The Digital Library from Information Superhighway to the Semiotic Web

Slide 1: The Digital Library from Information Superhighway to the Semiotic Web Suzanne C. Pilsk and Martin Kalfatovic Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Slide 3: The Scarecrow Dedicated Terminals vs. the Personal Computer

Slide 4: Dedicated Terminal • Proprietary • Single function • Expensive • The vendor’s dream machine

Slide 5: Dedicated Terminal

Slide 6: The Personal Computer • Client/server paradigm • Multi-use • Open (as defined by Microsoft) • Can be expensive • Bill Gates and Andy Groves’ dream machine

Slide 7: The Personal Computer

Slide 8: The Personal Computer

Slide 10: Munchkinland Early Internet Experiments

Slide 11: Finger “Finger” is a simple protocol used to retrieve information about users and return the information in a simple string • Weather Conditions • Checking the status of the Coke machine down the hall

Slide 12: 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

Slide 13: 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!

Slide 14: Gopher • The first widely accepted Internet “publishing” tool • Librarian friendly (who doesn’t love a strict hierarchy of information?) • Acronym friendly

Slide 15: LC MARVEL • Library of Congress • Machine • Assisted • Realization (of the) • Virtual • Electronic • Library

Slide 16: SI Library Gopher: SILENUS ? • Smithsonian • Institution • Libraries • Electronic • Node (of) • Useful • Stuff

Slide 18: Rescue of the Tin Woodman: Libraries Go Online

Slide 19: Rescue of the Tin Woodman

Slide 33: 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)

Slide 38: The Cowardly Lion Communication is King of the Jungle!

Slide 39: 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

Slide 40: Communication is King • Email: the next step was direct communication with others in a nearly asynchronous manner. Soon the ubiquitous “@” became a regular part of our language.

Slide 41: 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”.

Slide 42: 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.

Slide 43: 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

Slide 44: 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.

Slide 45: 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.

Slide 47: Deadly Poppy Fields of Jargon From Smithsonian Libraries On Display: Seed Catalogs

Slide 48: Deadly Poppy Fields of Jargon • Online • Firewall • Java • Surfing • Googling • Link • Metadata • Link rot • 24/7 • Burn • HTML • Web Master • XML • Rip • Taxomony • Zip and Unzip

Slide 49: 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

Slide 50: Taxonomy

Slide 53: Deadly Poppy Fields of Jargon • Cataloging • Classification • Thesauri • Metadata • Schemas • Ontologies

Slide 54: Dublin Core Metadata

Slide 55: Open Archives Initiative

Slide 56: Open Archives Initiative Open = Not Supported Archives = Means “Repository” Initiative = Yet Not Ready

Slide 58: MARC and METS and MODS

Slide 59: MARC

Slide 60: MARC XML

Slide 61: MODS

Slide 62: Oh My! http://mapageweb.umontreal.ca/turner/meta/english/indexacroeng.html

Slide 64: The Emerald City of Oz Building and Maintaining the Library Website

Slide 65: 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!)

Slide 66: The Library Website

Slide 74: 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”

Slide 76: The Search for the Wicked Witch Internet on Your Desk: A Long Hard Battle

Slide 77: 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”?”

Slide 78: Internet on Your Desk: A Long Hard Battle

Slide 80: The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible Taking Content Online

Slide 81: Taking Content Online • The Library Catalog • Citation Databases • Full-text Databases • Electronic Journals • Digital Collections • Digital Books • Online Exhibitions

Slide 82: Taking Content Online

Slide 83: Taking Content Online • ASCII text • HTML • SGML • EAD • XHTML • XML

Slide 84: The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible You see Scarecrow, you always had content, you just need acronyms!

Slide 85: Library Science vs. Rocket Science • Case Study: “Sewing Machines: Historical Trade Literature in Smithsonian Collections” - inches and centimeter mix up leads to confusion

Slide 86: 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.

Slide 88: The Magic Art of the Great Humbug The Changing Position Title

Slide 89: The Changing Position Title • Deck Attendant • Collections Improvement Assistant • ILL Technician • Reference Librarian • Information Access Coordinator • Digital Projects Librarian • Head, New Media Office

Slide 90: The Changing Position Title • Librarian • Cataloger • Information Specialist • Metadata Specialist

Slide 91: The Changing Position Title • Cybrarian • Webmaster • Knowledge Manager • Metadata Mistress

Slide 93: Where’s Toto? Building the Digital Yellow Brick Road

Slide 95: The Digital Library from Information Superhighway to the Semiotic Web Suzanne C. Pilsk and Martin Kalfatovic Smithsonian Institution Libraries

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