Info Index

SUNCOAST INFORMATION SPECIALISTS
INFO NEWSLETTER
VOL 11, NO. 5
SEPTEMBER 1997

EDITOR'S CORNER
by Jackie Jackson

Our new officers begin their terms of office this month. We welcome them and extend our thanks to outgoing President Lana Bullian and Secretary Tina Neville for their excellent contributions over the last year. See the end of this newsletter for updating your address files.

This month's newsletter is jam packed with goodies, so without another word .........

OCTOBER MEETING
by Trudie Root

The SIS October meeting will be held on Monday, October 6th at 11.30 a.m. at the American College of Physician Executives, located in the Sheraton Grand building in Tampa at the corner of Westshore and Kennedy Boulevards, 4890 W. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 200. The meeting will begin with lunch in the Courtyard Cafe, to be followed by a brief business meeting and a presentation by librarian Gwen Wolff. Members will then form into small groups for a tour of the facility.

The American College of Physician Executives is the national professional and educational association of physicians in leadership and management positions throughout the health care field. Founded in 1975 as the American Academy of Medical Directors, the College is a non-profit organization whose primary purpose is raising the standards of health care through management education and research. The College publishes books and a journal; offers more than 45 seminars and conferences each year; and presents numerous on-site programs providing education specifically tailored to organizations' needs. The College's more than 12,000 members are physician executives with management or administrative responsibilities in hospitals, group practices, managed care, government, universities, the military, and industry. To see more about ACPE on the Internet, visit http://www.acpe.org.

Directions:

From St. Petersburg - take I 275 to Kennedy Boulevard exit. Stay on Kennedy. 3rd stoplight is Occident (right across from Westshore Mall). Turn right on Occident. The Sheraton Grand is on the left side of the street.

In Tampa - I 275 to Westshore exit. Take Westshore to Kennedy. (The Sheraton Grand is on the SW corner of the intersection.) Right on Kennedy to 1st stoplight - Occident. Left on Occident. The Sheraton Grand is on the left side of the street.

Where to park: Enter the parking garage and drive up to the 4th floor or higher. Park in any non-reserved space. Take the elevator down to the Lobby area. To get to the courtyard Cafe, walk toward the fountain and into the Hotel Lobby area. The Courtyard Cafe is just past Shula's restaurant.

What's for lunch: Lunch is at 11.30 a.m. in the Courtyard Cafe. The Pasta Bar meal includes a selection of pastas and sauce ingredients. Pasta dishes will be tossed to order, and served to the table with Caesar salad and bread, for $7.95. Beverages and gratuity are not included.

This will be a very interesting meeting and we look forward to seeing you.

MINUTES FROM AUGUST MEETING
by Tina Neville

The August meeting was hosted by Trudie Root and the Pinellas County Juvenile Welfare Board. Joyce Burkhart presided over the brief business meeting. Shirley Kennedy gave a short presentation on the SIS home page (http://snoopy.tblc.lib.fl.us/sis) . The current page contains our newsletter, the SIS bylaws, an organizational history and links to useful web pages. Joyce asked SIS members to examine the page prior to the October meeting. She would like to use a portion of that meeting to discuss potential additions to the page.

After the business meeting, attendees were treated to a presentation by R.J. Doody, Director of the Training Center at the Juvenile Welfare Board. He provided us with a fascinating look at the Enneagram method of personality typing. The Enneagram originated in Afghanistan nearly 2,000 years ago. For many years the process was a verbal tradition that was passed through the generations by Sufi masters. The Enneagram method was introduced in California in the 1970's. The Enneagram is composed of nine basic personality types: the helper, the status seeker, the artist, the thinker, the loyalist, the generalist, the leader, the peacemaker and the reformer. These nine types are grouped into three triads: the feeling triad, the doing triad and the relating triad. Mr. Doody provided with us brief descriptions of each personality type. The nine types are displayed on a circle which are connected to one another in a very specific manner. The goal of the Enneagram is to follow a "path of integration" which will lead to a more balanced lifestyle. For additional information on this interesting method, Mr. Doody suggests the following books:

• Beesing, Maria; Robert J. Nogosek and Patrick H. O'Leary. The Ennegram. Denville, N.J: Dimension Books, 1984.
• Riso, D. Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self Discovery. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
• Riso, D. Understanding the Enneagram: Practical Guide to Personality Types. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.

