Comments- 12/8-12/15

This week I commented on Rachel's blog here:

http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/12/readings-for-1215.html

and Veronica's blog here:

http://infinitetechnology.blogspot.com/2009/12/reading-response-for-unit-13.html

Muddiest Point (12-1)

I did not have a muddies point from last week's lecture.

Unit 14 Reading Notes (12/15)

Unit 14 Reading Notes

1) Galen Gruman. “What cloud computing really means” InfoWorld, April 2008.

-This article explores cloud computing, a somewhat recent trend in the IT world that is difficult to define precisely because, according to the article, many users define it differently. It points out that it can be defined narrowly as "virtual servers available over the Internet" or more broadly as "anything you consume outside the firewall."

-The article offers this definition of cloud comuting: Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities, and then breaks it down into more specific uses of cloud computing

1) SaaS (software as a service)

-delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture.

-for the customer, this means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing

-for the provider, there is just one app to maintain so costs are low compared to conventional hosting

2) Utility Computing

-not a new idea, but it is gaining new life from users such as Amazon.com who now offer storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand

3) Web Services in the Cloud

-closely related to Saas; enable developers to exploit functionality rather than delivering full-blown applications

4) Platform as a Service

-Another Saas variaton; delivers development environments as a service; build your own applications that run on the provider's infrastructure and are delivered to your user's via the Internet from the provider's servers

-the article compares this to Legos: you are limited by the vendor's design and capabilities, so you don't get complete freedom, but you do get predictability and pre-integration

5) MPS (Managed Service Providers)

"One of the oldest forms of cloud computing, a managed service is basically an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users" The article uses e-mail spam filtering as an example

6) Service Commerce Platforms

A hybrid of SaaS and MSP, this cloud computing service offers a service hub that users interact with

7) Internet Integration

-still in its early days, integration of cloud-based services

This article did help give me a general idea of what cloud computing is all about. What I mostly took from it is that instead of relying on your own servers and complicated, expensive hosting and development, cloud computing offers many different services on a pay-as-you-go basis, allowing you to easily integrate what you need to serve your users without paying for excess that will not be used. It seems that this is much easier, effective and cost efficient for the customer to take advantage of provider's services in this way.

2) Youtube Video- Explaining Cloud Computing

This video offers a very clear and concise explanation for what Cloud Computing is, how it is associated with Web 2.0, and what it means for both users and providers. It explains what it entails, gives examples such as Google Docs that I myself have used but did not even realize that it was considered an example of Cloud Computing, and generally does a very thorough job of making a somewhat complex topic far more approachable.

3) Thomas Frey. The Future of Libraries: Beginning the Great Transformation

This article discusses the traditional role of the library as a storehouse to archive manuscripts, art and important documents- the foundational building blocks of information for all of humanity. It then goes on to discuss how the role of libraries is changing. I thought one of the most succint points in the article was this:

"We have transitioned from a time where information was scarce and precious to today where information is vast and readily available, and in many cases, free." The article goes on to point out that many people who once visited the library to access this scarce and precious material can typically find it online and often for free. So where does that leave libraries? Frey goes on to discuss ten key trends that are influencing the future of the library.

Trend #1 – Communication systems are continually changing the way people access information

Trend #2 – All technology ends. All technologies commonly used today will be replaced by something new.

Trend #3 – We haven’t yet reached the ultimate small particle for storage. But soon.

Trend #4 – Search Technology will become increasingly more complicated

Trend #5 – Time compression is changing the lifestyle of library patrons

Trend #6 – Over time we will be transitioning to a verbal society

Trend #7 – The demand for global information is growing exponentially

Trend #8 – The Stage is being set for a new era of Global Systems

Trend #9 – We are transitioning from a product-based economy to an experience based economy

Trend #10 – Libraries will transition from a center of information to a center of culture

Frey also offers his recommendations for libraries, regarding how we can continue to adapt and grow in order to remain relevant in this digital age. I especially was interested in Trend 10- libraries will transition from a center of information to a center of culture. I think this is very true in many ways. The information we can offer, or more specifically in a digital age, the means of accessing information we can offer, will always be a central part of libraries. But to me, every library has a unique personality, directly related to the community it serves. The idea of a library becoming a center of culture is not unheard of in my opinion. We see this in some of

our libraries in our own county- for instance the Braddock Carnegie Library which is seeking to serve its community in new and innovative ways. If the services we once provided are rendered unnecessary through technology, we must seek to provide other services- such as interaction with culture and community- that cannot necessarily be offered strictly through a computer alone.

