Steve Cisler (This is in response to a request for an overview of WAIS) [reprinted from a posting by Steve Cisler (sac@apple.com), Apple's library evangelist that has helped with the design and refinement of the WAIS and Rosebud systems. -brewster ] One system is known as WAIS which stands for Wide Area Information Server. The software for the server was written by Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines; it runs on a Connection Machine (this is what Dow Jones DowQuest uses) as well as Sun and other Unix platforms. Kahle has released server software for the Unix machines that is available at no charge via anonymous ftp from think.com on the Internet. In addition there are several client interfaces, the most developed being the Macintosh client which was written by Harry Morris of Thinking Machines. All of these are available at no charge. The server software has proven so popular over the past few months that several dozen sites are making their information available on their or Thinking Machines WAIS servers. At this point most of the information is full text without a great deal of structure. There are servers for the CIA World Factbook, the Bible, poetry, a server directory, and later there will be the cumulative publications of the Association of Computing Machinery. Although there is no charge for any of these databases there are mechanisms for information providers to set fees and for users to limit their searches to databases within a certain price range. To use the Macintosh client you have to install MacTCP in your system folder and then choose from available servers on the Internet. Most of the people looking at new search techniques are dismissing Boolean queries as inappropriate for new users, so those of us wedded to the traditional way of searching, may not be the ones to help new casual users with these new systems. User reaction has been extrememly positive to this interface and general concept. I have talked with information junkies who are not familiar with BRS, Mead, or Dialog and they invariably are very attracted to this sort of information retrieval. Judging from the increasing number of information providers who are trying out the WAIS software, we may see a real revolution in the way people publish their own information. Rosebud has been developed in cooperation with WAIS. Both use the Z39.50 NISO protocol that has been championed by University of California's Clifford Lynch and other innovative people in the library community. Regular meetings are taking place to help make this protocol evolve, to spread the word to other sectors of the computing community, and to listen to the needs of both the commercial sector and the academic computing representatives. Past meetings have included people from Apple, DEC, Data Research Associates, Library of Congress, University of California, Penn State, OCLC, Mead Data, Next, Sun, and various other universities. It is a significant movement, marked only by the absence of some firms who would benefit from the standard and the collaboration taking place around the country. Rosebud is a software system that runs on the Macintosh operating system. It is used to access information locally and over wide-area networks. The design uses the metaphor of reporters and newspapers. Figure Two shows the Macintosh Desktop with the Rosebud application, a few reporters and newspapers. A reporter covers a specific topic and may get answers from various sources. The user lists the words expected to be found in the articles and then chooses the sources to search. Each time the 'search now' button is clicked, the program will search the sources and display part of the text of the hits with the most relevant at the top of the hit list. The full text of the article can be displayed by double clicking the hit. It can be saved as a text file and re-opened with any word processor. The user determines how often the reporter gathers new material. A stock market reporter might search every hour while a sports reporter might look every day. If one is familiar with the sources, one can have reporters working at all times of the day or week. This is done unattended if the user feels the reporter has been fine-tuned. The Newspapers are other types of Rosebud documents; they are created in the background and contain all the reporter hits since the last time a Newspaper was read. Some people will choose to get information from Reporters; others will rely only on the Newspapers. The library's role during the project has changed. At first we helped the designers to be aware of some of the savage user interfaces that librarians tolerated. We made MediaTracks demonstration of a number of commercial and non-commercial systems in order to expose the human interface experts to a wide range of search strategies. At present we are beginning to tackle the copyright issues of multiple uses of electronic documents passed from information provider to broker to Rosebud server to the users' Reporters and Newspapers. How will content owners be compensated? What sort of agreements will work in this fluid world of digital data? The Library is also activing as a server site for both WAIS and Rosebud servers. ********** II.B.2. Fr: Michela Ott Re: Courseware The Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche -- ITD (Institute of Educational Technology) is a research institute of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Research Council) which has been involved in research of the use of new technologies in education from 1970. In 1985 the Biblioteca del Software Didattico - BSD (Educational Software Library) was set up with the aim of creating a national point of referral for educational software. The BSD collects, catalogues, and evaluates the best Italian and foreign software and distributes information about available material. Recently ITD has developed an experimental consultative service on the use of new technology in Psychology. The aim of this initiative is to facilitate the identification, the experimentation, and the diffusion of software, which could be potentially interesting for training in the psychological field. This experimental service is aimed at all workers involved in psychological training, particularly at universities, and can be accessed from medical and psychological training centres all over Italy. The material available includes both post-graduate specialist and training courses and self-instruction interactive systems, which run parallel to the mainstream university courses in Psychology. We would be interested in obtaining some information about the products which exist in this field. We wish to take this opportunity to inform you that the BSD has a database of educational software (in Italian), which can be accessed via Bitnet (for details send a request to ROMANO@ICNUCEVM) and via Videotel. ********************************************************** IRLIST Digest is distributed from the University of California, Division of Library Automation, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA. 94612-3550. Send the subscription request SUB IR-L to: LISTSERV@UCCVMA.BITNET Send submissions to IRLIST to: IR-L@UCCVMA.BITNET Editorial Staff: Clifford Lynch lynch@postgres.berkeley.edu or calur@uccmvsa.bitnet Nancy Gusack ncgur@uccmvsa.bitnet Mary Engle engle@cmsa.berkeley.edu or meeur@uccmvsa.bitnet The IRLIST Archives will be set up for anonymous FTP, and the address will be announced in future issues. To access back issues presently, send the message INDEX IR-L to LISTSERV@UCCVMA.BITNET. To get a specific issue listed in the Index, send the message GET IR-L LOG ***, where *** is the month and day on which the issue was mailed, to LISTSERV@UCCVMA.BITNET. These files are not to be sold or used for commercial purposes. Contact Nancy Gusack or Mary Engle for more information on IRLIST. The opinions expressed in IRLIST do not represent those of the editors or the University of California. Authors assume full responsibility for the contents of their submissions to IRLIST.