Following Mr. Doody's presentation, we were shown a short video illustrating the services available at the Juvenile Welfare Board Library. This library acts as a resource point for the public and for health service professionals, so it contains a mixture of public and academic library information. They subscribe to approximately 150 periodicals titles and have a collection of around 3,000 books which cover topics such as parenting and adolescents. The library also has an extensive video collection, and has access to a number of computer resources. Special collections include grant information, government reports and demographic data for Pinellas County and the State of Florida. Materials are available to any resident of Pinellas County or to those working in child services agencies in Pinellas County.

Many thanks to Trudie Root, R.J. Doody and the Juvenile Welfare Board for providing us with this informative presentation.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

(by Deb Henry) The 1997 Annual Fall Workshop, sponsored by the Florida Chapter of the Association of College & Research Libraries, will focus on one of the hottest topics in Florida, "Distance Learning and its Implications for Libraries and Librarians". The Workshop will be held at the Holiday Inn, Cocoa Beach, October 17, 1997 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (registration, coffee and danish at 8:30 a.m.)

Registrations postmarked before October 10 are $50.00 for ACRL or FLA members, $60.00 for non ACRL or FLA members, $25.00 for students and $25.00 for retired librarians. Lunch (overlooking the beach!) and breaks are included. Registrations postmarked after October 10, or on-site registrations, please add $10.00. Cancellations must be received by October 10. Make checks payable to Florida Chapter, ACRL and send to:

Kathleen Cohen
University of North Florida Library
P.O. Box 17605
Jacksonville, FL 32245

Please include your name, address, phone number and institution.

The program will feature Tom Abbott, Dean of Learning Resources and University Development, University of Maine at Augusta. Dr. Abbott speaks regularly and consults nationally on distance learning, information literacy, off-campus library services and distance education technologies. Joining him will be Lisa Close, Library Applications Specialist for the Public Access Catalog at the College Center for Library Automation; Paul Pival, Document Delivery Librarian, Nova Southeastern University; and Carol Turner, Director for Public Services at the George Smathers Libraries, University of Florida.

Come join us for an informative and timely program, renew friendships with colleagues and plan to stay for a weekend of fun and sun at beautiful Cocoa Beach. The Holiday Inn has an impressive 27-acre oceanfront property with olympic size pool, spa and tennis courts. Room rate is $62.00 single/double. The rate will be honored through the weekend. Please call the Holiday Inn Cocoa Beach to reserve a room and identify yourself as the Florida Chapter, ACRL group. Deadline for reservations is September 25, 1997. Call (407) 783-2271 or 1-800-206-2747. From I-95, take exit 77 (Route 528, Beeline) and head east about ten miles to "1". If you have questions or require special accommodations, please call or email Susan Byrd, (305) 237-2068,or BYRDSMD2@LINCC.CCLA.LIB.FL.US.

***

(Re Brad Ward): Congratulations and Best Wishes are in order for Brad Ward of TBLC. Effective October 1, 1997, he will become the Executive Directory of NEFLIN!

NEFLIN is the multi-type cooperative operating out of Jacksonville. They serve libraries in 19 counties all over Northeast Florida.

Personal congratulations can reach him at his "new" e-mail address: brad@neflin.org. Good luck, Brad - and stay in touch!

SLA ANNUAL CONFERENCE - Wiggins, Notess et al.
by Shirley Kennedy

Why is the Web so slow? Anyone who is more than just a casual user confronts this question on a regular basis. Rich Wiggins -- systems guru at Michigan State University, author of The Internet for Everybody (McGraw-Hill, 1995, $29.95, ISBN 0-07-067019-6), and a perennially popular conference speaker -- attempted to explain the so-called "World Wide Wait" to a standing room only audience.

As you might suspect, there is no simple explanation. A common tendency is to lay all the blame at the feet of "bandwidth" - or lack thereof. But, as Wiggins pointed out, "Bandwidth is important, but it isn't the only consideration." In the course of his presentation, "The Web in the Blink of an Eye," Wiggins ticked off a number of computer and network choke points:

• Latency - "inherent delays introduced by the infrastructure of the network
• Amdahl's Law simplified - "Each component of a computer system contributes to that system."
• The fact that the Domain Name System, which keeps track of I.P. addresses, is a "distributed database" - i.e. the information is disbursed throughout numerous machines on the network.
• Slow Internet links - "Line delay adds up."
• Internet routing - "The number of links between you and that Web page.
• Congestion - at any point along the network between your PC and the remote server
• Slow modems, slow processors and server delays.
• "The cost of a clickthrough" - Banner ads displayed on Web pages are often on different servers at remote locations.
• "Images, by far, are the biggest cost of Web pages".
• Web page animation
• Various specialized file formats requiring helper applications - Shockwave, et al., Real time audio and video feeds.
• "Web browsers are becoming memory hogs."
• Java applets - "CPU thief".