Assignment 6- Website

Here is the link to the website I made for assignment 6.

http://www.pitt.edu/~jac228

Unit 10 Comments

I commented on Rachel Nash's blog here

http://rachelnashintroit.blogspot.com/2009/11/unit-10-reading-notes.html

and Rachel Cannon's blog here

http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/11/readings-for-1117.html

Unit 9 Muddiest Point

I did not have a muddiest point from this week.

Unit 10 Reading Notes- Web Search and OAI Protocol

Unit 10 Reading Notes- Web Search and OAI Protocol

1) David Hawking , Web Search Engines: Part 1 and Part 2

Part 1

-Hawking focuses on the data processing "miracle" of search engines that sort through hundreds of millions of queries every day, by examining the problems that whole-of-web search engines face, and techniques available to solve these problems

-infrastructure: large search engines operate multiple, geographically distributed data center; services built up from clusters of commodity PCs, the types of which are dependent on various factors; total number of servers for the largest engines is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands; clusters or individual servers can be dedicated to specialized functions (e.g. crawling, indexing, etc.); largescale replication is required to handle the necessary throughput

-crawling algorithms: crawler initializes queue with one or more "seed" URLs; a good seed URL will link to many high quality websites; crawling proceeds by making an HTTP request to fetch the page at the first URL in the queue, then scans content for links to other URLs and adds each one to the queue

-crawling algorithm must address the following issues:

1) speed

2) politeness

3) excluded content

4) duplicate content

5) continuous crawling

6) spam rejection

-crawlers are highly complex parallel systems communicating with millions of Web servers, and as such there are many issues involved with engineering a Web-scale crawler

Part 2

-reviews algorithms and data structures necessary to index 400 terabytes of text on the Web and deliver high-quality results

-indexing algorithms: search engines use inverted file to rapidly identify indexing terms, using two phases (scanning and inversion)

-real indexers: store additional information in the postings, such as term frequency or position; aspects of real indexers include

-scaling up

-term look up

-compression

-phrases

-anchor text

-link popularity score

-query-independent score

Part 2 also includes an outline of the techniques real search engines use to 'speed things up' given the vast amount of information they have to sort through to produce quality results quickly

This 2 part series of articles is extremely helpful in explaining the basics of how search engines function. I thought they were easy to read and actually pretty interesting.

2) Current developments and future trends for the OAI protocol for metadata harvesting

OAI- Open Archives Initiative

I didn't fully understand what the OAI was at first, but as I read more of the article, it began to become clearer. The article did provide a brief explanation of the OIA, including its mission to "provide a worldwide virtual library of language resources" through developing of community based standards for archiving. The examples provided of the Sheet Music Consortium and National Science Digital Library were very interesting- I have never heard of either of these previous to reading the article. The article gave an overview of the standards and objectives for searching OAI repositories, and the future work necessary to further improve this.

3) “The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value”

"Searching on the Internet today can be compared to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean. While a great deal may be caught in the net, there is still a wealth of information that is deep, and therefore, missed. "

I thought this analogy to describe searching on the Internet was a really great one. It really highlights the challenges of searching on the Web, as well as the incredible content that's buried out there and can be accessed with the development of the right technologies. The list of findings that BrightWeb published on their study of the Deep Web is somewhat astonishing; it is hard to believe that that amazing quantity of information is available on the web and is currently largely unaccessible to the average searcher. The thorough explanations of how search engines function, and what sort of technology is necessary to access the Deep Web, was truly interesting and helped increase my knowledge a good deal. Also, I shared the opinion of some of my other classmates that the illustrations and graphs in this article really helped make the point sink in for me.

