Info Index

INFO NEWSLETTER
Vol. 13, No. 2, March 1999

EDITOR'S CORNER

Hi y'all:

As I'm writing up this issue of the newsletter, I'm pretty much freshly back from the 1999 Computers in Libraries Conference, held March 7-11 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, VA. The conference highlight for me was the 8 inches of snow that cascaded down on the D.C. metro area on Wednesday, March 10. Watching the news reports of treacherous highways, school delays and closings, public transit hang-ups, etc., I was not exactly unhappy to be headed back south the following day. Snow is beautiful…when you don’t have to venture out in it to get yourself to work.

The conference itself was jam-packed with knowledgeable speakers and interesting sessions. If I attempt to go into detail here, I'll never get this newsletter out. So just a couple of highlights.

Two presenters were Tampa Bay area locals:

• John Iliff wowed a packed house with a talk entitled Listening to a Different Drummer: Using Open Source Software for Libraries. John, until recently the systems librarian at Pinellas Park Public Library, described his experiences working with the freely available operating system Linux, the free scripting language Perl, the no-cost Apache Web server, and other GNU-based software (so-called "copy-lefted" programs that are free to use).

• Helene E. Gold, Electronic Services Librarian/Assistant Professor, Eckerd College Library, took part in a panel discussion called Dialog with Expert Web Searchers. Helene explained the structure and role of search engines in online research, how to use special features of search engines (Boolean operators, truncation, domain restriction, etc.), and the need for careful evaluation of the results.

I was intrigued by a presentation called Creating Personal Digital Libraries, delivered by Barry Wheeler, Automation and Information Systems Group, Zimmerman Associates, Inc., and Barbara Rother, Business Information Specialist, Knowledge Centers Library, American Management Systems. Individuals in business, academic, and personal environments have access to large amounts of information, much of it in digital formats. Capturing, storing, organizing, accessing, and utilizing this information is a continuing challenge with computer disks that are full of forgotten, inaccessible files; web sites resources that are difficult to capture or bookmark and then organize into accessible information; books, journals and articles that are arranged in stacks, filed in cabinets and strewn about offices. The presentation described how to create personal digital libraries that provide access and organization to the information individuals need - either by using "digital asset management" software (e.g., English Tracker Pro - (http://www.enfish.com) or by creating a "personal portal" - doable completely with freeware such as the PC Magazine utility Page1, for creating a personal "start" page (http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/content/17/20/ut1720.001.html) and the AltaVista Discovery (http://discovery.altavista.com/) that indexes and allows you to search your own hard drive.

Finally, three sessions from the so-called "Web Management Track" proved especially enlightening to me in my role of Web Doyenne in Clearwater: Standards and Techniques for Evaluating Interface Design (the importance of interface design for the usefulness of a Web site); Using Web Site Mapping for Improving Web Design (insights into the intent and usefulness of Web site "maps"); and A Comparison of Hot Web Management Tools (I want, I want, I want).

Information about Computers in Libraries ’99 can be found at http://www.infotoday.com/cil99/cil99.htm. Links to presentation slides and handouts are available at http://www.infotoday.com/cil99/presentations.htm.

Shirl Kennedy
Newsletter Editor
skennedy@reporters.net

APRIL MEETING INFO

When:
Wednesday, April 7; 6 pm to 8:15 or 8:30 pm

What and Where:
Dinner at Ruby Tuesday, 201 N. Dale Mabry, Tampa, FL 33609
(813-879-2510). Order off menu. (Happy Hour is 4-7 p.m.)

After dinner (at about 7:15 p.m.), we will leave Ruby's and walk next door to Time-Warner, Inc., One N. Dale Mabry, to reconvene in the 2nd floor conference room. Liz Bumgarner will be our host. The speaker will be a representative from Lexis/Nexis. The meeting will conclude with a quick tour of the Time-Warner library.

RSVP to:
Mary Kaye Raddatz at raddatzm@spjc.edu or (727) 341-3657, by April 5. Mary Kaye has a copy of the Ruby Tuesday menu to fax to anyone who wishes to PREORDER before the meeting, hastening the delivery of our meals!

Directions and Parking:
For those coming into Tampa on 275…take the South Dale Mabry exit. Follow Dale Mabry to Kennedy, go one block and then turn left on Sterling. This will eliminate the need for you to turn around and head back on Dale Mabry to get into Ruby Tuesday’s parking lot. You may park at Ruby Tuesday’s or in the first floor lot of the office building on the corner of N. Dale Mabry and Kennedy. (Barnes & Noble is on the other side of Ruby Tuesday’s.)

MINUTES FROM THE FEBRUARY 1999 MEETING

By Mary Marna Brady, Secretary

SIS’s regular February meeting took place at Stetson University College of Law Library and Legal Information Center. Trudie Root, President of SIS, greeted the group and thanked Madison Mosley, Associate Director of the Law Library, for hosting the meeting. Twenty-six persons attended the luncheon meeting; members met and ate in the elegant Lounge adjacent to the old Library. A buffet-style hot lunch of rice, chicken, green beans, salad, fresh bread, desert and drinks was enjoyed by all.