After discussing the bad news, Wiggins presented some impending solutions:

• Faster modems.
• "Faster metropolitan links" - e.g. ISDN, ASDL, cable modems.
• Faster LANs - "100 megabit Ethernet".
• "Faster long-haul links".
• Caching - "storing a local copy of data near the consumer.
• Mirroring - replicating "an entire Web site or database at various disparate locations".
• "Pre-fetching" and offline viewers.
• Packet switching instead of packet routing - "Make some Internet links behave more like the phone network."
• PC speed improvements.
• Faster databases.
• Multicasting - data routed once across long-haul network connection and then to each subnet as required
• Internet 2 - now being developed by consortium of major U.S. universities with faster "backbone," different classes (priorities) of service on one network, reliability of service and predictability of cost.

More and bigger bandwidth may also be on the horizon but, as Wiggins pointed out, "Even if bandwidth is greater, users will find ways of consuming it."

***

Wiggins gave a second presentation entitled "The Post Web World," in which he pointed out, "The Web is only four years old, but for many purposes people now 'assume the Web' - meaning that the history of information dissemination may be divided into the 'pre-Web' and 'post-Web' eras." A prime example of this is the so-called "database race to the Web." In order to use proprietary online databases in the past, you had to install a separate client program for each one. Now, according to Wiggins, "the browser is becoming the standard interface."

As far as non-proprietary data is concerned, people often assume that there's "something out there on just about every subject." And while "traditional print media" will not disappear anytime soon, the Web will only grow in importance as a medium for "research and scholarly work," simply because there are some things - like searching - that computers do much better than humans. And yet, because just about anyone who can get him- or herself online is capable of putting up a Web page - Wiggins calls this "democratization of content: -- the often-discussed issues of accuracy, authenticity, ownership/authority, currency, completeness will become more critical than ever. From a search engine's point of view, Wiggins said, "Everybody's page ranks equally."

All of which means a more crucial role for information specialists, whom Wiggins sees as creators of "handcrafted starting points," subject-specific indexes, and "niche catalogs" where the links have been vetted for quality. Users are getting more demanding, he said, as they look for instant information gratification. "Why does AltaVista have all that junk in it?" will continue to be the question for the 90s. Sometime within the next three or so years, Wiggins said, we'll be facing "a billion URLs universe." All this data may lead people to believe that whatever the question, the answer is on the Web. "Not!"

Powerpoint97 versions of both of Wiggin's presentations are available at http://www.nemonline.org/presen t/rww/.

***

"Choosing and Using Internet Search Engines" - a joint presentation by Greg Notess of Montana State University, Jian Liu of Indiana University and Mary Ellen Bates of Bates Information Services - attracted such a large crowd of listeners that the doors to the conference room were shut and people were turned away, by order of the fire marshal. What does this tell you? That information specialists are starving for this kind of knowledge. And the three presenters offered some juicy tidbits on which to nibble.

Said Notess:

• Hotbot appears to be the largest and most comprehensive of the major search engines.
• Both AltaVista and Hotbot attempt to "expose duplicate URLs," but generally there does not seem to be much overlap among the major search engines. "To be really comprehensive, you must check them all."

Said Liu:

• "Metasearch engines," which send your query to the various major search engines simultaneously, are getting better all the time, but they still don’t take advantage of "the unique and powerful features of the individual engines."
• Some important things to look for in a metasearch engine are: a "time out feature," where the metasearcher quits trying to access an individual search engine if unsuccessful after a certain period; "integration," mainly removal of duplicate hits; and the ability to restrict the number of hits returned from individual search engines.
• Some recommended metasearch engines are:
  • Metacrawler - http://www.metacrawler.co m/
  • Inference Find - http://www.inference. com/ifind/ , and
  • Dogpile - http://dogpile.com/

Said Bates:

• "Traditional online vendors are jumping on the Web bandwagon," and reaching out more to end-users - e.g., DialogWeb (http://dialog.krinfo.com/), Dialog Select (http://dialogselect.krinfo.com/), etc.
• The major search engines "are adding power tools" such as Excite's "more like this" (http:www.excite.com/), AltaVista's "Live Topics" (http://www.altavista.digital.com/) and Lycos's "loose-fair-good-strong" match choice feature (http://www.lycos.com/)
• Metasearch engines are proliferating. "Last time I looked, more than 125 were cataloged on Yahoo," although not all of these offer simultaneous searching.
• We are also seeing an increasing number of "subject- and topic-specific channels" -either incorporated into the major search engines or standalone, such as the University of Chicago's Webseer (http://infolab.cs.uch icago.edu/webseer/) for images, or the Star Trek search engine at "All Star Trek All the Time" (http://www.golden.ne t/~jip/trek/trek.htm) .