Blog Comments- Week 9 XML

I commented on Veronica's blog here:

http://infinitetechnology.blogspot.com/2009/10/reading-notes-for-week-9-or-10.html

and Rachel's blog here:

http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/11/readings-for-1110.html

Muddiest Point

No muddiest point from last week's class- though I'm sure I'll have plenty from next week's :)

Week 9 Readings- XML

1) Introduction to XML

2) A Survey of XML Standards

3) Extending Your Markup: an XML Tutorial

4) W3Schools XML Schema Tutorial

To be honest, I was somewhat confused about what exactly XML is and what it's used for even after reading all of the articles and tutorials. From what I understood, XML is somewhat similar to HTML except that you can use it for anything, as opposed to just using it for documents. Or, it's an easier way to describe hierarchical data, and in a form that is machine/human readable. I got very confused by all the acronyms the articles threw out- what I got of DTD is that it's an important element of XML because it tells you what format to expect and it can validate that it's in the proper form. SGML, I did not understand exactly what it was except that it was a precursor to XML and HTMl, etc. I thought all the articles and tutorials were thorough, but I don't feel like I had enough background knowledge to fully understand them. Maybe I'm wrong, but I felt like XML is supposed to be simple but seems to often be misused (as the articles kept stressing the differences between XML and "PROPER" XML), possibly because it is so strict. I'm looking forward to next week's lecture to learn more about what XML is and how it can be used.

Assignment 5: Koha

For my Koha topic, I chose to compile a list of books related to the topic of Victorian literature, one of my favorite literary genres. The link to my assignment is:

http://upitt04-staff.kwc.kohalibrary.com/cgi-bin/koha/virtualshelves/shelves.pl?viewshelf=31

Week 8 Comments-

This week I commented on Ken and Rachel's blogs,

here- http://ken-tsukuda.blogspot.com/2009/10/unit-8-html-and-web-authoring-software.html

and here- http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/10/readings-for-1027.html

Muddiest Point Week 8

I didn't have a Muddiest Point from last week's lecture (on 10-20).

Week 8 Reading Notes

Reading Notes Week 8
1) W3schools HTML Tutorial-
I thought this tutorial on HTML was really well written. They covered the most basic ideas, as well as some more complex codes, and it was all very in depth and easy to understand. I haven't had any reason to use HTMl/web design since some classes I took back in high school, so it was a great refresher given that I have forgotten just about everything I've learned since then. Also, since everything is constantly changing, it was nice that they discussed many of the changing 'rules' of HTML that are different than when I learned the basics back in the day. I also really liked the Tryit Editor because for me, and many others I'm sure, hands on learning and messing around with the different codes are the easiest way to learn something like this.

2) HTML Cheatsheet
-I thought this cheatsheet was really handy, although it was probably not written for extreme beginners. It's really nice to have a list of all the basic codes in one place, but it didn't really explain how to use them as in depth as the other tutorial did. However, for just a resource you could bookmark or print out to have on hand once you've learned a little bit of the background knowledge, I think this would be great.

3) W3 School Cascading Style Sheet Tutorial
-Like their HTML tutorial, I think this tutorial on CSS is again very well written, easy to understand, and thorough. I haven't really used CSS before with the exception of an old blog I worked on that allowed you to use style-sheets, so I have much less experience with this than HTML (and pretty minimal experience with that as well.) However, once again, I felt like this website does a great job explaining the basics and the Tryit Editor is extremely helpful for this as well.

I bookmarked all 3 of these websites to refer back to in the future, because I think that as libraries continue to embrace technology to reach their communities in innovative ways, some basic web design skills will be very helpful for any librarian to have.

4) Beyond HTML: Developing and re-imagining library web guides in a content management system
-Content management (CM) can be defined as the process of collecting, managing and publishing content
-In a CMS, the content is disconnected from the layout and design elements of the page
-The article gives the example of GSU's librarians' attempts to create a website with research guides for their assigned subject areas, and the many problems that arose from not having any sort of guidelines or standards; the article goes on to describe how they rectified this situation by hiring a single web development librarian and implementing the use of a Content Management System
-covers how a CMS functions, its benefits and advantages, various options for implementing a CMS in your library, how to design templates for students and librarians, the findings from the GSU study, and future implications
-After reading this article, it's very easy to understand why and how a CMS could be useful and essential to the function of a library's digital content. The standards implemented by a CMS appear to make a huge difference to this. The example from GSU was very illustrative of how a CMS benefits both the librarians and their patrons, as it enables ease of both design and access to all the information the library wishes to publish in an online format. As librarians, this is likely something we will see in the future more and more in our careers as we continue the shift to a digital information environment, so I felt that this article was very beneficial.