Old Business:

Trudie Root and Mary Kaye Raddatz indicated additions/corrections to the December minutes: The plant was presented to Joyce Burkhart also for her tenure as President last year of SIS and Gwen Wolfe made a presentation regarding SIS on behalf of FHSLA (Florida Health Sciences Library Association). Betsy provided a treasurer’s report indicating a healthy balance and stated there are now 86 members.

New Business:

Mary Kaye reported on the survey results: members liked having both daytime and evening meetings and suggested we should vary the day of the week at times. We received numerous suggestions for programs and members most enjoyed a combination of getting together socially with programs and networking. Favorite programs in the last year included the St. Petersburg Junior College’s new Seminole Campus, St. Pete Times and Reflectone. From the topics suggested, Mary Kaye stated we have enough expertise within our group to do some programs. All in all members felt the mission should remain the same and there were no comments on a logo. We may use Trudie’s logo using Microsoft Word (Autoshapes - Stars and Banners - and SIS using Word Art) when needed for correspondence. Members did not object to having money "sit" in the treasury and favored using funds for educational purposes such as workshops. Overall SIS gets a good rating!

Trudie took pictures that hopefully can be mounted on the web site! [webmaster's note: see http://tblc.org/sis/meetings/990207stetson.htm]

Trudie shared a book she enjoyed for learning more about networking, Power Networking: 55 Secrets for Personal and Professional Success by Sandy and Donna Vilas, and, passed out a handout for rating one’s own networking skills. The handout also summarized the main points of the book. Then everyone was given a playing card and asked to network by standing up, moving around the room, and forming groups of five for the best poker hand Chocolates were given to the group with the winning hand of five Aces.

Program:

Michael Dahn, Reference Librarian and Webmaster, gave a presentation on Search Engine Myths in Stetson’s new high-tech classroom.

Myth 1. Search engines search the entire Internet. Not true. Search engines merely index a copy of the Internet and search that.

Myth 2. With a single search engine, you can search about one-third of the Web. Not true. You can really only search one-third of the indexable Web as certain file types and sites are not indexed by crawlers or not allowed in. Search engines really search less than 20% of the actual Web. Therefore, go to subject specific search engines such as medical search engines to find more information.

Myth #3. If a search engine has indexed a page, you can then successfully search the whole page. No. Some types of words will not be found: words in an image unless alt tagged, stop words, and words at the end of very long web pages-- as the search engine may stop part way down, words in meta tags like Excite, new words added after the search engine has made a pass, and html comments in Alta Vista.

Myth #4. The content of individual search engines is pretty much the same. If you try different search engines for the same search, you will find that each search is different. There is also a difference between a searchable directory and its results and those of a search engine’s.

Myth #5. Because meta search engines like Meta Crawler search many search engines simultaneously, there is no need to ever use individual search engines. Not so. Meta search engines don’t offer the advanced capabilities of each of the individual search engines and may occasionally drop searches.

Myth #6. You can search for any discussion group posting with tools like Deja News and Alta Vista. Not necessarily. People can exclude themselves. Newsgroups have little coverage prior to 1995; people can have their postings removed and can send "no archive" with their messages.

Myth #7. Phone numbers or addresses of most U.S. residents are on the Internet. Unfortunately not. The free white page directories are incomplete and out of date. For some databases an individual can also have his or her name removed.

Myth #8. Truncation works the same in all search engines. On the contrary, Hot Bot and Alta Vista only work with a maximum of five characters and must be preceded by at least three characters in Alta Vista and two characters in Hot Bot. And, some search engines do not allow truncation.

Michael also described some of the new services at the Law Library Website. Stetson is subscribing to web services and providing these to students instead of using cd-rom products. They are also archiving the Second District Court of Appeals Florida Case Law which is e-mailed to them and they then make it available for searching on their Web site. Mike stated they are using Microsoft Index Server for searching. They are also creating 3d panoramas of their campus. We watched one picture of Stetson’s campus that is now on the web site, using Java applets and a program that will support Java. Students also have access to Nexis Lexis and Westlaw from home or on campus.

Following Mike’s presentation, Library staff led members on tours of the new 58,000-square foot Law Library and Information Center with its beautiful atrium and Mediterranean Revival architecture. In addition to housing the Library’s collection of 350,000 volumes of statutes, court reports, journals and treatises, the building accommodates many attractive study carrels, group study rooms, conference rooms, and two seminar rooms. With approximately 742 computer network connections throughout the building, students may sit down at almost any table and connect their laptop computers to the campus network and in turn to the Library catalog (http://www.law.stetson.edu/lawlib/) and Internet. Approximately 800 category 5 data cables throughout the building provide the infrastructure for the growth of the use of technology and the seminar rooms are wired for satellite TV reception. Two computer classrooms as well as computer stations on the second and third floors provide the latest instructional technology and compact shelving allows for growth. Members enjoyed seeing the spacious technical services area, staff lounge, and reference room as well. Stetson Library Staff are justifiably proud of their magnificent new Library.

SIS OFFICERS, 1998-1999

Suncoast Information Specialists
c/o Tampa Bay Library Consortium
1202 Tech Boulevard, Suite 202
Tampa, FL 33619
Phone: (813) 622-8252
Email: sis@tblc.org
URL: http://tblc.org/sis/
Listserv: SIS-L@tblc.org