Notess's presentation is available at http://imt.net/~notess/sla97/ . Liu's presentation is available at http://www.indiana.edu/~librc sd/search/ . And Bate's presentation is available at http://www.access.digex.net/~mbates/newsites.txt .

***

My vote for the most intriguing product in the vendor hall goes to "NetOwl," a family of "intelligence discovery tools" by IsoQuest, Inc. (http://www.isoquest.com), of Fairfax, VA. First a little background:

You probably feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data you have to pour through during the course of an average work day. Well, suppose you worked as a data analyst for the spooks at the Central Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency. Imagine your own workload times ten...or more.

Traditionally, these folks have had highly specialized indexing and search software to help them. The big name in this specialized field is SRA International, Inc. (http://www.sra.com/main html) which, since its founding 19 years ago, "has been involved in a large number of high-level projects delivering sophisticated information technology systems to the federal government." IsoQuest, a privately held spinoff from SRA, is basically attempting to leverage this technology into the non-spook sector - specifically, targeting as clients, "information dependent organizations such as publishers, market research firms, insurance companies, regulatory agencies, and any others that can benefit from rapid, cost efficient access to business information."

NetOwl is comprised of two elements: NetOwl Extractor, "a software engine that finds, indexes and interprets names of people, places, organizations, and various other entities that appear in written texts", and NetOwl Server, the "web-based version" of NetOwl Extractor. Basically, NetOwl is installed on an organization's intranet server; it then scans and indexes internal documents, external newsfeeds and "selected sources" on the Internet, i.e. competitors' home pages or URLs, and then creates a "custom electronic index" that is much like the index in the back of a book - useful for document management, "custom clipping" and text retrieval.

The software "combines computational linguistics and pattern matching methods" to parse proper names e.g. what actually is a name, what variations does it have, and how should it be categorized. For example, NetOwl can tell the difference between "Chip Price," a person, and "chip price," the cost of a CPU, or between "Mountain View," a city in California, and "mountain view," a scenic vista. Furthermore, NetOwl can analyze the relationships among these various entities and pull out the relevant content, sparing a researcher the necessity of wading through tons of data.

As opposed to your average AltaVista search.

Intrigued? A "preview" of the desktop version can be downloaded from http://www.isoquest.com/do wnload_data.html, for Windows95 or NT users. This allows indexing of "a multitude of sources from files and directories on your hard drive to web sites and newsgroups on the Internet." The online server version may be explored at http://www.isoquest.com/demo_d ata.html. Its database "contains actual news articles from CompanyLink (a live news feed provider). Documents are indexed and added to the demo on an hourly basis (about 100 new documents every hour), and are removed from the index once they are 72 hours old"

Have fun, and tell 'em Shirl Kennedy sent you.

SIS OFFICERS, 1997-1998

President -- Joyce Burkhart (St. Petersburg Junior College, (St. Petersburg Campus)
(813) 341-4732, (burkhartj@email.spjc.cc.fl.us

Vice-President -- Trudie Root (Juvenile Welfare Board, Pinellas County)
(813) 547-5671, (hn3750@handsnet.org)

Secretary -- Debbie Factor, 167 Almero Way NE, St. Petersburg, FL 33704
(813) 896-8962.

Treasurer -- Betsy King (Reflectone, Inc.)
887-1658 (kingb@freenet.tlh.fl.us)

Newsletter Editor -- Jackie Jackson (Poynter Library, USF-St. Pete)
(813) 553-3581 (jackson@bayflash.stpt.usf.edu)

Webmaster -- Shirl Kennedy (Honeywell, Inc.)
(813)539-3256 (skennedy@pobox.com)

***

SIS OFFICERS, 1996-1997

President (1996-1997) -- Lana Bullian (Clearwater Public Library, Countryside Branch)
(813) 462-6448, (bullial@snoopy.tblc.lib.fl.us)

Secretary (1996-1997) -- Tina Neville (Poynter Library, USF-St. Petersburg)
(813) 553-3582 (neville@bayflash.stpt.usf.edu)