Assignment 4- Jing/Flickr

For assignment 4, I created a video and screencaps to show how to search for music and create/play a queue on the website Grooveshark.

video link:
http://www.screencast.com/t/7hOQHJAgZ

screen captures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42533674@N06/4005517185/in/set-72157622447220729/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42533674@N06/4005518975/in/set-72157622447220729/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42533674@N06/4006288524/in/set-72157622447220729/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42533674@N06/4005524067/in/set-72157622447220729/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42533674@N06/4006291864/in/set-72157622447220729/

Comments

My comments for this week's reading notes are here:

http://suzydeucher2600.blogspot.com/2009/10/reading-notes-week-7.html

http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/10/1020-readings.html

Week 7 Reading Notes

1) Tyson, Jeff. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-infrastructure.htm/printable
internet- interconnected networks
-has grown from four host computers in the 1960s to tens of millions
-Internet Society, started in 1992, oversees formation of protocol and policies defining how we use and interact with the internet
-every computer connected to the internet is part of a network
-POP: Point of Presence
-NAP: Network Access Point
-networks rely on NAPs, backbones and routers to talk to each other
-routers determine where to send information from one computer to another (makes sure it doesn't go where it's not needed, and does make it to its intended destination)
-backbone: massive connections that have huge amounts of bandwith that link smaller networks
-IP Address: unique identifying number for every machine on the internet
-Domain Name System (DNS) maps text names to IP addresses automatically
-URL: Uniform Resource Locator
-servers: provide services to other machines; clients: machines connected to those services
This article provides a basic overview of several essential aspects of Internet technology. I appreciated that it was written in fairly simple language, and could be easily understood by the average reader. I thought it was really interesting that the article explains things I see and use every day (urls, etc.) but don't really give much thought to on any other level than, say, typing a url into the address bar to get where I want to go.

2) Andrew K. Pace (2004). Dismantling Integrated Library Systems. Library Journal, 129(2), p.34-36. Full Text
-issues concerning library automation in the U.S.
-explores what influences and factors have contributed to changes within ILSThese seeemed to be the primary focuses of Pace's article, but the author also provides examples of some of the
more prominent products and services in the area of library automation, as well as exploring the effects of past solutions devised to deal with interoperability within library systems. As I read this article, I found myself thinking that the topic was interesting (even if the writing was incredibly dry). I do think this is something all information professionals should make a serious effort to understand, because it affects all of us. Also the article gives the indication that there is really no simple, black and white answer to any of the questions raised, so it will become even more important to try to understand all sides in the event that we are ever making decisions
about this that will affect our libraries and communities.

3) Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Inside the Google machine. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sergey_brin_and_larry_page_on_google.html
It's hard to describe Google in simple terms because as we all know, it has completely changed the way we organize and access information, and communicate and interact with the world around us. Seeing the founders of Google talk about how it is utilized all over the world, and how they are working to improve worldwide access, was definitely fascinating. I think the charitable arm of Google could even have a greater impact than the commercial aspect. I also think that, since access to technology is definitely not universal at this point, and yet free and equitable access to information is one of the goals of librarianship, their philanthropic goals could help change the world even more than they already have.

Muddiest Point- Week 6

I have heard some people indicate that some networks such as MAN and PAN don't really exist. I didn't know what to make of that because obviously we discussed in class and read in the readings that they do, so I would assume that they do in fact exist. What are some real life examples of these types of networks?

Assignment 3: Personal Bibliographic Management Systems

Here is the link to my CiteULike library created for assignment 3:

http://www.citeulike.org/user/jchaney

Week 6 Comments

My comments on classmates blogs for the week 6 reading notes can be found here:

http://shanlis2600libblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/rfid.html

http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/10/readings-for-oct.html